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Zanzarah - The Hidden Portal
Walkthrough by sneaky@vipmail.com
Copyright(c) 2003 by sneaky@vipmail.com

Copyright notice:

This walkthrough may not be reprinted or distributed on any web
site or printed media without my expressed written consent. This
document is provided as a free resource to its intended audience. No
other party may receive any monetary compensation for any portion of the
material presented within this document. If permission is given by me
to use this document, it must be presented in its original form
unedited, with the exception of correcting any spelling or grammar
errors contained in this document or any reformatting required to
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reserves the right to rescind permission to use this document, if the
owner feels that any of the conditions stated in the copyright notice
have been violated. This copyright notice must accompany any reprinted
version of this document.

REVISION HISTORY:

01/29/03 Version 0.01 - Initial version. Started the document and the
walkthrough. I'm writing this walkthrough based on my second pass
through the game. I just finished my first game, although, I am missing
eight fairies of the complete set of seventy-seven fairies. I've done
some of this walkthrough from memory. I'll correct anything I got wrong
or don't remember when I reach it on my new pass through the game.

2/4/03 Version 0.42 - According to the load game screen, I'm 42% of the
way through my second pass at this game. I've just started on the quest
to get the Fairy Card of Stone. I probably won't release another rev.
of this walkthrough until I get the Stone or Air card. That will
probably be next Monday.

3/2/03 Version 1.00 - The walkthrough should be complete now. I decided
to finish the walkthrough rather than come out with other partial
walkthroughs. It took me a little longer than I expected to finish the
experience charts and cross-reference everything. It is probable that
I've missed a wild fairy on some of the levels. Some fairies spawn in
certain locations very rarely. I may have missed some of these fairies
in my journey. On a positive note, I did capture all of seventy-seven
fairies in my last pass through the game.

************************************************************************
****************************** CONTENTS ********************************
************************************************************************

INTRODUCTION
- Overview of this Document
- Overview of the Game
- General Hints
- Known bugs and other issues
- Things I haven't figure out
- Contacting me

AMY'S ADVENTURES
- Movement Keys and Interacting with the World
- Jumping with the Runes
- Roadblocks and other obstacles
- Prickly Bushes
- Boulders
- Air Eddies
- Magic Merchants
- Saving, Restoring and Dying
- Using the Map
- Mini-Games and Puzzles
- Capturing Pixies
- People and Places of Interest
- Amy's House in London
- Rafi in the Fairy Garden
- Scarecrow
- Fairy Trainers
- Items You Can Purchase from the Shopkeepers
- Small Healing Potion
- Medium Healing Potion
- Big Healing Potion
- Healing Herbs
- Medicine
- Mana Potion
- Golden Carrot
- Naming Magic
- Garlic Atomizer
- Silver Sphere
- Golden Sphere
- Crystal Sphere

FAIRY DUELS
- Preparing Your Fairy Deck
- Preparing Your Fairies
- Where Do I Find a Particular Fairy or Fairy Type?
- The Different Types of Fairy Duels
- Fairy Arena Overview
- Special Spells and Abilities
- Moving and Fighting in the Arena
- Managing Multiple Fairies
- Capturing Fairies
- Battle Results Winning and Losing
- The Fairy Arenas
- Low Level Arenas
- The Cross
- The Crosses
- The Gazebo
- Mid Level Arenas
- The Coliseum
- The Spiral
- The Three Platforms
- The Building Blocks
- High Level Arenas
- The Castle Turrets
- The Roofed Platforms
- The Dome
- The Spindle

WALKTHROUGH
-----------
PROLOGUE - AMY'S HOUSE IN LONDON
PART 1 - FINDING A FAIRY
PART 2 - GETTING OUT OF THE FAIRY GARDENS
PART 3 - TO TIRALIN
PART 4 - GETTING THE FAIRY CARD OF NATURE
PART 5 - GETTING THE FAIRY CARD OF EARTH
Getting the Elementary Key of Nature
Getting the Elementary Key of Earth
Getting the Elementary Key of Air
Getting the Fairy Card of Earth
PART 6 - GETTING THE FAIRY CARD OF AIR
PART 7 - FINDING THE KEY TO THE IRON GATES
PART 8 - ENTERING THE LAVA CAVES, PART 1
Getting an Evolutionary Stone of Fire
PART 9 - SOME SIDE QUESTS
Finding the Cloverleaf
Finding the Fairy Horn
Finding the Fairy Card of PSI
Getting a Missing Pixie
Getting the Evolutionary Magic of Air
Tying up Some Loose Ends in the Realm of Clouds
PART 10 - ENTERING THE LAVA CAVES, PART 2
Getting the Fairy Card of Fire
Getting the Elemental Elevator Key of Fire
Entering the Lava Caves
PART 11 - TRAINING AND COMPLETING YOUR FAIRY COLLECTION
PART 12 - THE SHADOW REALM

