Memoirs of Magic WIP Guide/Tips Repository By Ixzine

♥ Memoirs of Magic WIP Guide/Tip Repository By Ixzine ♥

Sorry in advance. I type too much. That said, I have only the best intentions. I want to make this lovely, challenging game easier to get into for someone having a tough time!

Wanna ask me any questions directly or just wanna connect with a community ofr the game? Join the official StrawberryOctopus Discord today! (If you want)

If you have experience with horde shooters or consider yourself an aficionado of difficult games: you can probably get farther than you’re giving yourself credit for by consulting the game’s basic tutorials (here’s an imgur album for your convenience) and by questioning your chosen character’s initial playstyle. It’s not always obvious. Some weapons start out particularly weak and get better when upgraded.

Memoirs of Magic is a hard game. Don’t be afraid to take it step by step and use oodles of quicksaves, as there is no difficulty setting to soften the journey for you. The RPG progression systems and ability to purchase consumables are not immediately available, but you can get access within an hour or two if you follow a simple path.

First and foremost: Not all characters are created equal. As your quest progresses, the lines between them will be blurred somewhat as you get access to all elements’ spells and alchemy weapons. At the start of the game, where you are at your most befuddled and vulnerable, though, I would recommend refining your gameplan with your chosen character as much as possible, as you have very few options. To that end, I’ll outline each of the 7 characters’ strengths and weaknesses (and I don’t mean stats). I have played each one enough to understand their early game flow.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (or view -> Show document outline)

GENERAL EARLY TIPS: Barely spoilers. Just some tips to help acclimate you to helpful concepts.
EARLY EXPLORATION: Hardly spoilers. Makes navigating the first forest just a little easier.
TECHNIQUES: Some basic to advanced mechanically useful stuff.

(Summaries of: earlygame theoretical power; difficulty in applying that; lategame power)

EARLY HUMAN TACTICS: Pretty strong; pretty easy; middling power lategame
EARLY LIZARD TACTICS: Pretty strong; pretty easy; middling power lategame
EARLY RAT TACTICS: Pretty strong; moderate difficulty; gets rich very lategame
EARLY HAWK TACTICS: Medium strength; pretty complex; super rich lategame
EARLY IMP TACTICS: Strong; complex; no significant lategame strength
EARLY UNDEAD TACTICS: Very strong, moderate difficulty; strong lategame
EARLY WOLF TACTICS: Very strong, pretty complex, WEIRD PROGRESSION

FOREST OF MAGIC: The first area and how 2 navigate
EARLY MISTY FOREST: Puzzle solutions, getting to the Tree Top Village
MISTY FOREST: My comforting presence through the treetops
FORGOTTEN TEMPLE: Forgetaboutit
EARLY RAINY SHORES: Insofar as getting to the Dockside Village
EARLY ARCTIC MOUNTAIN: The long path to the Mountain Village
ARCTIC MOUNTAIN: This is a shooort segment
FORBIDDEN MINES: This is a looong segment

ENEMY INDEX: Don’t expect hard numbers!
BOSS INDEX: This is where the boss guides will go, too!
WEAPON INDEX: Gonna need help completing this, maybe!
CREDITS: <3<3<3<3<3

GENERAL EARLY TIPS:

The game is not super unfair, as autosaves are generally in very safe locations and you have the ability to bounce back from or prepare for any hard fights with a little grinding or exploration. That said, it IS super hard, and you’ll want to quicksave often if you find the game particularly difficult. By default, quicksave is on F6 and quickload is on F9.
Resource management is of paramount importance. To that end, prioritize taking as little damage as possible and doing as much damage per MP/per AP as possible. This means patiently grouping enemies for AoE, lining them up for piercing attacks, using your more technical spells/alchemy weapons correctly, kiting melee enemies, and circlestrafing/dodging ranged enemies.
You’re going to lose health and waste ammo no matter how hard you try. It’s fine. You can restore any of your 3 resources by consuming ingredients dropped from enemies. This is their primary purpose as far as you’re concerned for now.
You can restore HP and MP but NOT AP by resting at an Inn (for 100 gold, which is a very good deal if you’re currently low) or at a campfire for free.
Kill Marble Golems and you can sell the Marble Statues they drop at the Museum on the east side of town for 1,000 gold each.

EARLY EXPLORATION (FOREST OF MAGIC) TIPS:

BEFORE you head out of the castle, you can grab 8 Hams from the kitchen in the NW part of the castle. You can (and should) cook these Hams by dropping them onto the big dang grill in the middle of the room and retrieving them after they cook and before they burn. Lots of healing from these.

You can also visit the King’s and Princess’s bedrooms just down the smaller hallway to their left, and double-jump on top of furniture, and on top of their beds, to open up some chests for about ~500 gold total.
You can also visit the guard quarters in the SE wing of the castle. The SW-most room in the guard quarters has a fake wall. Behind the banners, you can find a Shadow Man, who gives you some gold and challenges you to find him elsewhere in the world for more gold. You also will find a Marble Golem, which is worth 1000 gold at the Museum, and some chests of gold!

I suggest you hug the southmost path as you head east. You can explore other paths but you won’t like the destinations as much, frankly.
Some chests are only openable through lockpicking. Some are ambush triggers. Treat each chest as a reason to quicksave.
You do NOT get the gold stolen by Goblin Thieves back when you kill them. You need to religiously strafe perpendicular to their dashing attack if you fight them.
Fighting most enemies is optional. Ignoring them will net you no loot and you can’t rest at a campfire if they’re chasing you, but hey, zero risk.
Sometimes you can’t rest at a campfire because a bug states that you’re in danger when your not. If that happens, leave the area and the bug will resolve.

TECHNIQUES:

You can double-jump! Hit the “Kick/Blink” key, which is on “CTRL” by default, while you’re in mid-air and you’ll do a piddly little double jump. This is less useful for gaining height and more useful for retaining it, and for covering more distance with your jumps. Get comfortable with it~
Incredibly useful is a technique called Straferunning, a staple for going fast in Doom and many games inspired by it. By moving diagonally (by holding left or right, as well as forward or back) you can gain a massive ~30% boost in movement speed. This is mainly useful for getting from place to place faster, but can be used to make breaks for cover in heated combat situations, or applied skillfully to run circles around enemies in large arenas.
Some weapons benefit from weapon-swapping. For example, the Imp’s Pistol normally has a ~1s reload time but you can avoid this by switching away from it and back to it after the 5th shot. If you’ve got fast fingers for this kind of thing, a LVL2 Shatter Shotty can be fired rapidly after single shots with weapon switching. I’m sure there’s better examples later in the game than these.
You can superjump. It’s a bit hard to do. Hit Kick and then instantly hit Jump. The timing is strict, like 1-2 frame window strict, but if you do it successfully you’ll achieve nearly double your normal jump height. This is occasionally useful for getting to rewards that would normally be gated behind a higher AGI stat, but it is hard to pull it off in combat reliably and you’re generally better off double-jumping.

EARLY HUMAN TACTICS:

Solid well-rounded character. His bread-and-butter early game is summoning several Snakes and engaging whatever is safe to engage with the Mace.
The Helios Communicator does fairly minor dps. Don’t be shy about using it to deal with flying enemies like Ghosts early game.
Kill lone or vulnerable enemies with the mace to preserve resources.
Remember Cure for when you’re poisoned and Holy Cross for a full heal.
Holy Cross can also change wooden furniture into Snakes! Oh my GOD
Holy Cross also happens to be able to heal allies in multiplayer.

EARLY LIZARD TACTICS:

Pretty solid. He has just enough INT to get from campfire to campfire with AoE uses of Ice Wall and some careful melee footsies.
Kill Roper groups and other lines of enemies with Ice Wall -> Axe spam
Kill lone or vulnerable enemies with the Axe and some careful footsies.
Kill flying enemies or mid-range threats with the Shatter Shotty, which can also be your main dps for some bosses.
As you amass Nitro Gel, your Shatter Shotty becomes easier and easier to spam on threats willy-nilly.
Save Berserker Rage for a heal and DPS increase during appropriately challenging ambushes and wave-based encounters. Don’t be shy about waiting for it in safe areas. Leave the game active when you take short breaks after such encounters, to charge it, and you might just be happy you did~
Don’t use Ice Turret too early. You have little INT and it costs the equivalent of 5 Ice Walls. While it can be helpful in an emergency, so can spamming Ice Wall.

EARLY RAT TACTICS:

The Rat is a forgiving character to play as he is good at avoiding damage, has a very ammo-efficient starting spell with infinite piercing, and can create healing consumables. Just don’t trust your Sword.
Line up enemies safely using your great movement speed to pierce as many as possible with your Earth Tome’s primary fire, Molten Shards.
Molten Shards have charge stages. You want to fire it at the highest level of charge every time possible, as this highest stage fires the most projectiles and has the greatest accuracy. Do not spam it.
Your Auto-Arrow has higher singletarget dps (especially if you Crit; the straight, yellow projectile with good timing), but AP doesn’t regenerate from resting, so save the shots for bosses. Molten Shards do the heavy lifting.
Don’t even bother with your Sword until later in the game. It’s dangerous and you are plenty MP-efficient.
Your lockpicks can be used only on Silver Locks and some very specific chests. To increase your lockpicking level you must pick a series of specific Silver Locks in order, starting with one in Misty Forest! There is a section on these.

EARLY HAWK TACTICS:

The Hawk has alimiting start, but that’s nothing that can’t be solved with a small amount of progress! When you make it to the Misty Forest, west of the cemetery, there is a Giga Drill laying inside the cabin. If you change the ammo to this on your Minigun, you will do immense dps in melee. If you become good with this you can grind up most threats almost instantly. DON’T FIRE THIS YET.
Rely on your Lance for most of your very early damage. It’s arguably the best melee weapon at this stage in the game, with very good range. You also have little choice but to use it, due to your low INT and ammo-inefficient weapons.
Your Air Tome’s primary fire, Chain Lightning, detonates enemies it kills, doing a sizable amount of damage to nearby enemies when it does. Cast this on weak enemies who are near stronger ones (like Slimes near Ropers, or Skeletons underneath Ghosts)
The Magnetic Minigun frankly sucks this early on, without any upgrades to make it ammo-efficient. Feel free to use it to deal with obnoxious enemies and then chomp down some Nitro Gel afterward, though.
The Air Tome’s secondary fire can grant you limited invisibility (won’t aggro new enemies) for 50 AP, but that is certainly not worth it right now.

EARLY IMP TACTICS:

If you’re careful and comfortable with your positioning, the Imp toasts most early encounters easily with his huge AoE damage and his Pistol for a finisher.
Your bread-and-butter for sizable encounters is Fire Trap, the secondary fire of your Fire Tome. Drop this directly on a cluster of enemies once and it’ll detonate without further input, then finish them off with your Tome’s primary fire or your Pistol. It’s expensive at 30 MP but you have a lot of MP to spare between rests.
The Flame Furnace does immense damage. You probably won’t need it for many early encounters because the Fire Tome is so good, but you’ll be happy you have it for both boss fights and massively difficult encounters later. The only notable downside is the splash can kill you if you’re close to the explosion, and there is travel time on the rocket.
You can make special ammo for any Alchemy Weapons you get your hands on! That has potential later, but don’t be shy about quaffing your ingredients early game.

EARLY LICH TACTICS:

Much like the Imp and the Rat, he’s unintuitively very strong compared to beefier classes for not a lot more work to learn. Easy to recommend, just read up on him.
Damn, what a snazzy signature weapon! His Orb has a long delay between uses, but for good reason. Most signature weapons are fairly mediocre early game, mainly serving to save your finite MP and AP where possible. But this Orb does a ton of burst damage.
Secondary Fire for your Orb switches between 3 elements. Fire does the most singletarget damage. Ice can freeze an enemy in place, which has only niche applications for now. The Lightning Orb should be your focus in many fights, as (just like Hawk’s Lightning Tome can) it can execute low health enemies en masse. This includes Skeletons and Slimes, as soon as they’ve spawned.
The Dark Tome grants you very expensive (100 MP) spells that are excellent against massive hordes. The first, Gravity Crush, cuts enemy health in half, and can be used right before a Lightning Orb to kill most of an army instantly. Hold off on this until a wave event that gives you enough trouble you gotta reload a save.
The secondary fire of Dark Tome is similar to the Earth Tome’s Grow Food, in that you essentially use it to turn mana now into health later. This converts a small amount of enemies into harmless Pigs, and you can kill those to get meat.
The Death-Blow summons skeletons which pretty much get ignored and slowly add up a lot of damage over the course of a long fight. They’re not really good for emergencies, but a ton of them will just slice up whatever they can reach real good. Save the AP for difficult situations and then laugh at your enemies.

EARLY WOLF TACTICS:

You probably shouldn’t play him for your first go through the game. Not being able to use Alchemy Weapons is very limiting and Wolf changes progression rules for the game. That said, he’s very powerful early-game.
You will TAUNT if you use the same non-basic combo Martial Art twice in a row. I don’t know what this does. It’s probably not great.
Your Basic Combo (M1>M1>M1) is kind of mediocre, but something in his kit has to be I suppose.
Brain Buster (M2>M2>M2) does a ton of burst damage and is easy to land. It’s not enough to kill a Roper, though. :)
Century Assault (M2->M1->M2) does a butt ton of damage over several seconds, across a massive flurry of blows. It’s a big commitment. You can’t switch weapons during this.
S. Fang Strike (M2>M2>M1) stuns an enemy for several seconds. This invites any followup you want. That’ll be Century Assault or Brain Buster, right?
Big Blow Fist (M2>M1>M1) pushes enemies back in a MASSIVE AoE and deals damage if they are pushed into a wall or another enemy. It gains EXP regardless of whether it hits an enemy or not.
Taunt also gets EXP regardless if whether enemies are nearby or not, so spamming M2->M1->M1 will EXP up both Big Blow Fist and Taunt while you’re just running around.
Wolf gets the overall best ranged damage spell at the start of the game through Earth Tome: Molten Shards. These come up a lot, very useful.

EARLY FOREST OF MAGIC:

Here is a map of the area. Destinations, chests, and campsites are visible.
The Misty Forest is probably the most appropriate place to go after leaving the City, and only requires following the southernmost path to the East.

The Misty Forest has some basic puzzles and a steady trickle of combat. Any character’s base kit can handle this. You also get some plot (non)-advancement if you check out the area west of the cemetery.

The Rainy Shores as an area itself is not as rewarding as the Misty Forest but the shop in that direction gets you access to the Shatter Shotty, which is a very ammo-efficient singletarget weapon. It’s also technically the fastest village to access if you just run through it.
The Arctic Mountain is a linear combat gauntlet with slippery ice that exercises your fundamentals and basically requires having a long-range weapon and a lot of consumables ready to go. The Earth Tome that you can get from the village Misty Forest guards helps a lot here, especially when upgraded, but some skill is going to be required.
The Garden of Deception is a hard enough area I ditched it to come back to it later. It essentially is a gearcheck. You need to be able to move fast and puke out a lot of damage to get through the timed obstacle course that is this area. Keep the autosave at the start of this area handy if you’re gonna try and quicksave through it.

EARLY MISTY FOREST:

There are spoilers here and everywhere below
The obelisk in the middle of the cemetary at the start of the forest gives you a simple logical memory puzzle about using paths of flowers with a start and endpoint. Solving this puzzle grants you access to the cabin to the west.

The first gravestone is located in the northwest rectangle of graves, 4 stones over and 1 stone down, next to blue roses.
The second stone is located in the southwest rectangle of graves. It’s the first one, next to blue roses.
The third stone is located in the southeast rectangle of graves. It’s 6 stones over on the first row, next to pink roses.

Inside the grave keeper’s cabin is a key, but that’s not all.

There’s a book you can pull in the library room that opens up a room with a book that hints at how to open up the room to the nearby Marble Golem (and money)
The solution to the aforementioned puzzle is thus: push down the gravestone which is directly south of the first gravestone and directly east of the second gravestone. This would be 4 stones over in the SW rectangle
You can double-jump onto the chimney’s architecture, then drop inside the chimney, for a small chest of gold.

If you’re Rat, you should pick the lock instead of entering through the chimney, for lockpicking experience!

There is a boulder next to this cabin that requires 800 STR to lift. A Marble Golem and a bunch of gold is your reward for lifting.

Keys are tied to a region. You can only use this key in the Misty Forest, so don’t feel any guilt for using it in the cemetery. Before you head back to the cemetery you can go check out the plot-important ??? to the West. Neat!
North of the cemetery, you’ll be faced with a room-by-room maze, where entering the wrong door will warp you back to the start of the maze. Expect to fail and warp back here many times before you’re done here, and reference THIS facing for the first step.

To chest guarded by 3-wave ambush (there’s a key in here you need): R -> R -> R -> F -> L -> L -> R

If you have trouble, don’t be shy about using your MP and AP. Especially your MP, as there is a village coming up for you to rest in.
Wave 1: Ropers and Caterkillers. Keep moving in a circle and deal with the Ropers first.

Alternatively, you can “cheese” this wave by standing on the chest, on the stump, and double-jumping when the Caterkiller do their roll attack. You should be able to safely dispatch all the Ropers who can’t reach you.

Wave 2: Mushdooms and Caterkillers. Keep moving and kill the Mushdooms first. You can use the trees and stump for cover, both from the Mushdooms’ spores and the rolling Caterkillers.
Wave 3: Mushdooms and Ropers. Bring out the big guns if you have any. The Ropers will outpace the Mushdooms, so hide from the latter while you kill the former near the edges of the arena. There’s no shame in quicksaving at the start of difficult waves like this one, if you’re content with your resources.

To treasure and Marble Golem: R -> R -> L -> L -> R -> F

Might as well get this while your here if you have the HP and MP to spare. You’re about to get access to your first Village, and the shop contained within, and this gold will be very useful.

To boss: R -> R -> R -> F -> F -> L -> R -> F

This boss (Mandrake) is hard and unless you’re a veteran you probably shouldn’t bother right now. All I can say is: pack some ammo and circlestrafe like a madman. You’ll know whether you stand a chance, or whether you need to progress some more.

