Romancia/Walkthrough

Romancia philosophy
Romancia is not the kind of game that you are meant to obtain clues about every step of the process to beat the game. You are intentionally placed blindly into many situations that you are meant to figure out on your own. You learn what to do and what not to do through trial and error. You may play the game one time, and only get so far. Then you play the game again and learn from your mistakes to get a little farther. It make take you many tried before you figure out how certain items work, or what relation they have to other events in the game. Therefore, you should only consult part one and part two of the walkthrough when you are truly stuck and have run out of ideas. On this page, a couple of notes will be presented. These are common "gotchas" that may not be quite so obvious to players who are unfamiliar with this game, or games of its type. Note that they are spoilers, but they are spoilers that don't necessarily tell you how to play the game, they merely point you in the right direction if you happen to misunderstand how they work.

Helpful hints

 * Do not be surprised by the repetition in this game. You need to travel back and forth between Romancia and the neighboring kingdom Azoruba several times.
 * You will also need to visit heaven on several occasions. Both the way into heaven and the way out of it require particular items.
 * The man on standing on the cloud will kill you if you speak with him two times. However, if you have the right item and the right stats, he is your means of getting into heaven.
 * You need a Soul to return to earth from heaven. The game originally only provides you with the ability to collect six Souls, which means if you take a seventh trip to heaven, you will be stuck there.
 * Note that the English translation patch for the Famicom version allows for you to obtain extra souls by talking to the person in the third house in Azoruba.
 * Double jumping isn't just a helpful technique; at certain points in the game it is a necessity, so you must learn how to perform it properly. You don't need to do it correctly the first time every time, you just need to be able to perform it successfully every couple of tries.
 * You earn Karma Rings for doing good deeds. However, there are only so many good deeds that can be done in Romancia.  Once you complete them all, you are going to have to find a new way to earn Karma, and the key to that is in heaven.
 * The more Karma you have, the more the people in heaven will help you. Many items are cursed, or lack any special power.  If you have the right amount of Karma, you can get curses removed and have items blessed.
 * The enemies that you encounter in Azoruba are actually transformed innocent citizens. If you kill them, your Karma will decrease, and that may prevent you from ever getting into heaven.
 * The king of Azoruba will transform you into a pig if you possess any Karma Rings at all. Being a pig limits how much you can do, but it does enable you to explore many regions without fear of getting hurt.
 * The only known way to come back from being a pig is to travel to heaven, and then use a Soul to return to earth.

Escaping the pig pit
There are several locations throughout Azoruba where you may find yourself stuck in a pit with several other pigs. Every pit looks identical, as shown in the image to the right. When you find yourself in this situation, escape is easier than it first appears.

The first step is to get up on the ledge on the right side of the room. It is too high to reach by double jumping, but the tiny platform to the left of it is not. Stand on either side of that tiny platform and double jump so that you can get on top of it. Then leap over to the ledge. The hard part is over.

From the ledge, you can actually hop into the right side of the wall. If you push up, you will actually rise quite high through the wall and reach the ceiling. However, this is actually not what you want to do. In order to escape, you actually need to leap from the wall to the left in such a way as to hit a location that is a few pixels away from the wall and below the ceiling. If you leap when you are roughly even with the "eyes" of the face in the background, at a 45 degree angle to the left, you should hit it and be suddenly transported from the pit. If you don't, allow yourself to fall back down to the ledge and try again. Eventually, you will be successful and make your way out of the pit.