City of Xanadu

Size: 4x4 (Large) Overall Terrain: Arctic tributaries Daylight Hours: Normal Stage Music: Santa’s Coming Overall Difficulty: 5 Stage Boss: Overlord Hikash

City & Roshian Temple Information Cities (14) Hidden Cities (3) Roshian Temples (3) Buried Treasure (10) Janwalia Cellazool RT #1: NE of Janwalia; 1) E of R.T. #1; in Rebel Base NW of Quaalash; in the right next to Janwalia the mountain clearing Xanadu clearing by the mountains RT #2: SW of Pillabolla; 2) NW of Pessana; in Boss Castle across the river in the clearing between the mountain clearing Alaqua Kallongola the mountains & the river 3) N of Pessana; in E of Pillashcapia E of Quaalash; in the RT #3 (H): Directly S of the mountain clearing Anna Pol clearing by the mountains Balgenia; along the shore 4) SE of Quaalash; in S of Xanadu; along road just before the river   the mountain clearing Balgenia Pessana   5) E of Quaalash; in NW of San Bisen; on the In the SE corner of the   the mountain clearing small island map; in the grassland   6) SE of Ubelbahna; in Loudan along the shore   the clearing below the NW of Patos Demina     mountain by the shore Pallakat     7) E of Patos Demina; in W of Ubelbahna; at the     the open snowy area end of the road     8) NW of Loudan; in the Patos Demina / Patosdemi     middle of the circular NE of Pillashcapia; at the     road section fork in the road     9) W of Xanadu; on the Pillabolla / Pillabol     small island Slightly NW of Patos     10) NE corner of the Demina; along the road     map; in the big open Pillashcapia / Pillashc (Shop)   area along the edge of N of Quaalash     the screen Pilles Dol         NE of Patos Demina         Quaalash         NE of Janwalia         San Bisen         NW of Janwalia         Ubelbahna / Ubelbahn         SW of Anna Pol

Stage Shop Wares

Pillashcapia “HEAL” (Cure Stone) 700 Goth “ALL HEAL” (Cure Ankh) 2,000 Goth “REVIVE” (Ethereal Flute) 2,000 Goth “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) 3,000 Goth “FOLIO” (Tome of Myths) 100,000 Goth

The “FOLIO” (Tome of Myths) item is a strange one to find for sale, to be sure!  The only use it has is to trade it for a “FULLMOON” (Full Moon Stone) at the town of Ochiwalong on the Fort Shulamana.  Frankly, it’s not worth your money. The thing that you should really be buying are lots of “BOOTS” (7 League Boots)!  More on that below...

Neutral Encounters

LV: 20 Cockatris LV: 23 Ice Giant LV: 24 Platinum Dragon Ocean? Snowy Mountains Snowy Plains

Yowza, yowza!  A Platinum Dragon!! This is probably the first time that you have ever seen one, and getting it to join your army is even better! The only thing about it is that any Gold Dragons that you are grooming to become Platinum Dragons are probably better than this guy will be, so it may not help you as much as you might think.  In a pinch, you can make some quick Snow terrain units with one, though.  The other nice find is the Cockatris, but you’ve probably got your fill of those by now.

Enemy Units

Different Types of Units: 9 Total Enemy Unit Deployed: 29 Enemy Level Threshold: 21 - 25 Unit# 23-1

Many, many, many units that have the Snow terrain type will be coming at you this stage.  I mean, look at the landscape!  The other thing is that you will encounter many units comprised of “goodly” classes, such as Paladin and even Seraphim!  Some of your undead units might not like the battles on this board! There will of course be some High Sky units to deal with as well, so watch out for them.  The simple remedy here would be to use as many Fire attacks & weapons as possible.  Evil character classes will also be very effective on these units.

Beat The Stage!

Prologue:  The populace of the Highland Kingdom are not great supporters of the rebellion.  To them, the rebel army is an invading force. The strongest swordsman and supreme commander for the Empire, Overlord Hikash, is the boss of this stage.  Although he knows the Empire’s reign is over, and that the rebels stand for justice (depending on your path!), he can’t bring himself to turn his back on the highlanders due to his strong sense of duty and obligation.  He fights to protect his motherland.