Once you have the key from the maze, you can open the second gate in this area to gain access to the Tree Top Village, which is where the Earth Element Magical Emporium is! You’ll want to talk to King Honeydew and some Bee Villagers, possibly, if you are only relying partly on this guide.

I absolutely recommend buying and upgrading the Earth Tome. It is the most generally useful Spell Tome in the game, and arguably most useful weapon period. Molten Shards is a cheap strong piercing snipe and Grow Food can give you 3 separate stacks of Apples (Apples, Cooked Apples, and Bad Apples) for healing during long dungeons.
In the King’s throneroom, you can do some double-jumps up the left wall for a Marble Golem. Quicksave before doing this, as you may accidentally kick a bee.
Along the right wall of the throneroom, there’s a Book of Diplomacy (for Hawk players), Memoir of Magic Volume 1 (to sell to Loremaster Thesis), and a Marble Golem which will require high AGI, a superjump, or a blast jump to get to.
Next to the Emporium, there is a Gun Part, needed later for the Imp’s promotion.
Tucked away against the outer south wall of the Magnus and Mead tavern, there is a hiding spot of the Shadow Man.

MISTY FOREST:

If you haven’t bought it yet, the Earth Tome really is a godsend for most of these easy to medium difficulty early-game encounters, and its primary attack Molten Shards and its Secondary II Stoneskin remain powerful and sometimes optimal for the rest of the game, and so I’d highly advise getting a LVL2 Earth Tome. You can get it in the Tree Top Village shop. You can hold up to 20 apples, and you can bank them up at no real cost to your MP stores by using its secondary at an inn or camp.
Hey, do you remember a weird wall of green blocks with stars on them, just outside of the Treetop Village? The LVL2 Auto-Arrow can open that wall with its secondary poison grenade. It just contains a Marble Golem, so don’t get the Auto-Arrow JUST for this wall.
After exiting the Tree Top Village with the elevator located between its shop and tavern, you’ll be beset by 2 Caterkillers. Turn left to open a shortcut that leads back to the cemetery. Turn right for a linear path with some combat and a puzzle.
This pathway is a bit perilous. If you fall off, you’ll take some damage and be placed at the start. This would be a good place to teach or remind you that you can double jump. Hit the “Kick/Blink” button in midair and you’ll stay in midair for a little while longer.
You’ll reach a simple puzzle that requires you to jump on a series of blocks and thereby depress them into the floor, without missing any. Fail to do so and you’ll have to return to the start, where there is a staircase to keep you safe from your punishment for touching the floor.
After this puzzle, there lies the entrance to the Forgotten Temple, which you may have heard about in the Tree Top Village. Before you go in, you can try a superjump to reach the Marble Golem on top, or come back for it later.

FORGOTTEN TEMPLE:

Walk down some stairs. Here’s an Earth Wizfraud. These Wizfraud guys will be trickier later in the Temple. I’d suggest getting comfortable with how he works while there’s no danger. At the bottom of the stairs you’ll come to a room with 3 branching paths. Just in front of the door you came in through is a pillar with 3 locks, which you’ll get the keys for through the Temple.

West Path

Arrow Traps. You can tempt fate by double-jumping through it once or twice if you want. You’ll probably be fine, but you might perish. The safe strat here would be to look parallel to the arrow path and strafe through it bit by bit. You can also superjump on top of the trap pillars.
Room with some Slimes and Ghosts. It’s pretty close-quarters. You can throw the pots for minor damage, but throwing the stone statues in each corner of the room 1-shots a Ghost. Convenient. There is a pressure plate in the middle of the room that floods the room with snakes. You have to push this, and then pull the levers that were hidden behind the doors that have now opened. Don’t be afraid to spam Molten Shard a bit faster than normal to clean up snakes that are close to you, or use the Flame Tome’s Flamethrower as they draw close. Whatever works!
You will now fight some Ropers and Ghosts. In the Northwest corner of this room, there is a lever hidden by a waterfall. Pull it to open the floor in the middle of the room. Swim through the arrow traps with the whole “looking parallel to the arrows” technique and you should have breath to spare when you resurface on the other side.
Ropers and Caterkillers! Neither of these enemies can navigate this arena like you can. Stand up on some terrain and shoot down at them, if you even need to. Push a plate in the middle of this room and return to the previous one, where you can now head north!
Get ready for a 3-wave fight, featuring Ghosts and Golems! Golems are the new most dangerous enemy you’ve met thus far, in a sense. They’re easier to keep track of than Ropers and Wizfrauds and cause less arena disturbance than Mushdooms. There’s oil pots in this room, if you have a fire weapon to take advantage. Your reward for this is a key.

North Path

The first room here has fake floors, beneath which is a poisonous floor. You can see the real floor, a serpentine pathway, if you sit on the stairs to the left or right of the entrance of the room. I’d recommend just jumping to the middle of the room, then jumping again.
Caterkillers and Wizfrauds. The throne in this room doubles as a secret wall, making this a branching path.

Left path of the throne room leads to a trap room. Snakes will begin flooding in and the ceiling will begin closing toward you for a crushing death. Classic!!!!! Step on the 9 panels in the middle of the room, and hit the rest of them.

Your reward is a key. If you take the Big Diamond (which you totally should) some traps will activate. Just jump out and mind the snakes! When you return to the throne room, you’ll be beset by Mushdooms and Ropers.

The throne path leads to Queen Honeydew. Just get on the throne and press Use on the back of it to enter. You should probably save beforehand, as entering this room prompts her to speak to you, and begins lowering a crushing trap upon her. To save her, or open one of two nearby treasure rooms housing Marble Golems, you need to input a password with the letters on the floor. One of the random lines the bee villagers can speak in the Treetop Village tells you the answer to rescue her and open one of the treasure rooms.

You can input the letters in any order, just complete the word(s)
The password to save Queen Honeydew is OPEN SESAME.
Treasure password 1 is HOCUS POCUS.
Treasure password 2 is ABRACADABRA.

On the way back to the room with 3 locks, that one room with the fake floors is now arrow-trapped as well. Just jump to the middle of the room with some timing. When you get through here, dispatch some Mushdooms and Wizfrauds in the lock room itself.

East Path

This room with spike floors (which will preview themselves if you creep very close to them) appears to have a pattern near either edge of the room that is simpler than going through the middle. Each square of spikes is 2x2 tiles large, and has 8 tiles between it and the next square of spikes lengthwise, giving you some predictable wiggle room. By hugging said edges of the room, you can move up against the wall to slow your advance, and then either go around or jump over spikes near the wall.
Crushing trap room oh boy!!! These traps don’t… crush you. They do 10 damage. They DO however pancake your enemies. So, if you can get the Goblin to dash into them, he’s dealt with. All in all it’s pretty safe. You can even buffer your runs against the side of the traps as they fall to aid in timing each sprint.
This crushing trap room is much more likely to do damage to you if you’re low AGI. Be efficient in your sprints to hit each lever in the room and it shouldn’t be too bad.
Plot advancement in meeting with a blue man, aaand a 3-wave fight! You have some statues to throw at them to cut their healthbars down, some pots containing oil which a source of fire can kill them with, and some pillars to hide behind. It gets a little trickier in the wave with Mushdooms, but with no mobile enemies to pressure you, you should be able to use cover well in this arena. Caterkillers may very well kill themselves on the spiked walls. Your reward for this arena is another key.
That easy crushing room from before now has some minor opposition waiting for you in it. When you get back to the lock room, some Ropers and Golems. You can hide from the Ropers by standing on the other side of the water on any side of the arena, if you’re okay with risking the Golems being more threatening that way.

All 3 Keys? As if there was any doubt, down this watery staircase unlocked with all 3 keys awaits a boss, your first boss: AUTOMATIC IDOL: YIAN YUN. You’ll whoop he butt, and then for your troubles, you’ll get the ♥ Earth Heart ♥ and several dollars.
For getting this heart, you’ve unlocked the 1st Coliseum arena (a place on the north side of town you can go to farm gold and resources from waves of enemies) and the ability to enter the Arctic Mountains’ dungeon.

EARLY RAINY SHORE:

Most of this area is something you should come back for later, but this first segment before the Dockside Village is short, so you can get access to a new shop pretty quick if you want! This is optional, skip to Early Arctic Mountain if it’s troubling.
How patient are you feeling for a combat gauntlet?

If your answer is “Not Very” then you can treat the series of platforms you see before you as a platforming challenge instead. If you touch the sand, you will probably die. The beefier or faster your character, the better. Most of the characters have a good shot at this. Imp (with default stats) is risky. Undead is extra risky.

The ranged enemies you leave behind can absolutely snipe you from the other side of the universe. Do not stop moving.

You can totally do SOME of the combat here and then quicksave and do a shortened platforming challenge. Facing even ONE pair of Octopunks fair-and-square can prove exhausting for most of the cast early in the game though.

One of the surprises about a fourth of the way through the gauntlet is a large group of Electric Ropers. You’ll probably miss them if you are jumping through, but consider killing them with AoE for some loot.

If you wanna fight everything you’re gonna want some SERIOUS damage output. The Octopunks are the most lethal and tricky enemies you’ve faced thus far, and they have a fair amount of health that makes killing them with ammo-efficient, less bursty weapons hellish.

Stunning or freezing an Octopunk is a good idea.

Once you get through the beginning of Rainy Shores, you will see a Lighthouse which requires a key, and you will arrive at the Dockside Village, which sells the Water Tome and the Water Alchemy Weapon, Shatter Shotty. Shatter Shotty is very ammo efficient for blasting down enemies in close range.

I find the Shatter Shotty with Enhanced Shells to be exceptionally useful in the upcoming Forbidden Mines. You don’t need to buy any of these shells for the trek to the Arctic Mountain’s Village, but consider them before delving into the Mines.
Located on the Pirate Ship there are 2 Marble Golems and some other treasures.

The first Marble Golem is in the crowsnest of the ship and will require very high AGI + a superjump or a blast jump.
The second Marble Golem is more accessible. It’s tucked against the bow of the ship. Stand on the bowsprit then fall down.
In the NW corner of the cargo hold, there is a secret passage that leads to the Memoir of Magic Volume 3

Additionally, jump over the crate to the left of the Memoir, to find a hiding spot of the Shadow Man

In the SW corner of the cargo hold, there is a Book of Diplomacy.

EARLY ARCTIC MOUNTAIN:

Welcome to this place. There’s some snowmen, they’re chill. In the next room, there’s some Wraiths. Take these more seriously than Ghosts, as the slowing effect they apply can leave you open to more damage when they’re paired with other enemies.
Skeleton Gunners are the next enemy you’ll be introduced to. If you picked up the Earth Tome in the Treetop Village, well placed Molten Shards can kill them in 1-2 shots.

In this area, you’ll hear a Marble Golem chuckling. To get to him, jump off the waterfall to the right of where you walked into the area, then kick into the waterfall. You’ll have to sacrifice 10 health to get back by dropping into the water.

Take a tip in the freezing cold water. Against the wall underwater is a tunnel that leads to an ice cave full of Skeleton Gunners and Wraiths. This is a very intimidating room, but if you want to kill everything, don’t go too far into it, as more enemies will space. Just use the limited space you have and whatever your most powerful weapons are to deal with this challenge.
Meet Ice Golems. They’re like regular Golems, but they slow you if they hit you. Also, fire melts them. Take them seriously, but two golems’ shots are easier to navigate around than the several Wraiths you just had to deal with, and no more enemies will spawn in this room, so you can circlestrafe freely or snipe them at your leisure. Just keep in mind if you’re near a wall when a fist explodes, you’ll still be hit.
A dropdown coming up ahead will have two Ice Golems raring to go at you. Unfortunately for them, if you just stay up here, only one Ice Golem will remain as the AoE of their fists can do friendly fire damage to the other. Then you can clean him up. Don’t be afraid to just do the usual “take cover then punish” thing, though.
The next room is more Skeleton Gunners and Wraiths, a deadly combination. You have a lot of room to work with here, and you can go back up the steps that lead down into this area to pick off the Wraiths that slowly float at you.
The ice path up ahead is very slippery. You can go hella fast on the ice, but you have little control on the floor; fortunately, if you jump, you can regain some control and make sharp turns again. The tricky part with ice is that enemies are also sliding all over the place.

You’ll have to wait for enemies to bump into walls before you can hit them. You have the option of cover, yet again, in the form of the corner of the wall you turned to face these enemies, or the corner of the wall up ahead, as no enemies spawn on the flat of snow around the bend.

On the flat of snow after the ice U-turn is a sign for the Mountain Village (exciting) and a lock you need to unlock to access it. Onward is a large amount of glaciers arranged in a linear path.
During this glacier segment, utilize double jumps to help secure yourself against falling into the water. Take things one step at a time. The first enemies you’ll face are Ice Golems, but with no other threats in sight, you can just stand your ground and then double jump over every volley of fists, grinding them down.

Immediately after this Ice Golem duo is a set of far-off Glaciers leading to a Marble Golem and some big money. As far as we care, this is AGI-gated. You need probably 700 or 800 AGI to do this segment….. Unless you want to make a series of tricky superjumps.

Near the end of your path, you’ll be assailed by a horrific combination of Wraiths and Ice Golems. You can try to skip this fight if you want, as it’s the last one before the big arena. Otherwise, bring out your big guns or expect to grind down the Wraiths and Golems with Molten Shards.
The big arena at the end of the path contains the key you need for the Mountain Village. And obviously, a 3-wave ambush.

Wave 1 is Wraiths and Skeleton Gunners. Given that the arena’s floor consists of nothing but slippery ice, those Gunners will go careening off into walls, and at those ranges, most of them will only be able to do a trickle of damage at most as you circlestrafe about.
Wave 2 is Wraiths and Ice Golems. Do your best to keep the Ice Golems visible while you kill the Wraiths, as fists flying into the back of your head can end this fight right fast. Don’t sit against a wall, as the Golem splash damage can end your life.
Wave 3 is Skeleton Gunners and Ice Golems. Strafing (sliding) slowly and aiming your shots isn’t terrible here as long as both Ice Golems are in approximately the same place. If you’re surrounded, though, god help you. You’re in the home stretch before you get to Mountain Village, if you’re having trouble, consume whatever you need.

After the Arena, you can retrace your steps… or you can drop in the water, which will put you back on the snow flat where you wanna be. You now have access to the Mountain Village, which is where the Fire Element Magical Emporium is.

The Fire Tome is extremely useful for its ability to melt certain ice/snow enemies and burn certain earthen enemies instantly. When upgrades, its Fire Traps become a cheap source of AoE damage. Both Fire Traps and the Flame Furnace can be used for blast jumping.
Underneath the bridge leading into McKrieg’s castle, the Shadow Man stands on a little platform. Don’t worry, the lava won’t kill you instantly.
You can enter every building in town with a chimney, by dropping down through the chimney. In the SE-most of those three houses is a Marble Golem (within the chimney itself), the 3rd Book of Diplomacy (for Hawk) and Memoir of Magic Volume 2. You exit the house through the front door.
The second building with a chimney, the north-most of them, includes a scene with 3 cute Goblins, clearly prepared to steal presents from around a tree. They are indeed hostile, so dispatch them. Then steal the presents.

These presents can either contain trash or treasure. You can save before opening them, and if you don’t like what you get, you can drop all the presents and pick them back up to re-seed what they contain. If you’re having trouble with the game, don’t be scared of chasing a stat upgrade or two here to cut down on your grind. The list of items are as follows:

A stat upgrade. Obviously incredibly valuable.
Special ammo. Either a singleton rare ammo or multiple common ammo.
Potions.
Chicken Pie, a solid healing item that can be cooked.
250 gold.
Several of a common ingredient like Nitro Gel.
An apple, which is worthless, but healthy.
A cigar, which hurts you but feels so good.

The third building with a chimney, the one farthest SW, contains a Gun Part for the Imp’s promotion, a Marble Golem hidden behind a bookcase that requires pulling a book as a switch, and… a golden lamp.

Interacting with the lamp takes you into a fight with Ifrit.

ARCTIC MOUNTAIN:

Before you can enter the Forbidden Mines up ahead, you’ll need the ♥ Earth Heart ♥ found in the Forgotten Temple, so keep that in mind!
When exiting the Mountain Village to the north to head to the Forgotten Mines, turn to the right and off the cliffside you will see a series of platforms sticking out of the cliff face. Follow them to an alcove and you will be lead up to the Marble Golem and 2 big diamonds. $$$
You’ll come upon Ice Golems and your first encounter with Ice Wizfrauds. These guys just further incentivize you to stay off the ground, as they conjure Ice Walls after they teleport. You can bait them away from the Ice Golems after you draw aggro. This should be your first opportunity to melt Ice Golems with the Fire Tome, and they’re in a great position to run up and do it to them.
Up ahead is a field of Snowmen, some of which who turn aggressive if you pass them or get close to them. Their snowballs are hard to dodge, but they’re immobile and die real fast (instantly to the Fire Tome you should have purchased, even). If you get caught off guard by any of them, you can take cover from their snowballs behind a tree and then retaliate.
The next obstacle is a ramp with snowballs being rolled down it, and a gauntlet filled with a variety of enemies. You have three possible approaches.

Draw aggro from enemies and stay at the bottom, using the wall corner for cover as you gradually snipe, and burst enemies who draw close. This is slow but safe, a perfectly valid approach
Gradually move up the ramps, using the nooks in the walls to hide from snowballs and killing whatever is closest. This halfsies approach isn’t that great but it’s worth mentioning.
Sprint all the way up the sides of the slope where the snowballs can’t hurt you, melting the Snowmen and Golems with Fire Tome and making a stand on the plateau. If you’re confident, do this. It’s clean and fast, the plateau is huge and conducive to you circlestrafing safely.

