Gauntlet (NES)/Walkthrough

The story of the Sacred Orb
The black clouds swirled over the heads of the chosen ones. Four has come this far, but only two would continue. The portal to their deadly challenge awaited. Foreboding screams rose up from the Gauntlet.

Morak the Evil One cackled in glee as he watched the intrepid warriors prepare to enter his most terrible Gauntlet. He knew they would never reach their goal. The Sacred Orb would remain forever imprisoned at the lowest level of the Gauntlet. Without the Sacred Orb, Morak knew the mortals that inhabited Rendar would be helpless against his evil magic.

Morak had plundered the lands and hidden his booty in the Gauntlet. He garrisoned his henchmen in the Gauntlet to guard it. There were ghosts, grunts, demons, sorcerers, and even incarnations of death itself.

But could the Sacred Orb be in the Gauntlet? No mortal knew for sure. If nothing else, the warriors could retrieve the treasures of Rendar that Morak had plundered and stored in the Gauntlet. If only all four warriors could all continue, on this, the last leg of their quest. Alas, the portal only allowed passage of two mortals.

The warriors need your help. Choose from among them the two that shall continue: Become Thor the warrior, Thyra the valkyrie, Merlin the wizard or Questor the elf.

The fate of Rendar is in your hands.

Basic Gameplay
Ok. The whole idea of the game is too get through each level and find the exit to the next level, all the while trying not to get killed. Sounds easy enough right! Well, you'd be surprised how hard that simple little concept is.

Here's what you need to know to be able to identify:

Exits - Little black square that says "exit"(DUH!!!). Step into this and you go to the next level. Some levels have no exits! Others have multiple ones. Sometimes they are hidden and somewhere in the dungeon there is an exit that will automatically kill you.

Walls - Various colored...eh... walls. You can't walk through em so go around em. Some walls look solid but can be destroyed. Any suspiscious looking wall is usually a fake wall and can be destroyed. These walls lead to the really good stuff in the dungeons and secret exits!

Doors/Keys - You need keys to open doors and you need doors to use keys. Don't open every door you find as there may be no need to. Save those keys for when you need them.

Potions - The "kill everything on the screen with a push of a button before I die and have to start all over life saver". There are two types of bomb potions: Destructible and indestructible. Destructible bombs will activate when shot and indestructible bombs will not. Beware of bottles that look like potions but aren't they are poison and will take away 100 HP.

Treasure - What good is risking your neck if you can't get rich?! Pick up all the loot you can carry and reap the benefits! Literally. The more treasure chests you pick up the more your maximum HP will go up. Can't beat that! Beware of being too greedy though. Because after you pick up too much treasure you password will stop working!

Bags of Jewels - OO. Now that's what I'm talking about. These are pretty rare in the dungeon but they're worth 3 regular treasures so they are worth the extra effort to find.

Food - Those adventurers are braver than I am. If I found a bowl of food or cider sitting in the corner of a dungeon with the symbols "XXX" on it I doubt I'd eat/drink it... Oh well they seem to like it just fine and it restores 100HP.

Movable Walls - Pretty self explanatory here. Their walls but you can move 'em. They don't just move up down left right either. They can move in digonals and all whichways, so you don't have to worry about getting stuck.

Stun Floors - These things are nasty. Sometimes on the floor of the dungeon tiles are placed randomly and when an unexpected victim walks over them they are frozen in time for several seconds. Enemies instinctively know where these are and won't walk over them. The "careful" adventurer will avoid them if possible. (they are easy as hell to spot)

Magic Tiles - These are cool. They can appear almost anywhere and always open up some part of the level. They glow and constantly flash. As a general rule all ways use them.

·-· ·-·
 * ENEMIES |

Oh yea there are plenty of em in this game. TRUST ME. I would love to know how many enemies you have killed by the time you beat this game. It has to be in the 100,000's if not 1,000,000's. Anyone wanna keep track for me? 1...2...3.. Hehe.


 * Enemy Generators *
 * Enemy Generators *

Some enemies just occupy the dungeon and have always been there. More than likely though if there are monsters around there are also monster generators around. These hand dandy little contraptions spew out monsters-NONSTOP-until you manage to destroy the things. They come in 3 flavors. Easy, medium, and hard. How do you tell them apart? Easy if they look small or kinda simple in construction then they are easy. If they look big or pretty elaborate or big in construction they are hard. If you're not sure it's probably the medium one.

