M M
MM MM
MMM MMM
MMM MMM
MMMM MMMM
MMMM MMMM EEEEE TTTTTT A LL
MM MMMM MM E TT A A LL
MM MMMM MM EEEE TT AAAAA LL
MM MM MM E TT A A LL
MM MM MM EEEEE TT A A LLLLL
DDDDD UU UU N N GGG EEEEE OOO N N
DD DD UU UU NN N G E OO OO NN N
DD DD UU UU N N N G GG EEEE OO OO N N N
DD DD UU UU N NN G G E OO OO N NN
DDDDD UUU N N GGG EEEEE OOO N N
~General Walkthrough
By Jesse "Kaiser_z" Cherry
------------
Contents
------------
01 - Introduction and Disclaimer
02 - The Basics
A - Controls
B - Battle
C - Leveling, XP
D - Common Rooms
E - Common Traps
a - Trap Doors
b - Trap Guard Machines
c - Trap Rooms
d - Trap Containers
03 - The Normal Character Types
A - Broader
B - Fencer
C - Striker
D - Analyzer
E - Caster
04 - The Better Character Types
A - SuperBroader
B - Gladiator
C - Spell Fighter
D - Arts Ranger
E - Sage
05 - The City
A - Base Camp
B - Trade Booth
C - Lab
D - Dock
E - Trial Hall
F - Entrance
G - Quit Game
06 - The Metal Dungeon (Done)
07 - The Archive (this will be done next time)
A - Monsters
B - Items
08 - Outro
-------------------------------
Introduction and Disclaimer
-------------------------------
Hiyas! This is my first FAQ, and although I haven't beaten this game,
yet I felt that any information on this game would help its underated
status. Now I in no way mean this game is golden, but has been given a bad
pubic opinion, which lack of knowledge hasn't helped.
Anyway, on to the disclaimer part. I really dont care if you want to
play around with this walkthrough as long as you ASK first, I just want
to be kept in the loop if my work is going to messed with ^_^. My pubic
E-mail address is Kasier_z@hotmail.com so if you can help me with any info
or see something that could be corrected, feel free to mail me, I'll be
sure to mention where the info came from.
--------------
The Basics
--------------
I'll just quickly go over the controls (as the are also in the intruction
manual) and then explain a few tactics I go by when exploring, fighting, ect.
(These controls are copied from the manual)
Directional Pad/Left thumbstick B butten
-Move the Menu Cursor -Cancle/Close Windows
-Moving the Player Character X butten
-Press Up/Move Up = Forward -Equipping during status check
-Press Right/Move Right = Turn Right Changing to spell menu
-Press Left/Move Left = Turn Left Start Butten
-Press Back/Move Back = Step Back -Pause
Right thumbstick Back Butten
-Map scroll (only in dungeon) -Change Maps
Right thumbstick butten (that click) Left/Right Triggers
-Setting Map positions and -Formation chang, Character
returning to initial setup screen or turn page, and Pull
A butten both to run away during battle
-Confirming messeges, opening
doors and containers, activating "Y",black, and white butten
machinery, showing battle menu aren't used.
Alright, now that you know how to get around, i'll give you a few tips.
-Trend slowly and carefully, try to find as much treasure, equipment, and
fortify units as you can. Since the floors reset each time you leave
along with all the containers anything you leave behind is a complete
waste (and you might miss an elemental orb, something you need to get the
better classes).
-Dont risk taking the boss if any of these reasons are present: the normal
enemies give you even a little trouble, your low on healing items/spells,
or if you just don't think your ready yet. The Bosses are MEAN, and
they only get worse, the first floor you can kind of rush and whatnot,
but trust me, they get real mean real quick.
-As long as you have a decent team with decent equipment, you shouldn't
find yourself using the battle menu (pressing "A" during battle) to
often, you can do most of your healing outside of battle.
-You can always speed up battle by turing off animations and increasing
speed, even boss battles amount to seconds, although I wouldn't recommend
it unless your confident in your abilities.
-In the begining you can keep remaking characters and selling their stuff
to get however much mony you need, but as you get farthering into the
dungeon, money doesn't become a problem anymore (I'm sporting almost a
million G)
-Early on you may find "energy orb"s, save these; You can use these to
get into treasure rooms later on, and they have NICE things in them.
Ah battle, you will do a lot of that, and when I say a lot, i mean more
than you will probably like. Thankfully your characters more or less run on
cruse control and as long as your team is decent, it should stay this way
most of the time. When you do need to give them your divine help all you
have to do is press "A". You will then see a window with a character's name
and what their current action is. You can now choose which character you
want to help along by pressing left and right, once you pick that character
press "A" again. You can now select what action you want them to preform
by pressing up and down (your choices being: Attack, Guard, Item, or Magic).