The Miner’s Cabin. There’s a Marble Golem upstairs; pull a book to open a barely hidden bookcase wall.
You can skip the Miner’s Cabin ambush if you want, by jumping over the gap. You’ll need a jlast jump or the knockback from Enhanced Shells.
There is a key suspiciously sitting in front of the furnace of the Miner’s Cabin. Of course, grabbing this key will begin a 3-wave ambush! The rules of this event are simple: We’re a tactical shooter more than ever now. We CoD.

Wave 1: Skeleton Gunners. Either dart into a room and back into your own to bait the shots of the Gunners and use your best source of burst damage to dispatch them (Molten Shards, baby), or wait for them to come to you through a doorway, with your crosshair trained on where they’ll enter. They require a fair amount of time to react to seeing you, so if you react first you can kill them. You have a ton of pots to throw, and these will probably instantly kill any skeletons you hit with them.

Enemies spawn upstairs during each wave, but little enough you can consider this a safe zone.

Wave 2: Skeleton Gunners and Ice Wizfrauds. You can draw the Wizfrauds’ attention and then go upstairs, to deal with them separately from the Skeletons. Clean!
Wave 3: Skeleton Gunners and Ice Golems. An Ice Golem in each room, and 2 upstairs! If you have the Fire Tome, you can bumrush and instantly kill 2 Golems on your way upstairs, then kill the 2 upstairs, leaving you with a very advantageous position indeed.

FORBIDDEN MINES:

Immediately after the cabin, you have concluded your business with the Arctic Mountain proper, and you’re ready to enter the Forbidden Mines across the bridge… IF you have the ♥ Earth Heart ♥, of course.
This dungeon is huge. Pack a little more healing and ammo restoration than you think you need, or be prepared to retry rooms to do them efficiently.
The Forbidden Mines has lava. If you stand in lava, you’ll take about ~20 damage per second. Nothing too crazy. In the first room you find such lava to stand in, there are two Fire Wizfrauds, who summon Detonites which home in on you. Detonites have low health, so pretty much anything should work to destroy them near the Wizfrauds, dealing friendly fire damage to them, if you’re snappy about it. The Wizfrauds can also be baited to teleport in lava if you stand near it.

The Forbidden Mines also has an additional rule: Your Water Tome spells don’t work in here! The Shatter Shotty’s secondary (if you have upgraded it to level 2 at the Dockside Village) still functions, though.
Also, here’s your first Mithril Ore. 3 total Mythril Ore. Other nodes of Mithril Ore are a little more sneaky.

This room has two doors, one to the west and the north. You can only enter the one to the north, so do so, and you’ll be greeted by a hallway of boulders. Much like with arrow traps, you can face approximately parallel to their travel path to be able to gauge your distance to them better. If you’re comfortable with it, hold both strafe + forward to move diagonally through it for a combination of speed and distance perception.
In the room after the boulder hallway, you will be greeted by a Killer Cloud. Look at the nested bullet for info on it. The room itself is a simple jumping puzzle, with some basic spawns along some of the larger platforms. Use double-jumps, don’t worry if you have to take a short dip in the lava to make a jump, and deal with some Skeleton Gunners, then Ropers, then a couple Killer Clouds, then a couple Golems. The diciest prospect is facing two Golems in close quarters, so be prepared to double-jump over their fists.

Killer Cloud. It’s a cloud-looking thing with horns and it summons smaller, kamikaze versions of itself (each of which die pretty much instantly to anything) while aggressively floating at you!!! It’s not very intimidating up front, but when it dies, it unleashes several of its kamikaze children, so be as far away from it as you can and prepare to deal with those. The Fire Tome’s Flamethrower deals very well with this enemy in a vacuum.
After you deal with the Killer Cloud, look on the wall above the door you came through. There’s some Mythril Ore. 6 total Mythril Ore

After you reach the northeast section of the platforming room, you’ll come into a zone of boulders rolling back and forth, or forth and forth, along tight hallways in multiple sectioned off rooms. What a mouthful I just typed. There are safe spots you can get your bearings in, and four levers to pull within those safe spots. Go clockwise.

The first lever is in the eastern safespot of the first room.
The second lever is in the eastern safespot of the second room.
The third lever is in the southern safespot of the third room, a safespot which unfortunately houses a Golem. In this room, there is a bomb plant. You can grab and chuck these for a lot of damage, and they will regrow on the foliage. Chuck the bomb plant at the nearby center wall to reveal a Marble Golem and 2 Big Diamonds. $$$
The fourth lever is in the south safespot of the fourth room. After you pull this last of these four levers, return to the third room, where the eastern door has now opened.

In the west safespot of the fourth room, there is Mythril Ore. 9 total Mythril Ore

Get ready for another 3-wave ambush, this time featuring the dim lighting of the mines and several boulders rolling around haphazardly!

Wave 1: Golems. Here aaand for the rest of the Forbidden Mines, Golems begin to respawn, due to Stone Parasites. You have to kill the tiny black creature that drops out of the defeated Golem, for them to stay down.

This is a fun place to use Enhanced Shells, as the knockback can push the Golems into boulders, killing them and their Parasite instantly. You’re very well capable of 2-shotting Golems with the Shells regardless.

Wave 2: Skeleton Gunners and Killer Clouds. No respawns here, but this is a hard wave. Circlestrafe to avoid the Killer Clouds and hail of bullets and try to deal with the Gunners first. You’ll need to be quick on the draw, before the baby Killer Clouds hit a critical mass that could kill you. Remember that your Fire Tome and Molten Shards are great tools for dealing with those pests.
Wave 3: Ropers and Fire Wizfrauds. With any luck, this wave will be over before you’ve had to anything. Between the friendly fire of the Detonites being able to kill the Ropers and the propensity of Wizfrauds to teleport into boulders, the outgoing damage of this wave might not be able to materialize at your body. Still, be on your toes; circlestrafe, double-jump.

With the key in your hands, return to the platforming room. The lock for the key is in the southwest segment of that room.

This room is now dangerous as hell. There’s a golem on every large platform. They’re all controlled, cruelly enough. If you lack Enhanced Shells, kick them into the lava as best you can. As there’s no loot to be had here though if you kill them that way, you may want to just leap through to your destination: The door in the southwest corner.

Through this door is a terrifying scene. Two more Golems, and some hazardous bomb plants. You can kick twice between a volley of fists, and you may want to get them in the lava and be rid of them. The bomb plants are more of a danger to you than them.

At least the bomb plants are kind enough to help you get to another Marble Golem and pair of big diamonds, hiding behind the east wall of the room. $$$
There is also Mythril Ore tucked away against the door you entered the room through. 12 total Mythril Ore.

There’s another lock in this jerk of a room. What gives? Blow up the south wall of the room to unveil a door, and a staircase upward. At the top of the stairs, 2 Fire Wizfrauds and 2 respawning Golems. It’s not as feasible to kick these Golems into the lava, so deal with the Wizfrauds and pass through this room.
At the top of the next set of stairs, Ropers and Killer Clouds. Don’t enter the room proper, as you can deal with the Killer Clouds separately from the Ropers. The Killer Clouds may do more damage than you anticipate, if you don’t anticipate how slowly the babies descend. They won’t come straight at your face while you’re below them is what I’m saying, so adjust accordingly.

There is Mythril Ore at the top of the stairs that lead to this room, tucked against the ceiling. 15 total Mythril Ore.

Heal up after dealing with the Ropers. The next segment requires BOMB-JUMPING. Exciting, right? As the lava is almost finished descending, drop down after it, grab a bomb, and throw it at your feet to boost yourself upward. You’ll have to do this a second time to make it safely to the top of the wall.

It’s recommended to actually jump and then immediately throw the bomb while bomb-jumping, as you’ll go approximately the same distance upward while taking much less damage, than if you were to just throw the bomb at your feet while standing. Perfectly timed, you can even take NO damage from the jump!

The game expects you to do this three times total. At the top of the third wall, there will be an ambush of Skeleton Gunners and Fire Wizfrauds. And after this fight, it’s right back to bomb-jumping. More precision is required here than before. You’ll need to double-jump after your first bomb jump to make it to the next set of bomb plants.

If you can’t nail the timing, you can tank the lava to make it onto the next wall. Just wait for the lava to begin rising, then hold jump, kick, and forward all down, to bob out of the lava and push onward to the next wall.
On this plateau, there is Mythril Ore. It’s in the middle of the ceiling. 18 total Mythril Ore.

Double-jump over a series of short, inconvenient walls to your next pair of bomb jumps. At the top of the next wall is a plateau with Ropers and Golems. You guessed it: The respawning variety of Golem. Escape this plateau to the right of where you came in, southward.
Were you getting sick of bomb jumping? That’s fine. This next segment is just a series of tight double-jumps. At the end of this obstacle course is a door. Through the door is a bridge. On the bridge are Skeleton Gunners and Ropers. Deal with the Ropers first while strafing as necessary to dodge the Gunners (who may very well roll off the side of the bridge to their death).

After you’re finished with the enemies on the bridge, look up! There’s Mithril Ore on the ceiling. One Ore is likely to fall off of this bridge and onto the lower one. Tryyy to remember that Ore and get it later; you may even want to hold off on destroying this Ore node until you leave. 21 total Mythril Ore.

Up next is a maze, of sorts. You can blow your way through it in any path you want. You just need to get to room 5,2, where there is a door leading to THE BOSS.

There are bomb plants at every corner: 1,1; 5,1; 1,5 (you are here), and 5,5. There is also one at 3,3, in the center of the maze.
There is a Marble Golem and 2 Big Diamonds at 2,1 $$$
There is Mythril Ore at 3,2. 24 total Mythril Ore
There is a Big Diamond at 5,5
There are multiple rooms full of enemies, including Golems with Parasites. Rooms 2,4 and 5,1 have active Golems. Room 4,2 have naked Parasites who will then scurry become Golems.

Are you ready for THE BOSS? It’s the blue-skinned jerkwad himself: THE NO GOD: DARK STEINER. Your reward for beating him is a key! That’s it. You need that for the one room just past the boulders and the platforms, remember? Don’t rush, though. The Mountain Village is a short trek back, and you probably need to spend some money on things to keep you alive! At this point, if you haven’t already, I would recommend beating up Mandrake, an optional boss back in the Misty Forest, and upgrading either the Earth Tome or Auto-Arrow (or both) to LVL3 when you get the pact from defeating him. He is optional, but having access to him can make an upcoming segment easier (for low AGI characters).

FORBIDDEN MINES CONTINUED:

When you’re ready to delve deeper into the Volcano, return to the room with the circle of bomb plants just inside the dungeon and left in the lava platform room. There will be some fresh enemies waiting for you.
The next several rooms full of rolling boulders can seem a bit claustrophobic. You are safe in the corners of the room however, if you really nestle yourself up in them. Don’t let them distract you from the Mythril Ore in the 4th room. 27 total Mythril Ore. The 6th room is empty, giving you a breather.
Through the next door, on your left is a bridge and stairs that lead to a door with a lock, and we’ll come back later for that. Forward is a room that’ll spawn Killer Clouds and Fire Wizfrauds. If you don’t have the ~600-700 AGI it takes to double jump every nook in the wall, you’re going to have to blast jump repeatedly using the bomb plants. I’m so sorry, if it comes to that.

On the wall of the room is Mythril Ore. 30 total Mythril Ore.
Also on the wall are some conspicuous blocks you can destroy with a bomb plant to reveal a Marble Golem and 2 big diamonds. $$$ You’re still going to have to get to him, though.

When you get to the top of the bomb jump room, and pass through to the next tall room, drop to the floor and grab the key there and it’s time for another 3-wave ambush? No it’s a 6-wave ambush. Kind of. Each proper wave is followed by Detonites.

Wave 1: Killer Clouds and Golems. Yes, they’re still Golems with Parasites.
Wave 2: Detonites, along the border of the room.
Wave 3: Fire Wizfrauds and Killer Clouds. If a Fire Wizfraud’s Detonite is still alive but everything else is dead, it doesn’t matter. The next wave will commence regardless.
Wave 4: Detonites, again.
Wave 5: Fire Wizfrauds and Golems.
Wave 6: Detonites, for the last time.
Wave 7: Lava.

Yes indeed, the lava will begin to rise, pressuring you to get to the top of the room quickly, however you can. The bomb plants are there if you need them. Enough AGI will let you double-jump your way up. If you got Mandrake at any point, you can summon him AFTER THE FIGHT and hold down jump and primary fire, to fly upward. There is a limit to this, but it should be more than good enough to get you all the way to the top through Mandrake alone.
Return to the door with the lock and enter, and it is Boss Time. The boss in question is PARASITIC MONARCHY: TECTONIS. Defeat him and you’ll obtain the ♥ Fire Heart ♥

By acquiring this heart you have unlocked the 2nd Coliseum Arena, a hint from the Bard in the Tavern to a treasure, and the ability to progress into the dungeon of Rainy Shores.

RAINY SHORES:

BEFORE WE BEGIN, shortly into this path, you will have an opportunity to kill the Water Dragon, and get a LVL 3 Water Weapon and access to a summon. You have had two other opportunities to get a summon: defeating the Earth Dragon, Mandrake in the Misty Forest, and the Fire Dragon, Ifrit in the Mountain Village. While these are optional fights, having access to at least ONE summon of any kind will make your life much easier for the rest of the game. It’s very useful to be able to duck away into that second healthbar and kill or soften up whatever was threatening you. All 3 of these boss fights have their own flavor of difficulty, so if you have trouble with one, try another. Ifrit will be the least useful against Octopunks, but something to help you get your bearings is better than nothing!

Ifrit does give you the privilege of 10 mana Fire Traps though, a surprisingly viable option against Octopunks when spammed.

You need the ♥ Fire Heart ♥ to complete the segment after the flotsam part.
Phew, it’s time to tackle this place. First thing’s first: Did you rush here for access to the village early on? If so, you should kill the Skeleton Sluggers and Octopunks who will still be aggro’d onto you. The Water Tome’s Ice Wall is a terrific way to get rid of Octopunks. Just spam it a couple times at where they’re about to pop out, and you’ll destroy them.

While lingering in this early, beach area, you can get a hidden treasure and a further reward for getting it. The lute-playing Bard in the Magnus and Mead Tavern will hint at how to get it. You start at the X on the center-west platform, then you dig west of it. To dig, just fire at the sand directly west of the X (I recommend just spamming Molten Shards, as they’ll cut that sand up real good and cover a lot of ground to make sure you see the damage flashes happen)

An arrow will appear on the ground after you’ve dug up those sand blocks. Follow the arrow, uncover more arrows in the same manner, and eventually you’ll come upon the treasure… or you can look at this handy image. I’m standing right on the treasure chest. Just use that platform east of me for reference. This will be worth it for the fat loot stored within the chest $$$

Lastly, return to the Bard and he’ll give you a Mana Ring!

Cleanup complete, let’s head to the flotsam near the shore, starting from the flatgrass near Dockside Village. You’re going to have to deal with Octopunks as you go. Or try and deal with them shooting your ass as long as you’re traversing the flotsam.

Octopunks that emerge from solid ground are easy to destroy with Ice Wall. Octopunks that emerge from water aren’t as simple. Your best bet would be the other water weapon, the Shatter Shotty. At LVL 2 you can freeze them as they come out of the water, then reload in time to shoot them as they fall from their apex. This is going to take a bunch of AP and some HP, but it’s worth it to put them in their place, I think.

Surprising no one, Molten Shards are also very effective against them if you have the timing and aim (fire below them when they’re at the apex of their jump). LVL 3 Earth Tome gives you a veritable hail of shards, in particular.

After passing the first 3 Octopunks, you will come upon a platform with several large crates and some Skeleton Sluggers. These boxes act as your cover. Burst down the Sluggers when it’s safe.

If you take a left turn, and have a LVL2 Water Weapon, you can break open some blue star blocks to access a fight with the Water Dragon, Mal. His attacks aren’t super lethal but he has a lot of health, so bring a full stack of Mandragoras and whatever other healing you can get your hands on.

Take a right turn to continue on the flotsam path and you’ll face a series of fights with Octopunks, Skeleton Sluggers, Barrier Shells, Split Slimes, Electric Ropers. While there is a great variety of enemies, everything gets erased by Molten Shards, Ice Wall, and Fire Trap, even through barriers, unless your STR is miniscule. You have enough room to work with that you’re never forced to be on the platforms with Slimes or Ropers if you don’t want, and enough room to sidestep Slugger shots. Prioritize the ranged enemies and work your way through the debris.
At the end of the flotsam path there is a platform with 4 tall crates and a chest. An ambush will start here.

Wave 1: Skeleton Sluggers and Barrier Shells. Molten Shards, Ice Wall, and Fire Trap all remain viable ways to destroy enemies through barriers.
Wave 2: Skeleton Sluggers and Split Slimes. The Split Slimes can be a threat to you, but they’re mostly a threat to your patience and ammo, since it can take a while to clean up all of them. Circlestrafing while dealing with the Sluggers first makes the most sense.
Wave 3: Split Slimes and Barrier Shells. Pretty funny.

The chest contains a key you need for the lock to the door on the north side of the beach. The village is on the way there, so consider how you would like to resupply if at all.
Through the door is a large pool of water with a ton of platforms you’re going to have to jump up. First, though, if you swim to the bottom of the pool, you’ll find a Marble Golem and 4 big diamonds. $$$
Up the platforms, Skeleton Sluggers will try to spawn at the most inconvenient times possible. Be wary. Ice Wall will make short work of them if you jump onto the platform, but Molten Shards is more mana efficient. Always a choice you gotta be making.

Octopunks will spawn slightly later. Save yourself the headache and resort to their ultimate counter, Ice Wall. And more Octopunks with a Barrier Shell will spawn shortly afterward. On the platform they spawn, walk through the waterfall for a Marble Golem and some high value chests. $$$

Up ahead, Stone Golems (with Parasites) will spawn, and Barrier Shells with Golems afterward. Both Ice Wall and Shatter Shotty’s alt are effective for opening up on them safely, depending on which resource you want to use, and Molten Shards is still a great finisher.
When you get as high on the platforming path as you can get, you must walk through the waterfall and enter into an enclosed arena, and an ambush. The waterfalls here block your movement and also push your projectiles down, typically nullifying them. The water is also deep enough to require you to swim. This is a rough ambush.

