Trials of Mana/Part 9: Who Ya Gonna Call

After celebrating with the people of Rolante, you will regain control of your party in front of the castle. Hike back down the mountain. When you get to Palo, you will see a conversation between Hawk and Nikita. Afterwards, make sure you buy the new weapons and armor in the town (apparenlty the Navarre soldiers were keeping the good stuff for themselves!). The next area of the game can be very difficult if you don't have this equipment. You should probably have plenty of money saved up by now, so make sure you use some of it to stock up on Round Drops, Pakkun Chocolates, and possibly Angel Grails. Don't bother using the inn - you can get a free rest soon.

After gearing up, go to the dock and get on the boat. Yes, it is obviously a trap, but you need to get on it to go on with the game. After everyone wakes up, you can leave the room and go back in to get a free heal and save the game. Come back here whenever you want to heal and save while you're on the ship.

Leave the room, go up the stairs, and then go south. You will be in a hallway. Start walking around and the party will realize they're on the legendary ghost ship (queue the armies of undead!).

Now you have a choice: if you want to do this part the way Square intended (find the code yourself, then use it to open the passage) read on. If you want to do it the easy way (read the code from this website and skip having to find it yourself) skip to the next paragraph. Go east and then north and go up the staircase. Go to south and you will see a paper on the wall to the west. Read this paper to learn the code. Incidentally, the boss is beyond the door next to the paper, but the coward wants to thin out your numbers before he'll let you through! Now head back down the stairs to get back to the hallway.

Go through the door at the left end of the hall. Go up the stairs. Now you will be in a large room chock full of monsters. Kill them as you make your way to the door at the end of the hallway.

Now you will be in a room with three bookshelves. Read them in this order: Book of Blood, Book of Death, Book of Curses, Book of Death (or in other words: right, left, middle, left). Go to the right and read the book. A ghostly man will appear. Now you have a difficult decision to make: which of your party members is going to stay here while the other two go pound the boss?

There are several things to consider so it's not a simple choice. I'll go character by character:

Angela - The upcoming boss fight is one of the points of the game where she shines the most. Her Holy Ball is great against the boss, especially since she can hit him with it while he is airborne. If you have her, keep her!

Carlie - Her heals are very nice, and more than likely she has the highest Spirit out of everyone, meaning she will do more damage than anyone else with Light Coins. She is definitely a keeper if you don't have Angela. If you do have Angela, you might want to ditch Carlie so you will have a physical fighter who can help fight your way to the boss (if you have Angela do all the fighting between here and the boss, she will likely run out of MP before or during the boss fight). On the other hand, you could just keep Angela and Carlie and run past all the other monsters to get to the boss, though that will probably be somewhat dangerous.

Kevin - He's the heaviest hitter, so you probably don't want to give him up unless your party is Angela, Carlie, and Kevin (and even then, you might want to keep him).

Duran - The second heaviest hitter. Obviously Kevin has priority over him because of this. He also has the worst Spirit out of all the characters so never let him use your Light Coins.

Lise - The only reason to keep her is if you have an all fighter group. She has the best Spirit besides Carlie or Angela, so if you don't have either of them, you should probably keep Lise to throw Light Coins at the boss and maybe use Poto Oils to heal.

Hawk - A worse fighter than Duran and Kevin with worse Spirit than Lise. You might consider keeping him if your group is Kevin, Duran, and Hawk just because he has better Spirit than those two, so he will get more use out of the Light Coins. If you do keep him and you have a chance, you may want to boost his Spirit a point to help him with Light Coins and Poto Oils.

So, in summary, try to keep your best fighter and whoever has the highest Spirit. However, you can try it with your two best fighters and thrash him while he's on the ground; or you can try it with Carlie and Angela and blow the boss away with Holy Ball and Light Coins.

Anyway, take control of the character you want to leave behind and talk to the ghost. If you accidentally talk to him with the wrong character, you can leave the room, come back in and talk to that character to switch.

Now it's time to head to the boss. If you remember where the paper with the code is, go there and go through the door next to it. If not, here are the directions: leave the library, go down the stairs in the northeast corner, go south to get to the hallway, go up the stairs in the northeast corner, then go through the door in the soutwest corner.

Now go up the stairs, then go south and you'll be in another big room. Clear out all the monsters in this room and then prepare yourself to fight the boss - make sure you put your Light Coins in the item ring, along with any other throwing items you may have! Unfortunately, you can't use Dreamsee Herbs here to change it to nighttime. Incidentally, if you go in either of the rooms here and clear out the monsters you will find ghosts that sell you the equipment you could've bought in Palo - the one on the left sells armor and the one on the right sells weapons.

Boss: Gorva
While he is near the ground, he will cast Evil Gate and throw clouds at you. The clouds will silence you so if he hits Carlie or Angela with that attack, make sure you cure it with Puipui Grass or the Chibikko Hammer. Attack him as fast as you can while he's on the ground because you can't hit him with physical attacks when he is airborne. When he goes in the air, that means he's going to cast Dark Rain or Ghost Road so make sure both characters have their HP at 100 or higher. You can't hit him with regular attacks or techs while he's in the air, but Angela can keep casting Holy Ball on him (she should cast it throughout the fight) and anyone else can use Light Coins or throwing items (but make sure only your character with the highest Spirit uses the coins). If your person with the highest Spirit is Angela, you can have her throw the Light Coins until you run out of them (Light Coins have no casting time, unlike her Holy Ball spell) and then cast Holy Ball after that. This can be a scary fight since you are missing one of your characters, but just keep attacking and keep your HP high and you should beat him without too much trouble.

After the fight, your missing character will return and you will obtain Shade.