Legend of Mana Universal Guide Or... How to Do All That Stuff! Version 1.00 (5/28/01) By Sky Render (torquemada_gi@hotmail.com) SPOILER WARNING: Seeing as this guide was designed for a player who has completed the game at least once, I have little doubt that there are spoilers within this guide. Most of it requires that you beat the game at least once, anyway, so you might want to do that before reading too far in. If you don't mind spoilers (they're all pretty minor), then delve in, and enjoy. TRANSLATION NOTES: I usually use the American translations of things, but from time to time I mention Seiken Densetsu. This is the Japanese name of the series from which this game originates, if you didn't know. Seiken Densetsu 1 was Final Fantasy Adventure in the US, Seiken Densetsu 2 was Secret of Mana, and Seiken Densetsu 3 never reached the US. Seiken Densetsu roughly means Legend of the Holy Sword. Useful Site: www.gamefaqs.com <-- You can find even more information there, if you find you can't find what you're looking for in my guide. Go ahead, check it out. My guide will still be here when you get back. Antidisestablishmentarianism is a bad idea. I just felt like saying that. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Table of Contents Introduction Contributions Contacting Me Legal Spiel Release Notes Putting Down Lands The Land Scoring System Raising Produce Chart of Produce and Effects Behaviour Traits Growing Tips The Basics Growing Specific Produce Notes on Growing Spiny Seeds Elemental Levels A Trick to Speed Up Produce Growth Buying Produce and Seeds Raising Pets Egg Locations What They Become Getting the Demi-Humans Feeding Pets When They Eat What to Feed Them Behaviour Traits Pets and Profit Polter Box 1 Polter Box 2 Springball Elemental Spirits and Coins Rare Item List Forging Weapons and Armor How it All Works Some Very Useful Combos Building Golems The Weapons and Armors of Choice Good Logic Block Combos Conclusion Special Thanks To =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ============= Introduction ============= Yeah, I know, everybody and their second cousins seems to have a Legend of Mana FAQ or walkthrough out there, right? Well, this is mine. I've taken a much different (and useful) approach in this sucker. Instead of telling only the most basic information, which tends to be obvious to the 10th degree in very short order, I've also included information that's truly of use to a player who's never messed with these things (as I myself was, not too long ago). The main goal is to not only provide the basic information required for doing things, but also to provide little details and facts that most people take for granted, or generally ignore, or even don't realize are true. -------------- Contributions -------------- If you want to contribute something to my guide, feel free to send your info to me, preferrably in a form that I can test and confirm myself. I don't like distributing unconfirmed information, mind you, so don't take it personally. My contact info is in the next section, so check it out if you're interested in contributing or commenting on my guide. Oh, and if you didn't guess, if you do contribute to my guide, and I use your information, I will give you credit in my Special Thanks To section. -------------- Contacting Me -------------- Contacting me isn't really as hard as it might seem. Just e-mail me (I've provided my address at the top of the guide), and include something along the lines of ATTN: LoM Guide in the subject. If you can't be bothered check the top of my guide (or don't want to), my e-mail addy's below. torquemada_gi@hotmail.com Spam, hate mail, etc. aren't appreciated or necessary, so please refrain from sending it, lest you wish to end up in my killfile. And no, I'm not British, so stop asking. :P ============ Legal Spiel ============ Yeah, every damned FAQ/Walkthrough seems to have one of these stupid things... Some copyright law, or something. Anyway, I'll make it nice and brief, and without the accursed Lawyerspeakian, which is found in many such legal spiels. This guide was written by me, and is mine as a result to distribute and make rules about as I see fit. I did not, however, make