Wave 1: A large amount of Purple and Orange Octopunks will spawn here. I’m going to be real with you chief… this is baaad. The most feasible way to deal with these all painlessly is to simple call upon your summon. Mandrake’s vines will prove useful in softening them up and hindering them, and Mal can make short work of them. Lacking a summon, you’ll need to deal with the Purple Octopunks first with Ice walls.
Wave 2: Purple Octopunks and Electric Ropers. Who CARES about the Ropers? More Octopunks means more Ice Walls. Hope that you can catch multiple at once.
Wave 3: A bunch of Orange Octopunks. These spawn on the middle platform. If you know they’re coming, you can kill them all with AoE before they reach the water. They also run directly away from you, so any stragglers can be dealt with by cutting them off from the water while you finish them.

After that terrifying wave event, head west and up through the tunnel and you’ll come upon the lighthouse.

There is a Marble Golem in the area. Hug the right wall, the one with the Eye of Horus block, and look down the cliff and there are some platforms you can drop onto that lead to the Marble Golem in question. I don’t recommend getting it now unless you wanna fly back up with Mandrake (that’s fine though, I guess). Remember it before you leave.

Climb the lighthouse. This is where you put the ♥ Fire Heart ♥. After you slot it in, the lighthouse will light up, and the beam of light it projects will bring a large submarine out of the depths, over on the far side of the flotsam where that arena was. Head back over there when you’re ready.

SUBMERGED RUINS:

It’s the water level of the game! Keep in mind the underwater capabilities of your weapons; Molten Shards moves much more slowly, but will do extreme damage if it slowly carves through your enemies. The Auto-Arrow will glide through the water even when you don’t crit. The Shatter Shotty’s secondary fire will create ice platforms. Flamethrower won’t work. Ifrit will die quickly in water, etc.

There is a mechanic in the dungeon to help combat drowning. The gratings that release bubbles will refill your oxygen to full!

Swim through the entrance in the floor up ahead and you’ll come to a sort of dungeon hub room. You don’t really have options yet, though, as paths are going to dump you back here later. For now just head through the door on the eastern wall of the room.
Swim through the upcoming water tunnel and you’ll be faced with some older, cold enemies. Wraiths and Ice Wizfrauds. Through this room is a trap: you’ll be pushed forward by a magical force, toward a ring of spiked balls. Orient yourself to pass through unharmed and be aware of this push force as a trap later too.
The subtle shallow water in the middle of the floor of the next room is capable of reducing you to swimming speed, so be careful of that as you dispatch Ice Golems and Wizfrauds.
There is another underwater push trap. It’s trickier than it looks to swim to the right, so you should pass the left spikes fairly tightly. Then, after you emerge, jump over a suspicious wooden crate and kill some Octopunks and Barrier Shells.
Up the stairs and around the corner, there are two distant Octopunks and Ice Golems. You have a wall for cover with which to use Molten Shards and the Flame Furnace to great effect. They guard a lever, which you should pull to increase the height of water in the Ruins and allow you to progress.
Make sure to pick up the key from the chest and big diamond in the room before progressing. Not long in the water and you’ll have to deal with a long hallway of spikes. Do your best to keep the damage low, I believe in you. When you return to the “hub” room, you can proceed further or grab a treasure at the end of that previous path.

Remember the suspicious crate? Well, follow the path you just did all over again by swimming down to that eastern door and using bubbles to keep your oxygen up, and you can swim under that suspicious crate, and over the crate of the hub room, and grab a Marble Golem and some cash! $$$

To proceed further, enter the above-water tunnel on the west side of the room and then step onto an elevator going up.
Up ahead is a smallish maze of push forces and spiked balls, arranged in several squares. There are oxygen vents for you to utilize as you move from square to square, but you don’t wanna hang here for too long. There’s no treasure here as far as I know, so here’s the nice simple solution.
When you succeed at getting through the maze, kill 3 Orange Octopunks and make your way up this platforming challenge. The way I did this (at 700 AGI) is jumping off a platform then double-jumping onto the above one, until I was at the top. Your mileage may vary. At lower AGI you may be able to jump back and forth between two platform columns, I don’t know.

Near where the platforms spawn, there is a hole on the opposite side of them from the chest, that you can enter to find a Marble Golem and some dosh. $$$

Grab the key from the chest and step through the door and you’ll be locked into a 3-wave ambush. The watery floor of this arena is not only going to be inconvenient as you know water to be, but weaponized by Electric Ropers.

Wave 1: Electric Ropers and Barrier Shells. The Electric Ropers electrify the water they walk in, so stick to the four corners’ platforms.
Wave 2: Electric Ropers and Split Slimes. Focus the Ropers first and Slimes last, of course. Keep jumping from platform to platform.
Wave 3: Ice Wizfrauds and Split Slimes.

Pull the lever in the room after the arena and the water will rise up again. Make your way through some a pushy spikey trap to there and you’ll find you still have two keys to acquire before you can enter the door on the center tower.

As you might guess, if you return to the western watery maze from before, that suspicious wooden block in the second square is gone, and you can go through the tunnel it blocked to enter a room with a book called Lore of the Dragons. You can exit this room back to the hub through low on the east wall.

Enter through the door on the north into a room with 4 levers. These control doors in the pushy path up ahead underwater. Either I don’t fully understand the logic of the levers, or there is a bug with the levers involving loading saves, but I couldn’t document one answer to the lever puzzle. Two different configurations worked on two different series of attempts, not working on the other.
At the end of the puzzle path, head northward and take out some Ice Golems. After you resubmerge yourself, you’ll come to a watery tunnel/maze where you can swim freely. There are closed bars on the right as you enter, which you must find and pull 4 levers up ahead to open. 3 of the paths have moving spike balls, and Time Freeze is very helpful to make them easier.
When you can finally pass through the bars you’ll get to do a very hard and tricky 3-wave ambush. This one includes a special rule that water will rise and fall every ~15 seconds in the arena. This is mostly a horrible thing for you, especially when combined with the potential further slow of icy attacks coming your way.

Wave 1: Octopunks and Wraiths. This first wave is an extreme opener, so you may consider opening extreme yourself, with a summon, Time Freeze, or circlestrafing while spamming Ice Wall
Wave 2: Octopunks and Ice Golems. Don’t forget you can melt Ice Golems instantly with Flamethrower, as long as you’re not currently submerged.
Wave 3: Ice Golems and Wraiths. It’s worth noting that if you’re under water, dodging Wraiths’ attacks by just attempting to circlestrafe is a hellish idea. You move too slow. So take out the Ice Golems and keep your eyes on the projectiles.

With the 3rd key in hand, return to the center hub again. Now, unexpectedly, you must return to the 1st path you took, the eastern one that involved wooden crates and a big diamond. Now, when you get to the room with the 4 wooden crates, look to the ceiling and you can swim through a hole in it, where you’ll be assailed by 4 Ice Golems and an array of Electric Ropers. Don’t forget you can melt the Ice Golems to deal with them right fast, and make use of how large the room is!
Head east and you’ll come upon a room with a chest. Go ahead, open it! Don’t let me spoil the surprise!

The surprise is it’s a Mimic.

Juuust past the Mimic room, it’s our old friend, DARK STEINER: LET’S DANCE. After you win the dance-off, Steiner will congratulate you and reward you with the 4th key you need for the locks at the hub pillar door.
When you finally get that door down, you’ll gain access to a lever that allows you to adjust the water level of the ruins to 3 different stages: Full, like it just was, ⅓ full like when you first started the dungeon, and empty. Pull it and you’ll drain the water, and you CAN now go through the north path which was previously blocked by a box.

Before you drop down, you can access a Marble Golem that was previously inaccessible. Jump over to the solved lever puzzle with the water fully drained, and you can walk through the halls of spike balls and take a right turn to the Marble Golem near the end. With no water, the push force that kept you out before doesn’t apply, and you can kill the Marble Golem and get some money. $$$ The dark hole next to him will deposit you back near the levers.
When you DO drop down, and pass over the wooden block to the north, head left into the water to find another Marble Golem and some big diamonds.

Progress forward and Steiner will boast about his newest toy for you to break, the PRESERVED HYDROGENIC LIFEFORM: AQUADEITY. Slap it, and you’ll get yourself the ♥ Water Heart ♥

By acquiring this heart, you unlock the 3rd coliseum arena, the ability to get Vikenti in the tavern to tell you what the hell she wants from you (the Burial Belt in the Castle of Deception), and the ability to go to the Castle of Deception in the Garden of Deception.

GARDEN OF DECEPTION:

I’ll write the race section when I can brain gooder I promise.
Immediately after the race section you gain access to the Cloudtop Village (jump up the leaves of the giant beanstalk), which is where the Air Element Magical Emporium is.

The LVL2 Air Tome is very useful for its access to Jump, a spell which allows you to effortlessly leap over obstacles and up to distant things. It’s handy for other reasons too.

The Magical Emporium is on the eastern section of town, on the upper layer of clouds. You’ll probably have to platform up to it.

To return to the Garden of Deception, simply step on one of the leaves of the initial beanstalk and you’ll warp down.
There is a Marble Golem on top of the beanstalk that leads downward.
There’s also a Marble Golem on top of a cloud in the SW section of town. It’s easy to reach if you purchase the LVL2 Air Tome and cast Jump.
Memoir of Magic Volume 4 is in a tricky spot. It is on a leaf of the NE-most beanstalk, underneath the cloud of that beanstalk.
Behind Castle Baradus, the Shadow Man lies in a little nook in the stone.

CASTLE OF DECEPTION:

Walk north from the entrance to the Cloudtop Village and engage in a 3-wave ambush. En garde, it’s all poisony enemies.

Wave 1: Sniders and Mushdooms.
Wave 2: Sniders and Poison Clouds.
Wave 3: Mushdooms and Poison Clouds.

After this fight, you can use the Jump spell and/or blast jumps to climb the clouds between the keep ambush and the Castle of Deception. You can follow a right U-turn on the clouds to come to an alcove with cherry blossom trees and a torii. Passing through the torii will give you the opportunity to fight the cocky THUNDERING STORM FIEND: YAMA.
To create a bridge to cross to the castle, you must have the ♥ Water Heart ♥
Just inside the entrance of the castle, chandeliers will drop and create patches of molten ground, right on the beautiful carpet.
After the hallway room, you’ll fight Black Knights and Marionettes for the first time. Marionettes are relatively threatening enemies, but Black Knights are a bit too bulky to be likely to hit you. Circlestrafe when dealing with Marionettes to avoid their eyebeams and make sure to finish them off and not leave them half-destroyed.
After the engagement, continue up the stairs. There is a room of crushing traps and platforms which you’re safe from them on. These traps do 50 damage, so they sting quite a bit. Don’t panic when you share a platform with a Black Knight. You can just move onto the next one and they’ll get crushed.
Up next is a 3-wave ambush.

Wave 1: Black Knights and Air Wizfrauds. Deal with the Wizfrauds first.
Wave 2: Air Wizfrauds and Sniders. Deal with the Wizfrauds first.
Wave 3: Air Wizfrauds and Poison Clouds. Pick your poison. The Wizfrauds are easier to get rid of but the Poison Clouds are more threatening.
Wave 4: Gargoyles. Indeed. These swipe at you if you get close to them, and also teleport while firing lasers when you fire projectiles at them. Hit them with large, punchy attacks to minimize their offensive capability. The LVL2 Flame Furnace and the LVL2 Magnetic Minigun’s Railgun are good examples. You can’t freeze them.

The next trap ahead is an array of spikes that come at you in a V shape. If you have solid AGI, you can just double-jump over these. If you have poor AGI, you’ll probably want to use the Jump spell.
In the next room, there is a massive amount of mimics and 1 real chest which contains a gold key. The hints you are given to discover this real chest are “3 chests west” and “6 chests north” and I don’t know how to apply these hints because I just cast Fury and killed them all as Ifrit and collected a ton of money with the Diamond Ring. Anyway, here’s the location of the real chest on the left side of the room.
The following room has fake floors that drop away to a floor of poison at the bottom. I’d recommend casting both Haste and Jump and just launching yourself across the room with a double-jump. You’ll probably want to save your summon, but you can fly over it with your summon if you want!

If you defeated Yama, you can use a LVL 3 Air Tome to Fly

After the fake floor room you’ll be face-to-face with Steiner for the fourth time. This third fight with him we’ll call DARK STEINER: GARGOYLE DAD. After you defeat him, don’t neglect to pick him the Marble Statue he leaves behind.
After Steiner, you will find a very dangerous room, full of boulders of various rolling patterns. It’s hard to recommend trying to get through this room carefully, as the boulders can still hit you once even if you’re nestled in a corner and waiting for the right moment. This room instead gives you an opportunity to let your magic shine:

Use Time Freeze (with Jump’s buff active) to pass through the room.
Use both Jump and Haste to jump over most of the room.
Use both Haste and a LVL3 Earth Tome’s Stoneskin to power through it.
Use a Summon to fly over or through the boulders unharmed.
Got a Mana Ring? Take damage, whatever! Eat apples afterward.

After the boulder room, you’ll get to enjoy a playful ambush, starring a wayward (harmless) pinball. Whenever an enemy touches one of the flippers or pink-rimmed bumpers, you’ll get 10 gold. Technically you can go AFK here on top of one of the bumpers for some lazy cash.

Wave 1: Black Knights. These guys can be crushed in seconds with Ice Walls or Molten Shards, but also you can go to the bathroom while you stand on a bumper. The choice is yours, adventurer.
Wave 2: Black Knights and Air Wizfrauds. You can’t go AFK while Air Wizfrauds are alive, I’m afraid. You’ll have to eliminate them.
Wave 3: Air Wizfrauds and Marionettes. Marionettes are more dangerous. After a brief amount of circlestrafing, it’s easy to cluster them up and kill them all simultaneously with fire damage or explosions.

After you complete the Pinball room you’ll get a Marble Statue. Past that room you’ll be met with a long hallway flooded with water and brimming with moving spiked balls.

Stay close to the top or bottom and lower yourself under or “jump” over whatever is close to that surface. No need to deal with all rows.
You can use Time Freeze to do this painfully but may need to cast it thrice.
The Stoneskin of a LVL3 Earth Tome can let you tank through it easier and heal afterward with apples. Again, Mana Ring is handy here!

If you got the key earlier in the dungeon, from the chest in the room full of mimics, you can slide it into the lock here to get the Burial Belt, to turn into Vikenti at the Tavern, so you can get the Alchemy Ring. Very handy if you prefer to use your big guns for small fights, but the Mana Ring is excellent too.

There’s also an elevator here that can get you back to the start of the dungeon faster.

There is a boss in the next room known as MARBLE GOLEM KING: GRANITARSE. I think you would need to petition me for me to make a boss section on him, as he’s kind of a joke fight (I smiled, and I consider him a good joke fight). He gets smaller and jumps faster as you do damage to him.

He has 1 attack, to attempt to jump on you and deliver a shockwave. If he DOES land on you with this, it does immense damage. If he doesn’t, it still does a sizable 50. However, as his only attack, he’s 200% predictable.
Molten Shards do a ridiculous amount of damage to him as he’s a fat dingus. Angle them down toward him with every jump.
A LVL2 or LVL3 Giga-Drill will erase him in seconds, as he’s too slow to move out of the way before it’s gutted his healthbar.

Immediately after the comedic relief fight you’ll get to fight the next Steiner pet: CLOCKWORK CHIMERA: MYRIAD. Defeat it to get the ♥ Air Heart ♥

This heart will grant you access to the fourth coliseum and the ability to enter the Pyramid of Balance in the Twilight Sands, where the last Heart lays.

TWILIGHT SANDS:

Here’s a map, ta-da
This area is accessible as early in the game as you have the sufficient cajones and damage output. With some careful navigation and rerolling of impossible fights you can technically make your way across the desert for very early access to the Dark Citadel and the Helios. But I’m not necessarily going to recommend that to the average player, as nice as the Light and Dark weapons are.

There are four Marble Golems in the Twilight Sands proper. Marble Golem Marble Golem Marble Golem.
Dracul, the Dark Dragon, requires good horde-clearing capabilities.

Dark Citadel

There is a Marble Golem on top of the entrance to the Dark Citadel
In the Dark Lord’s throneroom, you can swim into the eastern fountain of the room to find a Marble Golem. This one is special. You must kill it by interacting with it 3 times. :^)
On top of the entrance to the Dark Lord’s throneroom lies Memoir of Magic Volume 5.
You can make a pretty good amount of gold per minute by pulling a bunch of slot machines in a casino with a Diamond Ring equipped, or pulling the large one, the Neon Devil, in the Dark Lord’s throneroom. Be prepared to cast Cure from the Light Tome if you want to pull the Neon Devil though, as its worst result can poison you.

The Neon Devil will give you a Book of Diplomacy when you first get a jackpot with it.

In the NW casino, you can find the Shadow Man in a hiding spot, within a diamond shape on the west wall.

PYRAMID OF BALANCE:

Of course, you can only enter here with the ♥ Air Heart ♥
It becomes hard to make item-specific tactical suggestions for each engagement here because you should have so much power at your fingertips, so many options, and habits that have become comfortable to you at this point.
Here at the start of the dungeon, there are two locks to remember. For the next several rooms, it’s linear.
There is a room up ahead with Mana Ropers and Skeleton Sluggers. Kill the Sluggers from a distance and the Ropers shouldn’t be able to navigate to you. Here’s the first “conveyer belts” of the dungeon, made of sand. It can be hard to hit enemies that land on it, much like enemies that slid on ice earlier in the game.
There’s Golems in the next conveyer room. In the room after that, you’ll have to climb some platforms that disappear after several seconds in place of new ones that help you progress upward…….. Or, you can fly or jump real high, of course.
After you acquire the Staff of Balance, you will have to fight TWO STEINERS.

