_ _ _ _ | \ / | _ ___ ___ | | / / _ ___ ___ _ _ _____ | \/ | /_\ / __| __| | |/ / \| |_ _/ __| || |_ _| | |\/| |/ _ \ (_ | _| | ' <| .` || | (_ | __ | | | | | | /_/ \_\___|___| | |\ \_|\_|___\___|_||_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_\ ____________________________________________________________________ /\ _____ ____ _____ _ __ _______ _____| _____| / \ | __ \ / __ \ / ____| /\ | | \ \ / / __ \ / ____| | / \ | |__) | | | | | / \ | | \ \_/ /| |__) | (___ | |__ / /\ \ | ___/| | | | | / /\ \ | | \ / | ___/ \___ \| __| / /__\ \| | | |__| | |____ / ____ \| |____| | | | ____) | | / ______ \_| \____/ \_____/_/ \_\______|_| |_| |_____/| |____ /__/ \__\______________________________________________________|______| FAQ/WALKTHROUGH v1.00 2006-10-16 Copyright 2006 by Barry Scott "PapaGamer" Will +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ CONTACT INFORMATION \O/ ' ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ To contact me about the guide, send email to: barry@papagamer.com Please include "Mage Knight FAQ" in your subject line so I do not auto- discard the message. Also, please read the FAQ carefully prior to asking for help on any part of the game. If you send me additional suggestions or hints for the game and I find them useful, you will be acknowledged in the Credits. If you find this guide useful and would like to contribute a small token for my efforts, you may send money through PayPal to: paypal@cavecreations.net Or use the Donate link found on my Web site: http://www.papagamer.com/ Thank you, and enjoy the guide! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ TABLE OF CONTENTS \O/ ' ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Overview.....................................MKOV Controls...................................MKCN Game Options...............................MKGO Basic Gameplay.............................MKBG Bug List...................................MKBL Walkthrough..................................MKWK Choosing a Character.......................MKCC Tutorial...................................MKTU Silverholt.................................MKSH Firefeather................................MKFF Ashton.....................................MKAS Chrys'alara................................MKCH Vale of Dawn...............................MKVD Vurgra Divide..............................MKDV Version History & Credits....................MKVH Legal........................................MKLG To quickly jump to a topic, open a search box (CTRL or CMD-F in most Web browsers) and type in (or copy/paste) the topic code. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ OVERVIEW \O/ ' MKOV ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Mage Knight Apocalypse is an action role-playing game based on the popular miniatures collectibles game from Wizkids. It is a rough clone of games such as Diablo, Dungeon Siege and Titan Quest. If you have experience with those games, you'll be able to dive right into MKA with no problems. The biggest annoyance may be the lack of screen-edge scrolling. In typical third-person perspective games, moving your mouse to the edge of the screen moves or rotates the camera. Not so in MKA. The only way to rotate the camera is to hold the mouse wheel button down and move the mouse left and right. Once you get used to it, you'll find it easy and intuitive; however, it will take a while to get it right if you've played a lot of other action RPGs. MKA's gameplay is pretty easy to learn. Regardless of your experience with other games in the genre, you should play through the Tutorial mission with each of the five playable characters. This will introduce you to the gameplay for each character, which differs just enough to make the Tutorial a necessity for each separate character. ############## # Controls # # MKCN # ############## The following are the default keyboard/mouse controls for the game. You can change these settings using Options > Controls from any game menu. The game recognizes controllers, but there are no options to configure one. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Action |Keyboard |Mouse | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Move Forward | W |Left-click open ground to move there; | |Move Backward | S |or, hold down the left mouse button | |Move Left | A |to continuously move in the direction | |Move Right | D |of the cursor | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Rotate Camera | |Hold middle mouse button or SPACEBAR | | | |and move mouse left and right | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Zoom Camera | |Hold middle mouse button or SPACEBAR | | | |and move mouse up and down; or, scroll | | | |mouse wheel | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Use LEFT skill | |Left-click | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Use RIGHT skill | |Right-click | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Use HOTKEY skill | 1 - 8 | | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Use an item | F1 - F4 |Right-click item icon in the lower | | | |left of the screen; or, open Backpack | | | |and right-click the item | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Equip an item | |Open Backpack and right-click the item | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Character Window | C |Left-click character portrait | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Quest Log | X |Left-click appropriate menu icon | |Backpack (Inventory) | B |in the lower right of the screen | |Skill Trees | V | | |Recipe Book | U | | |Forge | Y | | |Game Menu (System) | ESC | | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Runestone | O |Left-click icon above the mini-map | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Map | M |Left-click icon above the mini-map | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Zoom Map In | Hyphen (-) |Left-click