D&D Miniguide

[You]

Yes, some actual trophy thoughts and not just speculation on what sorts of trophies this game might have

 

Ok, so some good and bad news on this game.

 

There are 2 trophies, each requiring you to complete the game in 1 credit. Now whilst I will say I am good at these games, I played them a lot in the day back when they were new. Even on the easiest 1 star setting though, I was only able to complete Tower Of Doom using about 4 credits, I am generally ok but tend to struggle on that stupid purple dark elf boss near the end. He is so fast and when he uses magic to freeze you, well I can't seem to get away before I am hit.

 

Sooo, after you complete the game you get the option to continue, which I did and you get to keep all your exp, items and money etc from the first time around. Cool huh? Well not really, each time you complete the game it gets harder, 3rd time around the enemies are ridiculously hard and you just seem so weak. Took me nearly 15 minutes to do some bosses, regular attacks turning into chip damage.

 

After that I decided to try and play the hardest setting just to see how hard it was. I just mashed right on the dpad as fast as I could and that is when I noticed something. After 8 stars, the max difficulty pushing right again makes the stars go into skulls. 8 skulls, a kinda super hard secret difficulty? Anyway I didn't try it but it got me thinking, maybe it is the same in the other direction?

And true enough pressing left on 1 star gives you a super easy setting, which I will affectionately refer to as "duck difficulty", since all the stars turn into ducks.

 

Now in duck difficulty, you start off with max items, you have 9 of everything, not only that you also have special equipment that doesn't break, ie Speed boots all the time.

This makes the game a lot easier, you still need a bit of a skill, especially in bosses. But starting off with 9 CSW (Cure serious wound rings) really helps, if you're about to die you can heal yourself a bit and try to make it to the next shop to buy healing. Having 9 fireballs and 9 bolts are really handy on the black dragons and those stupid golems before the final boss. I think the cleric also has an additional 9x "Cure Serious Wounds" scrolls as well as the rings.

 

Anyway so I was able to finally one credit complete Tower Of Doom, still tricky in places but it makes the game so much easier than even 1 star difficulty setting.

I guess duck difficulty is also available for Shadow Of Mystara which should explain why these two 1 continue trophies have quite a generously high 10% of more trophy rarity.

 

So that's the good news.

 

Moving onto the bad news.

 

One of the trophies requires you to perform the final strike!

 

What is that you may ask?

 

Well I didn't know either, but I checked out google and sadly it's probably something that will stop me getting the platinum on this game.

 

https://steamcommunity.com/app/229480/discussions/0/4111168970107405219/

 

You need to have 4 characters with various weapons all doing a spell at the same time, so that requires not only 4 controllers but 4 real players too, as some of the characters need to have requirements like over 1million exp and the party a total of 2 million exp. It also needs to be done on the last boss too...

 

Guy in this video must be playing it on MAME as he is controllers all 4 players using the same controller.

 

Seems like all the trophies but this one will be fairly easily. Howere, this is a fair warning to anyone who wants to buy this game. You probably aren't going to get the platinum.

 

I have 4 PS3 controllers...but I'm sadly not an Octopus.

 

The trophy rarity is weirdly still over 10%, I wonder if there is an easy trick that I am not aware of....

 

 

[edit]

 

A Japanese wiki I found had this to say.

 

"Item -- Staff of Wizardry

 

A wand exclusively for magic users that greatly increases magic attack power when equipped.
    When playing with 3 or more players (2 players in the Sega Saturn version), the wand flashes red if certain conditions are met,(Party is over 2 milllion of EXP) and it is possible to activate the powerful magic attack "Final Strike". The final strike is powerful (the final boss is about one and a half health gauge, and the others die instantly), but after activation, the wand is destroyed and the health of all party members becomes 1 pixel of health.

 

[edit2]

 

Mini guide on the other trophy site says:- "Maybe possible with 2 players"

 

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/topic/206758-quick-trophy-guide/

Edited July 25, 2021 by enaysoft

[You]

Mini update but almost done on these great games.

 

One credit runs are no problem when you can just press start+select to go back to the main menu and click "continue" to just start off from that section of the game. As long as you move to the next area on decent enough health, you can just try again if you happen to lose a ton of health on a boss.

 

Final strike was easy, just start off with any character from the very beginning, and kill the red dragon route, when you get to 10-2 where the Staff of Wizardry is, join in player 2 as magic user and then get him to open the chest to he gets the staff. I just used final strike there and then in the room with no ememies in it. Killed off magic user and just carried on.

 

For all the routes for the hidden rooms I used these.