The Staff of Balance’s alt fire swaps the state of some Eye of Horus blocks.

Back at the start of the dungeon, there are two paths you can take with the Staff of Balance’s Dark Mode active: East and West

Just inside the pyramid, on the east wall, there is a Marble Golem you can access with the Staff of Balance’s Dark Mode active.

West Path

This first room is easy enough to cross. If you want you can use the Staff of Balance to turn pillars into floors on which you can stand. You’ll have to fight 2 Golems halfway through the room so have some burst damage ready.
The next room has four levers you must pull, in little alcoves, and you may have to use the Staff of Balance to access them: In the middle, bottom left, bottom right, and top right. They unlock an unswitchable Eye of Horus block in the NE part of the room.
Weird Ghost Room Oh No. This room is supposed to teach you a new mechanic: When you swing the Staff of Balance and hit an energy orb of the same color as your Light/Dark Mode status, you’ll absorb the power into your staff. Do this 3 times and the next time you swing, you’ll instead fire a ray of Light/Dark energy. Hit the Dark Ghost with a Light ray and hit the Light Ghost with a Dark ray.

In this room, you can dropdown and kick jump into an alcove with a Marble Golem.

Once you kill both the Light and Dark ghosts, platforms will appear allowing you progress forward and to the right. You’ll have to do the same thing twice more, while jumping over spike ball traps (or casting Fly a few times, I guess) in increasing difficulty.
Once you pick up the key in the next room, a 3-wave ambush will begin.

Wave 1: Barrier Shells and Dark Poison Clouds. Here’s your first “Dark Enemy”. They’re only damageable when you’re in Dark Mode. Normal enemies aren’t damageable in Dark Mode.

Kill the Clouds first through whatever means necessary. You don’t have time to screw around in this cramped environment.

Wave 2: Poltergeists and Dark Golems. Start in Light Mode and you can kill the Poltergeists if you want, but more importantly, the Golems will walk onto the center platform as you circlestrafe, and you can drop them in by switching to Dark.
Wave 3: Marionettes and Dark Poltergeists. Kill the Marionettes first, they’re way more threatening.

In all likelihood you’ll have to backtrack to get back to the start of the dungeon.

East Path

In this pillars room, you have the ability to change between Light and Dark to raise or lower pillars, but you shouldn’t need to. On the third (potential) pillar there is a Mana Roper ambush, but they’re easy enough to kill from another pillar. There’s Sniders that’ll spawn on the third to last one, so don’t panic when you hear the spawns.
In the room after the pillars room, there will be an ambush of Golems and Poltergeists. If you need to, retreat from the room. You may be surprised at how much cover that simple doorway provides, and if you bait the Poltergeists out, you can deal with them first, and then the Golems afterward.
When you enter Dark Mode while in that room, the floor will fall out from under you and you’ll be ambushed anew, mostly by Ropers.
At the bottom, go through the doorway blocked by a Gargoyle. A single inactive Gargoyle can generally be taken out with a Magnetic Minigun’s Railgun or a LVL3 Charged Star Shot comfortably. Nothing to worry about.

At the bottom, you can destroy some blocks of the floor to drop down and get a Marble Golem.

There is a small sort of maze up ahead where you’ll have to switch between Light and Dark Mode. Do a sort of clockwise loop and you’ll find a lever you need to pull on the 2nd row. This will lower some of the unswitchable walls blocking your way forward. Some Poison Clouds and Octopunks will spawn on the 3rd row. You have a little bit of room to bait the Poison Clouds away and deal with them first if you want.
In the NE corner of the room there’s another lever you must pull. This will spawn Marionettes and Sniders back toward the start of the room. If you prefire a corner Marionettes are about to come around with Flamethrower, you may save yourself a lot of trouble by burning them.
The NW corner of the room has a 3rd lever. Pulling this one will spawn Golems, Octopunks, AND Marionettes. That’s a trifecta of terror, huh? Use the walls to your advantage to full enemies toward you and burst them down.
To progress, you’ll have to go back and flip the 1st S switch, then flip the 3rd NW one afterward, and a hole will open in the north wall. There’s a key. Pick it up and get ready for an ambush. This one features both conveyer belts and pillars, as well as some Dark Mode enemies. It’s insanely hard so get ready to use STUFF.

Wave 1: Golems and Dark Barrier Shells. Use piercing attacks that you’d normally use to get through barriers, like Molten Shards, Ice Walls, summons, or minions. Deal with the Golems 1st with those methods.

If the Barrier Shells annoy you, get on the belt ahead of them and you can shoot back at them with Molten Shards or whatever.
The next 2 waves are both extremely dangerous compared to the first one. I’d recommend setting up a buff or two (such as Fury and Stoneskin) and/or generating a bunch of Snake or Skeleton minions to take some heat off of you, right before you kill the last snail.

Wave 2: Poltergeists and Dark Octopunks. Switch to Light Mode and burst down the Poltergeists before they can go ethereal and waste your time. Then switch to Dark Mode and deal with the Octopunks.

As the Octopunks can get carried by the conveyer belt you may want to ride it just in front of them and fire Ice Walls back. Or, you can summon Mal and he’ll crush them comfortably. If you do use a summon, you’ll be dealing with Poison Clouds next, and Mal is good for those too.

Wave 3: Poison Ropers and Dark Poison Clouds. Ropers are easy to kill en masse with huge AoE things such as Ice Wall and spammed Flame Furnace. They also are surprisingly terrible at killing your minions before your minions kill them, so you can rely on those. All the while, strafe around the room while attentively avoiding Poison Clouds.

Alternatively, use Mal or Yama, the Shatter Shotty, Molten Shards, or Magnetic Minigun to annihilate the Poison Clouds first.

Well, now that you’re done with what is possibly the hardest room in the entire game thus far, take that 2nd key back to the start of the dungeon, listen to Steiner’s next rant, and fight DIVINE DOPPELGANGERS: DUO DEUS. When you defeat them, you’ll obtain the ♥ Heart of Balance ♥, the last of the 5 Hearts you need to access the endgame in Misty Woods.

This heart gives you access to the final Coliseum arena, a very special one.

TOWER OF HEAVEN:

With all 5 Hearts in your possession you’re now finally allowed to enter the Tower of Heaven, west of the Cemetery in the Misty Forest. This is the endgame, so I recommend you stock up on as many Apples (through the Earth Tome’s grow food) and Hams (through the Dark Tome’s Morphis) as you can by camping repeatedly in the Magic Forest.

Potions and special ammunition of your choice will be quite useful too.
Having even just one summon would be very useful. You don’t need to fight Dracul or Typhon if you don’t want to. The other four are generally quite useful, especially the persistently effective Mandrake.

Enjoy the music. Ascend in the room ahead, where there’s no combat. When you’re ready, pass through the fog gate, and be dropped into a meadow… of combat.
Wave 1: Skeletons, Skeleton Gunners, and Skeleton Sluggers. Circlestrafe. Chain Lightning will obliterate them, not that you’re in need of such excess.
Wave 2: Split Slimes and Fire Wizfrauds. You are in a pseudo-underwater environment. You won’t drown and you can move fast, but you can’t use lightning attacks. Dispatch Wizfrauds first, with your chunky damage of choice. Can’t go wrong with Molten Shards, as we’ve learned on our journey: Charged Shards to kill the Wizfrauds, spammed shards to deal with Detonites and Split Slimes.
Wave 3: Golems and Black Knights. You can push them into the hole, or obliterate them with Ice Walls or Molten Shards of your choice. Start with the Golems, of course.
Wave 4: Poltergeists and Poison Clouds. The Flame Furnace can wreak havoc on these flying enemies, and when they get close, you can execute them with the Shatter Shotty. If you fall into the lava here, you will die, unless you use Fly, Blink, or a flying summon to return back to the platforms! Watch your footing.
Wave 5: Poison Ropers and Caterkillers. You’re the only one allowed to swim in the middle pillar here. These ground-based enemies will die easily while you’re above them. A few Fire Traps will kill them extra snappy.
Wave 6: Octopunks (Light AND Dark) and Sniders. You have a lot of room to circlestrafe here, so use it to stay safe from the Octopunks’ attacks. Ice Wall is the weapon of choice here, as the hilly terrain and Sniders can complicate using Flame Furnace. Deal with the Light Octopunks, activate Dark Mode from a safe distance, then deal with the Dark Ones.
Wave 7: Marionettes and Ice Golems. Incidentally, both of these enemies are countered by Flamethrower. If you are confident ducking into range to do so, incinerate and melt them.
Wave 8: Purple Mushdooms and Black Knights. These Mushdooms are comfortably killed by Molten Shards, which also kills Black Knights.
Wave 9: Golems and Gargoyles. Golems along with their Parasites are best killed with a hail of shots from your Magnetic Minigun or Molten Shards, but when the Gargoyles are active, be careful not to fire near them with such weapons. Execute them when the Golems are dealt with using the Minigun’s Railgun, or the Flame Furnace’s Homing Rockets (and be ready to dodge their retaliation).

There’s a lot of gold in these enemies, and if you find the room difficult, this means you have great excuse to use a summon! Most of them are insufficient for dealing with Gargoyles. Circlestrafing around the room as Yama while under the effects of Stoneskin, however, will obliterate them.

Wave 10: 4 Steiner Avatars. Dealing with them conventionally is possible. If you can handle 2, you can handle 4, especially as they are fragile in combination like this. Their extreme potential output is no match for your magical prowess, however. Before even entering this door, you can prepare Stoneskin. If you have a LVL3 Flame Tome, you can prepare Fury. And you can enter the door while preparing a Time Freeze, and then unload into them with the Magnetic Minigun, to cut them down before they even get to act. They present a good opportunity to flaunt your stuff, in my opinion.

Did you buy Magnum Rounds? These will nearly murder a Steiner avatar, after which you can execute them with a Magnetic Minigun or Shatter Shotty easily.

After you’ve defeated the Steiner avatars, approach Steiner himself, and get some monologue. He may even remark on your ethically questionable acquisition of Typhon, if you’ve done such~ After he’s done talking, it’s time to fight BIRTH OF A GOD: GOD COCOON. And after that DARK STEINER. Indeed, no title.
When you’ve beaten Dark Steiner… that’s it! With some fanfare and positive energy, you’ll have beaten the game. It is open-ended, so feel free to keep playing if you want to 100% it.

ENEMY INDEX:

Most enemies that walk cannot do steep drops or rises, or enter water. Wherever possible, you can mitigate the threat of melee enemies like Ropers and Caterkillers by entering water or jumping onto higher or separated terrain. Keep an eye out in arenas and areas full of enemies giving you trouble.

0. Marble Golem: EZ 2 KILL. These aren’t really enemies. They hide places and chuckle to alert their position to you. When you destroy them, they drop a Marble Statue which you can sell to the cuties in the Museum in the City of Magic for 1,000 gold each. Fun fact: If you stand on top of them and fire Molten Shards down at them once, it’ll kill the hell out of them.

Slime: Fodder. They hop at you if you get close and that hop does notable damage, but they’re fragile and slow. Enemies this flimsy are great targets for last-hitting with Chain Lightning or the Lich’s air orb, and nuking other nearby enemies through the execution.
Skeleton: Also fodder. They tend to come in greater numbers than any other enemy, but given how weak they are, AoE crushes them in seconds. They line up beautifully for the Molten Shards.
Ghost: Fires a horizontal spread of 5 fiery projectiles toward you. These are a threat in numbers that makes you mindful of your positioning.
Roper: Ropers go invisible and greatly speed up, going through certain obstacles in doing so. They do constant, high DPS (revealing themselves if they were invisible) when they’re in contact with you for more than a couple frames, but are slow and vulnerable when they’re visible. Ropers are easiest to deal with when they’re all in sync and you have room to avoid them and their allies.
Goblin: Cute. They make a cute hopping noise which is not unlike loot bouncing on the ground, which can alert you to when you’re about to backpedal into one. When they get close, they dash at you. They do a smidge of damage, but more notably, they steal ~100 gold if they hit you. Or realistically, they destroy ~100 gold, as you don’t get it back when you kill them. Don’t get hit~
Greedy Goblin: Arguably slightly less cute. They’re tankier and steal ~250 gold.
Greediest Goblin: Also arguably less cute. They’re tankiest and steal ~500 gold.
Orange Octopunk: This is a dangerous enemy early on. They hop out of the water and shotgun you as they reach their apex. Between being vulnerable for only a short period of time, and moving fast during their jumps, it’s only feasible to kill them with good aim and a lot of burst damage, while circlestrafing at a high enough speed/distance to avoid their projectiles. In other words, avoid these jerks when you can.

Flame Furnace can be a little costy in terms of ammo, but if you can spare it, the Flame Furnace LVL2+ is the most painless counter to Octopunks, land or sea. Just charge up its homing rockets and let loose. The rockets will generally avoid exploding on ground.

Mushdoom: Launch poisonous spores in a 3-shot burst all around them every several seconds. These spores will drift upward if you’re in the air when they’re fired. The poison in question does ~50 damage total over time, so you’re probably going to have to heal up if they hit you even once. My advice is to try and be on the ground when they’re firing, so you can then easily jump over the spores and kill the Mushdooms. If you’re jumping constantly, the spores will make a mess of the arena and you may inadvertently run into one. You can also just put a wall between you and the Mushdooms during their attacks.
Caterkiller: Great name, also cute. This enemy delivers unto you a Sonic Spin Dash. When you hear them rev up, jump over them or out of the way. They’re not too bad. Much like Ropers, you really wanna keep these guys synched up if possible, as it makes it possible to avoid the whole blob at once. Failing that, just dispatch them ASAP. They’re squishy and helpless when not attacking.
Snake: Dies instantly. Poisons you on contact. Not worth much money alone.
Earth Wizfraud: Cool dude with a goofy name. This enemy teleports around and launches Molten Shards at you. Yeah the attack you have access to with the Earth Tome! This is a tight shotgun that’ll chunk you if multiple projectiles hit. Just strafe perpendicular to the attack path and punish him. It’s a bit hard to circlestrafe a teleporting enemy without thinking about it, but hey, he’s pretty fragile for a next stage of enemy.
Golem: These guys launch a horizontal spread of exploding projectiles toward you. Much like Mushdooms, you can just stay on the ground until they fire, then jump over the projectiles; or you can hide behind a wall, then punish them afterward. They’re tanky and they do a lot of damage, but as they’re so slow, you can put off killing them if you are good at avoiding them while fighting other things. They’re also so big that Molten Shards chunks them pretty well.
Wraith: Icy versions of the Ghost. They’re more tanky and their attacks slow you if they hit you.
Skeleton Gunner: This is possibly the first skeleton with a gun you’ll encounter and it won’t be the last. They do a combat roll perpendicular to their intended shot path before they fire. They are very accurate, but like most projectile enemies don’t lead their shots, so you can strafe out of the way while you hit them. They can hit you with their bayonets if you run straight at them, so take care with melee! Gunners are fragile like Skeletons, so chunk them.
Ice Golem: They’re Golems, but they slow you greatly if they hit you. They share the same weaknesses of Golems: Easy to take cover from, you can jump over their fists, they’re easy to hit with Molten Shards. Seems good. They have one MAJOR additional weakness though: Fire Damage melts them. Your only source of fire damage is most likely going to be the Fire Tome purchased in Mountain Village, or carried by Gremile at the start of a playthrough.
Snowman: These roll moderately damaging snowballs at you, that grow in width the farther they roll. They’re pretty hard to dodge at any range if you’re not paying close attention, but they’re immobile and fragile, so get rid of them ASAP. They melt instantly to fire damage, just like Ice Golems do.
Detonite: These are bombs that slowly float at you, then explode for a lot of damage when they touch you. Fairly easy to kill, but have excellent tracking, a large AoE that can deal friendly fire damage to your enemies, and must be dealt with sooner rather than later, lest they sneak up on you later. They also don’t descend as fast as you would think, which may lead to your shots missing if you’re on a different elevation. Take care.

Detonites have a unique interaction with attacks that apply freeze. Instead of becoming encased in ice temporarily, they’ll become permanently inert, and you can throw them to explode them on whatever they impact.

Ice Wizfraud: Similar to Earth Wizfrauds, they teleport to occupy a space near you. Instead of the long-ranged, easily dodgeable Molten Shards, though, they cast a high level Ice Wall spell. This does noteworthy damage and slows you, BUT you can double jump over the Ice Wall or create enough distance it can’t possibly hit you. You often have opportunities to separate these guys from their friends by running away for a few seconds, then killing them while they chase.
Fire Wizfraud: Another Wizfraud, and so soon! This one summons Detonites after each teleportation. In the mines, there’s the possibility they teleport into lava if you stand near it, and that’s quite funny.
Killer Cloud: These float at a moderate pace toward you and their body itself is harmless. However, they spawn miniature, kamikaze versions of themselves; Baby Clouds if you will. These are fast and furious, but die instantly to pretty much anything. This makes the Fire Tome’s Flamethrower good at dealing with them, as it’s a constant, thick spray of damage that’lldestroy the babies the instant they spawn, and the adults don’t do very well at dodging, as a bonus.
Stone Parasite: These sneaky little things cause Golems in the Forbidden Mines to respawn after a couple seconds. They’re tiny and dark, scuttling along the ground after their host Golem dies. Your window to slay these things is small, and they can withstand a moderate amount of punishment for their size, too. My favorite solution for dealing with these after I discovered them is to damage the Golem heavily, then shoot its feet with Enhanced Shells. The blast will have enough redundant projectiles to kill the Parasite when the Golem falls. With a LVL 3 Earth Tome, Molten Shards will likely do the same trick.
Snider: These can start spawning in the Magic Forest after you have the ♥ Fire Heart ♥, and they also appear in the Garden of Deception. They attempt to drop down on you and bite you, delivering a powerful poison. They’re unlikely to hit you if you’re moving at all, and you can bait their attacks and kill them afterward by running under them deliberately. You can typically save these for last in fights.
Barrier Shell: These scared snails’ projected shields eat up your projectiles, protecting any enemies within or beyond the shield they project. Melee attacks will deal with them and anything within just fine. So will the Earth Tome’s piercing projectiles.
Purple Octopunk: Similar to the Orange ones in most respects, these guys come out of solid ground instead. Their attacks also launch a larger amount of projectiles are more likely to do lethal damage to you. They are one of the most threatening enemies in the midgame, and it is nearly a requirement to kill them with Ice Wall or with summons, as they’re too small, tanky, and and fast-paced, and too damaging, to deal with them with conventional damage.