So what does each one do? Welllll, the easy ones produce monsters that take 1 hit to kill, the medium one produces monsters that take 2 hits to kill, and take a wild guess at what the 3rd one does. Yep. Produces monsters than takes 3 hits to kill.

Note that the 1,2,3 hits are just easy ways of explaining how hard guys are to kill. Depending on the your characters strength you maybe able to kill a level 3 monster in 2 hits rather than 3. It just depends.

(Courtesy of the manual and my added insight :)
 * Bad Guys *
 * Bad Guys *

Ghosts: They attack once, and vanish taking some of your power as they go. Easy to kill not much of problem.

Grunts: They continuously pound on you with their clubs. You really don't want to get surround by these guys or your butt will be toast. They aren't that tough though.

Demons: Their are two kinds of these. The ones that shoot and the ones that don't. The ones that shoot are deadly. Take care of them ASAP. They hurt bad and they shoot almost nonstop at you. The other kind is the ones that don't shoot. These are easy. Nothing to worry about.

Death: This evil black creature will chase you and drain 200hp before vanishing. Your shots have no effect on Death. I hate these guys the only wasy to kill them is to use a potion. I say run from them and just avoid them all together if at all possible.

Acid puddles: They wander randomly. Stupid monsters if you ask me. No real threat. You can't kill them with attacks so don't bother. Potions don't don't work either. Go figure. Don't worry though because they are basically harmless and you can avoid them pretty easily.

Sorcerers: They have the power of invisibility. They blink onto the screen and thenblink off. They are tough to destroy since they cannot be shot when they areinvisible.

Super sorcerers: They vanish, appear behind you and shoot you. Then they vanish again. These things are freaking awful.

Lobbers: They run away from you, but then they turn around and throw rocks at you - even over walls. More annoying than anything, as their rocks really don't hurt that bad.

·---· ·---· (Again from the manual)
 * SPECIAL ITEMS |

Magic potions are hidden in the rooms. If you collect these potions, you can increase your abilities. Each time you collect an extra ability, it is shown in the Pause Screen with your statistics. You have it for the rest of the game. Extra abilities only work once for each player.

Potions

Extra armor      : Reduces the damage you take. [shield] Extra magic      : Increases damage a bomb can do. [little bottle] Extra shot power : Increases the damage your shots do. [black spot] Extra speed      : Increases your speed. [arrow] Extra melee power : Do more damage in hand to hand fighting [knife]

In addition to the extra ability potions, you can also collect temporary abilities. These last only a little while and are not shown in the Pause Screen.

Temporary Invisibility: Enemies cannot find you. [white box with three lines]

Temporary Repulsion Amulet: Enemies run away from you. [orange box with three lines]

Temporary Reflective Shots: Your shots bounce off walls [white box with arrow]

Ten Super Shots: Your shots destroy everything, including doors. [orange box with arrow]

Temporary invulnerability: You have perfect armor for awhile, but your hp goes down twice as fast. [black box]

·--· ·--· (Thanks to TSR for this)
 * MAPS |

As you play the game, a map of each world is shown between rooms. You can chart your progress and see which rooms are conected together. Some room shave more than one exit so you may want to record which exits lead to which rooms. The treasure rooms are shown with a $ in the map. Clue rooms which contain a clue to the final combination are shown with ?. The final conbination is explain in the Collected Wisdom of World Five. These maps are considered accurate. Merlin's apprentice acquired them from Vellum the Mapmaker - the very same mapmaker Morak used to chart his Gauntlet.

Map of World One: The Castle

Your journey begins in the Castle World. Since it exists on the edge of the Veil, other mortals have ventured into the Castle. Many explorers have risked life and limb to bring back what little we know about the Castle.

$19 - L18 - L17 |    |     | Hint: In room 16, try shooting solid ?16 - L15 - L14     walls - one might disappear |      when shot. $08 - L09 - L10  L12 - $13 /       |        \  |  /  L07 - L06 - L05 - $04   L11 |       \              L01 - L02 - L03

Map of World Two: The Dark Forest

The dark reaches of this Forest world are unknown to mortals. Rumors and fables abound. Most of what is known comes from the tales told of the ancient time when chaos rules.