You should try to be as quick as you can because battle won't stop when your
doing this. A little neat thing you may want to try is once you just begin to
kill everything without any (or almost any) damage to yourself on a certain
floor, just bump battle speed to the max, and drop animation, then just walk
into a wide open room and just let your characters kill enemies for a while,
I actually ran to store and came back with about 30 fp for letting them just
sit there.
So you earned enough XP to level up, but you see that the only thing you
have gotten out of the deal is something called "FP", well FP is used to
increase your stats, how you ask, well when you get "City" portion of this
walkthrough you will see =).
Now that you know a few basic tactics to make your many trips into the
dungeon easier on you, i'll explain the common rooms that you see many of.
Terminal rooms
-You will see a LOT of these, they basically look like 3 computers sitting
next to each other, when you activate them, a screen turns on. These
usually have to do with unlocking the boss rooms (but not allways ^_^).
Effects rooms
-These are fun to play with early on because they are almost always good to
you, but later they cause more trouble than good so avoid them. All they
basically look like are green rooms with a cilinder-like thing in the
middle.
Lift rooms
-All these do is lower you to the next area of the floor your trying to
pass, you will see a lot of these aswell
Warp rooms
-There are 3 different types of Warp rooms. If you notice a ring on the
bottem of the floor, these will act as an early exit, it also cost an
energy orb. If you see a ring standing up when you enter the room,
it will lead to a treasure room, it costs an energy orb also. The last
one doesnt have any ring in it, these are usually needed to complete the
level and warp you to another area, these are free to use.
Preservation rooms
-These I hope you will never see, if your party gets killed off, this is
where they go. Thankfully, you can retrieve them, but it sucks getting
to them.
Control Room
-Its the boss room, beat him and your ready for the next level, it usually
has to be unlocked first.
Now the fun part, the traps =/ . I'm just going to include anything and
everything that causes damage in one form or another.
Trap Doors
-Some doors that you open will automatically start an enemy encounter, no
biggie, but gets annoying on those larger floors.
Guard Machines
-I guess they qualify as traps, some more than others. Most will just
start standard enemy encounters, while some will just poison or shock
you, others will cause damage to your party, or to one member, ect then
just leave.
Effects traps
-The negative effects of these things are mean, in the begining they
get you like them, they usually recharge your HP, SP, or even revive
someone. But later on, all they really do is banaish a character to the
surface, or the whole team; They can also warp you to a room full of VERY
hard monsters if your not ready. They have also increased the number of
guard machines on me and have reset the floor once. The booklet also
says it can make you fight a copy of your group, but i have never had
that happen to me yet.
Container Traps
-Some containers are traped, they are similar to the non encounter guard
machines, they can hurt you, your party, poison or shock you, and the
manual says they can break your spell chips, steal you xp and fp, play
god with your stats, teleport you somewhere else, or just teleport you
to the surface.
------------------------------
The Normal Character Types
------------------------------
The most important part of this game, your characters, and your team
combination is what will make or break or team. I'm sure everyone has their
own likes and dislikes about characters and whatnot, but i'll toss in a little
advice at the bottom if you care to listen ^_^.
Broader
-The all rounder of the norms, no weakness or strenghs (although without
anything really going their way, they kinda suck). The only really good
thing about them is that they can wear all the types of armor, so their
defence is usually pretty high. My rank: 3/10
-FP cost per stat: ARM - 3
PHY - 3
CAR - 3
BLO - 3
AGI - 3
DEF - 3
SEN - 3
RES - 3
SHO - 3
ASP - 3
ESP - 3
DSP - 3
Fencer
-The better tanks of the normal classes, not that I'm saying strikers,
but I find them more fragile. Fencers can wear everything but Gloves so
defence isn't to much of an issue for them, and their natural stat growth
is focused towards ARM(attack) and PHY(HP) so even though they are
basic types, they work out pretty well even later on. Their rare attack
is an attack that hits a whole row rather than a single enemy.