Purple Octopunks are extremely vulnerable to the Ice Wall. You can catch them with it as they come out of the ground. Once you have the Mana Ring, you can deal with 1 or 2 of them pretty much painlessly this way.
The Flame Furnace’s homing rockets have an uncanny ability to avoid colliding with flat ground when Octopunks bury, and will wreck them when they come back out.

Skeleton Slugger: Very similar to Gunners, but do more damage with their shotguns and take a bit more punishment.
Split Slime: Big and red, with glowing green eyes. In this largest form, they spawn smaller slimes at a steady rate. Attempting to kill it will split it into 4 medium-sized red slimes. Those will split into 4 smaller slimes.
Electric Roper: Shockingly, they do even more damage than normal Ropers. They behave very similarly and are not much more tanky, if at all.
Mimic: Not the most lethal Mimic in a game I’ve run into, thank goodness! They pretend to be a Chest and then when you open them, start zigzagging around the place and damaging you if they bump into you. They appear to be immune to being frozen, like most icy enemies are, but they’re not immune to bullets!
Poison Cloud: Killer Clouds but their attacks are dangerously poisonous.
Purple Mushdooms: Mushdooms but they fire more spores and are tankier.
Black Knights: These guys behave like White Knights, but you’re justified in ever fighting them! They walk slowly and loudly toward you, then do a dashing attack toward you, which does little damage by itself, but breaks your defense for several seconds and makes you take double damage. They are invincible from the front and sides but their dashing attack leaves them open from behind.

Molten Shards and Ice Wall are capable of killing them from the front.

Marionette: These wooden puppets dash around the place with their lower bodies and fire laser eyebeams from their upper bodies, and both parts can be destroyed separately.

Fire damage burns either part it hits instantly, but it doesn’t guarantee both parts are hit.

Air Wizfraud: These Wizfrauds call a delayed lightning strike down onto you. This has AoE with splash falloff, meaning that you can still be damage by it if you’re not directly under it, but the damage will be lessened. Keep moving!
Gargoyle: These boys react to projectiles you fire at them by teleporting out of the way (like Goblins do) and firing laser eyebeams directly toward you when they do. It’s effective to kill them in the fewest amount of attacks.

Flame Furnace LVL2’s multiple homing rockets will overwhelm a Gargoyle but they’ll fire a lot of lasers when they do, so maintain distance.
The Magnetic Minigun’s LVL2 railgun can splatter the Gargoyles if you have respectable strength, and they don’t really do anything while you charge it.

Poltergeist: These are Wraiths with substantially more health, that also have the ability to hasten to catch up to you. When hasted, they’ll also be ethereal and impossible to hit, and will only pop out of it when they get close to you and attack. They’ll use this ability seemingly at random, in place of their normal attack.

Much like with Octopunks, the Flame Furnace is a very insistent killer here. Use its homing rockets and it’ll hound down the ethereal Poltergeists until they become visible, then kill them.

Poison Roper: These are the high end of Ropers, with extremely high DPS when their contact damage activates. They also have the ability to poison you.

BOSS INDEX:

AUTOMATIC IDOL: YIAN YUN

This guy is pretty cool. He’s invulnerable by default and has vulnerable windows.
Watch his arms as he does his sword attacks and react carefully.

He has an overhead, which you should sidestep.
He has a horizontal sweep, which you should jump over.
He has a diagonal slash, which you should stand still during.
He has a jumping attack. Get far away and dodge on reaction.
Every 3rd attack, or after a jumping attack, he will render himself vulnerable for a second or two. You can lay into him with your choice of burst damage while his head is back and mouth is open.

Earth Tome is even better than you might think, here. Due to its piercing properties, it can hurt him even when he’s shielded, so feel free to keep spiking him down every time it’s fully charged.

He has a spinning attack that leaves him vulnerable, but very speed. It’s not super dangerous, and it’s hella random. This is the perfect moment to quaff some consumables if you need to. The doorway to the room is probably the safest place to stand.
At 50% HP he will proceed to go bananas, hogwild, and generally get pretty freaky. His head is now the only vulnerable part of his body, but he lacks a shield now.
Jump repeatedly while healing through any damage that comes your way. You need to focus on getting as many headshots with your mid-to-long-range weapon of choice as you can.
You may notice this phase takes a while. WELL, when you do enough damage, one of his swords will fall dramatically to the ground. It doesn’t seem to set him back. He’ll get faster and scarier. But, if you grab the sword with your Interact key, you can throw it at him for a massive chunk of damage. This will help end the battle fast, and also it feels really hecking good.
If you’re having trouble in this below 50% phase, understand that his movements are committal until he hits a wall. Line up your shots with a bit of patience knowing that he can’t change directions until he hits a new wall.

2. THE NO GOD: DARK STEINER

This guy is pretty cool. His go-to attack is to teleport twice and then fire laser eyebeams at you, which will miss if you successfully strafe at medium range. While you strafe, I recommend also creating distance. Strafing diagonally backwards and adjusting your aim as you do is a useful technique in heated bossfights and hordes. Other attacks follow in the nested bulletpoints.

After firing 3 eyebeams, he’ll teleport 3 times then attack you with a lethal amount of Molten Shards. He’ll repeat this attack twice more, and when he does this attack as a followup, he only teleports once. Pay close attention to the sound and strafe. While this is his most dangerous attack, this also leaves him wide open while you’re strafing.
After firing 3 eyebeams following a Molten Shard Stream, he’ll cast 3 Ice Walls, which do constant damage if you stand in them. These are able to curve slightly, but there are still safe spots if you strafe backward diagonally. Double-jump in anticipation of this just in case.
Repeat
Weapon notes:

Steiner has a massive weakness: LVL 2 Earth Tome’s Stone Skin completely immunizes you to his Molten Shard Stream, allowing you to facetank it and punish him with whatever you want!

If you start to charge Stone Skin up at the start of the battle, it’ll be up just in time to receive Steiner’s first Molten Shard Stream, AND it’ll go down just after the second Stream. Prioritizing keeping this up can ease the fight greatly.

The usually amazing Molten Shards is a little clumsy in this hectic bossfight. It still works if you haven’t upgraded any Alchemy Weapons, but you’d be better off relying on an Alchemy Weapon.
The Shatter Shotty will do constant reasonable DPS if you punish every teleportation.
The LVL2 Auto-Arrow will just barely be able to multi-shot him with square aim, shredding him, albeit requiring great aim.
Steiner has long enough vulnerability windows to land direct-hits with the Flame Furnace. But missing, as always, is very punishing.

3. PARASITIC MONARCHY: TECTONIS

Approximately every 5 seconds, except when beginning a particular attack where Tectonis attempts to suck you toward him, one of his hands will tend to rear itself back then slap the ground, delivering a really painful shockwave you must jump over. This shockwave on a rhythm will also detonate any bomb plants around the arena.

In addition to the aforementioned slap attack, his hands can perform a cross-arena punch, which will tend to be dodged with constant circlestrafing.
Tectonis’s head can breathe fire. This attack itself is fairly easy to dodge, but it can distract you from his more deadly hands.

Tectonis’s most dangerous attack is his extremely prohibitive attack where he tries to suck you in. This is also his most punishable attack. If you throw a bomb plant into his mouth, he’ll be knocked out of commission for about 10 seconds, allowing you to whale on him freely.

Don’t jump while getting sucked in, versus this attack or any other. You are easier to push and pull with any force while you’re in the air.

At 50% HP, giant Parasites will break free of Tectonis’s stone encasement. They will slither quickly along the ground and are vulnerable in their faces. There is a limit to how hard they can turn while slithering, so if you notice that their wide berths aren’t reaching you, you can stand still and focus on leading your shots into their heads. Tectonis isn’t too bad of a boss.

4. DARK STEINER: LET’S DANCE

Just barely get the hang of him last time and scared to fight him but harder? Fret not, Steiner mostly still has the same bag of tricks, and all the same fundamentals apply here.

After firing 3 eyebeams, he still does 3 Molten Shard Streams.
After firing 3 eyebeams after 3 Streams, he still does an Ice Wall attack.
After firing 3 eyebeams after an Ice Wall attack, he does a new attack, where he calls down arcane lightning in a huge amount of pillars around himself. After this attack, he will continue to call down pillars of lightning directly on you, but the delay is great enough that you can dodge it if you stay moving.

This lightning attack persists through his next set of eyebeams and half of his Shard Stream, limiting your ability to just stand and deliver with Stoneskin on. Just don’t bump into a pillar and they’re mostly irrelevant, though.

5. PRESERVED HYDROGENIC LIFEFORM: AQUADEITY

Aquadeity’s main schtick (besides being very tank) exists in the form of the 6 tentacles throughout the arena. They teleport about randomly by diving in and out of the water, and if you pass by one right when it emerges, it’ll slap you and probably send you flying. They’re mostly just disturbances, but be careful about running into them.

Aquadeity is able to shoot a shotgun of ink-black sharks, much like Octopunks. They’re about what you would expect. Just circlestrafe and pray they don’t hit you.
He also occasionally does an attack where he spins repeatedly while firing ink shots in every which direction. With any luck, only one or two of these will hit you if you keep your distance, but he moves while doing this.
He also occasionally fires a huge, inky sphere, which just conspicuously floats through the air. It’ll pop and split into multiple smaller ones, which are harder to avoid, then do so again, and then they’ll just sort of disappear. To your best to avoid the bullet hell.

His heaviest hits come from tentacles in the first phase. You can heal through any trickle damage you take otherwise.
At 50% HP he’ll transform completely into a large bubble of elemental water. The basic rules of the fight change. Instead of damaging Aquadeity directly, hitting him will make bubbly slimes spawn out of him, and killing these bubbles will result in him taking damage. Faster-hitting weapons such as spammed Molten Shards, spammed Auto-Arrow, and Flamethrower will get these bubbles out of him fastest. This is not always the case with bossfights, but Molten Shards are MVP here, when spammed and not charged, as the piercing and rapidity of them will cut through him and his bubbles quickly.

He jumps constantly, and when landing, delivers an arena-wide shockwave you must jump over. Prioritize doing this and circlestrafing and you’ll take little damage.
The bubbles that he summons are very easy to kill, and hop directly toward you repeatedly, which makes them also easy to circlestrafe.
As Aquadeity gets lower and lower in health, he’ll become smaller and he’ll jump faster, both of which make him hard to close the fight out with. As he gets lower, exercise patience and focus on jumping over his shockwaves instead of trying to burst him down. As he gets lower, the wall of pellets the Shatty Shotty provides also becomes the most reliable way to hit him, overtaking Molten Shards.
I recommend focusing on getting a critical mass of bubbles out by focusing first on him, and then clearing them out when a ton of them jump at a wall near where you just were. It’s dangerous to only shoot at him, and it’s slowgoing to only clear bubbles out.

6. DARK STEINER: GARGOYLE DAD

You’re hopefully already comfortable with Dark Steiner, as you’ve danced with him before. He is similar in behavior to DARK STEINER: LET’S DANCE but with yet one more move, and it’s nothing too crazy.

After firing 3 eyebeams, he still does 3 Molten Shard Streams.
After firing 3 eyebeams after 3 Streams, he still does an Ice Wall attack.
After firing 3 eyebeams after an Ice Wall attack, he calls down Lightning.
After firing 3 eyebeams after Lightning is called down, he performs a new attack, where he charges and chucks a massive slow-moving fire orb, similar to the ones used by Ifrit. It has homing properties and does a lot of damage, but you can lead it into a pillar to explode it harmlessly.

7. CLOCKWORK CHIMERA: MYRIAD

A somewhat tanky boss, but not a very mobile one. A lot of firepower, but a bit clumsy in using it. Myriad is composed of four parts: The Lion, the Goat, the Snake, and the body itself. You must shoot the Goat or Snake; shots to the body and face will do nothing. The hitboxes for them are larger than they looks!

The Goat will bleat and call down pillars of lightning repeatedly that track you and keep you on your feet, much like Steiner likes to.

You know the drill. Moving will make this attack mostly harmless.
However, you probably have the potential to fly by this point, either through summons or the Fly spell, or can at least stay off the ground most of the time through Jump. This lets you render this attack nearly useless, and control where you stay for most of your time in the arena better. While in flight and moving at the Chimera’s side or above it, basically nothing can hit you.

The Snake will hiss and fire out poison projectile repeatedly behind the chimera.
The Lion will roar and fire out a highly damaging forward-locked beam of fire. Don’t get caught off guard: he can turn while firing it, just… slowly.

Worth about 40% of his HP, when destroyed, the Goat’s head will fall off, and be replaced with a railgun turret. This does a lot of damage if it hits but the rule is basically the same as with lightning pillars: Keep moving. Flying isn’t going to keep you inherently safe from this as it does with lightning, though.
Worth about 40% of his HP, when destroyed, the Snake’s head will fall off, and be replaced by a poisonous cannon. This will emit poison upward and also launch poison grenades that explode into a patterned wave of poison gas, similar to a Mushdoom’s attack.
Once both heads are destroyed, you can damage the Lion’s head. This last stretch is chaotic, as it’s hard to hit the head from side angles, but hang in there. Dump everything if you need to to get through this phase.

8. TWO STEINERS?!?!

Well gee, now it’s appreciated that he’s given you 3 Steiners in the past with which to spar.

These Steiners only use eyebeams, Molten Shards, and Ice Walls.
As Molten Shards are still so much of a threat, it’s heavily recommended to cast Stoneskin to be able to weather the storm.

9. DIVINE DOPPELGANGERS: DUO DEUS

This is a gimmick fight. The gimmick is that the two brothers each fire Light and Dark orbs at you, which you must commit to 1 color of with your Staff of Balance, and then fire at the opposite color brother to knock their shield off, chunking their health and stunning them for several seconds.

When the Light or Dark orbs hit the ground, they’ll explode. Manage your positioning such that the orb you DON’T grab will fly at a shallow enough angle to pass you and not explode right next to you.
The brothers also have beam attacks they’ll use after every several orbs, which can shred through your health in seconds if they’re focused on you, and create hazards on the terrain wherever they hit it. Practice disciplined circlestrafing when there’s a beam going.
It’s my recommendation to capitalize on stunning a brother by immediately casting Time Freeze to make the most of it. This can cut getting their health to 50% to a 2 cycle process.
You also have enough time at the start of the fight to cast Stone Skin, before you pull out your Staff of Balance.

At 50% HP, the brothers will fuse together and the fight changes fundamentally. Duo Deus has the ability to forcefully switch you between Light and Dark modes. Don’t let this distract you from your ability to switch it back yourself if you need to to collect orbs, but also keep in mind, whenever the modes are switched, you’ll lose your stored up power, so you have to collect 3 in one attack phase if you want to hit him back!

He has a few different attack phase patterns which he’ll select at random.
One pattern is a full spin, followed by a slow moving orb, followed by a delay with another full spin, and a faster moving orb of the same color, and one more moving at a medium pace, for a total of 3 orbs with no off-colors.
One pattern is a variation on the previous one, but he fires them rapidly instead.
One pattern is a full spin, followed by rapidly firing 5 orbs. 3 will be slow-moving orbs of one color, and the other 2 will be fast-moving orbs of the off-color to endanger you. The 3 on-color orbs move slowly enough you can collect them after the explosions potentially, but you need to rush to get your Staff’s beam attack off if you take that long

9. BIRTH OF A GOD: GOD COCOON

You can’t jump, here. And you can’t see the walls, but it’s a surprisingly claustrophobic space. This is a bullet hell boss.

The most obvious weapon to use is Molten Shards. As he is so massive, the shards will be in contact with him for a large amount of time and able to cut through his healthbar like butter. Spam them with Fury for max dps, as you absolutely can kill him in under half a minute with sufficient STR.
His large bullets can be dodged by gingerly strafing around him inch by inch. The red ones are patterned, but the fast blue ones are aimed at you.
As you decrease his health, he’ll gain access to new bullet patterns.

At 75% HP, he’ll begin firing blue bullets around him that aren’t aimed. This will complicate your dodging slightly.
At 50% HP, he will fire semicircles of knit-together red bullets. If you don’t see the gap in that semicircle, you’ll have to strafe to possibly avoid being hit. Apply max DPS to get through this phase quickly, and if there’s no entrance in sight, don’t panic: it’s better to take 2-3 bullets than strafe through a bunch of them.

Alternatively -- and while this is true for most of this fight, it’s most applicable here -- you can conjure Skeletons in front of you with the Death-Blow, as they can take the heat for you.

At 25% HP, he’ll fire a pattern similar to the one at 75% HP, but perhaps slightly more dangerous.

10. DARK STEINER

This is it.
Dark Steiner has a pattern to his attacks: 1-2-1-3, 1-2-1-4, repeat

1. Steiner will call down blue meteors from above. When they impact the ground, they’ll explode (doing damage if you’re caught within the blast) and fire out a ring of meteorites. This attack is awkward to avoid at around 1000 AGI, and probably at extremely low amounts, but you can rectify this by casting Jump, or having Blink active and staying off the ground.

While performing this attack, Steiner moves from one edge of the battlefield to another random point, much like Yian-Yun did in your fight with him. He’s extremely fast but this limitation gives you the ability to lead your shots when you know he’s going long.

2. Steiner will cast a spray of red meteorites at you. Listen for the sound of his blink arrival and strafe perpendicular to the attack path.

If you’re not comfortable doing so, don’t focus on attacking him here. It can be awkward.

3. Steiner will create a black hole beneath himself, drawing you toward it, and drawing distant pink meteorites toward it as well. These meteorites will knock you back when they collide with you, likely toward the black hole. And if you touch this black hole, it will kill you instantly.