the game pertaining to it (nor do I think I could), so I hold no rights over it. However, if you wish to use the information contained within this guide in your own guide, I'd ask that you give me credit as your source (I extend the same courtesy to people myself, seeing as it's just polite), and if you possibly can, please contact me first. Not to ask permission or anything, but it's nice to know where my guide's data is going. Oh yeah, and if you don't give me credit for my information and use it in your own guide/FAQ/whatever, something bad will happen to you. Or something. At the very least, you'll be very rude and inconsiderate. So there. Now that we're done with that uncomfortable and annoying bit, onto the guide! ============== Release Notes ============== Version 1.00 (5/28/01): * My first release of the guide * The Golem, Rare Item, and Tempering sections are still incomplete * No doubt, I've left out other things, too * Plans to add a comprehensive walkthrough are NOT in the works, nor do I expect that they will be for a very, VERY long time; there's at least 10 of them up at GameFAQs already, why add another one? =================== Putting Down Lands =================== The lands of the game are rather tricky to put down in an effective order, so as to get the best items available in shops. But, you can get even the best weapons and armor purchasable the first time through the game, simply by putting land down in a particular order. THE LAND SCORING SYSTEM: There's a "score" that all lands have, based off of two factors: 1.) When they're placed, and 2.) How far away from Home they're placed. This means that Home has a score of 1, no matter what, and Domina has a score of 3, no matter what. Each shop in the game gets better (or worse) items for sale in it depending on how high (or low) it's score is. The absolute max score for any land is 36 (which is hard to pull off, trust me). Weapon/Armor Shop Levels Level Score Weapon/Armor Material 1 3-4 Menos Bronze 2 5-9 Forsena Iron 3 10-13 Granz Steel 4 14-17 Lourant Silver 5 18-21 Wendel Silver 6 22-26 Vizel Gold 7 27-36 Ishe Platinum Material Shop Levels Level Score 1 3-10 2 11-15 3 16-24 4 25-36 INTERESTING NOTE: Most of the material and metal types in this game are also the names of cities in Seiken Densetsu 3 (albeit some of them oddly translated). As well, the history of the world closely matches that of Seiken Densetsu 3's. Methinks this may be a true sequel... Instruments work differently, though. Each town sells a particular type of instrument, unless their land score is 27 or greater, in which case, they sell a fixed instrument selection, made entirely of Ishe Platinum (except the Drum instruments, which are MenosBronze). I may or may not include a list of items sold in these shops later. There's already a very comprehensive guide on this available at GameFAQs, so it seems a bit redundant to list them in my guide, as well. ================ Raising Produce ================ Produce can be annoyingly hard to grow sometimes, but the benefits of it far outweigh the annoyances. You can get some very powerful pets with produce, and even some very valuable forging materials (particularly in the case of Spiny Seeds; those buggers give some very nice bonuses to items, under the right circumstances). ----------------------------- Chart of Produce and Effects ----------------------------- Produce is extremely useful in Legend of Mana. You can raise your pet's stats with it relatively easily, and even give color to golems with them. Below is a comprehensive list of produce, and as many individual facts as I could fit in and still be practical with. Rarity Key: 1 - Common (Have yet NOT to see one show up in a planting of it's color) 2 - Fairly Common (Seen most plantings of it's color) 3 - Almost Uncommon (You see one or two now and again) 4 - Fairly Uncommon (Almost never seen in a planting) 5 - Uncommon (Tough to get; never appear without Spiny Seeds, I believe) 6 - Insanely Uncommon (Only two fall into this category; I've never seen them) NOTES: Most of the useful produce is either insanely hard to get, or fairly easy. None of the most common produce seems all that useful... There also