My rank: 6/10
-FP cost per stat: ARM - 2
PHY - 2
CAR - 2
BLO - 4
AGI - 4
DEF - 3
SEN - 4
RES - 3
SHO - 4
ASP - 4
ESP - 4
DSP - 4
Striker
-The softer tanks of the norms. They can't wear helmets, shields, or
gloves. As you can tell, their defence blows for a tank. Their natural
growth is aimed at BLO(attack), AGI(speed), and DEF(defence) so you can
make up for some of the loss and they do get multiple attacks if you get
their AGI high enough. But since their HP hurts to raise, they make good
paper tigers, but not much else. They can be mean though, as they have
the ability to deal instant death randomly. My rank: 2/10
-FP cost per stat: ARM - 4
PHY - 3
CAR - 3
BLO - 2
AGI - 2
DEF - 2
SEN - 3
RES - 3
SHO - 4
ASP - 4
ESP - 4
DSP - 4
Analyzer
-These make GREAT back row members(as they are only normal class able to
attack from the back row with weapons), but are just as important out of
battle. Since their SEN(trap detection) and SHO(gun attack) are the
lowests costs in their case, they are simply a great troup, they do have
a HP issue, so you will want to raise it slightly but since they are back
row fighters, SP isn't as important(but don't ignore it). To boot, they
detect enemy HP, which doesnt hurt ^_^. My rank: 5/10
-FP cost per stat: ARM - 4
PHY - 4
CAR - 4
BLO - 4
AGI - 3
DEF - 3
SEN - 2
RES - 2
SHO - 2
ASP - 3
ESP - 3
DSP - 3
Caster
-Meh, not that I dislike them but....this base class is underpowered.
They have low HP(even for a back row member), they can't attack from
the back row unless they use magic(and you only have so much magic).
And while I'm talking about magic, if you just throw a little FP and
fortify units into an Analyzer's magic stats (which aren't that bad
anyway) and they can emulate Casters.......that can attack too! My
Rank: 1/10 =(
-FP cost per stat: ARM - 4
PHY - 4
CAR - 4
BLO - 4
AGI - 3
DEF - 3
SEN - 3
RES - 3
SHO - 4
ASP - 2
ESP - 2
DSP - 2
It took me about 3 days to get a team I liked together, it consisted of 3
Fencers and 2 Analyzers (which had some healing spells), and Jebus i kicked
some monster butt.
------------------------------
The Better Character Types
------------------------------
Why do I say "better" you ask, well, these bad boys aren't even in the same
Lavos created reality of their underlings. I have all but one of these
classes, but i'm sure i know what the stats would be on it. Anyway, read of
for the stats.
SuperBroader
-Its "THE" class, although this is only class I dont personally have, I'm
about 99% sure i know what its abilities would be. It most likely has
the ability to wear all types of armor (like its basic type) but all its
stat costs would be minimal (which is all they really could do for these
guys. That would make them REALLY mean, if you kept everything in decent
balance, they would be able to handle just about anything, from magic to
attacks, to sensing traps, and even having decent resistance to avoid
status attacks. Where is the great item you need for this beast of a
class? Who knows? I'm looking too, I'll be sure to update with a
location when/if i find one. My rank: 10/10
-Approx FP cost per stat: ARM - 2
PHY - 2
CAR - 2
BLO - 2
AGI - 2
DEF - 2
SEN - 2
RES - 2
SHO - 2
ASP - 2
ESP - 2
DSP - 2
Gladiator
-This class is a beast, pure and simple, they retain all the good parts of
a fencer, but also have the natural striker growth in speed and defence.
They hit hard, fast, and are built like an actual tank, seriously.
My rank: 9/10
-FP cost per stat ARM - 2
PHY - 2
CAR - 2
BLO - 2
AGI - 2
DEF - 2
SEN - 3
RES - 3
SHO - 3
ASP - 3
ESP - 3
DSP - 3
Spell Fighter
-This is basically a fencer with a better ability with spells, cool huh?
Not really, they are still slow and can't sence traps as well as
analyzers. Dunno, but not my favorite class. Rank: 4/10
-FP cost per stat ARM - 2
PHY - 2
CAR - 2
BLO - 3
AGI - 3
DEF - 3
SEN - 3
RES - 3
SHO - 3
ASP - 2
ESP - 2
DSP - 2
Arts Ranger
-This is a Striker/Analyzer combo, not bad, not great either, but not bad.
I see them as Analyzer with a greater ability to raise its AGI and DEF.
Magic also isn't to hard for it to manage. Rank 7/10
-FP cost per stat ARM - 3
PHY - 3
CAR - 3
BLO - 2
AGI - 2
DEF - 2
SEN - 2
RES - 2
SHO - 2
ASP - 3
ESP - 3
DSP - 3
Sage
-Another class I like, they have all the abilities an analyster has but in
this case the magic is better and it costs less to raise its magic stats
so you can save FP, which is allways good.
