Chester Field/Stage 4

Stage


Stage 4 begins just outside of a town at dusk. This stage is a bit like Stage 2, which has a short stretch of town followed by a castle which you must enter to explore its fortress interior. The outdoors of the town itself holds few surprises.

The first door (A) contains the town chief who tells you that he recognizes you from when you visited the castle as a little boy. To continue on, you must very carefully jump over a set of small purple pools. Watch out for the Wasps that fly overhead, and carefully jump from one footing to the next. Falling in the water will cause your death.

Once you're beyond the jumps, the next door (B) contains a man who tells you that you need a strong soul (or perhaps sole, as in shoe) to reach the Silver Dragon. The next door (C) is a medicine shop. The door beyond that is locked, but the last door (D) that you come to in town is the Inn where you can receive a password for sleeping there overnight. Continue past the Inn and some trees where Wasps fly by to reach the castle entrance (E). Step inside to continue.

Once inside the fortress, you will be on the left side of an extremely long hallway. You will start below some bricks. You will not be able to jump up through the gap in the ceiling and destroy all of the bricks until you beat the labyrinth, but if you could, you would be able to reveal a hidden door (I) which contains a mysterious man selling spell books. It is not worth returning to this location once you have the labyrinth item, but it is interesting to note.

You will be forced to walk nearly the entire way before you can jump up and take the upper pathway above. A door (F) waits at the very end of the hallway, but if you pass through it, it will simply return you to the very beginning of the stage, outside of town. This hallway contains snakes and Cyclops, and is a very good hallway to walk back and forth, defeating enemies in order to collect health, experience, and money. You need a total of 530 metal to buy supplies here, and you should be able to reach Class I before continuing.

When you are ready to proceed, jump up to the upper pathway and walk back to the left. Switch to your mace and break through the blocks until you are in line with the vertical shaft that you can jump through to reach the next room above. You should not be too surprised to see the three spiked bar trap room. Clear the first and jump up through the ceiling to find another. Clear that one and jump up through the ceiling to find a new floating block and spiked wall room. Jump on to the first block, and exit through the gap in the wall to the right. Jump up to the middle platform along the right. Jump from there to the floating block above you. Ride it to the left to reach the next block on the same level. Cross over and let it take you beneath the gap in the ceiling. Jump up to continue on.

You will once again be on the left end of a long hallway split into two levels. As you proceed to the right, you will encounter many small Gatos. You can line yourself up beneath them as they fly downward, and strike upward at them to remove them. By the time you begin to see snakes cross the platform above, you will find an invisible gap in the floor. Falling through it will take you where you need to go, but it's not a bad idea to jump back up and continue on for a moment to purchase better defensive gear.

Assuming you decided to buy the gear, jump back up, and continue right until you reach the end of the floor. You will now see floating blocks over a giant pit. Your job will be to jump from block to block in order to make it over the pit. You should only jump from block to block when they are moving towards one another. Jumping any other time is risking and can prove fatal.

When you reach the other side, you must jump up and break your way through the bricks with your mace. While you might be tempted to jump up to the room above, the fact is you won't be able to clear that room until you have completed the labyrinth. Instead, jump through the left side of the wall and continue along the upper level above the floating blocks that you just rode. In this section, you must jump through passages where blocks float up and down. The collision in this section is a little weird, and you may die when you think it's safe to travel. Instead of waiting for the block to stop moving at the top or bottom, it is actually safest to move when the block is traveling down from the top to the bottom. You can pass right through the block, and you won't get killed since the top or bottom edge of the block won't suddenly "crush" you. If you follow this advice, you should be able to safely make it all the way through the upper section until you reach the level portion. Then simply cross all the way back to the left until you reach the bricks.

Break the bricks with the mace to find a door (G) behind them. Enter it to find a shop where you can purchase the Chain Mail for 250 metal. Outside the shop is an important location as well. The second block from the top along the right column of bricks hides a regular potion that heals 10 points. If you collect it, scroll the bricks off the screen, and then turn around and hit that brick again, you will always find another potion. By going back and forth, you can very quickly restore your health to 200. Once you have the Chain Mail and are healthy, return to the right. When you reach the first gap in the floor, time your fall through it so that you land on the floating block below. Then jump to the next block to the left and back onto the floor. Walk to the left to reach that invisible gap in the floor.

When you drop down, break the wall to the right with the mace, then drop down to the floor, turn around, and break the bricks along the floor to the left until you find a door (H). Inside is a man who will sell you the Silver Sword for 280 metals, so be sure to collect it. After you leave, return to the right. You must now jump from statue head to statue head over the gaps in the floor. As you do, Wheels will appear much like Ghosts and fire projectiles downward. They have a bad habit of appearing over your head sometimes while you are jumping, so be careful as you proceed.