THE LISTS
---------

THE MAPS
- Map of the Fairy Gardens
- Map of the Enchanted Forest
- Map of the Dark Swamp
- Map of the Mountain World
- Map of the Realm of Clouds
- Map of the Shadow Realm

THE FAIRIES
- Fairy Overview
- Fairies Strengths and Weakness Chart
- Nature Fairies
- Air Fairies
- Water Fairies
- Light Fairies
- Energy Fairies
- PSI Fairies
- Stone Fairies
- Ice Fairies
- Fire Fairies
- Dark Fairies
- Chaos Fairies
- Metal Fairies
- Fairy Experience Charts

THE SPELLS
- Spell Overview
- Nature Spells
- Air Spells
- Water Spells
- Light Spells
- Energy Spells
- PSI Spells
- Stone Spells
- Ice Spells
- Fire Spells
- Dark Spells
- Chaos Spells
- Metal Spells

THE ITEMS
- Items Overview
- Map Pieces
- Runes
- Elementary (Elevator) Keys
- Fairy Cards
- Fairy Evolution Items
- Keys
- Special Items
- Fairy Related Items
- Other Items

THE MERCHANTS
- Magic Merchants
- Shopkeepers
- The Best Prices for Items

THE FAIRY TRADERS
- Sillia, Tadana, or Grem
- Tadana
- Fygaery
- Darbue
- Suane
- Segbuzz
- Worgot
- Violectra

THE PIXIES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NOTE: To make searching through this document a little easier, all
section titles listed in the CONTENTS have at least four asterisks and
space before and after the title. For example, if you want to find see
INTRODUCTION, you would search for "**** INTRODUCTION ****".


************************************************************************
**************************** INTRODUCTION ******************************
************************************************************************

***********************************
**** Overview of this Document ****
***********************************

This document is divided into three sections. The first section
contains hint and tips for surviving in Zanzarah. The second section,
the main section, is a walkthrough of Zanzarah. The walkthrough
contains notes and information on each section of the world. It is
organized in the order in which I used to complete the game. You may
not have to use the same order to successfully complete the game,
although you probably will do something pretty similar. While the game
does give you the illusion of independence, it does force you to follow
a pretty set path. The final section of this document is a set of
lists, with notes, about everything that I considered even somewhat
important. In this section, you will find information on all 77
different types of fairies, all of the spells, items, merchants, and
pixies in the game, etc.

In the main section of the walkthrough, I've broken the game into
multiple parts. The game itself does not actually call out separate
parts, but I have arbitrarily created sections out of each of the major
quests in the game. (I'm calling any task that Rafi tells you to do a
quest).

As you probably noticed, assuming you've gotten that far in the
game, you can collect a series of runes that you can use to transport
Amy from one place in Zanzarah to another. Where it simplifies the
walkthrough, I will include notes to jump to a location using a
particular rune. You can chose to use the rune or you can manually walk
to the location I mention. The advantage to using the runes is that you
can get to the location you want quickly. The disadvantage of the runes
is that you miss the chance to fight more fairies and thus gain
experience points for fairies. You also miss the chance to capture
those fairies or collect their items. The choice is yours...

Finally, there are certain places in a particular level / area
that you can not reach when you get there the first time. For example,
there may be some item blocked by a prickly bush or large rock and you
can't move it. If I feel the item is important enough, I'll include
steps in the walkthrough to backtrack and get the item. Again, feel
free to ignore these steps if you don't think the item is worth the
effort.

As always, this is partially a game of discovery and adventure. If
you read ahead in the walkthrough or read the Lists section, you may
spoil some of the surprises to come.

Some other notes: I'm playing this game on a PC. I don't know if
this game is or will be ported to another platform. Even if it is, I
will only be playing this game on Windows, so I won't what the
differences are on other platforms. The second note is that I haven't
used the multi-player feature of this game and, as of right now, I don't
intend to. There are no tips about multi-player configurations, spells,
tricks, etc. in this document.

Also, I won't do any technical troubleshooting on your game or
hardware. If you have troubles running the game, contact the Tech.
Support help line for the game.