seems to be a trend of what grows in regular plantings, what's rare, and so on. Oh, and I may have over-stressed how rare some produce is. Sorry 'bout that... FURTHER NOTES: The effects listed are what they do to pets. Most are self- explainitory, but I've included a list of what the traits do to a monster in battle, for convenience's sake, below the produce list. You can also find it in the Feeding Pets section. Produce Color Rarity Value Effects Apricat Red 1 50L +Defense, +Calm Peach Puppy Red 2 70L +Power, +Skill, +Friendly, -Scheming Diceberry Red 3 40L +Power, +Aggressive Whalamato Red 4 60L +Magic, +HP, +Charm, -Defense, -Aggressive Applesocks Red 5 70L +Skill, +Charm, +Calm, +Indecisive Heart Mint Blue 1 40L +Charm, -Lazy Spade Basil Blue 2 40L +Spirit, -Lonely Pine O' Clock Blue 3 150L +Power, +Skill, +Defense, +Magic, +HP, +Spirit, +Charm, +Luck, -Aggressive, -Calm, -Scheming, -Friendly Rhinoloupe Blue 4 70L +Power, +HP, +Spirit, -Magic, -Calm Gold Clover Blue 5 70L +Skill, +Luck, +Friendly, -Scheming Citrisquid Yellow 1 40L +Magic, +Scheming Springanana Yellow 2 40L +HP, -Indecisive Cornflower Yellow 3 60L +Magic, +Charm, +Aggressive, -Calm Fishy Fruit Yellow 4 70L +Skill, +Magic, +Charm, -HP, -Scheming Lilipods Purple 1 60L +Skill, +HP, +Calm, +Indecisive, +Friendly, +Lonely, -Magic Cherry Bombs Purple 2 40L +HP, +Friendly Orcaplant Purple 3 60L +Defense, +Magic, +Scheming, -Friendly Sweet Moai Purple 4 70L +Defense, +Magic, +Luck, +Lazy, -Skill Bellgrapes Purple 5 60L +Magic, +Spirit, +Scheming, -Friendly Spiny Carrot Orange 1 50L +Magic, +Spirit, +Calm, +Indecisive, -Skill Honey Onion Orange 2 70L +Skill, +HP, +Spirit, +Indecisive, -Power Bumpkin Orange 3 80L +Power, +Spirit, +Aggressive, +Lazy, +Arrogant, +Scheming Loquat-Shoes Orange 4 40L +Skill, +Charm, +Scheming, +Lazy, -HP Orange'Opus Orange 5 60L +Defense, +HP, +Scheming, +Lazy Rocket Papaya Orange 5 60L +Magic, +Charm, +Calm, -Aggressive Cabadillo Green 1 100L +Defense, +Spirit, +Friendly, +Lonely, -Charm Needlettuce Green 2 60L +Defense, +Charm, +Calm, -Aggressive Squalfin Green 3 60L +Magic, +Luck, +Friendly, +Lonely, -Power Boarmelon Green 4 90L +Power, +Skill, +Spirit, +Lonely, -Charm Dialaurel Green 5 70L +Power, +Luck, +Aggressive, -Calm Masked Potato White 1 60L +Defense, +HP, +Spirit, -Luck, -Friendly Garlicrown White 2 40L +Charm, -Arrogant Conchurnip White 3 60L +Power, +Defense, +Aggressive, +Arrogant, -Magic Pear O' Heels White 4 80L +Power, +Defense, +Charm, +Arrogant, -Spirit Mangolephant White 6 ?L +Power, +HP, +Aggressive, +Arrogant Mush-In-A-Box Black 1 147L +Luck Toadstoolshed Black 6 ?L +Power, +Skill, +Defense, +Magic, +HP, +Spirit, +Charm, +Luck It seems to me that there are too many Orange produce, and not enough Yellow, but then again, that's probably just my own observations, and everybody else probably doesn't care... Anyhow, on to the next section! Behaviour Traits: Lazy - Your pet is sloth-like, and doesn't do much of anything Arrogant - Your pet goes off and starts attacking immediately, throwing caution into the wind Lonely - Your pet won't leave you alone; this can be good for Synchro Effects Scheming - Rather annoyingly, your pet tries to avoid enemies, and tends not to participate in battle Calm - Your pet will tend to target it's enemies more strategically Aggressive - Your pet won't go off and attack at random, but rather, focus on attacking a single enemy relentlessly Friendly - Your pet will follow you in battle, and try to help you defeat the monster that you're trying to defeat, as well ------------- Growing Tips ------------- This section is dedicated to generally anything that the chart doesn't cover. Let's begin... THE BASICS: This is how the system works. Planting Seeds - Trent (the tree) can grow up to 8 produce at a time, or four seeds worth. One seed alone can sprout 3 produce (the last one is more useful for encouraging other forms of growth than actually producing anything). Of course, the Orchard tree (which grows from the AF Mana Seed, which you get after about 10 plantings and harvestings) does the same thing. Growing the Produce - Produce grows by a day-by-day basis, so you don't have to go and fight in a dungeon or anything