L20              L37 - L38 - L39         Hint: The clue is in a   |                 |        \  |                treasure chest. L21              $36         L40 - $41 | \              |  L23   L22   L33 - L34 - L35 | /        |     |     |  $24   ?20   L32 - L30 - L31 | /              |  L25 - L27 - L28 - $29

Map of World Three: The Lost Caverns

The cave-like rooms of the caverns are haunted by many of the horrendous fiends from the Unseen.

L56 - $55 - ?54 - L53 |       \        |           Hint: You may find a room L59 - L60 - L57        L52 - L51                in world three with \       |                 |                 treasure and bombs $62 - L58              L50 - $49 - L48    that you cannot get. \ |                       |     |              L61               L45 - L44   L47 |    |     |                                L42 - L43 - L46

Map of World Four: The Unseen

The world of the Unseen holds a formidable challenge. Could you possibly be blind? The walls are not there yet they are in this watery world.

L63 - L64 |                         L65     Hint: Invisible walls may be                        /  |            destructible walls as well. $78 - L77  ?66 - $67 |    |        \  |  L74 - L75 - L76         L68 |    |                 |  L73 - L72 - L71 - ?70 - L69

Map of World Five: Volcana, Lair of the Guardian

Lava flows on all sides. You know this is the last leg of the journey, but the Guardian awaits.

?90 - L91 - $92 - L93 | /              |      Hint: You have to find L88 - L89        L95 - L94 - L97     your way to room 94 |                |     |     |      which leads to the L85  L86 - L87               L96   L99   L98     Guardian. | /                                |  L84   L82 - ?81                    L100 |    |     |  L83 - L79 - L80

·-· ·-· World one is now done.
 * SECRETS |

Recommended path for World 1.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-19

Lvl 1 - In the upper right hand corner (by all the ghosts) their is a secret exit to level 5. Shoot the walls to find it.

Lvl 5 - Lots of gold in the upper left hand room. If you have an extra key you should use it here. Just to the right of the treasure room is a secret exit to level 9. You have to shoot a wall to find it but its there.

Lvl 7 - The treasure chest contain temporary invisibility. Don't waste your key.

Lvl 9 - The 1st locked room contains food, and reflective shots. The 2nd locked room holds death, a potion, and a key.

Lvl 10 - There is a false wall to the left of the 1st door so don't bother using a key. Also don't hit any of the magic tiles near the bottom of the room, they don't open up the way to the potion. Use the lone magic tile on the right side of the map instead.

Lvl 11 - The treasure chest contains reflective shots. In the area with the 3 magic tiles, hit the upper left one to open the way to legvel 12.

Lvl 12 - Awesome! This level rocks. It has a ton of stuff. 5 potions, food, lots of gold, and an extra armor potion. Don't wanna miss any of that stuff. Oh yea. The locked chest contains a magic tile which makes some walls in the center of the map disappear. Shoot the lone wall in the center to reveal another magic tile. Step on that to get rid of some more walls. Shoot the new wall, standing all by its lonesome self, to exit.

Lvl 14 - Hit all the magic tiles to get a key and to openthe way to both exits. The one to the left goes to 15. The one to the right goes to 17.

Lvl 15 - Hit all the magic tiles to open the way to level 16. The exit in the upper left is to 18. The treasure chest contains a stupid treasure so don't waste your key.

Lvl 16 - All right the secret room! Yea. There are four treasure chests. You only need 2 keys tho. Once you've hit the magic switch in either 1 or 3 go to the food room. Between the two plates of food is a fake wall. Shoot it to reveal another magic tile. Step on it to open the way to the exit and the clue.

1 2   

      3  4

1 contains a magic tile which open the bottom wall of the food area. 2 contains a poison potion. 3 contains a magic tile which opens the top wall of the food area. 4 contains an extra magic potion!

Lvl 17 - Both exits go to 18. The treasure on the bottom portion of the map contains food while the treasure on the top contains 1 treasure chest... whoopie...

Lvl 18 - Hey cool! This is an original gauntlet level from the arcade. I'm not sure which level but I know it definately is. Only 1 secret here. In the upper right portion of the room shoot a wall to reveal 10 super shots. Its along the very outter edge of the wall and has 3(?) other blocks touching it I think. It looks something like that if my memory is correct.

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