When you reach the last statue, you have a difficult task ahead of you. You must jump up to the gap near the ceiling to cross over to the right. But there are bricks in your way. Switch to the mace and attack the blocks as you rise up to the gap. If you break the top left brick, you will be able to land safely and continue on. If you don't, you will fall to your death and have to start over. Pass through the vertical falling block and drop down.

You will see a door at the end, but this door is a false door, as it won't open. The door that you're looking for is hidden behind the bricks above the door, but you must work to reveal it. Start by jumping up above the door and break the four bricks in the bottom left corner. Then jump up to the platform and pass through the wall to break more bricks and fall down into the gap you created. The entrance (4) to the labyrinth will be just beyond the bricks you first broke.

Labyrinth
There are no new enemies in this labyrinth (aside from the boss), but there are many more passages that loop around on themselves, including two one way vertical loops, and two rooms that have infinite loops to themselves. The very center room wraps around from the top to the bottom, and the room in the upper right corner leads back to itself if you travel in any direction other than down.

You'll have to travel a bit to reach the boss. From the start, climb down to the room below and head to the right. Climb down the ladders in the next room to reach the room below. Once there, head to the right, watch out for the Little Dragons, and climb down the ladder. From the lower level, return to the left, and climb down the next ladder to reach the room below.

Beat up the Metal Armor waiting for you and begin walking to the right. Pass through the Little Dragons room and climb up the ladder in the central room to arrive at the bottom of the very same room. Then continue on to the right and climb down the next ladder.

Proceed to the right, defeat the Metal Armor, and climb up the ladder. Attack the Metal Armors if you wish, and proceed through the only door in the room to the right. You will find that this is a one way trip to a room that looks strikingly similar to the entrance. Climb down the ladder to the next room. Continue climbing down to the lower level of the room, and walk through the door to the left. You will now be one room above the boss. Head down the ladder when you are ready.

For the first time, the labyrinth boss will not be a Skulltas. Instead, it will be a large Green Dragon. The Green Dragon is different from the Skulltas in that it does not simply walk forward, but rather it bounces along the floor. Despite this bounce, you can still utilize pretty much the same strategy of standing on the floor where it is about to land and rapidly swing your sword straight up into the air to strike its head. If you don't kill it on the first bounce, reposition yourself to set up for the second bounce. You will take a bit of damage, but you should be able to kill the boss before it puts you in any danger of dying. As a reward for beating the boss, you will receive the Kazaremo Shoes which increase your jumping ability.

The trip out of the labyrinth is a bit different, but not much shorter, than the trip in. From the boss room, climb the ladder and head to the left. Then climb down the ladder for a one way trip that will return you to the top of the same column. Climb all the way down to the room below, and head to the left to the central room. Climb up the ladder to once again arrive at the bottom of the very same room and leave through the left door.

Continue through the Little Dragon room, to the left, and climb down the next ladder. In another room of Little Dragons, head through the right door. In the room with Metal Armors, climb down the ladder to the lower level and proceed to the right. Then climb down the ladder that you see. You will be warped around to the starting room, where you can immediately begin climbing back up, only to exit the labyrinth.

Proceed to Stage 5
Once you exit the labyrinth, drop down through the gap in the floor to the fake door below. Now you can simply ride across the floating blocks to return to the statues that you must leap across in order to reach the bricks on the far left side. Break through the upper level of bricks with your mace so that you can leap up through the shaft to the long hallway above.

At this point, if you were desperate to obtain a spell book, you could return all the way to the beginning of the fortress to reach door (I), which is now achievable thanks to the Kazaremo Shoes, but since there is also a spell book shop near the start of the fifth stage, it really isn't worth all of the back tracking. Instead, proceed to jump across the floating blocks again. Once you reach the other side, break through the bricks in the wall above you so that you can reach the shaft and jump up through the ceiling to the room above. (If you're very low on health, below 100 or so, you can return to the shop door (G) and repeat the potion trick explain above to restore your health to 200.)

In this room, you must carefully navigate your way across the moving blocks. There are bricks over your head which you can smash with the mace to make transitioning from the first block to the second block a little easier. Once you reach the second block, drop down to the floor, walk to the left, and prepare to jump right along side the set of spikes facing right. You need to jump up along this wall and through the narrow gap above that will permit you to land to the left. If you can't make it through, reposition yourself so that you can try again. Eventually, you will make it up onto the ledge above the spikes. Then you can jump up through the hole in the ceiling.

Up here, you will find another false door to the left, while a short trip to the right will cause you to encounter the Silver Dragon. Although the color is different, this Silver Dragon behaves exactly the same way as the Green Dragon that you previously just beat in the labyrinth. Assuming you have enough health, you can use the same exact tactic of simply standing in its path, taking some damage, and rapidly striking it in the head. Assuming you defeat the dragon, you can continue on to the right to the final door (J), which of course contains the man who will warp you ahead to the next stage.