Here’s a hint: the aforementioned Holy Sword is the “BRUNHILD” (Brunhild), which you happen to have!  Now, all you have to do is wake Fenril up from the funk that Rashidi has put her under, and she could possibly join you on your quest. Like Muspelm , this is a nice and easy stage, with no tricks or traps midway through.  Have at it!

Welcome. To Empire Country. Now that the finish line is in sight, and we are beginning the final three stages of the game, the game is going to start throwing all sorts of crazy twists and turns at you to try and stop you.  Because you are now beginning your invasion of the actual Empire stronghold, all of the cities on this stage are sympathetic to the Empire!  You can tell this by looking at the little “heart” icon when you click on a town and look at its information.  You’ll see that they are are all either LOW or MID.  What this means is that no matter what unit you use to liberate a town, goodly or evil, you will automatically lose a few points off of your Reputation Meter.  The exact amount that you lose varies slightly from within 1 point to possibly 3 or even 4 points. You’ve got a tough road to hoe!

Deployment Time!
The enemy will come from two different directions. He will send his flying units straight south from his boss castle of Xanadu, and all of his Snow terrain units will take to the trails, and head east along the roads, and then south. Start out by sending every flying fighting unit that you have north to meet the main threat. The enemy will come right over the north/south river that divides the main mountain range in the middle of the map, so blaze a trail with all of your High Sky fighters. You could have a Mountain terrain unit or two rumble around in the ranges that are prevalent on this stage, as a good portion of the fighting will take place here, and their Fire attacks will cause some serious damage to the classes that will be used by the enemy.  Depending on how fast your flying units move over the mountains, these units could be useful.  Also, all of those Snow terrain units that are burning a hole in your army list can now get jiggy with it!  Almost the entire map is covered with the white stuff, so take the opportunity to use at least one or two of the guys.  This is a big ‘duh’, but make sure that you’ve got Rauny deployed!

Rebels.... Bad... Empire...  Good!

As for city liberating unit on this stage... Well...  This stage will be a rough one for them.  There are only a few towns that you can liberate without automatically losing any Reputation.  They are the 3 hidden cities & all 3 Roshian Temples (of which one is hidden). There are still some key ones that you should liberate along the way that are in strategic spots. The shop town of Pillashcapia (just cause it’s the shop town), Pillabolla, & Anna Pol are highly suggested towns to liberate. The towns of Ubelbahna & Patos Demina are also towns in nice locations, and will help to slightly offset a heavy tribute that you’ll have to pay while fighting on this stage! Canopus can still do his thang by liberating out of the way towns, only this time play a wait and see approach.  The rest of the towns are up to you to see how you like to take chances...

Just in case you are wondering, let’s just say that you had a full Reputation Meter, and said the hell with it and liberated every single town on this stage. When you’re all done, you’re Reputation Meter will have fallen down to the point where it is slightly higher than halfway full.  This result is using goodly liberators, and does not include the effects of pulling any of the Reputation raising Tarot Cards.  So, you would get much better results if you pulled lots of “Lovers,” “Temperance,” & lucky “Fortune” as your Tarot Card.

Step 1:  When you liberate the towns themselves, they will all hate you (hence the hit to your Reputation), so they won’t be giving you any handouts or little trinkets like you have been spoiled on from stages past.  There is an interesting item that you could pick up on this stage however, and it’s for sale at the shop town of Pillashcapia.  The “FOLIO” (Tome of Myths) item is a strange one to find for sale, to be sure!  The only use it has is to trade it for a “FULLMOON” (Full Moon Stone) at the town of Ochiwalong on the Fort Shulamana.  It’s called the “FOLIO” (Tome of Myths), but don’t waste your time buying it. All it does is allow you to trade for a “FULLMOON” (Full Moon Stone) at the town of Ochiwalong on the Fort Shulamana; we all know how suck-ass Tiger Men are!  Besides, the next stage, Zeteginea, will give you a  “FOLIO” (Tome of Myths) for free after you beat it! Can’t argue with free! But seriously, there are better ways to drop 100K, like on 30+ “BOOTS” (7 League Boots)!  This is the last stage in the game where you can buy them, so if you don’t want to have to revisit another stage just to buy more of them, you may as well get tons of them now...  As for fighting, you’ll start to run into enemy units once you are around the region of R.T. #1 & the hidden town of Cellazool.  Have a fairly strong defense here, so that the flying enemy units can’t cheese your main base.