 

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/arcade/583644-dungeons-and-dragons-tower-of-doom/faqs/74441
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/arcade/563201-dungeons-and-dragons-shadow-over-mystara/faqs/11489

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/708534-dungeons-and-dragons-chronicles-of-mystara/map/5500-game-flowchart-part-1
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/708534-dungeons-and-dragons-chronicles-of-mystara/map/5501-game-flowchart-part-2

 

Unlike the western version of Dungeons and Dragons where you can only choose from 4 chapter selects, in this version you can teleport using chapter select to any sub level in the entire game and there is even a preview movie of the stage before you select making it very easy to pick up missing weapons. (In this version you don't need to get any treasure, only weapons, in Tower Of Doom you don't have to collect anything!)

 

Also a tip for the "Throw 100 crates at enemies" trophy in Tower Of Doom, this trophy is an absolute ballache, I think I have something like 6 or 7. There's very few areas in the game where crates and enemies appear together, tons in the second one. And even then, it's very to pick up and aim and land on target.

I discover an easy way though, if you just keep choosing

 

STAGE 5-F

炎の入口

 

as soon as the stage starts immediately pull out your sword and go straight into the first second room which if right in front of you. Now immediately pick up the steel chest and move down and left into the middle of the screen, just do nothing and wait for the scorpions to hit you, there will be five. When they attack you will drop the chest on them and it will count as a hit. Each scorpion dies in two hits but as soon as they do, press select+start and then "continue" and you'll be back where you started to repeat this again.

 

Will take you about five minutes. Even better is that when you press select+start, the game will pop the trophy for you automatically if you have over 100, so you don't even need to finish the stage.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by enaysoft

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

@enaysoft how much of a nightmare would this game be for someone who didn't speak Japanese

[You]

8 hours ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

@enaysoft how much of a nightmare would this game be for someone who didn't speak Japanese

 

Hmm, a bit tricky navigating some of the menus perhaps, but other than that.not too bad. Most of it is just gameplay and there are plenty of guides you can read like I linked.
Stage select in this game is very handy as it actually has a movie preview of what the stage looks like before you start

 

If you do buy the game and get a bit stuck, feel free to send a screenshot and I will help you where I can.

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

1 hour ago, enaysoft said:

 

Hmm, a bit tricky navigating some of the menus perhaps, but other than that.not too bad. Most of it is just gameplay and there are plenty of guides you can read like I linked.
Stage select in this game is very handy as it actually has a movie preview of what the stage looks like before you start

 

If you do buy the game and get a bit stuck, feel free to send a screenshot and I will help you where I can.

Right on, thanks, and enjoy your premium subscription to the site. I'll look forward to your expanded trophy cabinet 

[You]

Holy shit man! Did you just buy me Premium membership?! That was incredibly kind of you.

 

Erm yeah, let me know if you need any help.

 

Maybe the hardest bit in the menu is not even the Japanese but where it shows you which items you have picked up in the second game.

It does this by having black and white/grey  icons which turn into colour when you pick them up. Which is really annoying when you have stuff like silver swords, silver cloaks etc. It's virtually impossible to tell which is which since they were grey anyway lol.

 

Which is why you probably should make a note of items like Cleric's clothes, battle axe and the swords etc.

Edited October 26, 2021 by enaysoft

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

My bad man I didn't notice this response until a little while ago. Yeah you're welcome though, you're a good dude and I thought maybe you could use the features

[Sendai-Horatio]

I'm having some trouble with the final strike trophy. If I'm playing solo I wind up still under 2 million exp by the time I go get the staff and this is with killing the dragon.

[You]

What score was you on when you got the area with the weapon? I can't remember what I did but you should definitely be taking it slowly and going through every secret area and picking stuff up for extra exp/points.

When the boss arrives killing the boss as quick as you can for the time bonus / remaining health where possible.

 

I didn't need to use player 2 at all, but I guess you could join in player 2 for the bosses only and just spam their magic attacks to help killing the boss in a quick time.

I was Warrior class by the way. If you are Cleric do not use the spell to kill the undead instantly as doing so gives you zero exp.

 

When I was grinding tower of Doom for EXP I used the Red Dragon too, it was all about speed and literally just spamming magic as quickly as possible and just diving in and attacking and also hoping to be killled quickly. I am pretty sure killing the Red Dragon and seeing how much score you get is the best and you feel it is slow. Do a soft reset and try again.

 

Also, if this advice does not work. You might need to bump up the difficulty from duck difficulty. I can't remember if there are more enemies on harder difficulties. If there are since it is infinite credits, you should try a harder difficulty level and make note how much score you have at the end of each stage and see if there was a difference.

