The "numbers" refer to the areas that you will encounter, for instance the "second town" that you will get to is "Town 2" and the continents are numbered the same way.. .) ***** HI-LEG FANTASY ***** After a beginning cinema, you eventually end up near town 1. Enter and begin. You'll quickly have a 3 person party and that is the way throughout the game. Never lose any, never gain another. Towns: have Inn for hp/mp restoration, and price in minimal. Weapons/ armor houses are symbolized by a shield. Magic spells have a white scroll on house. NOTE: buy everything in here. These are your magic abilities. Item shops have a green bottle outside. I searched all book- cases and dressers in towns and NEVER found anything. Save your time and just talk to people. Some houses may not allow you enter, but after a while, will. Then some houses become locked, after you completed something. Button I is for almost everything, and Button II is for cancelling or returning to area. Outside: Areas are short, as is the entire world you will explore. Only here can you call up the menu screen (or in save spots...see later) What's strange is that in town, caves, towers, palaces, you cannot call up the menu screen. A pain in the ass, especially when buying weapons/armor and having to go outside to equip, then come back in town. Menu Screen: press SELECT Each character displays the hp/mp and magic currently equipped. On the right are 7 selections... 1 - shows all magic spells that you have purchased. If you have fully received all ABPs for a spell, the word MASTER will be displayed next to the magic. Select the magic you want that character to have and now you must build up a certain number of ABPs for that spell to become MASTER. Keep reading for more on this. 2 - No idea. 3 - all items that you bought or found or won in battle. NOTE: when you are in battle, and call up the item list, some of these items will not appear, so you can't use them in the fight, just here in this selection. 4 - execute magic spells. If a spell is not highlighted, obviously you can't use it. Some can only be used in battle, while healing and curing can be used here. 5 - status and equip. Bottom shows current status of your power/ defense. The middle 5 lines are where you will equip. Move cursor to line, press I, the move controller right/left to scroll through what you can equip. Press I and watch the numbers on the bottom change and see if this is good or bad to equip. 6 - total status. The very bottom shows you the ABPs needed to become MASTER of that particular magic skill. Right above that is the number of EXPs needed to up a level. The next three above this is your power/defense. The middle is what you have currently equipped. 7 - Save Directly below Save is $$$$. Battle time: Female is on left, your characters on right. Bottom left is menu select and right is your attack bar which must be full before you get a chance to attack. Menu: 1 - fight/attack with weapon 2 - Magic (if available) *** 3 - never used, never able to use 4 - items to use (keep pressing on down to scroll through entire list) 5 - escape (not always effective) 6 - defend *** here is where I had the trouble. Equip a magic spell for a character and during battle, you will gain ABPs. As you gain ABPs for most spells, you can start using them. One or two cannot be used until you MASTER it. So, during battle, if you try to use magic, and you can't, your ABPs aren't high enough. I finished the game with my top character having the healing/curing spell, my middle character the FIRE magic, and my third character the FLEE spell. All were MASTERS. Experiment with all of them. That is why you MUST buy all spells at the magic shop. If you MASTER a spell for a particular character, then only that character is a MASTER. Repeat for the other 2 characters if you so desire. Let's proceed: Go into towns 1 & 2. In town 2, you will see an ostrich bird. Later for that, and a woman will be upstairs in bed. Remember her. Enter Cave 1. You will eventually see a hole in wall. Before entering, you will fight a "boss-like" female. After that, comes a cinema treat. Enter into an empty area. Go to top of wall and in some spot (I believe it is middle-right) you will walk through the wall. Here you will receiv a magic crystal. Exit cave. Now, in this cave, and the others, you can reenter the cave, go to the hole in wall, fight same woman boss, and see cinema again (for that extra ogling ability). Go back to town 2 and now get the ostrich cinema. Then proceed to west of cave 1 and ostrich will be waiting for you and can cross the water to next continent. Go to town 3, then cave 2, then town 3, then town 4. In town 4, you will speak to person who will not allow access to a pier. Now go back to town 2 to that woman in bed. After cinema, you should be allowed to get ship for 3rd continent (small one). Now, after landing in town 5 in 3rd continent you can't exit off island till you speak with everyone, then you will get ship to go to fourth continent. Be careful saving. Save right before enter boat in town 4, cause you will NEVER return here and if you forgot to buy some stuff, then you lost out. In the 4th