-FP cost per stat ARM - 3
PHY - 3
CAR - 3
BLO - 3
AGI - 3
DEF - 3
SEN - 2
RES - 2
SHO - 2
ASP - 2
ESP - 2
DSP - 2
Now although I have played with all but 1 of these classes, my current
party consists of 3 Gladiators and 2 Sages, and wow, just wow. If i didnt
remake a team to start them off at level i'm sure i'd be at floor 9 or 10 by
now, but ahwell.
------------
The City
------------
The City, the place where you buy, sell, fight, and upgrade your party,
just make sure you save before you leave!
Base Camp
-This is where you live I guess ^_^. From here you can check your party's
status (press "X" at the actual status screen to go to the equip screen.
-Edit party allows you swap out the active fighters with any you have
extra, it also lets you change the number of front fighters from 2 to 3
and vice versa with the back row.
-The Items option allows you store or retrieve items from your storage.
-You can check out multiple records and data under the Archive menu.
-The Monster's tab lets you see any old monsters you have fought so far.
-Item's here will let you see all the different types of items you have
seen.
-If you check record, you can see a bunch of misc data, the average
search time in the dungeon, how much xp you get on a normal trip, ect.
-Now "Registry" is very important, it allows you to make your characters,
you can either leave it to the AI or make a manual one, you can pick from
gender, size, class, ect.
-The Final option here is to save your current game.
Trade Booth
-Its the only shop in the game! Unforunatly the items never get better.
But you will sell quite a bit here.
Lab
-Here you can pick up jobs to explore areas and go on monster hunts; Area
exploration allows for a 100% turnover if you get search the map, while
monster hunting will pay more as you kill more.
-More importantly, you can exchange any elemental orbs you may have for
items, 5 will net you an advanced class of your choice (excluding the
SuperBroader)
Dock
-Here you can revive or cure poison if need be, but here you can also use
the FP you have been saving up from leveling to increase you character's
stats, for a price of corse.
-If you find "fortify unit ____" you can also use them to boost character
stats here, aswell as add or remove spell chips if you have any and one
or more of your characters can use them.
Trial Hall
-All you can really do here is take part in fights, but they cost you a
core stone. All I have really got from it was money, although I haven't
really spent too much time battling.
Entrance
-This is where you enter the Metal Dungeon from, I'll explain about the
floors further down in this walkthrough.
Quit Game
-Duh
---------------------
The Metal Dungeon
---------------------
Area 01
-Floors - 2
-Control room requirements - 2 terminal switches
-This is standard of Metal Dungeon, all the other areas build on it some
how. Each time you beat ot leave this area, the floors reset along with
the treasures and whatnot. To open this area's boss area you need to
activate a terminal on each of its two floors. This floor isn't
difficult in the least, just resist the urge to rush this area, if you
get to boss without a little bit of leveling and some better equipment,
he may get the better of you. When you do reach the boss, you will
notice its similar apperance to a dragon, as long as you have some XP
under your belt, it won't be much of a problem, just attack away.
Area 02
-Floors - 1
-Control room requirements - 1 terminal switch
-Heh, it may sound like this will be easier than the first Area, too bad,
this area is a pain in the butt. The floor plan doesnt change like the
first area did, but thats because the trick here is hoping you have good
luck when diving into teleporters. The exact layout of this area is a
series of rooms with 2 teleporters in each, one leades to the next room,
the other sends you back to start, its such a pain, a tip though would be
to right down the path your taking so you dont repeat mistakes. Oh and
while your doing this one of the rooms has the terminal you have to
activate, otherwise if you reach the end you have to restart anyway.
The boss here is HARD by the way, make sure your %110 ready for it, its
name is Manticore and losing to it will only be insult to injury as your
better off reloading your game than having to fish out your characters in
teleport hell. The big pain with this boss (and all there after) is that
they can hit your whole party at once, so make sure you spent a little
FP on your back members too =).
Area 03
-Floors - 3
-Control room requirements - none ^_^
-Added danger - Hp Depletion gas - use the terminals get rid of the gas
-Hehe, your first area with a little added fun: your Hp is being
constantly drained, so you have two ways to do this floor, you could
either hunt the terminals down to get rid of the gas (recommaned) or
rush the boss (as the door is unlocked from the start), I advise against
rushing this place until you have leveled/treasure hunted/ect. but if
you think you can handle a gaint blue floating doll (that reminds me of
Dragon Warrior) named "Arahabaki" go right ahead, same classic hit
everyone junk, my backrow was long dead before I beat him. Also you
might want to spend some time exploring the 3rd floor with your enery
orbs, you can use them to get to those treasure rooms I mentioned
earlier.
