There's also Medical Herbs in certain chests, plus once you free the Tool Shop Owner you can get one for free there. If you keep the Medical Herb as your active item when you run out of hit points/life points, the Herb will activate and refill all your points, disappearing in the process. You can carry only one Herb at a time; if you find another one while carrying one, the second one refills for you.

The Strange Bottle can keep your Gems intact if you're killed, but only if you have it as your active item when you die.

When you free certain creatures or people, you gain a couple of hit points back. Sometimes you don't.

Grass Valley has some confusing instructions. In a couple of places, Blue Gem Fairies will tell you that you can't kill everything in Grass Valley -- namely, the metallic robotic creatures -- without a certain sword. What the game does not tell you is that you won't get this sword until Level 5: Dr. Leo's Laboratory.

Likewise, several items won't be available until later in the game, after you defeat the robot creatures and talk with the persons you free. These are the Recover Sword, Tornado Magic and Emblem A.

To defeat the Metal Mantis boss, don't run up the side walkways. Instead, the Mantis will "follow" your movements side to side. Make him go slightly to the side of center, then run up the center walkway and whack at him. You'll miss a lot, probably, and at most get one or two good hits before you have to turn and run away again. However, you can kill the Metal Mantis without ever losing a life/Herb yourself.

Get the Brown Stone, and an Herb if you need one, and take the Master's gate to Greenwood.

Things to get: Psycho Sword, Ice Armor, Mole's Ribbon, Delicious Seeds, Tree Leaves, Shield Bracelet, Magic Bell, Red-Hot Mirror, Green Stone, Emblem C. Medical Herbs are available after a while. As with all levels, there is one Strange Bottle hidden somewhere in the level.

There are two kinds of creatures in the world of Soul Blazer, as you've no doubt noticed: "lair" creatures, which you have to kill in order to free the trapped people and animals, and "reset" creatures, which come back no matter how many times you kill them. The "resets" are a pain, but at least they're a source of free experience points. If you're a couple of XP shy of another level, go bughunting a little bit; you can't have too many hit points from level gaining.

The Psycho Sword will temporarily stop the robot monsters, and the "evil suns" in the underground shrines, from moving. It will not defeat these creatures, unfortunately. The Ice Armor allows you to walk across the hot stones and lava. You will be using the Ice Armor in later levels as well.

The Light Arrow Magic is not terribly impressive; it costs twice as much as Flame Ball, and is, in my opinion, harder to aim properly. You're probably going to agree and use Flame Ball more than Light Arrow.

When you get the Master's eight Emblems (stones with the planetary signs on them), take them to the Blue Gem Fairy in Greenwood. She will give you the ability to become the Master of Magic, meaning you won't spend any Gems when you cast spells. This is nice, but the Emblems are kind of hard to find, and it won't be that much harder to win the game without them. (Since you can only equip one Item at a time, and you'll have a selection of power-up and defensive Items, you may decide to pass on this option anyway.)

You won't get the Mirror until you've gone through part of Level 6: Magridd Castle.

You get the Shield Bracelet in this level. My strategy is to wear the Bracelet, which reduces your damage by half, until I start running low on hit points, then switch to the Medical Herb so I won't die, then switch back to the Bracelet after the Herb kicks in.

You can get Medical Herbs from the Woodstin-Trio once you release all of them, but it's often faster -- or at least it seems that way ;) -- to zip back to Grass Valley and pick one up at the store.

Things to get: Bubble Armor, Critical Sword, Magic Flair, Big Pearl, Mermaid's Tears, Red-Hot Stick, Power Bracelet, Emblem D, Blue Stone.

St. Elles is an undersea kingdom of mermaids and dolphins, with surrounding items. It's one of my favorite levels, partly because of the variety of places in this level.

The Bubble Armor allows you to walk around underwater safely. If you don't have it equipped, you take damage from being underwater. You'll be switching armor types a lot down here. The Critical Sword kills low-power enemies with one hit (the game doesn't specify that, it says "enemies" without saying only the low-power ones). It's still nifty. Note that it too will not defeat robotic monsters, so you'll be coming back to St. Elles once you get the correct sword.

Magic Flair seems to be misspelled, it should be Magic Flare. Anyway, it's OK, not great; reasonably good against flying monsters.

The Skull Master boss here can be tough, because of the skeletal hands. The hands aren't worth anything, but they damage you if they connect. Your best bet here is to find a semi-safe spot off to one side of the skull (so when it breathes fire you won't get hit) and just keep flailing away with the sword. I like to have the Shield Bracelet on instead of the Power Bracelet, but that's just personal preference; it probably all works out the same. Make sure you have a Medical Herb before going into this, and keep an eye on your health; this is the first nasty boss you really come across.

By the way, don't bother going for the treasure chest on the ship until after you defeat the Skull Master. If you rescued Servas the dolphin, you know what's in there already, and it's not worth taking damage from the monsters and flame torches there before you defeat the boss.

Once you get the correct sword from Dr. Leo's Lab, you can defeat the robot gorillas on Durean Island.

Things to get: Mushroom Shoes, Magic Armor, Lucky Blade, Emblem E, Emblem F, Silver Stone, Medical Herb, Strange Bottle.

Watch out for the killer snowballs! You can "defeat" them only by making them run into one of the many convenient rocks scattered about the place.

The Magic Armor cuts the required number of Gems in half when you cast spells, which is nice. The Rotator is a good spell against the bats you'll end up fighting later. Remember, though, it seems cheap at 1 Gem a use, but you end up using it a lot if you hold the button down! (I have found you can't use less than 2 Gems at a time trying to use the Rotator, because even a light tap on the button results in two uses of the spell.)