to get it to grow. Instead, just walk around on the world map for a while, and the produce will grow. GROWING SPECIFIC PRODUCE: Some produce colors are a bit tricky to work with. Below is a chart of what each seed type produces, and what mixing seeds will get you, and the priority for each. Note that same-color seed mixing of the three mixed-color seeds (Big, Small, and Long) will result in equal priority for the two sub-colors of the seed (Long Seeds are Blue and Red, for example). Most multi-color mixes have a chance of randomly producing white produce, as well, but it's best to use Flat Seeds to get White produce, as it's less common to get white produce from multi-color mixes than even black, which is also usually very uncommon. Key: B = Blue Y = Yellow R = Red P = Purple G = Green O = Orange W = White b = Black Seed Round Oblong Crooked Big Small Long Flat Spiny Round B GBY PBR BGY OYBb BPR WB BRYGOPWb Oblong GBY Y OYR YGB YOR PYBROb WY BRYGOPWb Crooked PBR OYR R RGb ROY RPB WR BRYGOPWb Big BGY YGB RGB BYG YGORBb BPGRYb WGBY BRYGOPWb Small OYBb YOR ROY YGORBb RYO RPOYBb WORY BRYGOPWb Long BPR PYBROb RPB BPGRYb RPOYBb RBP WPBR BRYGOPWb Flat WB WY WR WGBY WORY WPBR W BRYGOPWb Spiny BRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWbBRYGOPWb NOTES ON GROWING SPINY SEEDS: Spiny Seeds are sort of like Mercury and Sulfur in tempering: they increase the power (or in this case, the chance of getting rare produce) of the operation. As a bonus, they also give a chance to grow black produce, of which there are two, and one is infuriatingly difficult to get (and potentially the most useful). No matter what you grow them with, they seem to produce random results, though, so there's no point in planting two Spiny Seeds at once. ELEMENTAL LINKS: Yep, produce grows faster if it's respective elemental color matches it's type. Specifically, if planted on the day of the seed color, a plant will have a +1 to the multiplier effect that elemental levels of the land give it (explained below). Here's a brief overview... Color/SeedType Day to Plant Blue/Round Jinn Yellow/Oblong Aura Red/Crooked Salamander Green/Big Dryad Orange/Small Gnome Purple/Long Undine White/Flat N/A Spiny/Black N/A Unfortunately, there's no Whisp or Shade day in this Seiken Densetsu game, so those seeds will almost always grow much slower. As well, elemental levels act as a multiplier for how fast plants grow: Element Level Multiplier 0/3 1x Growth 1/3 2x Growth 2/3 3x Growth 3/3 4x Growth This means that at full elemental level, produce grows about 4x faster than at no elemental affinity. Grown on the day that matches the seed type, a seed can grow 5 times faster than it would on the wrong day with no elemental level for the seed type. The growth rate is a bit strange for produce, but in general, their rarity reflects their growth time, so a rare produce will take about 5x longer to grow than a common one. With a growth rate of 5x, though, this usually makes little to no difference. A TRICK TO SPEED UP PRODUCE GROWTH: It's almost amusing that this tip was given jokingly in another FAQ (which I much appreciate for helping me get off the ground), but putting the Mana Tree next to your house, and your Orchards in a position where it can be adjacent to the Mana Tree ups the growth rate of all produce monumentally (seeing as the Mana Tree has +3 to all elemental levels, and adjacent lands take on the base elemental levels of any given land). It's the difference between produce growing in 25 days and growing in 6 to 7 days. Yep, a lot less walking around on the world map, wishing that those damned things would hurry up and ripen. Oh, and if you're worried about produce spoiling from sitting on the tree or in your inventory too long, worry not. The stuff never goes bad, even if you leave it on the tree for 5 months, or in your inventory for that long, either. Oh, the wonders of Square logic... ------------------------- Buying Produce and Seeds ------------------------- You read right, you can buy the three most basic seed types, and several very useful produce, as well. The Bone Fortress (found during the Dragon Emperor's quests) has a small village, where a student from Geo will sell you