icon below the mini-map | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Zoom Map Out | Equal (=) |Left-click icon below the mini-map | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Toggle Run/Walk | TAB | | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Trade | ] | | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Snap Shot | + | | +---------------------+------------+----------------------------------------+ |Partner ATTACK | R |Left-click command icons below party | |Partner FOLLOW | T |portraits on left side of screen | |Partner STOP | G | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ NOTES ------- * The Map toggle (M) actually rotates among three states: 1 - mini-map in the upper right corner 2 - large overlay map 3 - no map * Pressing ESC or clicking the System icon in the lower right corner are the only ways to PAUSE the game. * You can skip cutscenes by pressing ESC twice or left-clicking the mouse twice. * "Snap Shots" are 640x480 JPG images saved in the "screenshot" folder in the main program folder (by default C:\Program Files\NAMCO BANDAI Games\Mage Knight(TM) Apocalypse). They're pretty poor quality; however, the HUD (Heads Up Display) is removed from the screenshots. ################## # Game Options # # MKGO # ################## Here is brief overview of the available game options, with special notes. You can get to these options via the Options choice on the main menu or the in- game system menu. Graphics ---------- There are a limited number of resolutions supported within the game options: 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1360x768 (Widescreen). Each resolution can be selected in 16 bit or 32 bit color depth. If you wish to play at a different resolution, here's what you have to do: Open the config folder in your game's install folder. The default install folder is: C:\Program Files\NAMCO BANDAI Games\Mage Knight(TM) Apocalypse Find the file, default_gameoption.ini, and open it in a text editor, such as Notepad. Scroll down until you find SCREENHEIGHT = "X"; SCREEDWIDTH = "X"; where X are the default values (typically 768 and 1024 respectively). Change these values to the resolution you want to use. Save and close the file. Now find the file gameoption.bcf and delete it. When you next run the game, the default option values will be loaded, including your preferred screen resolution. Some caveats about using this method: * Deleting gameoption.bcf also reverts all other game options to default. So, if you have made extensive changes to the options (especially controls), you'll have to make them again after changing the resolution. * If you open the Graphics options, you'll see 800x600x16 displayed in the resolution box. Don't try to change it, or it will change your resolution. Unfortunately, when using an unsupported resolution, the game defaults to using the 800x600x16 font, so all text will look awful. (Even more awful than the text normally looks, if you can believe that.) An alternative is to run MKA in a window. Uncheck the "Full Screen Mode" box and set the game's resolution to something less than your desktop resolution. When you restart the game, MKA will run in a window. This is the best option if you're running the game on an LCD monitor with an unsupported native resolution. Sound ------- Below the typical volume controls for different sounds within the game (music, speech, etc.) is a "Sound" option. This will allow you to set the game to use software or hardware for running sound. The important thing to note is players with Realtek AC97 audio codecs (which is about 87.5% of the population*) must set the "Sound" option to "Generic Software" in order for the game to function properly. *Not a real statistic; but, it sounds good. Controls ---------- Changing controls is fairly easy. Select the command in the left pane, press a key, then click Assign. If you have a game controller plugged in, you will need to unplug it. MKA recognizes controllers; but, it does not support them. It will read input from the controller (even if you aren't doing anything with it) and the game will be impossible to play. If you have a console-controller-to-PC converter (such as a PS2 or Xbox controller converter), you have to unplug the converter too. Gameplay ---------- * The "Skip Intro" checkbox allows you to skip the brief intro movie that normally plays after all the company logos. You still have to ESC or click through the company logos. * The "Profanity Filter" only affects multiplayer chat. It doesn't have any effect on the single player game. * "Skip Tutorial" allows you to begin new games at Silverholt. Only do this after you've played the Tutorial with all five starting charaters. There are enough differences in them to warrant playing the Tutorial with all five. * "Minimap Rotate" causes the maps to rotate with the camera--the direction in which the camera is facing will always be "up" on the map. This affects both the minimap in the upper right corner and the large map overlay. * "Map Overlay Transparency" affects how opaque the large map appears. Move the slider right to make the overlay map more opaque; move the slider left to make the overlay map less opaque. * "Show Monster HP Bar" shows or hides the HP bar that appears over a creature when you hover over it with the cursor. You will always see the monster stats in the lower right corner of the screen. * "Show Damage Numbers" shows or hides the floating numbers that appear when you are attacking a creature. It does not hide other feedback, such as "BLOCK" or "DODGE". #################### # Basic Gameplay # # MKBG # #################### MKA is a basic point-and-click action/RPG. The best way to learn the game is to read the manual and play through the Tutorial. This is a brief rundown of how the game works. MKA lacks screen-edge scrolling, which is common in this type of game. You can still use your