******************************
**** Overview of the Game ****
******************************

Zanzarah is basically a Pokemon clone with better graphics. It
features an adventure game 3rd person feel which has you exploring the
world of Zanzarah, and a first person shooter type game which you use
during fairy duels. Zanzarah places you in the role of Amy as she tries
to save Zanzarah from destruction, while collecting as many of the 77
different fairy types as possible. Amy will travel across all of
Zanzarah collecting all sorts of objects to fulfill her quest.

You can't lose the game or die in Zanzarah. If Amy walks off a
cliff or drowns, the game will automatically restore the game to state
it was in the last time you saved or when you entered the current area,
which ever is more recent. The same thing will happen if you lose all
of the fairies in your possession. While the Fairy duels are fought in
a first person perspective, they generally rely more planning and fairy
selection than lightning fast reflexes.

Zanzarah does have a different method of saving and restoring your
game. It only allows you to save and load the game at the current spot.
You can not maintain multiple save files from within the game. Before
launching the game, you can copy the current game to a different save
slot. While I used this feature heavily to create this walkthrough, it
doesn't seem to be that useful for the most part. Also, when you
restore your game (or the game restores itself when Amy dies or loses
all her fairies), Amy will appear at the start to the last level you
were on. In other words, you can save the items and the fairies you
have plus the level you are on, but you can't your save the location in
the level.


***********************
**** General Hints ****
***********************

Big hint number 1: Read the manual. Seriously though, the back
portion of the manual does give always a little more information than it
probably should. It will tell you all of the places you will go, the
runes you will get, etc. I found the help that you get by pressing the
F1 key to be pretty useful. You can press the F1 key at any time in the
game, even during Fairy duels. There are five different help pages
available. You can get to the different pages by pressing the left or
right directory keys. The most useful page, in my opinion, is the Fairy
Strength and Weaknesses page. You can use this page before or during a
duel to figure out which fairy you should use against your opponent.
Unless you get intimately familiar with all your fairies and their
weaknesses, it's a good idea to check out the Strengths and Weaknesses
page before a battle against multiple fairies.

Big hint number 2: Re-map the keys in the game, so you have a more
useable configuration. While using the arrow keys to move and fight may
seem intuitive; it's difficult use successfully in fairy battles. It's
better to have your movement keys in some combination around the 'a'
through 'f' keys. The reason for this is that during one of the fairy
battles, you will want to change fairies, which is done using the 1-5
keys. If you have to look down and move hands between the arrow keys
and the number keys, you are losing valuable time. During this time,
your fairy could be falling off the map or into one of the flames. Even
worse, your opponent could have brought out a different type of fairy
that is very strong against your fairy.

Anyway, my key combination for the game is as follows:

Action Keyboard key
-----------------------------------------
Forward f
Backward d
Left a
Right s
Next Fairy r
Previous Fairy e

There are other combinations that may be better or easier for you.
Check out some of the FAQS on Quake, Unreal Tournament or other such
games for some different keyboard combinations.

As for hints about the game itself, most of these are pretty
obvious. Talk to everyone you see and ask him or her each of the
possible questions. If a character approaches you to tell you to do
something, (like Rafi at the beginning of the game), talking to the
character again after they speak will usually give you new conversation
options.

Try to get into every place possible. There are a number of items
hidden behind buildings or rocks. Even more items are placed in areas
where you are not required to visit.

Take everything that isn't nailed down. Even if you are helping
some character in the game, don't hesitate to steal everything they own.
At the start of the game in Endeva, you will get the key to Rufus'
house. He's being nice and letting you select one of his fairies. Just
because he's being nice doesn't mean that you should ignore the rune and
other goodies in the house.

The English translation work in the game is sometimes a little
iffy. If a character ask you a question, the answer is always supposed
to be "Yes". Answering "No" won't necessarily cause any problems, but
you may have to go back through the conversation again and answer "Yes"
to get the result you want. If a character is offering to explain how a
portion of the game works and you say "No", a lot of times, you won't
have the option to get the explanation latter.

While it is not possible to lose the game, it is possible to get
in a situation where you can't get all of the fairies. There are only a
limited number of some items needed to cause a fairy's evolution. Some
of these items are used for multiple creatures' evolution. If you use
all of these items up on one creature, you may not be able to evolve the
second creature.