not only the seeds, but Gold Clovers, Dialaurels, and so on. Take advantage of this shop, as it's practically the only way to get many rare produce and the three main seed types. That, and it's faster, too (albeit a good deal more spendy). ============= Raising Pets ============= Pets can be your most valuable allies in battle, if only for their synchro effects. For the most part, they can never get as potentially powerful as your character, nor can their AI be raised to anything that I would deem very useful, but those synchro effects...! Anyhow, here's the low-down on pets and how to make use of them. BASICS OF RAISING PETS: Here's some handy facts you should know about pets. GRAZING PETS: Letting the pets graze causes them to collect 1/2 of whatever experience you gain in battle. Of course, you yourself don't lose this 1/2 experience gained, so this is a good method to bring pitifully low-level monsters up to a decent level, and keep your main monster or golem with you. Just remember that you have to visit those pets from time to time to refill their feedboxes! FEEDING PETS: See the section on this below. SELLING PETS: You can sell your little nightmares, too. I suggest you do this to any pet you get, but don't want; it speeds things up a bit when trying to get that one pet you just can't seem to get. -------------- Egg Locations -------------- Pets aren't just given to you, you have to catch them first! Here's a quick and easy guide to getting any particular pet egg you're looking for. Note that the majority of these locations are in places where you first fight bosses at (With some exceptions, such as Lake Kilma). In the case of the exceptions, search around the dungeons, and you should find them in fairly short order. NOTE: You can actually keep going back in and out of any location where you encounter an egg to get more. You can also encounter elemental spirits in these locations (see Elemental Spirits and Coins for more info on that). NOTE2: I'm not certain, but I don't think you can get either a Chocobo or Rabite from their respective eggs. I'm probably wrong about that, though, but I've never gotten a second Rabite or Chocobo after the first quest to get a pet. Egg Type Location(s) Beast Egg Lake Kilma Aerial Egg Luon Highway, Norn Mountains Poltergeist Egg Junkyard Plant Egg Lake Kilma, Jungle Morph Egg Tower of Leires, Gato Grottoes, Madora Beach Oddity Egg Ulkan Mines Reptile Egg Luon Highway, Mekiv Caverns Aquatic Egg Madora Beach, S.S. Buccaneer Demonic Egg Jungle Undead Egg Bone Fortress Arthropod Egg Duma Desert Dragon Egg Fieg Snowfields Eggs will hatch after a few days, so if your egg just won't hatch, go wander around on the world map for a while, and it should be hatched by the time you get back home. WHAT THEY BECOME: Below is the list of what each egg can turn into. Later, I'll list them in the probability order, but for now, you'll have to settle with alphabetical order. I have only explained the more confusing Synchro Effects. Egg Type Monster Synchro Effect Beast Egg Grey Ox ATTK PLS: Reptiles Beast Egg Howler Skill Plus Beast Egg Molebear EFCT DFS: Darkness Beast Egg Rabite HP Recovery (raises your HP recovery rate) Beast Egg Teedie EFCT PLS: Paralysis Aerial Egg Bloodsucker EFCT DFNS: Confusion Aerial Egg Chocobo Status Recovery (clears all status ailments) Aerial Egg Cockatrice EFCT DFNS: Petrification Aerial Egg Garuda ATTK PLS: Aquatics Aerial Egg Needlebeak DFNS PLS: Aerials Poltergeist Egg Chess Knight Defense Plus Poltergeist Egg Cursed Doll DFNS PLS: Poltergeists Poltergeist Egg Dainslaif DFNS PLS: Staring Poltergeist Egg Polter Box Rare Item (enemies almost always drop an item) Plant Egg Lullabud DFNS PLS: Plants Plant Egg Malboro EFCT PLS: Paralysis Plant Egg Mushboom EFCT PLS: Sleep Plant Egg Shrieknip DFNS PLS: Sound Waves Plant Egg Wooding ATTK PLS: Beasts Morph Egg Denden ATTK PLS: Aerials Morph Egg Moldy Goo Power Plus Morph Egg Shadow Zero EFCT DFNS: Darkness Morph Egg Slime EFCT DFNS: Paralysis Morph Egg Tezla DFNS PLS: Morphs Oddity Egg Beholder DFNS PLS: Staring Oddity Egg Eye Spy EFCT DFNS: Confusion Oddity Egg Poto ATTK PLS: Dragons Oddity Egg Spiny Cone DFNS PLS: Oddities Oddity Egg Springball