While this is no doubt his most dangerous attack, it comes with a very punishable weakness: It doesn’t pull you downward while you’re flying with Fly or a summon. While Flying, you can easily stare him down, and slice through his health with the Magnetic Minigun or such. Or you can summon Yama and punch him in the face.

I have no problem telling you cheese, but you gotta opt into seeing it. Highlight the white text to see an EZ WIN method: You can stand on top of his head. You don’t even need to fly, just cast Jump or get on top of him with a summon. Pop out and you can kill him in seconds with Molten Shards, firing straight down at him. Obviously this is also Giga-Drill friendly

4. Steiner will bring forth comets along the horizontal plane, and these will rapidly do damage to you when you’re touching them. They will continue during his next Attack 1, and as he begins his Attack 2, a massive comet will be unleashed. This comet takes up nearly the entire width of the field, so stay as far away from it as you can, in one corner, and quickly decide whether you will be safe on that side or need to cross over.

When Steiner is beginning Attack 4, you have a lot of time to use items or cast spells. Both Stoneskin and Haste last a long time and help in avoiding damage from the massive comet.

At 25% HP, Steiner will simply channel an endless black hole and infinite comets as a show of power, as an attempt to eliminate you. Maximize your DPS on him while straferunning away from him. If you start losing ground, cast Haste to keep your distance.

You can fly above him during this phase and be under no threat. As he’s being cocky even committing to this attack, don’t feel guilty humbling him.

s1. PRINCE OF THE FOREST: MANDRAKE (Dragon of Earth)

Mandrake wastes no time in rushing you down and bombarding you with explosive nuts. These nuts are the main threat of the fight, bouncing along the ground and off nearby walls. Fortunately for you, this attack is very easy to strafe out of the way of. Unfortunately, maintaining some level of distance from the walls while doing so, to avoid the bounce, is difficult.

Mandrake will summon Plant adds throughout the fight that spit nuts at you. They don’t produce very many individually and can be ignored for the most part, but you should clean them up before the halfway point to make him more manageable below 50%

The summoned Plants burn instantly if you cast Flamethrower on them.

Mandrake will fly above you and rain impact-explosive nuts if he gets close to you. I can determine no scenario in which this is a good thing, so make sure to keep your distance.

At 50% HP Mandrake will summon massive vines that twist randomly throughout the arena. Similarly to Ropers they do damage constantly while you are in contact with them. You can mostly ignore the fact they exist, as you need to keep backpedaling/circlestrafing to deal with Mandrake while shooting, but the instant you get caught on one, you need to adjust your movement.

s2. WISH GRANTING MAJIN: IFRIT (Dragon of Fire)

The main gimmick of Ifrit’s fight takes the form of the fire tornados he summons upon you before doing his more mundane explosive attacks. These tornados apply a pull effect to you and will quickly kill you if you get stuck in one and are bombarded. Multiple of them will stack their pulls on you, so your first priority is keeping one part of the arena free of them completely by leaving them against the wall in a semi-circle. If you have low AGI (<500), you’ll have very little ability to resist the pull of the tornados.

s3. LEVIATHAN SEA KING: MAL (Dragon of Water)

By default, this cutie levitates around the place, summoning a ceaseless barrage of icy shards (which don’t slow you) and Ice Turrets on the ground, which are particularly unlikely to hit you unless you’re slowed by another attack. These turrets can be melted with Flamethrower. You must circlestrafe around the edge of the room constantly while whittling away at his massive healthpool.

He will occasionally take a break from his shard stream to dive into elemental water and out again, damaging you if you’re near. Not too bad.
He will occasionally take a break to hose you with a chilling beam. This does indeed slow you. Doublejumping repeatedly while incessantly circlestrafing may keep it from being too damaging.

At 50% HP Mal will turn the room of gold to ice, requiring you to jump repeatedly to have the same level of control circlestrafing as in phase one. His ice turrets will also slide all over the place. Overall, this will feel like more of the same (probably for the best), but his massive healthpool makes this fight an endurance challenge.

s4. THUNDERING STORM FIEND: YAMA (Dragon of Air)

This is a difficult fight that requires attention to current movement-impairing conditions and compensating by adjusting your movements. If you have any doubts, come prepared with a ton of healing and ammo restoration. As with Ifrit, very low AGI will get you killed, as the poison water surrounding the arena is major and you’ll be pushed into it easily. As with Ifrit, do not repeatedly jump while trying to resist push and pull effects; you’ll have most control of your movement on the ground.

Lightning strikes in general can be jumped over, as the damage originates from the explosion on the ground. Don’t jump repeatedly while being pushed or pulled, but you can jump once where it can serve you.
Yama’s weakest and most common attack is a teleport in your vague direction followed by a dashing flurry of blows in a straight line. Basic circlestrafing will make it do little to no damage to you, so you can fire at him in confidence while doing so, though most of your attacks will likely miss. He stands still for a moment before and after this attack. He does this attack between his air elemental attacks.
Yama’s 2nd attack is to call down a series of lines of lightning pillars (rotation counter-clockwise), while applying a pull effect to you through a tornado. Standing in this tornado will do major damage to you.

Prioritize keeping your distance EVEN if it means being struck by lightning. Being struck by lightning is fine if you heal, don’t panic.
Yama is extremely vulnerable to the Auto-Arrow’s Poison Grenades when doing this attack. They will shred through his health. Calling upon the summon Mandrake will also encoil his immobile form in vines and do major dps for just pressing the button.

Yama follows his 2nd attack with a very similar one: He will push you, very hard, and you must be prepared to counter-compensate immediately by pushing toward him. The lightning will move clockwise during this attack.

Again, prioritize counter-compensation over dodging lightning. Touching the poison once will damage you more than lightning.

After the 2 rotational lightning attacks, Yama will call down rings of lightning, which move outward than inward. As there is no movement-impairing effect here, you can focus on dodging naturally.

If you press yourself up against Yama as closely as possible, lightning can only strike you twice at most, and the falloff for their splash will make the damage negligible, making this a great opportunity for you to pump maximum dps into Yama.

At 33% health: A massive tornado will be summoned, one with an eye you cannot escape, that restricts the area in which you can move. He now only does 2 relatively weak attacks, but patience must be exercised, as you have only limited windows with which to punish him.

His first attack is to teleport to one side of the eye at random and dash through it. This is the only opportunity to damage him, make the most of it.

Time Freeze is a powerful spell in general, but pays off very hard here, where Yama is very hard to hit.
Stoneskin allows you, or your summon, to tank the flurry of blows and trade damage with him, which you can then comfortably heal up during the lightning phase. This synergizes with Giga-Drill.

His second attack is slowly rotating lines of lightning pillars. This is easy to avoid, especially while jumping, so use this time to think or use any items or cast any spells you need to.

s5. VAMPIRIC DRAGON COUNT, DRACUL

This isn’t a fight that mechanical execution can help a ton with. You need high DPS/ammo efficiency and a good crowd-clearing tool for his mob. Don’t be cocky and take this long fight early game, as cute of a summon as Dracul is.
This boss’s only threat to you in the first phase comes are the skeletons he summons. That’s all he does: teleport, and summon skeletons. If you want, you can focus on him freely. He’ll delete the skeletons when you get him to 50% HP.

The Magnetic Minigun, when upgraded, does excellent DPS, and the boss is large enough to be hit at basically any range. It is comfortable to use while circlestrafing around the room. Just bring ammo for it.
The Auto-Arrow is a solid option for its high efficiency and steady DPS, as always, if you can land repeated crits.
Molten Shards do good DPS (they make a good option to be spammed with Mana Ring and a Fury buff active), and can comfortably be swept over Skeletons to deal with them when need be.
The Shatter Shotty and Flame Furnace lack DPS and efficiency respectively, but may be better than the competition if you haven’t gotten the competition properly upgraded.

At 50% HP, Dracul ups the ante significantly: In addition to hovering, and therefore being harder to hit, he will now execute you with a powerful spell if 100 skeletons exist simultaneously. You now MUST balance shaving off the skeleton population and damaging Dracul, which requires powerful gear.

The Air Tome’s Chain Lightning is MVP for this fight. Skeletons are exceedingly fragile, even this late in the game, and it will comfortably kill any it comes in contact with. As the Skeleton count grows above 70, it will only become more effective in terms of total kills, allowing you to cast it once or twice and switch back to DPS. In terms of time spent dealing with them, there’s really no competition at all.
Flame Furnace LVL2 or LVL3 will clean up a ton of Skeletons in short order with homing rockets.
Yama is an amazing summon here and Ifrit is solid.

Yama will execute all the Skeletons in seconds with his secondary fire, and he can then run up and pummel Dracul for free DPS. Alternate between the two comfortably to push that healthbar down.
Ifrit’s fire orb has a massive AoE on impact that is likely to kill over half the skeletons at once, making for a great backup button to use after your weapon-based DPS lets Skeletons get out of hand. With the Fury Buff up he can chunk Dracul repeatedly afterward.

s6. FATHER OF ALL MONSTERS: TYPHON

As you might guess from the significance of the cutscene, Typhon is an extremely dangerous (though, simple) boss. Simply put, Typhon’s primary attack, a petrifying gaze, will instantly kill you if you do not line-of-sight it by hiding behind one of the pillars in the room (for what it’s worth, the LoS mechanic is quite generous to you, here!). He also summons snakes constantly from his snakey hair.

The easiest way to deal with Typhon is a combination of summon spams (Dracul is an easier dragon fight and will give you access to the LVL3 Death-Blow for summoning Skeletons en masse; a few LVL2 Light tome Snakes also add great DPS for low commitment) and poking at him from cover with bursty weapons like Molten Shards or the Death-Blow secondary with Magnum Rounds ammo.

Your Skeletons and Snakes can deal with Typhon easily while you hide behind cover, as he can’t really get rid of them that easily. Then, you just clean up the green snakes and DPS him when you’re free to.

Typhon is vulnerable to Mandrake + Poison Grenades, like Yama is. He’ll be immobilized by the vines and free to grenade down. This is particularly effective if you do it around 80% health and you catch him in the middle of the arena. The vines can block his petrifying gaze from certain angles.
The green snakes are very fragile, but will require your attention, as the summons you will likely have access to for this fight won’t target them.
Despite appearances, the petrifying beam Typhon shoots from his eyes doesn’t pierce in a line. This means that summoning Skeletons while staring straight at him, or hiding behind a Mandrake vine, can guard you from the blast. He also sometimes directly aggros onto your summons!

At 75%, 50%, and 25% HP, Typhon will teleport to the middle of the room, do a moderately damaging dash in each of the 4 cardinal directions, and destroy a pillar. By the end, therefore, you’ll be left with only one pillar, so make sure to control your spacing as you go.

WEAPON INDEX:

My knowledge on upgraded weapons is limited. Stay tuned!

Signature Weapons

Mace and Shield. A solid melee weapon with no outstanding properties early game.
Axe. A melee weapon which swings slowly and hits hard. It swings quickly during Lizard’s Berserker Rage, dealing very high dps while you heal.
Sword. A melee weapon which swings quickly and does little damage. Rat’s tiny STR leaves this weapon in a sad state at the start of the game.

Secondary: Upgrading the Sword to LVL2 allows you to dodge with the secondary button, instantly displacing yourself several meters in the direction you’re moving. You can’t go through walls with this.

Upgrading the Sword to LVL3 gives a purpose to the afterimage the dodge creates: If an enemy hits that afterimage, you will freeze time briefly.

Promotion: After Upgrading the Sword to LVL2, you can talk to the small lizard thief in the Magnus and Mead with 50,000 gold in your inventory and he will promote your Sword to LVL3 for free.

Lance. A melee weapon with extra range and solid dps. On paper, early in the game, this is the best of the melee signature weapons.
Pistol. A ranged weapon that deals pathetic singletarget damage. It’s handy as a finisher for enemies who have been battered and bruised by Gremile’s AoEs.
Orbs. A ranged weapon and arguably the most powerful of the signature weapons. Zandro Doom’s Orb can be switched between 3 elements.

The Fire Orb deals a massive amount of singletarget damage.
The Ice Orb freezes whatever target it hits briefly.
The Lightning Orb functions like Chain Lightning, executing low health enemies and bouncing to new ones when it does.

FISTS. Leo Howel does massive damage with his fists, and levels up over time while using the various techniques associate with them. A represents primary fire and B represents secondary fire in the following movelits.

Basic Combo (A>A>A) delivers a powerful uppercut after some weak punches.
Brain Buster (B>B>B) delivers a very high damage attack to a single target after some handsigns.
Big Blow Fist (B>A>A) pushes enemies back in a massive AoE. The pushback can cause damage if they impact something. Ghosts go SOARING away, and probably so too do other flying enemies.
S. Fang Strike (B>B>A) stuns an enemy for several seconds.
Century Strike (B>A>B) deals high dps through many short-ranged strikes over the course of several seconds. You’re committed to this attack, unable to switch to other weapons until it finishes with a powerful punch.

Upgrading Century Strike increases the total amount of punches it delivers across the same timeframe.
Upgrading Century Strike when it’s already LVL3 will give you an AGI upgrade.

Taunt does… nothing? You perform a Taunt if you use any non-Basic Combo martial art twice in a row.
Martial Arts all gain experience and level up as you use them. Most of them require hitting something (whether it be an enemy, or any object that registers a hit impact unlike terrain). Big Blow Fist and Taunt gain experience every time you cast them, though.

Spell Tomes

Water Tome

Primary: Ice Wall costs 10 MP and deals moderate damage in a line on the ground, freezing any enemies susceptible to freezing for a couple seconds.

Upgrading the Water Tome increases the number of Ice Walls from 1, to 2, to 3. At LVL 2, you do not fire a wall toward your crosshair and instead fire 2 at off angles, so be mindful of that penalty!

Secondary I: Ice Turret costs 50 MP to summon an immobile turret that fires arcing, slow, low-damage projectiles until it times out or is destroyed. It can distract enemies by drawing aggro from them and is more likely to do so if you summon it before the enemies have had a chance to aggro.

Upgrading the Water Tome increases the number of turrets from 1, to 2, to 3. It may also increase their duration.

Secondary II: Time Freeze costs 100 MP to stop the world around you for ~4 seconds. You can still do damage to enemies while they’re helpless. A very powerful combo with ammo-efficient but difficult to land weapons like the Giga-Drill and the Flamethrower spell.

Upgrading the Water Tome increase the duration to ~8 seconds.

Secondary III: Lloyd’s Beacon returns you to the well in the City of Magic, which is only a sho

Earth Tome

Primary: Molten Shards costs 1 MP to fire a shotgun of projectile shards. It charges up over time, firing the most projectiles, with the least spread, at maximum charge. It’s weak when rapidly fired. The shards pierce infinitely and bounce once, and deal damage every frame they’re in contact with an enemy; this means that bouncing shards downward through some tall enemies can kill them nearly instantly.

Upgrading the Earth Tome increases the amount of Molten Shards fired.

Secondary I: Grow Food costs 50 MP to create a number of Apples. Hitting the tree causes the Apples to drop as collectibles. They heal for 10 and you can hold up to 20 at once. This spell functions as a way for you to create healing out of MP, which happens to make it free to stockpile at Camps.

Upgrading the Earth Tome increases the amount of Apples generated from 5, to 10, to 15.
Apples can be cooked. Bad Apples (burnt) heal for 5 each. Cooked apples heal for 15 each. You can hold up to 20 of each type of apple, for 60 consumables and 700 total healing!!!

Secondary II: Stone Skin costs 100 MP to reduce the damage you take by ~25% for a long duration.

Upgrading the Earth Tome increases the damage reduction to 50%!
This spell also makes you immune to enemy Molten Shards.
This spell has a useful side effect of decreasing the damage over time effect your summon suffers, letting them stay out longer.

Secondary III: Summon Golem costs 150 MP and does what it says on the tin. This Golem is exceptionally tanky, lasts a long time, and will teleport to your side if you get too far away from it. It will aggro to enemies at random, making it often ineffective at dealing damage in scenarios where distant enemies exist. They’re better in close quarters fights.

Air Tome

Primary: Chain Lightning costs 10 MP and deals minor single-target damage on impact, but if an enemy is low on health when it hits them, it will execute them and chain lightning to other nearby enemies for greater damage. This chained lightning can also execute, and further chain.
Secondary I: Invisibility costs 50 MP and renders enemies who are not currently aggro’d to you unable to aggro to you, for its duration.

Upgrading the Air Tome presumably increases its duration.

Secondary II: Jump costs 50 MP to quadruple your jump height for ~30 seconds. This doesn’t make your jumps in midair performed using “kick” any higher, but it is extremely useful nonetheless.

Upgrading the Air Tome increases the duration of Jump to ~60 seconds.
After acquiring this spell, you’re better prepared to get a good time in the Garden of Deception’s maze.
Blast jumping with Jump’s buff active will send you soaring.

Secondary III: Fly costs 150 MP to allow you to fly for 30 seconds. You may consider assigning keys for Fly/Swim Up and Down, as ascending is faster with that key then by holding Jump down. You can adjust elevations quickly by just moving in that Z direction though.

Fire Tome

Primary: Flamethrower costs approximately 2 MP per second and 1 more MP when it ends. It rapidly fires fat, enemy-piercing projectiles that a large amount of fire damage in a short range. Fire damage is a rare treat and has special properties, such as lighting oil on fire for major damage to whatever stands on it, burning some wood objects, melting some ice objects and enemies, and cooking food.

Upgrading the Fire Tome increases the projectile speed and range of Flamethrower substantially. It is a rare source of fire damage for melting specific enemies, and this makes it much safer to use.

Secondary I: Fire Trap costs 30 MP to summon a trap which can persist for a very long time, which deals major damage in an AoE when it is sprung. It doesn’t take long to set, making it effective in direct combat when facing ground-based enemies.