continent, are two towns. After finishing here, in town 6, second house on left, is the flying condom machine. Save here before using this vessel, cause you can't use it to return. Now you will enter a tower. Before proceeding to the northwest hole in wall, explore. Here is where I missed a treasure chest, and the right side of the tower. Enter NW hole, you will fall in well, and end up back at town 7. Talk to everybody and once again use the flying rubber dohicky to go to the the fifth and final continent. In the fifth continent, town 8 is on left, and the blue palace on the right. When entering the blue palace, there will be a woman directly north. Talk to her and proceed up. Step on the silver square. This is a spot where you can save, and use your menu. There will be more of these on each floor. Fight woman to right of square. Must use magic, as attacks have NO effect. I used the FIRE magic. After defeating her, walk through the wall behind where she was. Rest of trek is not too bad. I ended the game at level 50. Summary....I MASTERed the healing/curing spell for my top character, the FIRE spell for my middle one, and the FLEE spell for my bottom one. Here is some additional info from Lowell: ************************************************************************* First. To get to the camp menu you have to press run, not select as it says in the write-up. In the camp menu options one and two do very similar things. The game has a magic system similar to Final Fantasy 3 where you need to equip espers and gain abilty points before you are able to use magic. You are also able to learn special fighting techniques (also ala FF3) by raising your levels. The 1st option in the camp menu allows you to set your 2nd and 3rd items on the combat menu. After you select the option/char you go into the "espers" select menu. Here you can chose the esper you would like to gain ability points (there are 11 slots to chose from, the first is no "esper", the last three can be acquired later in the game). After you chose an "esper" its spells can be accessed from the second combat menu option (provding you have enough ability points to use the spell). Next you go to a screen where you can chose from all of your learned spells/techniques. The choise you make here will become your 3rd combat menu option. I think you can equip 2 magics, however the first magic will be the only one to gain ability points. The top character was able to learn a very useful sword technique at about level 5. It would allow him to strike three blows instead of just one. He eventually will learn a 7 slash technique and a mighty blow one as well. Do some experimenting as they are mixed in with regular spell classes. The second camp menu option allows you to set the 2nd and 3rd combat menu options, without going first to the esper select screen. I'm not sure whether magic selected in the first position is able to gain ability points in this way. The other thing I looked into was to try to identify what kind of magic each "esper" would give. The following is based on the way they appeared on my "esper" select screen. I'm not sure if the last three, which need to be bought at a scroll/spell store, could be in a different order on another game. 1) No "esper" 2) Muddle ? 3) Heal 4) Fireball 5) Reflect ??? 6) Peep/Scan 7) Escape 8) Strength ? 9) Weaken 10) Absorb 11) Speed ? 1) Use this to remove all "espers", maybe to have use of two learned fighting skills. 2) Causes your opponent to miss her next attack round (not sure on this one) 3) Allows access to healing spells. There are six healing spells available when mastered. Level 1,2,3 heal spell that raises hit points some, more, 9999. Also three status recovery spells. One that cures poison, next cures all conditions muddle/sleep (I think this is the difference), the last cures status and recovers some hit points. 4) Cast a level 1, 2 or 3 fireball. This is the only way to damage some bosses 5) This can never be "used" from the combat menu (even when mastered), but when it was equiped sometimes an attack would reflect off of your char and do damage to your attacker. 6) Allows you to see the HP/MP of your attacker. 7) Allows you to run from combat. (Don't know if this works with bosses) 8) This gives you access to three spells. (The effects of these spells aren't particularlly easy to see, but here is my best guess) One of the 3 can be used on party members to increase defense. Another is used on the attacker to decrease defense. The last when it hits has the same animation as muddle when it hits the attacker. I think this weakens her attack power. 9) This seems to lower the AP/DP of the enemy. 10) This spell causes you to wait until you are attacked. If you are struck you will increase your HP by a fraction of the damage that would have been sustained. You will not do anything until attacked. Not sure what happens if you are hit with magic. 11) This allows you access to 4 spells. They seem to be a level 1,2,3,4 haste spell. The lastt of which will give who ever you cast it on a full attack bar after their attach for 2 in a row. *************************************************************************