Invincible (take no damage whatsoever) Reptile Egg Basilisk EFCT PLS: Petrification Reptile Egg Lizardon Pak'n Choco (gives you Pakkun Chocolate) Reptile Egg Rattler Boa EFCT PLS: Poison Reptile Egg Tonpole DFNS PLS: Reptiles Reptile Egg Tyrranos ATTK PLS: Arthropods Aquatic Egg Big Baby ATTK PLS: Morphs Aquatic Egg Iffish DFNS PLS: Aquatics Aquatic Egg Pincher Crab EFCT DFNS: Sleep Aquatic Egg Seadragon EFCT PLS: Freeze Aquatic Egg Seajack HP Plus (raises the stat, not actual HP) Demonic Egg Chimera Beast ATTK PLS: Oddities Demonic Egg Dark Stalker EFCT PLS: Darkness Demonic Egg Fierce Face EFCT DFS: Flame Burst Demonic Egg Imp Bonus XP (more experience per crystal) Demonic Egg Punkster DFNS PLS: Demonics Undead Egg Ape Mummy ATTK PLS: Demi-humans Undead Egg Skeleton Regeneration (revive faster when unconcious) Undead Egg Skull Beast DFNS PLS: Undeads Undead Egg Specter EFCT DFNS: Freeze Undead Egg Zombine ATTK PLS: Poison Arthropod Egg Gloomoth EFCT PLS: Confusion Arthropod Egg Hoppin' Tick Luck Plus Arthropod Egg Sand Scorpion ATTK PLS: Plants Arthropod Egg Silkspitter DFNS PLS: Arthropods Arthropod Egg Stinger Bug EFCT DFS: Poison Dragon Egg Kid Dragon DFNS PLS: Breath Dragon Egg Land Dragon ATTK PLS: Demonics Dragon Egg Sky Dragon DFNS PLS: Dragons N/A Chobin Hood ATTK PLS: Indirect attacks N/A Goblin ATTK PLS: Slashing N/A Mad Mallard Defense Plus N/A Narcissos ATTK PLS: Striking N/A Sahagin ATTK PLS: Piercing N/A Succubus HP Drain (suck out enemy's HP when you attack) N/A Tomato Man EFCT PLS: Flameburst INTERESTING NOTE: The Lizardon was originally called a Pakkun Lizard in the Japanese version. This is why it drops Pakkun Chocolate. GETTING THE DEMI-HUMANS: Okay, so you're probably wondering, "So how do I get a Chobin Hood or Goblin?" Well, you have to meet certain criteria for an area before you can have demi-humans join your party. Here's where they'll be, and what element levels you need at max in that area for them to appear. Monster Name Location Element Levels at Max Chobin hood Jungle Dryad Goblin Lumina Dryad & Shade Mad Mallard Lake Kilma Whisp Narcissos Junkyard Gnome Sahagin Duma Desert Dryad Succubus Fieg Snowfield Shade Tomato Man Norn Peaks Salamander Each is either at the entrance, or near it. Demi-humans sell for 10 Lucre no matter their level, so don't bother getting one unless you're planning to keep it. Also, the Sahaguin has it's own quest that you can tell Li'l Cactus, and he leaves your party after it. Just go back to the desert after completing his quest, and have him join your party for good. ------------- Feeding Pets ------------- Pets are a fickle lot, and are tough to raise without proper feeding. Here are some useful tips and facts to consider when feeding your little buddies. WHEN THEY EAT: Pets only eat when they level up. Not just when grazing, mind you. Any time they level up, if there's food in their feedbox, they eat it. Skipping a level is like making them skipping a meal, particularly if you're trying to raise the monster's stats. WHAT TO FEED THEM: There's a lot of produce you can feed pets, but it's hard to choose the best combos, and still keep your pet from getting out of hand. There are a few good and bad traits (listed in the Produce section, as well) that determine their battle AI, so keep track of these when feeding them, as well. I've listed some handy suggestions for what to feed pets below the traits list. Behaviour Traits: Lazy - Your pet is sloth-like, and doesn't do much of anything Arrogant - Your pet goes off and starts attacking immediately, throwing caution into the wind Lonely - Your pet won't leave you alone; this can be good for Synchro Effects Scheming - Rather annoyingly, your pet tries to avoid enemies, and tends not to participate in battle Calm - Your pet will tend to target it's enemies more strategically Aggressive - Your pet won't go off and attack at random, but rather, focus on attacking a single enemy relentlessly Friendly - Your pet will follow you in battle, and try to help you defeat the monster that you're trying to defeat, as well Some monsters don't seem to take on personality traits very well (most notably in my case, Polter Boxes). In this case, you can probably feed