Balmorian Ruins

Size: 3x4 (Large) Overall Terrain: Coastal Isthmus Daylight Hours: Normal Stage Music: Thunder Overall Difficulty: 5 Stage Boss: Albeleo

City & Roshian Temple Information Cities (12) Hidden Cities (1) Roshian Temples (4) Buried Treasure (4) Allelta Kalayo RT #1: Along the road in 1) SW of Wallas; right in Rebel Base Directly W of Wallas; at between Vaskallah & the open area before Balmoa the end of the road that Wallas the two mountains Boss Castle goes into the mountain RT #2: SW of Shik’ Anhy 2) NW of Shik’ Anhy; in Ayak Cho   RT #3: SW of Kalayo; in the open area by the SE of Kolopuhn   the extreme SW corner mountain near the river Chinnchalta   of the map 3) Directly W of Balmoa; S of Balmoa; at the end of   RT #4: W of Kannyate; on on the island with along the road by the water   the very tiny island the edge of the map Kannyate     4) NW of Wan Kayo; in SE of Balmoa; on the     the gap in the mountain larger island by itself     range Kolopuhn     Chaos Gate! SW of Chinnchalta     Beta: Organa Sahnfan     Slightly SE of Wan Kayo; NE of Vaskallah; at the     in the open area on the end of the road in the     island that sticks out mountains     from the edge of the Sel’ Pasch     map Slightly NE of Kannyate         Shik’ Anhy (Shop)         W of Vaskallah         Vaskallah         Slightly NW of Allelta         Wallas         NW of Allelta; on the         other side of the river         Wan Kayo         NE of Sel’ Pasch; along         the top of the map

Stage Shop Wares

Shik’ Anhy “CURE” (Cure Potion) 400 Goth “HEAL” (Cure Stone) 700 Goth “ALL HEAL” (Cure Ankh) 2,000 Goth “BELL” (Dinner Bell) 2,000 Goth “REVIVE” (Ethereal Flute) 2,000 Goth

Nothing special to buy here. just stock up on those you’re running low on.  It is pretty irritating that they made the “BELL” (Dinner Bell) available on a stage where another bell is also available! Don’t get confused!  more on that below...

Neutral Encounters

LV: 10 Black Dragon LV: 10 Rock Golem LV: 15 Wraith Forest Desert (Mountain) Marsh

There are finally a few useful neutral encounters on a stage!  And I’m not talking about the Rock Golem!  The description of “desert” as the location is a bit baffling, though.  It must mean those tiny little bits of rubble that are strewn about all over the map.  But as for the class that is worth finding, the Wraith, you should go hunting in the section of swamp that makes a triangle bordered by the towns of Chinnchalta, Ayak Cho, & Shik’ Anhy.  There are two reason why this is useful.  First, to recruit some more powerful Undead if you don’t have any Liches to do it for you. The other, better reason is to have some characters gain Charisma & Alignment when they kill one! This is a nice spot if you have some character in dire need of an increase, but the next stage, Antalia, has tons of Level 20 Undead to go bashing! You may as well just wait until then.

Enemy Units

Different Types of Units: 9 Total Enemy Unit Deployed: 24 Enemy Level Threshold: 12 - 15 Unit# 15-1

The units on this stage are fairly difficult.  You will get a broad variety of units to deal with. Sky, water, and even some Undead ones will be set after you. There are some really irritating unit here as well, so make sure that you have a “Temperance” or two in your back pocket! Nevertheless, you should have units strong enough to deal with the threat. Especially if you are able to get a certain Mage to join your quest...

Beat The Stage!

Prologue:  The unsuspecting Albeleo is one of Rashidi’s finest pupils.  Rumors are that even though he looks young, he is well over 100 years old.  Has he mastered the rules of mortality? Further exploration of this region will reveal several statues carved by the well renown sculptor Balkas.  His greatest work is an image of Saradin, the great warrior who turned against the Empire to save his people.

