Legend of Mana

~B
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version 0.1

Greetings to all those of you who are lucky enough both to be able to play
Legend of Mana and enjoy the luxury of owning a PocketStation (because you
wouldn't be reading this unless you owned a PocketStation, would you?).

This here is an attempt to clarify a few things about ring RING Land, Legend
of Mana's very own PocketStation game. Similar in concept to Final Fantasy VIII's
Chocobo World, ring RING Land allows you to send your pet monsters into the
PocketStation in search of adventure, experience and items.

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| DISCLAIMER |
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This FAQ is copyright Destral (me). It may be copied for personal use, even
printed for quick reference by the forgetful. However, if you pass this as
your own and I find out... Well, I'll just leave that to your imagination.

THE BASICS:

After downloading your pet monster into the PocketStation, you will be greeted
by ring RING Land's cute intro (credits included, wow). Pressing the action
button will take you to the presentation screen, and pressing it again will offer
you two options: START (to begin the game) and ITEM (to view the items you have).
Beneath these you should see the numbers 0/50, the first number being the number
of items you have acquire, and the second the maximum number of items you can
carry. Hit the action button while the arrow is pointing at START to begin
playing.

The next screen will display the word COURSE, and a moebius-strip type map (a
flat infitiny sign, if you've never heard of a Moebius strip). An arrow will
indicate the right-most point of the strip, but if you press the left direction
button, you can choose to begin on the opposite end of the strip. The only point
to this is to keep the game from repeating itself too much... Or at least that is
as far as I know.

After choosing your starting point with the action button, you will be asked how
many times you want to go around the circuit. A quick explanation is required,
however, as things aren't as simple as they might seem at first:

ONE LAP: One lap is the easiest way to go, since you only have to survive (yes,
you read right - survive) one lap. Its useful if you want a quick game. No
special rules apply.

TWO LAPS: Two laps means you will meet more monsters, but you will also have more
chances to obtain items. The main difference with the One Lap game is that, on the
second lap, you will get doubled experience, and have greater chances of receiving
items from monsters if you win.

THREE LAPS: A real Tour de Force, Three laps means you have to go round three
times, meaning a lot of fights with monsters, and lots of chances to get items.
Apart from getting doubled experience the second time round and triple experience
the third time round, the third time round you will almost certainly receive items
after a battle. Also, once you finish the journey you will have to fight a rather
tough Golem boss. Yes. A boss. The guys at Square really went into details with
this game.

After selecting your game mode, you will see the game screen proper. You will see
your pet monster hopping up and down in front of your house, itching to set off.
The number by the black heart in the bottom-right corner is the number of hitpoints
your monster has. At the beginning of the game this is always three, (not one, not
two... Four is right out), but as your pet wanders around ring RING Land, this
value will change.

At this moment, and before hitting the action button to start the action, you might
want to take a moment to scroll the map using the direction keys, as this will help
you get a feel for what the map looks like. Once you get more experience playing,
you might even be checking the map every time to choose a route that will help you
get home easier. You can use the scroll feature after each of your turns, before you
press the button to start the number roulette.

After scrolling, hit the action button and the screen will center on your pet again.
Pressing the action button again will cause a small black arrow to appear. You can
use this to choose whether you will take the high road or the low road (see why
scrolling the map beforehand is actually useful, and not just a cute feature?). Make
your choice, using the up and down direction keys, then press the action button to
start the roulette.

A quick word about Number Roulettes:

All the number roulettes in ring RING Land are looping series of numbers. You can
use this to your advantage (in fact, you'll have to, if you want to make it through
the three lap course). The roulette usually stops two (sometimes, rarely, three)
numbers after you press the button. So, rather than mindlessly hitting the action
button, take a moment to familiarise yourself with the roulette you are spinning, so
that you can make the most of it. Movement, combat, traps... They all depend on the
Roulette, so master it, and you will never have any problems with ring RING Land
(or almost). Back to the guide:

The Map of ring RING Land consists of four different types of squares:

The Home Square: The beginning and the end of the game. When you reach it in the
one lap game, you will win. In the two and three lap games, passing through the
Home Square will restore one hitpoint, unless you land on it exactly, in which case
your monster's hit points will increase by one, as well as having one hitpoint
increased (so, if your pet had 1/3 and you landed on the home square exactly, it
would now have 2/4 instead). On a less joyful note, when you reach this square at
the end of the three-lap game, you will have to fight a Golem Boss who is rather
scary when compared to the rest of the monsters in the game.

Question Mark Square: If you land onone of these, you will meet Nikita, Tuel or
(innkeeper). Each of them does something different:
Nikita will give you an item if you don't have any, or he will swap one
of the items you already have for a different one. I have found that sometimes he
changes reasonably good items for not-so-useful ones, so I personally don't really
like the fat bunny-cat humanoid.

Duel: Duel will increase your movement roulette by one point, so 2's will
become 3's and so forth. This only lasts until you pass by the Home square, so its
usefulness is limited.

(Innkeeper): This event has the same effect as landing exactly on the home square
in the two and three lap games: your hitpoints (current and maximum) go up by one.

City Square: These squares will make your pet recover one hitpoint. If your pet is
already at maximum, then they provide a respite from the monster-bashing, item-
collecting action of the game.

Dungeon Square: When you land on one of these, an image of a chest will appear on
the screen. You will then receive an item, unless the chest is trapped, in which
case the roulette will spin, and three numbers will appear in the centre of the
screen. These three numbers are the ones you have to _avoid_, because if the
roulette stops at one of these, the trap will go off under your very nose. So far,
the traps I have seen are a) a monster appears and you have to fight it (and if you
win you get the item), and b) a boxing glove pushes you back a certain number of
squares. Watch out for this, because if you count the number of squares you are pushed
back, you can try to stop the roulette at that number to pick up the item in the now
trap-less chest.

Items
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Items are separated into three different types: Gems, Seeds and Bags. These three
contain four sub-categories, differentiated by the number of stars. A gem with one
star is a pretty average metal/mineral to use in forging weapons, while a four-star
seed is probably well worth planting at the Treant's place.

Remember that you only have 50 slots for items in the ring RING Land inventory. You
can choose to discard items in the item section (outside the game). I am not sure if
items are discarded randomly, or if they go into the trash weakest first, although I
am currently investigating this.

Monsters
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Unlike Chocobo world, there are actually rather a lot of monsters to battle in ring
RING Land. All monsters of a same type have the same roulette, although, depending
on the pet you have placed in the PocketStation, some enemies might be stronger or
weaker. For the time being, this is what I have found out about pets vs. monsters.
I will eventually get down to writing down the whole number serier for monsters,
underlining the number you must press on to win/draw.

Rabite: Weak against Myconid, strong against (weed monster)
Eyeball: Strong against Dragon



Last words
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This FAQ isn't finished yet, but I'll be updating it as soon as I get a new battery
for my PocketStation. Until then, if you find something I haven't found yet, let me
know!

(c) Destral 2000.

Legend of Mana, Seiken Densetsu, and ring Ring Land are, like Final Fantasy VIII and
Chocobo World, I presume, TM of Square
soft, or something of the sort. By writing this FAQ it is not intended to infringe
the rights they possess over the above-mentioned TM's, copyrights, or any other legal,
illegal, imagined or presumed rights. Whatever. It ain't mine, I'm just writing about
it.


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