Step 2:  There really is nothing special about the stage,  other than you basically can’t liberate any towns. Once you’ve got Pillabolla & Anna Pol liberated, you’ll have the enemy boxed in, and can pretty much see where he moves from his boss castle of Xanadu.  Use some “BOOTS” (7 League Boots) to bring up other slower units to the fight, and also to send them out in various directions to liberate any towns that you feel like liberating. While your other units are fighting back the enemy, this would be a good time to liberate the hidden cities to help bring up your Reputation that you’ve lost while liberating key strategic cities. If you want to press your luck NoWhammyNoWhammySTOP!, you can liberate some of the other less-important cities for the Goth and tarot Card boosts that you’ll get for your troubles.  If your Reputation Meter can take it, that is. The Tarot Cards that you are primarily looking to pull out of the hat are the  “Lovers,” “Temperance,” & lucky “Fortune” Tarot Cards.  If you are particularly patient & persistent when it comes to mining for good Tarot Cards (by reloading the game/ROM when getting a card you don’t like), you will be able to liberate every single town on the map, and actually be able to recover almost all of what you've lost!  It is quite time intensive, I must warn you!

Step 3:  As for preparing for the boss, get a unit with Rauny ready.  The boss of the stage is her father after all, and so it would be nice for the two of them to have one of those last minute reconciliations before the old coot kicks it.  But he is hardly past his prime!  This will be a tough fight for you, so surround Rauny with some high power Black attacks, and equip big and beefy black weapons like the “FAFHNIEL” (Fafhniel) (which you should have gotten on Fort Shulamana) or the “OGRE” (Ogre Blade).  There can be only ONE!!!

Fight It Out!!

Boss Time!

LV: 22 Muse   General Hikash Highlander HP 275 LV 27 STR 212 CHA 64 AGI 185 ALI 72 INT 181 LUK 52   LV: 23 Muse LV: 27 High lander     LV: 23 Muse LV: 22 Muse   4 Direct, 4 Hit-All, & ? Direct ? Targeted or ? Hit-All

Heeeeeeere we are!!  Born to be kings, we’re the princes of the universe!  Sorry, got carried away!  Anyway, Hikash has mad crazy powers. First off, he has three different types of attacks.  He will tend to start off the battle with an attack that resembles the Wind Shot attack of a Back Row Titan, only much higher damage potential! Then, he will throw in some direct attacks at your front row characters. And, for good measure, he will occasionally toss in a Sonic Strike or two that can do over 100 damage to one of your Back Row characters! All said, he’s world class.  And if that wasn’t enough, he has two Back Row Muse with him for even more Hit-all power! So, your battle plan should start off with a “Fool” Tarot Card to remove all of the Muse from the unit.  You should be able to withstand one attack from Hikash after using the card. Now that you’ve got a direct line of attack on him, have those Front Row guys equipped with the Black weapons rail on him. Use a “Star” Tarot Card if you are having trouble hitting him, and there’s always the “Devil” card for outright damage. He does not seem to have any supreme defense to any specific elements, but Black is noticeably the most effective. Just leave Rauny in the Back Row, though, because her Thunder Flare attack will still do decent enough damage, and it will pave the way for more Front Row oriented classes, if you know what I mean... After all of this, he should go down pretty easily. Keep an “Empress” Tarot Card in your back pocket just in case he starts to do a little too much damage.

Once you’ve brought the man down, if you have Rauny in your army, and she did the deed, you will be presented with a dying dialogue between him and Rauny.  It’s rather sad, but he lets his daughter know how proud he is of her. He also ask that Rauny help to bring an end to this futile war, and bring honor to the highlands and the Viskalf family name...  Oh, and if you didn’t use Rauny for the fight, you won’t get any dialouge messages!

Available Items

There are no special unique items to find on this stage. Well, save the strange item in the shop...

SNES Name: FOLIO Selling Price: 50,000 Goth PSX / Full Name: Tome of Myths Buying Price: 100,000 Goth Description: “A record of the gods. The book of the heavens.”

Aftermath

Except for finding all 10 of the buried treasure, which you may not even need at this point in the game, there is no reason to come back to this stage at all!  Just prepare for the next stage, because you don’t get any time off from here on out...