them just about anything, and not worry about unwanted personality factors. Of course, I've mainly only fed my Polter Boxes the same diets, so it may be that they actually DO take on personality traits. Other monsters seem to be sheer personality magnets (particularly Rabites), so be REALLY careful as to what you feed them. For Massive Luck Gain: 3 Gold Clovers Ideal Massive Stats Gain: 3 Toadstoolsheds For Massive Stats Gain (method 1): Peach Puppy Pine O' Clock Cornflower For Massive Stats Gain (method 2): Needlettuce Pine O' Clock Cornflower ---------------- Pets and Profit ---------------- Pets can net you a pretty penny in this game, in more than one way. Selling them is usually not that profitable, but here are a few tricks that can get you filthy rich in short order. POLTER BOX: The Polter Box has a Synchro Effect of Rare Item, which means that if you kill a monster while it's nearby, the monster wilL ALWAYS drop an item. This means that you can get a lot of items, and even increase your chances of getting rare items as a result. But just selling the items isn't the only way to take advantage of this feature. Using this ability, you can force Stinger Bugs on the Luon Highway to drop Clear Feathers, and force Spiny Cones to drop WindCaps. Forge 4 Clear Feathers to a WindCap, and it becomes completely and utterly useless in battle, but is worth 26,643 Lucre! You can easily collect, build, and sell 10 altered WindCaps in an hour or so, giving you 266,430 Lucre! POLTER BOX 2: Here's another great trick that can net you a lot of rare and valuable forging materials. Take a Polter Box with you, preferrably with high luck, and go fight in an area with Chess Knights. Chess Knights drop the rare and valuable Adamantium metal, by far the most valuable of all forging materials in the game. They drop it very rarely, but getting even just two pieces allows you to forge both a weapon and a suit of armor out of it. You can also get Grand Horns from Chess Knights, which are very useful in the tempering process. SPRINGBALL: Not exactly a form of profit, but Springballs have the ultimate synchro effect: immortality! Unfortunately, it doesn't give THEM immortality, but it can be very useful against some of the bosses in the game, particularly in No Future mode. ============================ Elemental Spirits and Coins ============================ Elemental coins are the key to forging elemental attributes to weapons and armors, as well as forging instruments. You can only get coins from spirits who wander around in various locations in dungeons (usually where a boss is defeated during a game quest). NOTE: You can actually keep going back in and out of any location where you encounter spirits to get more coins. You can also encounter monster eggs in these locations (see Egg Locations for more info on that). Each spirit seems to have two preferred tunes, and randomly chooses which of the two it prefers. Below is the list of what songs they like. Spirit's Name Song #1 Song #2 Jinn Sorrowful Song Serene Song Aura Cheerful Song Serene Song Undine Serene Song Mysterious Song Salamander Cheerful Song Sorrowful Song Dryad Sorrowful Song Mysterious Song Gnome Cheerful Song Sorrowful Song Wisp Mysterious Song Sorrowful Song Shade Cheerful Song Sorrowful Song You want them to get close enough for you to touch them within about a second after having stopped playing the music. That's pretty much sitting right in front of the instrument, in my experience. What the spirit leaves is also completely random, but they leave silver more often than gold (obviously). Instrument count doesn't matter, as far as I can tell, nor the instrument type, but I may be missing something here. ================ Rare Items List ================ In an effort to be as concise as possible (and provide a good guide on where to find the best forging materials), I've devised a rather useful list of the items which monsters drop least often, as well as what they drop otherwise. They are listed in the order of common items first, and the last item listed is the rarest. Rabite - Animal Meat, Animal Bone, RabiteEar, Small Eyeball, Hairball Stinger - Bug Meat, Clear Feather, Small Eyeball Lullabud - Round