When you get far enough in the game to have multiple fairies, try
to keep fairies of different types in your active deck. Each fairy type
has its own strengths and weaknesses. Any ideal fairy deck should have
one fairy's weakness cover by other fairy's strength. For example, a
Nature Fairy's weakness to Fire can be covered by having a Water Fairy
in your deck. (Water Fairy's are strong against Fire Fairies.) The
Fairy strengths and weaknesses play a huge role in the Fairy Battles.
If one fairy is weak against a second type of fairy, then the first
fairy will do little or no damage against the second. If the second
fairy is strong against the first fairy's type, the second fairy will do
substantially more damage to the first than its normal attack would do.
If a fairy has both a weak attack against a particular type and is weak
to that type's attack, the fairy will not last long in a battle against
another fairy of that type. For example, a Fire Fairy has a weak attack
against a Water Fairy, and a Water Fairy has a strong attack against a
Fire Fairy. So, if a Fire Fairy and a Water Fairy are fighting, the
Fire Fairy will most likely receive a lot of damage, while the Water
Fairy should be relatively unharmed.

All of the means that you should try to match your fairies'
strengths against your opponents' weaknesses. The more different types
you have in your deck, the more likely you are to find a fairy in your
deck that is strong against a particular opponent. Also, you are less
likely to find an opponent that is strong against every fairy in your
deck. Every time you get a new fairy type, check your deck and see if
you can improve your strengths while reducing your weaknesses. Oh, and
you can only swap fairies in London.

Try keeping a Fairy Sphere around, if possible. Once you are able
to buy Fairy Spheres, try keeping at least one Fairy Sphere of each type
around. When fighting wild fairies, the Fairy Sphere will allow you to
end the battle early and still get experience points. You can capture a
fairy one to three shots (on average) earlier than you can defeat it.
Even if you capture a fairy in the arena, you still get the option to
capture or release it after the battle. If you release the fairy, you
won't use the Sphere. The downside to this approach is that the wild
fairies will act differently when their health is low enough for a
capture. The fairies will usually start firing spells off as fast as
possible, to prevent you for getting close and also to burn through all
of their mana. As you know from the manual, once a fairy uses all of
its mana, it starts charging spells from its health. This means, the
fairy you are trying to capture could be trying to kill itself by
exhausting it mana and then burning through its health. Even worse,
some weakened fairies will make a beeline for the exit. If they escape,
you end up with nothing, no experience, no new fairy and no new item or
Fairy Coins.

On a related note, make sure your fairies always have enough mana
before a fight. Using health to charge a spell will burn through a
fairy's life very quickly. When a fairy gets a new level, the fairy's
health goes back to full, but the mana is only recharged up to 50%
(rounded up.) (If you are already at 50%, you will get some additional
mana for leveling up, but you won't automatically get fully recharged.)
That may be enough mana for one or two battles (depending on the total
mana available), but no more than that. If you are going in battle
against another Fairy Master or Shadow Elf, you should have all your
fairies' mana as full as possible. You never know going into a battle
whether you will be relying on only one of your fairies to defeat all
your opponent's fairies.

Finally, if you ever get to a point where you have no idea what
you should do next, talk to Rafi. (You can get to him using the Fairy
Garden Rune.) Rafi will always tell you what you should be trying to
do. If he tells you to go to a particular area and you don't know where
that is, start reading the road signs or clicking on buildings on the
map. Usually, he will tell you to go to an area that you were able to
open up using something you got from his last quest. A yellow
exclamation point will appear on your map, on top of the target of
Rafi's current quest. You will only see this exclamation point if you
have the map piece that shows the quest's target.


*************************************
**** Known bugs and other issues ****
*************************************

I've run into a clipping bug or two, but nothing major. Several
times, when I was jumping on some stones floating in the air, I fell
through the stone. This was especially true if the stone was moving.
(Hint - save before your jump on any moving stone.)

The translation work is a little interesting. There are a couple
of misspelled words, like defence instead of defense, and a couple of
confusing text messages, but again, none of these are major problems.

I'm not sure if you'd call this a bug or an intended feature, but
once you fill any type of slot in the game, you can never clear it.
Once you get five fairies in your deck, you can never have less than
five. Once you fill a fairy's spell slot, you always have to have a
spell in that slot. You can replace the spell, but you can't remove it.
So, if you ever plan on using more than one fairy in a given type, you
will probably need to get more than one copy of certain spells.

There's another bug that happens if your fairy gets frozen in a
battle and your fairy levels up as a result of the battle. The frozen
status drastically slows down your fairy's movement. When your fairy
levels up, the game clears all of your fairy's statuses. Unfortunately
with the Frozen status, the game will clear the status but not the
effect of the status. Thus, your fairy will move incredibly slowly but
you can't use medicine to heal the fairy. Leaving the current level
sometimes fixes this problem. At other times, the only way to fix this
problem is to exit and reload the game.