Edited May 15, 2022 by enaysoft

[Sendai-Horatio]

29 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

What score was you on when you got the area with the weapon? I can't remember what I did but you should definitely be taking it slowly and going through every secret area and picking stuff up for extra exp/points.

When the boss arrives killing the boss as quick as you can for the time bonus / remaining health where possible.

 

I didn't need to use player 2 at all, but I guess you could join in player 2 for the bosses only and just spam their magic attacks to help killing the boss in a quick time.

I was Warrior class by the way. If you are Cleric do not use the spell to kill the undead instantly as doing so gives you zero exp.

Yeah I wound up using two players and a similar strategy for a 1 coin run. I did not die up until the dragon and I used a Fighter and Magic User, but both characters died multiple times during the dragon and I wound up with a surplus of 2 million points by the time I reached 10-2, where as before even playing the best I could as 1 character, I kept winding up under the required amount and I was averaging around 1,600,000-1,800,000 with one character. So it's much easier to have two characters than just 1 to give yourself a buffer.

 

Now the thing I think I'm going to knock out next is the item collecting and alternate routes. I have everything explored up to over 70% already. That and do you know a place where you can hurl chests at enemies for SOM?

Edited May 15, 2022 by Sendai-Horatio

[VegaMan-X4]

As far as I recall you can still use Final Strike if you continue your game after finishing it once (or more times) since you keep your level and equipment for as long as you don't switch your character. It's also pretty much required to completely defeat a couple of trolls early in the game, I think. Also continuing playing after beating a game increases a number of enemies and loot up to 4 times.

[You]

There are a ton of chests in SOM, I didn't need to grind that trophy.

 

You can probably do what I did in TOD, pick up a chest hold it above and face an enemy and let them hit you, you dropping the chest onto them will cause damage and count as a chest hit.

[Sendai-Horatio]

41 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

There are a ton of chests in SOM, I didn't need to grind that trophy.

 

You can probably do what I did in TOD, pick up a chest hold it above and face an enemy and let them hit you, you dropping the chest onto them will cause damage and count as a chest hit.

Ah ok I'll do that. Oh and something that hasn't been mentioned here, there's a complete item guide on the steam forums with their locations.

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=154984901

 

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Sendai-Horatio

[Sendai-Horatio]

OK there seems to be no real catalogue of easily passed over items so I'll post them and their locations. Another word of warning always transition to the next numbered zone before exiting back to the main menu including fast forwarding past any type of cutscene or the items will not register.

 

Shield of Protection from Evil(Gray Shield): Located in the area before the Ezerhorden battle, you will see a line of 4 gargoyle statues with ice flames right by them, the doorway is invisible and is located right between the 4 gargoyle statues. This is a hard item to tell if you have or not because it's very close to the original unfound gray color

 

Ring of Invisibility (Gold Ring with Black gemstone): Located at the Man Scorpion fight after the river raft sequence, you must play as Thief and loot the chests in the area before the boss fight. The ring should pop out of one of those chests,

 

Flaming Arrow: Fight the Manticore boss as the Thief and the item should drop once the Manticore is dead.

 

Ring of Protection from Evil: After dropping down the entire long pit where you would access the 3 caves(this is the location with the optional dragon fight) you will be given the chance 0f 2 routes and a hidden third route if you're playing as a dwarf. Take the hidden dwarf route and run through the area until you get to the boss battle of two elves. Here you want to either die and switch to thief if this is your first time here(or just select the boss fight if you've been here before from the chapter select screen and play as Thief). As the Thief you need to steal the ring from the elf bosses by running into them by hitting the left or right arrows twice to cause a dash, dashing is how the thief steals items.

 

Owlbear Egg(brown spotted egg with brown window background): pick the level Forest of Despair, go right from the start and walk until you see some ledges leading down(you will need to jump), you will see a cave to your lower right(this cave is located right above another cave, the cave you want is the one on top). Enter the cave and you'll fight some gnolls and eventually some owlbears. Use the Thief to steal from the owlbears here, the egg may have a higher drop rate here than compared to the beginning stages.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Sendai-Horatio

[You]

Some great finds there. I was using some guides on gamefaqs, although I did find a bit of that steam guide you mentioned.

 

Oh, and I probably wasn't too much help, but congratulations on your Platinum.

@Deadly_Ha_Ha Just waiting for you now mate! lol

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

It's funny @enaysoft I saw this was posted in yesterday and almost said something but it would have been off topic and I wanted to be respectful!