Area 04
-Floors - 2
-Control room requirements - 3 terminal switches
-This is an interesting floor, its really big, lots of walking. THere
is really only 1 real danger and it comes in the form of 3 fake
terminals. These fake ones teleport you to the bottem floor where you
must find a teleport back up before you are mob'ed to death by all the
enemies, other than that, there really isn't too much to do here. The
boss here is a multiheaded dragon thing that i found a complete wimp, I
spent a LONG time hunting floor 3 for elemental orbs and basically
remade my party. This floor felt more like a filler than anything.
Area 05
-Floors - 2
-Control room requirements - none ^_^
-This place gets a little hairy, there aren't any terminals or anything
but the enemies get a bump in power it seems, i slaughtered area 4 but
some trouble in area 5 until a got some of the equipment, which is NICE,
really NICE, all 3 of my gladiators got weapons that brought their attack
up by about 15 each. After a few hours of solid hunting, leveling, ect I
Tried for the boss, and I must say, the boss is rather intimidating. It
basically looks like a upside down black blob with a thing in the middle,
for those of you who have seen the Super Mario Bros movie, think about
something that looks like that fungus thing, but evil! It was tougher
Than I thought it was going to be, but no one died, I think it only has
hit all spells so take that into account.
Area 06
-Floors - 3
-Control room requirements - 3 imp stones
-Ah, a new requiremnt, you can only get these items from random battles,
don't worry, its easier than it sounds. You have to hope to fight these
tiny little monsters called "Imps" (duh) and then hope they drop a stone,
now, whats the asy part? well, on floor 3 they are farely common, they
die in one hit (and if they dont, leave this floor), and they usually
drop one of the 3 stones you need. Anyway, as soon as you explore to
your heart's content go ahead and take the bosses (yes bossES), you fight
3 at a time this time, but overall its a rather easy fight. Its three
monsters called "Demon"s and while they can lower your party's defence,
they can only damage your front line (at least after 3 fights they never
attacked my back row). They do hit hard, and even harder after the mess
up your defence, but they shouldn't be a huge danger, I haven't had
anyone die agaist them even if I dont heal (although it does get a
little close at the end). Overall an easy floor you might want to do
some leveling on.
Area 07
-Floors - 5 (Yes 5)
-Control room requirements - none (but its UBER teleporter hell)
-Ok so it's not complete teleporter hell but it can be if you aren't
prepared. Basically you start on an odd floor, find a teleporter, go to
a big open even floor and run to a teleporter to a more normal odd floor,
repeat. I personally didn't have any problems in this area although
the even floors can be a little rough at times. I did it on my first run
and unless you really have to, just wait until the next area to level.
The Boss is a Phoenix that killed one of my sages before I droped it, all
and all, not to hard.
Area 08
-Floors - 3
-Control room requiremtns - none ^_^
-This floor kicks, the only real problem is that until you find the switch
for the floor your on, you can't use magic. The leveling and items you
find here is worth spending your time in this area (and the map is easy
to boot). This area holds the first boss worth respecting in my opinion,
it can hit your party hard, real hard and it looks like a zoid t-rex
nightmare. Make sure you've leveled a lot and got all the new equipment
in the area first.
Area 09
-Floors - 4
-Control room requirements - Switch x2 and Magic Orb x2
-Area 9 was a long pain in the butt, the enemies weren't too bad, neighter
was the map, its just that you have to basically go over the whole area
with a fine tooth comb to finish it and that takes a LONG time. All in
all though, not a very hard area, the boss is this multi-armed battle
top which I didn't find to bad when I finally got to it, general boss
rules will get you a win here.
Area 10
-Floors - 1
-Control room requirements - Control room switch x9
-Its your classic rebattle all the boss thing, they are all slightly im-
proved so don't think you will 1-hit KO the first dragon, but they aren't
anything you shouldn't handle. The boss though is a different matter.
Make sure you have all the best equipment and have your casters stocked
with your best spells cause you have to make it through 9 decent bosses
first, then when you make it to the dungeon lord just make him bleed,
because if you give him a inch, he'll take a mile. All I had left when
I won was 2 gladiators. Grats, you beat the Metal Dungeon!
Area 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80, 81-90, 91-100
-These are just mirriors of the first ten floors with the enemies just
harder and better items, it takes longer to beat the floors cause the
good equipment is rare.
-I'm currently only to floor 16, but i did take a huge break from this
game.
---------------
The Archive
---------------
These Stats will be right from my personal archieve at my Home base. I
know HP can jump around and HP gets updated as you explore the higher,
post-game floors too as you fight the upgraded monsters.
Monsters
-Kobolds