Listen carefully, my son, because on this stage there is another powerful ally at your disposal. The mighty Saradin is waiting to be freed, and he makes a more powerful Lich than even Warren!  However, he’s fairly tough to get. None of this “visit a Roshian Temple and he’s joined!” type of crap, oh no! Remember the hoops that you had to jump through to get Canopus?! It’s almost that troublesome, but not that quite! Read on, eager adventurer...

Deployment Time!
Once again, you’ve got another large stage ahead of you. You won’t find too many more small ones anymore, sadly...  Also, there are a crap load of cities to liberate scattered all over the map, so you will want to deploy almost 7 city liberating units or so, just to make things go faster.  The enemy units are no pushovers on this stage, so you will also want to deploy your very finest fighting units as well. Find a nice balance of fighting & liberating units. There is a nice & convenient road leading directly to where you need to go, so send all land based units along it, north to Vaskallah.  Your flying units like Canopus should cut right across the elongated lake that runs parallel to the road to the towns of Wallas & R.T. #1.  After that, they can branch off in different directions, making a particular interest in the SW region, where the hidden town of Kalayo is.  As usual, have your Opinion Leader sit on the town and watch the action.

Step 1:  Your ultimate goal for this stage is to get Saradin to join your party, and then have him confront Albeleo at the boss battle of Balmoa.  However, there are many things that you must do before you can find this uber character.  First things first: do not allow any of your liberated cities to be retaken! I know that this should go without saying, but for this stage especially, it is imperative that you keep them all, because any loss in Reputation would pretty much ruin any chance that you have of getting Saradin.  To do this easily, you will want to control the flow of enemy units.  By the time your units get to the region nearby Vaskallah, you should start to see the first High Sky enemy units.  As you send your own to butcher them, you can slip some of your slower moving city liberating units east, towards the towns of Shik’ Anhy (which also has the shop), and Ayak Cho.  You can also make your move up and over to the towns of Sel’ Pasch & Sahnfan, which is tucked in the mountains.

Step 2:  Once you get some units up to the town of Sel’ Pasch, the stage is basically won battle-wise.  Why? Well, the only way off of the island that the boss castle Balmoa is on is for the enemy units to trudge through the shallow water, and hip hop across the islands to even get to you. You can easily be able to intercept them with the units that you want to use to fight them, and cut them down along the way. There will be a Water unit or two to watch out for, but nothing a Muse can’t take care of! The towns of Chinnchalta & Kolopuhn may be at risk from units that get sent of in wild directions as your near the capital, so make sure these are garrisoned. The units that tend to fly over here are the annoying Undead ones, like Unit# 15-4, so get ready for them with the proper Undead counter.  All of your other towns farther south are not in any real danger, as long as you have these places held, you should be okay.

Step 3:  Now, on to the real challenge of the stage! As you liberate the various towns, you will hear many myths and legends about Saradin from the people.  There will be something of interest at the hidden town of Kalayo, located SW of Shik’ Anhy a ways. They have a treasure that has been kept within the city walls for generations, but they will only present it to a true hero. Other towns will tell you about the master works of Balkas, a famous sculptor of the statues from this region. However, once you liberate the town of Wan Kayo, they will tell you that one of the statues is actually Saradin, who has been turned to stone by Rashidi’s magic for abandoning the path to the darkside after seeing the light. To make things come full circle, the ‘treasure’ of the town of Kalayo is said to be able to free him. You know where to go next... While you are flying around this area of the map, you may want to stumble upon the Chaos Gate to Organa.  It’s in that open area on the island slightly SE of Wan Kayo.

Step 4:  Once you have all of the towns liberated, return to Kalayo.  This is the important part of this whole process. You have to have an extremely high Reputation, extremely high Alignment on your Opinion Leader (70+ at least), and also possess the “HEROSTAR” (Star of Heroes).  Or else, you won’t even be able to get the treasure! When you have all of these things, you will be rewarded with the “BELL” (Bell of Light), whose powerful resonance can turn stone back to flesh! If you are playing the SNES version, do not get this item confused with the type of bell that you can buy, the “BELL” (Dinner Bell).  That weak ass item won’t cut it here!  Now, all you have to do is find the correct statue of Saradin to use it on...