The Lucky Blade's special deal is supposed to be that monsters may leave behind bigger Gems when they are defeated. As with all of Soul Blazer's swords and armor, though, since each one in succession is more powerful than the one before, there's no real advantage to using an older sword.

In the Laynole Ice Field watch for reflections off invisible bridges. You can walk on them even when they're invisible, but the reflection will show you where. Several places are only reachable this way.

At Lune the Underground Lake, one of the last creatures you'll probably free is a snail that appears to be trapped in a room back in the mountain. (This is not the same snail that the Grandma Dwarf can warp you to.) This snail's room is to the right of the small boy with his riding-snail. To enter this room is a bit challenging -- Soul Blazer doesn't have any other secret passages to my knowledge. To enter this room, try running into the wall at the "top". Since I don't have a screen shot to show you (sorry!), the blue tile to the Gateway and a small purple-haired girl should both be visible. There are three torches in the wall. The middle one sticks out slightly. Just to the left of the middle torch is the secret passage. Walk through the wall, downward, to reach the snail. He will give you Emblem E. Note that there is no "exit" from the passage into the room -- you just appear and disappear out of the wall.

Poseidon, the boss of the Mountain monsters, is easier to defeat than he appears. Go to the center of the area, where some of the land pokes up into the water. Center yourself there and wait. When he comes up to attack you, use the sword. When he dives or goes somewhere else, wait for him to come back. In this location you can't be hit by either the fireballs or the fire arrows he casts. Well, not quite: when he comes up to attack you you'll be hit by one fire arrow, but that's it. The damage is minimal and the payoff is pretty good; odds are you'll defeat Poseidon without ever using a Medical Herb.

Things to get: Zantetsu Sword, Light Armor, Spark Bomb Magic, Plant Leaves, Door Key, Emblem G, Purple Stone, Medical Herb, Strange Bottle.

All the previous levels involved you releasing creatures; now you're releasing... doors? Dr. Leo's Lab is kind of odd; you release dolls, doors, furniture and stairs as well as mice, cats and plants. On the other hand, the basement music is tres cool, and you finally get the Zantetsu Sword! This sword defeats robotic and metallic monsters (but not the "evil suns" in the Greenwood shrines). Once you get it, at your convenience head back to Grass Valley, Greenwood, and St. Elles to beat up those enemies you couldn't before.

Spark Bomb magic is very hard to use. Timing is critical. You probably won't use it much.

Because the lower basement has a lot of red-hot plates (what in the world are they doing down there, anyway?) you'll need to switch off to the Ice Armor to walk safely. Remember to put the good armor back on afterwards.

The "soul" you collect here suffers from what I hope is bad translation; either that or there are some very specialized souls that the Master put on this world. The dialog is "the soul who can see invisible creatures in model towns joins you", and ouch, is that cringe-inducing. I like to think the original dialog might have been something like "the soul that sees invisible creatures joins you", because this ability carries over into the next level as well.

Things to get: Spirit Sword, Elemental Mail, Emblem B, Emblem H, Harp String, Super Bracelet, Mobile Key, Platinum Card, VIP Card, Black Stone, Medical Herb, Strange Bottle.

What would a castle be without a dungeon and torture chamber? (A lot happier place....) Anyway, the Spirit Sword will defeat ghosts and spirits, and the "evil suns" of Greenwood. The Elemental Mail protects against thorns. There's a lot of hidden stuff down in the dungeons. When you get the Soul of Reality (the soldier who knows all about Magridd Castle) you can go look for them a lot easier.

By this time you should be at about Level 22, the level you can use the Recover Sword at. (You may have picked this up after you got the Zantetsu Sword.) This sword will give you back one or two hit points whenever you defeat an enemy.

After Dr. Leo departs, go back to Magridd Castle and look where the Queen was standing previously. You'll find the Super Bracelet, here called the Invulnerable Bracelet. Then go back to the Gateway, save, and go to the airship.

To fight the Demon Bird boss, you'll want to stay up close to the top of the airship. The wind will constantly force you down, so stay on "top" of the deck part and walk back and forth to avoid the flames from the Demon Bird. With the Super Bracelet you should have an easier time of it, but carry a Medical Herb anyway; you'll probably use it. Again, don't worry about magic; just swing your sword at the bird when it dives to attack you. This is one of the tougher bosses in the game.

About Lisa's question regarding your humanity: it doesn't really matter what you answer. It just depends on your honesty.

What is with the funky, happy music in the World of Evil??

Things to get: Soul Armor, Soul Blade, Phoenix Magic (sorta), Red-Hot Ball, Medical Herb.

By the way, you may have noticed that I haven't said exactly where all of the Master's Emblems are. "Hard to get" they certainly are! I can usually find A, B, C, E and H; D (St. Elles), F (Mountain of Souls) and G (Dr. Leo's Lab) somehow seem to fox me most of the time. If you can find 'em, good luck. If, like me, you don't use much magic during the course of the game, you probably have, oh, three or four thousand Gems saved up by now and don't really need to worry about the Magic Bell which will keep you from using Gems. (Hey, it'd be nice, but frankly, since you can only keep one item "going" at a time, why not use the Super or Shield Bracelets?)

After the end credits, leave the machine on for a while for the extended epilogue.

That's it! Hope it helped you out! :D

Created 31 Aug 98
Updated 09 Jan 99

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