Seed, Long Seed, Poison Powder, Flat Seed, Spiny Seed Malboro - Big Seed, Long Seed, Round Seed, Spiny Seed Shrieknip - Long Seed, Big Seed, Round Seed, Ghost Howl, Spiny Seed Spiny Cone - WindCap, Odd Meat Mad Mallard - SoldiersHelm, DestinyDice, NinjasCharm, CaptainsHelm, GeneralsHelm Goblin - BlackElk, EarthSplitter, SnowDeer, Langseax, SweetRevenge Pincer Crab - Fish Meat, Scissors, TortoiseShell, Coral, FullMetal Chess Knight - Healing Claw, Ivory, Giant Horn, Adamantium Bloodsucker - Bird Meat, Blackened Bat, Vampire Fang Dainslaif - Braveblade, ThroatSlitter, Orihalcon Succubus - MoonrockTiara, VitiumRibbon, SpiritRibbon Dark Stalker - Demon Meat, Dragonsbane, Levatine Tonpole - Blank Eye, Lizard Meat Tezla - Electricity, Morph Meat =========================== Forging Weapons and Armors =========================== Although unnecessary for the first time through the game, forging your own weapons and armors give you a massive edge in later games, particularly in No Future mode (where most monsters are level 99). Forging weapons and armors is a lot like chemistry: one wrong move, and FOOM! There goes your glorious and wonderful modifications to your weapons/armor. NOTE: This section isn't done. I fear the very prospect of even TRYING to temper a weapon or piece of armor at this point, but once I get around to winning the game again and buying some useful ingredients like Mercury and Sulfur, I'll update this section. ----------------- How it All Works ----------------- I'll do this later, when I understand it myself. :P ------------------------ Some Very Useful Combos ------------------------ I would give combos here, but the only one I've used is already listed (in Pets and Profit), so there. ================ Building Golems ================ Ah, golems... I never liked them much in the other games of the series, but then again, the only time you find a golem in Seiken Densetsu 2 or 3 is when you have to fight one, so... Anyway, golems can be slightly more useful than a pet, but (IMO) nowhere near as useful in terms of Synchro Effects. NOTE: This section isn't done. Golems require equipment, and equipment would require forging, and I fear forging. This section will probably not be done for a VERY long while... --------------------------------- The Weapons and Armors of Choice --------------------------------- About all I can say about this at this point is: Adamantium, baby... Fully modded and decked out... ------------------------ Good Logic Block Combos ------------------------ Seeing as I can't make any good combos so far, I don't have anything for this section. Maybe when I get some decent equipment to make the combos with, I will update this section. =========== Conclusion =========== Legend of Mana is a bit peculiar, in many ways that most games aren't. It draws some people in, and disappoints others. Obviously, it drew me in quite grandly, but I was actually disappointed in it at first. I had expected a stable plot and a much more rigid system, as per most Square games. But I was surprised (and later, delighted) to find that the system was extremely variable in structure, and that I controlled just about everything. After my third new game, I finally realized that what I had here was a game that was enjoyable for the mere fact that it WAS so possible to customize in so many respects. And I realized as I came to this conclusion that the reason that I'd come to like the game so much was because of all of the (somewhat incomplete but quite informative) FAQ's out there. The rest is history. Thanks for reading (or not reading, if you just skipped down here) this guide to Legend of Mana. ================== Special Thanks To ================== * Matthew Emirzian (mtemisan@aol.com), for writing his Mastery Guide, which really helped me find a lot of things, and find even more out * Dani and Chris (dani@misternaughty.com) for writing their produce guide, which helped me keep track of what produce did what * Marcus Majarra (marcusmajarra@hotmail.com) and Anthony Nelson (majordragon@hotmail.com) for making their Tempering FAQ, which still gives me chills when I look at it (I'm still afraid to try tempering things :P) 2001 Sky Render Translations