Step 5:  Now, every time that you enter a town or a temple, you will be shown a graphic of a stone statue of Saradin, presumably made by the great sculptor Balkas.  You will then be prompted whether or not you wish to use the “BELL” (Bell of Light) on the statue. You can’t lose it by using it on the wrong statue, so don’t worry if you get prompted when you are at the wrong place. After all, there is only one true Saradin!  The statue of the real Saradin is located at R.T. #4, which is on a tiny island directly west of Kannyate, which is also on an island by itself.  Confirm that you wish to use the “BELL” (Bell of Light) on this statue, and the statue will flash, and Saradin will be free once again! To show his graduate, he will join your rebellion.  He has a score to settle with the boss Albeleo.  Oh, and don’t forget that you have to have free space in your army (100 is the max) for him and his escorts!!  Otherwise, the “BELL” (Bell of Light) won’t work on any statue, no matter how hard your ring it!

Step 6:  Now that the hard part is done, all that you have to do is set up your new unit, with Saradin as the leader, and head for the boss castle of Balmoa.  The great thing about Saradin is that he starts out as a Mage, so you can transform him into a Lich instantly!  Provided that you have a spare “STAFF” (Undead Staff) and “UNDEAD” (Undead Ring) floating around, of course...  You really should at this point in the game tho.  Even if you can only turn him into a Sorcerer, that’s good enough for now!  Drop in some other cruel fighters, and this unit is ready to rock!!  The best way to get his newly made unit there quickly is to “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) him to Kannyate.  After you’re done preparing, allow this master of magic to teach his former pupil gone bad a new lesson... Of Ass-Whoopin’!

Fight It Out!!

Boss Time!

Albeleo Doll Master HP 158 LV 17 STR 102 CHA 62 AGI 153 ALI 70 INT 153 LUK 48   LV: 15 Rock Golem LV: 17 Doll Master     LV: 14 Black Dragon     5 Direct & 2 Hit-All

School is back in session! With a strong unit lead by Saradin, you should have almost no problems with this battle.  This entire unit is all about Physical, both offensively and defensively.  The only real trouble comes from Albeleo himself, as he has two Acid Cloud attacks that could leave you reeling. A “World” Tarot Card might be very handy if you have lots of characters that are very weak to Physical attacks. If damage is what you are looking for in a Tarot Card, the “Hermit” & surprisingly “Chariot” cards are good choices for hurting the boss. Albeleo doesn’t have that many Hit Points for a boss this far into the game, so you may not need as much of this as you might think. A “Fool” card could wipe the slate clean in the Front Row, making the fight real simple!

Available Items

Not many items to seach for here.  The “BELL” (Bell of Light) is really important though, and can only be found while on the stage!

SNES Name: BELL Selling Price: 5 Goth PSX / Full Name: Bell of Light Buying Price: - - Description: “A bell to call back the soul into the cold stone. Only the righteous on is able to use.”

SNES Name: MEDAL Selling Price: 135,000 Goth PSX / Full Name: Platinum Medal Buying Price: - - Description: “Medal that represents status.”

Aftermath

Not much to do really, a “Sell for Goth” item, but also a Chaos Gate if you missed it!

1) Visit the town of Sahnfan, which is the town nestled in the mountains along the eastern side of the map. Here you will be given the “MEDAL” (Platinum Medal), which nothing important plot wise. Sell it for a huge amount of Goth.

2) If you did not already find it, there is a Chaos Gate to Organa. on this stage. It is SE of Wan Kayo, on the island that is protruding out from the edge of the map in the clearing area on the western side of the island.  This particular Chaos Gate may not really be all that important, as you’ve already been there, but you may as well find it all the same! Of course, you must have the unit searching for the Chaos Gate equipped with the “BRUNHILD” (Brunhild) in order to even find it!