Upgrading the Fire Tome decreases the MP cost of Fire Trap from 30, to 20, to 10, greatly improving its general usability.
The Fire Trap is usable for blast jumping, and is exceptional for its ability to send you extremely high or far if you jump using multiple traps at once.

Secondary II: Haste costs 50 MP to double your movement speed for ~30 seconds, which has limited combat application, but is massively useful for saving time getting from place to place.

Upgrading the Fire Tome increases the duration of Haste from ~30 seconds to ~60 seconds.

Secondary III: Fury costs 100 MP to double your attack speed and the speed at which Secondary spells charge, for ~30 seconds. This is an enormous boost in DPS if you can take advantage of it, and if you are clean with your spell switching while dodging, easily the most crucial buff in the game, as you can stack multiple buffs and still have time to spare for re-casting Fury and kicking a boss or horde in the teeth. 10 mana Fire Traps are just icing on the LVL 3 Fire Tome cake.

Light Tome

Primary: Sticks to Snakes costs 10 MP to summon a Snake which will leap at your enemies to deal significant damage. These Snakes persist after successful combats, and follow you in a vague, slow manner, making them efficient in some environments where they don’t get left behind, or remain in an arena that is used more than once.

Upgrading the Light Tome increases the amount of Snakes Sticks to Snakes summons from 1, to 3, to 5.

Secondary I: Cure costs 50 MP to remove negative statuses from yourself, like Poison, Frozen, Armor Break, and Drunk.

Upgrading the Light Tome does ??? for Cure?

Secondary II: Guardian Angel costs 100 MP to summon orbiting Wisps to act as turrets that fire at nearby enemies. Their damage is minor but they function as a ward for enemies that can flank you. You can have as many as you want within a given timeframe.

Upgrading the Light Tome gives you a 2nd Wisp with each cast of Guardian Angel.

Secondary III: Blink costs 200 MP to toggle on a stage where Kick is replaced with Blink. This new action costs 1 MP to blink you forward instantly a few meters in whatever direction you’re facing. This can be used to move upward as well.

Jumping immediately after Blinking will work midair. Given how quickly Blink can be used, this renders both the Jump and Fly spells of the Air Tome completely redundant, as long as you don’t hit 0 MP and cancel it at an unfortunate time.

Dark Tome

Primary: Gravity Crush costs 50% of your max MP and halves the health of non-boss enemies its slow orb passes through.

Upgrading the Dark Tome decreases the MP cost of Gravity Crush from 50%, to 25%, to 12.5% of your max MP.
You appear to be able to cast this spell even if you lack enough MP to logically be able to.

Secondary I: Morphis costs 100 MP to fire a thin, horizontal spread of projectiles with short range which transform any enemies they hit into Pigs, which can be slain for meat (or sometimes Golden Pigs which can be slain for gold). This is likely to result in 3-4 transformations when used against a very tight horde of enemies.

Upgrading the Dark Tome decreases the MP cost of Morphis from 100, to 50, to 25.

Secondary II: Miyotis costs 150 MP to grant yourself a vampirism buff. You’ll take 25% of your max HP per second in damage and quickly die, if not for the incredible amount of life steal you gain access to.

Upgrading the Dark Tome decreases the HP drain of Miyotis from 25% to 12.5% of your max HP.

Secondary III: Void costs all of your remaining MP (requires 100 or more to cast)

Alchemy Weapons

Shatter Shotty

Primary: Fire a wide cone of fast-moving projectiles for 1 AP. This requires a large enemy or for you to be at close range, but rewards you with both a high DPS and a high damage per AP.

Upgrading the Shatter Shotty increases the amount of shells the weapon can hold between each reload, from 1, to 2, to 4.

Secondary: Available at LVL 2. Fire a wide cone of fast-moving ice projectiles for 10 AP, which freeze targets that are vulnerable, and do sizable damage.
Special ammo: Enhanced Shells deal majorly increased damage, knock you back, and apply knockback to your enemy, sending smaller enemies flying and larger enemies scooting.

Auto-Arrow

Primary: Fire a wimpy arcing arrow rapidly for 1 AP. However, if you time your shot with the flash of the weapon, you will fire a critical arrow, which flies in a straight line and deals majorly increased damage. When landing critical arrows repeatedly, this weapon does exceptional damage.

Upgrading the Auto-Arrow increases the number of projectiles while introducing a horizontal spread for them, from 1, to 3, to 5.
In terms of raw dps, a repeatedly-critting Auto-Arrow is exceeded by the Flame Furnace, and by a LVL2+ Magnetic Minigun. However, it is much more AP-efficient, leading to less cost and little reloading, and its special ammo allows it to do increased dps.

Secondary: Available at LVL 2. Lob a poisonous bomb for 15 AP. This bomb does mild damage when it explodes, but does an extreme amount of damage over the course of ~11 seconds to whatever lies within. You can stack multiple clouds in a single area to create a dense killzone for ground-based enemies. This hurts you too.
Special ammo: Explosive Bolts deal normal damage, and stick into enemies to deal damage again after a delay, in an AoE. The explosion of Explosive Bolts can be used to blast jump.

Flame Furnace

Primary: Fire a slow-moving rocket for 10 AP, which does major damage on direct hits and moderate damage in an AoE. The explosion of the Flame Furnace’s rocket can be used to blast jump, and is ideal for the purpose. We call jumping with a rocket launcher “rocket jumping” :D

Upgrading the Flame Furnace doesn’t affect the primary fire in and of itself. The upgrade’s secondary fire interacts with the primary.

Secondary: Available at LVL 2. Begin charging the weapon to hold up to 3 rockets (5 at LVL 3). When you have multiple rockets charged, they will fire in a horizontal spread by default when you press Primary Fire; pressing the Secondary Fire button again while holding more rockets will allow you to fire them all in a cluster instead. The charging process is overall more AP-efficient.

These charged rockets ALSO have homing capabilities.

Special ammo: Hydrogen Rockets deal fairly standard damage, but they freeze enemies they damage, leaving them vulnerable to further damage.

Magnetic Minigun

Primary: Fires a moderately inaccurate hail of bullets for 1 AP each. This is an inefficient but straightforward weapon, but houses a uniquely powerful special ammo.

Upgrading the Magnetic Minigun increases the number of bullets fired from 1, to 2, to 3.

Secondary: Available at LVL2. Charge up a railgun shot for 50 AP. This takes 4 seconds to fully charge up. The shot is a thick beam with infinite piercing that does a lot of burst damage.

Upgrading the Magnetic Minigun to LVL3 decreases the charge time to 2 seconds.

Special ammo: Giga-Drill. Available to Hawk very early in the game, this ammo type changes the Magnetic Minigun’s properties. When equipped to the end of the Minigun with the ammo change button, it will passively deal massive dps to whatever it is pressed against. Firing off the Giga-Drill will suck nearby small enemies into it and kill them as it travels slowly through the air. While unlikely to hit a boss like this, it still deals damage rapidly.

Upgrading the Magnetic Minigun appears to increase the speed at which the Giga-Drill spins and presumably its DPS

Helios Communicator

Primary: Fires a precise but slow-moving stream of Star Shots, for 1 AP each. This is fairly similar to the LVL1 Magnetic Minigun in effectiveness, trading projectile speed and firerate for accuracy. Fairly mediocre.

Upgrading the Helios Communicator allows you to charge the Star Shot. Charged shots cost more AP and do more damage. The DPS is poor but this makes for a decent and efficient “sniper” type weapon, easily hitting thresholds it can 1-shot enemies, and it has some piercing to boot. Still, outclassed by Molten Shards generally.

Secondary: Toggle between Star Shot mode and Sun Beam mode. Sun Beam calls a constant vertical beam of high DPS down from the sky for 10 AP per second. This won’t work indoors.
Special ammo: Power Cell. Calls down the Sun Beam to deal multiple extremely high instances of damage to any enemies caught within its widening AoE, working to vaporize an entire encounter. It also tracks nearby enemies to ensure none can escape. This is a risky attack as it can kill the player as well. Also, it does not work indoors.

Death-Blow

Primary: Summons Skeletons. These friendly Skeletons are similar in speed to enemy Skeletons, but deal impressive damage to whatever they can stick to. There appears to be no limit to the amount you can have out in a combat encounter, but they will dissipate when there are no targets to acquire.

Upgrading the Death-Blow increases the amount of Skeletons summoned from 1, to 2, to 3. WOW.

Secondary: BANG. High recoil knocks your aim upwards and knocks your body backwards. Bursty damage. It is notably burstier if you detonate your summoned Skeletons with it, though, doing damage in an AoE (and starting a chain reaction of explosion) where they stand if you directly hit them.

I don’t know what upgrading this does.

Special ammo: Magnum Round. ???

DRAGON SUMMON INDEX:

Summons are called upon by pressing the Summon button (default: G) when you have 100 SP. You get more SP by collecting gold; the more gold, the more SP. Summons last for a long time, and they time out when their health reaches 0. They take damage over time and can’t heal, putting them on a timer.

Summons inherit your buffs. They’ll move faster when Hasted, attack faster when you have Fury, you can jump into a summon during Time Freeze, etc.

Stoneskin is uniquely incredibly useful on them for decreasing the damage they take over time, majorly extending the time you can remain in control of your summon.

The damage they take over time can be affected by debuffs as well as buffs. This means the Blue Skill Ring will make them take 4x damage. This renders most of them nearly useless with Blue Skull Ring, though Mandrake creates vines which will persist into your normal form.

Earth Dragon, Mandrake

Simply summoning Mandrake will also generate vines which try to enravel enemies and do constant, high dps to whatever is touching them. These are amazing, as they’ll persist even when the summon ends, and when Mandrake’s other attacks are of little use, you can still summon him and jump back to your normal form to make use of the vines. You can’t rely on them for most boss fights.
Primary fire: Rain down explosive nuts in a ring around you. These tend to knock enemies upward. They’ll also spread out farther if you’re in the air when you use them.

Holding primary fire and jump simultaneously will allow you to float upward, quite high! This lets you avoid a lot of ground-based enemies while your nuts and vines destroy them safely. You can use this “flight” to collect treasures that are too high for you to jump, early-midgame, before you have better ways to gain height.

Secondary fire: Slam to the ground and deliver a shockwave that damages and knocks up all ground enemies nearby. This is slightly larger if you do it while midair.

Fire Dragon, Ifrit

Ifrit can just fly. He ascends slowly, mind you, but nonetheless.
Primary fire: Charge up and throw a fire orb which melts enemies it travels through and does damage in a large aoe blast when it hits terrain. Overall great damage for mobs of enemies, but awkward to use against anything mobile, and halts you.
Secondary fire: Generate up to 2 fire whirlwinds, which damage enemies they sit atop. Less mobile enemies will take great dps from these. They’re fast to cast, so make sure to get them up before throwing fire orbs.

Water Dragon, Mal

Mal constantly is emitting icy shards which fire in front of him and shred lesser enemies. Mal can just fly, also.
Primary fire: Fire an icy beam that damages and freezes ground-based enemies.
Secondary fire: Dive into the ground and out again with a magical splash of water in an AoE, doing solid dps and staying very mobile as you do. Unlike your primary fire, this stops your icy shard stream from firing.

Air Dragon, Yama

Yama can fly, and calls down lightning in a dense and random pattern around himself when he’s doing nothing (but dancing and having fun).
Primary fire: Yama stops calling down lightning at all and punches repeatedly in front of him. This has short range but substantial DPS, and he remains very mobile while doing so, making it a solid source of DPS in some boss fights.
Secondary fire: Yama stops calling down much of this lightning, but draws small enemies toward him with a tornado, which does fairly high DPS to anything caught within.

Dark Dragon, Dracul

Dracul can fly.
Primary fire: Conjure skeletons either in a line or in a cone depending on your mode. Skeletons conjured in a line can reach far away enemies easier, whereas Skeletons conjured in a cone can collapse on an enemy you conjure them on faster.
Secondary fire: Switch modes.

Light Dragon, Typhon

Typhon can absolutely not fly. He’s pretty slow in fact, so use him only in situations where he can destroy everything in seconds.
Primary fire: Do a blinking dash forward and cut all enemies in the path. This is fairly superior to Mal’s secondary fire.
Secondary fire: Generate a metric ton of snakes from your hair in a cone, which don’t have minion AI, and instead slither forward and explode when they hit an enemy. This annihilates ground-based enemies in cramped rooms, doing great DPS.

RING INDEX:

Green Gorgon Ring: Grants massively increased (4x?) movement speed in exchange for massively darkened vision.

Acquisition: Purchasable at the Earth Emporium in Tree Top Village.
The vision penalty can be counteracted by increasing your gamma/brightness, but this movement speed is impractical for most combat situations; much like the Haste spell, it’s more useful for getting from place to place faster. Combos with the Red Demon Ring, kind of, as it appears to more than cancel out the Red Demon Ring downside.

Red Demon Ring: Grants the Fury buff, which grants increased attack speed secondary spell charge speed, in exchange for massively decreased movement speed (0.33x?).

Acquisition: Purchasable at the Fire Emporium in Mountain Village.
This ring’s tradeoff makes you only manageably slow at 800+ AGI, and also, as it makes you charge secondary spells faster, allows you cast Haste to help easily counteract the downside.

Blue Skull Ring: Grants double damage in exchange for taking quadruple damage.

Acquisition: Purchasable at the Water Emporium in Dockside Village.
If you’re good at avoiding damage (which isn’t always very possible, mind you!) this downside is very manageable. Using this and the Red Demon Ring in combination gives you an extreme boost in dps that is available very early in the game, but their downsides are also synergistic, so be careful.

Mana Ring: Grants you ~2 mana per second when worn, with no downside.

Acquisition: Complete a sidequest given by the Bard at the Magnus and Mead Tavern after you get the ♥ Fire Heart ♥, and he’ll grant you this. The quest can be completed early and ring acquired at the start of the game if you know where to dig up the treasure in Rainy Shores and can do so safely.
If you wear this with another magic regeneration ring, their benefits will each be halved. You will get no benefit if you wear all 3.

Heart Ring: Grants you ~1 HP per second when worn.

Acquisition: At 1200 STR or greater, you can lift a massive black pillar just outside of the entrance to the Forbidden Mines, and find the ring within.

Alchemy Ring: It grants you ~2 alchemy per second when worn.

Acquisition: Acquiring the Burial Belt from the Castle of Deception and returning it to Vikenti (the Paladin in the Tavern) will award you this ring.

Diamond Ring: This increases the amount of gold you get from treasure pickups by 50%, but nullifies your ability to get SP from collecting gold.

Acquisition: You need to obtain 30 total Mythril Ore from the Forbidden Mines to acquire this ring; spend 15 to upgrade your weapon to LVL 2, and you’ll be allowed to spend 15 more to get this and a bonus of 7500 gold.
Get this by reading my guide through the Forgotten Mine and searching for Mythril Ore, and always have it on hand to equip it for massive amounts of treasure pickups, such as after bosses. I wouldn’t recommend it for general gameplay as summons are very useful!

Dragon Ring: It doubles the amount of SP you get from collecting gold, but halves the gold you get from doing so.

Acquisition: Give the Lore of the Dragons book acquired from the Sunken Ruins to the Pirate Captain aboard his ship in the Dockside Village, and he’ll give you this.

Clover Ring: This ring doubles the amount of ingredient drops you get (Mandragora, Death Cap, Nitro Gel), but halves the amount of gold you get.

Acquisition: When you have access to the LVL2 Air Tome or LVL2 Magnetic Minigun, destroy the special Air Wall in the Misty Forest, behind a special Earth Wall that guarded a Marble Golem.

PACKRAT THIEF LOCKS:

Picking locked chests does not increase your lockpicking level, only picking the very linear-leveled set of Silver Locks next to doors throughout the game.
LVL1 Lock: In the Grave Keeper’s Cabin at the start of Misty Forest. DO NOT drop through the Chimney, you need to pick this lock.

Your reward is a paltry ~250 gold.

LVL 2 Lock: In the Forbidden Mines, in the arena room surrounded by rolling boulders at the end of 4 rooms of rolling boulders, a door on the east side.

Your reward is a shortcut back to the start of the dungeon.

LVL 3 Lock: In the Mountain Village, in the home with the presents; the northmost home in the center of town.

Your reward is some presents!

LVL 4 Lock: In the Submerged Ruins, in the SE part of the dungeon, in a hall just after the room with the boxes and chest with a key.

Your reward is a shortcut back to the hub room of the dungeon.

LVL 5 Lock: In the Castle of Deception, after the third set of stairs you go up to warp to the next area, before an arena fight with Black Knights and Wizfrauds.

Your reward is an elevator that leads to and from the start of the dungeon.

LVL 6 Lock: In Baradus Castle in the Cloudtop Village, behind the throneroom.

Your reward is ~5000 gold. Don’t forget your Diamond Ring if you have it!

LVL 7 Lock: In the Dark Citadel of the Twilight Sands, right in front of the Dark Lord.

Your reward is better odds on all slot machines! This is the real treasure of the Thief class, as the slots were already an excellent farming method.

LVL 8 Lock: In the pirate ship in Dockside Village. Go below deck near the wheel at the stern of the ship.

Your reward is like 10000 gold or so.

LVL 9 Lock: In the Pyramid of Balance, at the end of both the East and West paths that branch off from the first room in the dungeon.

Your reward is a shortcut back to the start of the dungeon. Unlocking one will unlock the other, you won’t be picking both locks.

LVL 10 Lock: In the Castle in the City of Magic, in the King’s quarters.

Your reward is access to the King’s treasure room. It’s ~15,000 gold or so, nothing to write home about… but hey, there’s always that Casino!

CREDITS:

I gotta start maintaining this sooner rather than later!

Octii and Psy for the amazing game! I love it!! Aaaa!!!!
Those who supported development of the game!

BazookaGoBoom gave me the answer to the “Three Stones Collide” riddle
Phoombus and Vahno gave me the info I needed to save Queen Honeydew
Vahno for gravestone puzzle solution img, Killer Cloud name, Miner Cabin jump
Conn1496 for his overall expertise. Listening to him has been very insightful