mouse to rotate and zoom the camera. Just hold down the mouse wheel button (or the SPACEBAR) and move the mouse left/right to rotate and up/down to zoom the camera. To move your character, use the WASD keys, or left-click open ground or hold down the left mouse button and move your mouse. To loot a corpse or a loot bag--loot bags appear when corpses disappear or when you smash a container-- left-click it. If there's just gold in it, you'll hear "ka-ching!" and don't have to do anything else. If there's one or more items to loot, they will appear in an inventory box on the left side of the screen. Left-click those items you want to add to your backpack. Your backpack only has 25 slots. When it's full, you can: * Return to the nearest town and drop stuff in your storage box or sell things to the nearest merchant. * Drag an item from your backpack to empty space; you'll be asked if you want to destroy the item. Answer Yes to completely rid yourself of the item, or No if you reconsider. * Forge some of your magestones to some of your equipped items. (You should do this anyway, whether your backpack is full or not.) * Make some potions using your Recipe Book. This will remove the ingredients and empty flask from your backpack. To attack (or do other things other than moving or looting), you need to assign skills to your hotkeys. Your Skill Trees can be opened by left- clicking the tree icon in the lower right or pressing 'V'. Drag a skill from a skill tree into one of the eight hotkey slots in the bottom center of the screen. There are four hotkeys on the left (representing the number keys 1 through 4) and four on the right (number keys 5 through 8). Some skills can go either to the left or right, some can only go to the left, some can only go to the right. You can use any hotkey skill by pressing the corresponding number key. For your most frequently used skills, assign them to your mouse buttons. Left- click a hotkey skill on the left to assign that skill to your left mouse button. Left-click a hotkey skill on the right to assign that skill to your right mouse button. When you click your left or right mouse button over a suitable target, you will use the mapped skill. Most characters begin with a basic melee attack on the left mouse button and a basic ranged attack on the right mouse button. As you loot...err, explore, you'll find magestones in six colors: blue (water), red (fire), white (air), green (earth), gold (holy) and black (death). You can forge magestones into weapons and armor. Forged into weapons, magestones add various types of damage. Forged into armor, magestones add various types of resists. One item can have from one to three magestones forged into it. To forge magestones into items, first move the item you wish to forge into your backpack (you cannot forge equipped items). Open your backpack and the forge window ('B' for backpack, 'Y' for forge). Drag your item into the center circle at the top of the forge window. Drag magestones to the other three circles. Click "Forge" to meld the magestones with the item. You cannot mix magestones of opposed types; thus, you cannot mix: * Blue and Red * White and Green * Gold and Black You can mix-and-match non-opposed colors for various different special effects. Experiment to see what you get. You cannot sell items with magestones forged into them. To take the magestones from an item and re-use them, drag the item to the forge window and click "Unmake". The item and the separated magestones are added to your backpack (you must have enough open slots for them). You can save your game at any time; however, when you load the game, you will be back at the last Magestone Crystal (checkpoint). Also, all enemies will respawn or regenerate. Only quit the game while in town. When you Revive after dying, enemies do not respawn or regenerate (with the exception of a few bosses), so there's absolutely no penalty for dying. There is a base town in each Act, and you can freely travel between them; though, there's not much reason to do so. After completing the first primary mission (Brigand Camps), you receive a Runestone. You can use the Runestone to teleport directly to any town you've visited. Press 'O' or the purple Runestone icon in the upper right of the screen. You can also teleport to a town by clicking one of the Magestone Crystals located throughout the various regions. From within a town, you can use the Portal Stone to return to the last Magestone Crystal you passed. Just click the Portal Stone, then select the region you were last in. In addition to the Portal Stone, each town has two merchants: arms & armor and magic. The arms & armor merchant sells just that--weapons and armor tailored for your character and your character's power rating (MKA's euphemism for level). The magic seller sells everything else--jewelry, potions, potion recipes and ingredients. You can mix your own potions, if you're really into doing things yourself rather than just buying them from the magic seller. You can collect the ingredients you need by "looting" plants around the world. You will also find ingredients and empty flasks (in three sizes: small, medium and large) as loot on mobs and in containers. You can even buy ingredients and empty flasks from the magic seller in each town. To make a potion, you must have the recipe. When you find (or buy) a recipe, right-click it in your backpack to "learn" the recipe. This will now be in your recipe book (press 'U' or click the icon in the lower right of the screen). Select the recipe you want to make and it will tell you the ingredients. Select a flask size at the bottom of the dialogue and the number of each ingredient will change. For example, you might need 1 ingredient for a small potion, 2 for a medium and 4 for a large. The quantity of each ingredient and the quantity of empty flasks in your backpack are displayed in parentheses next to the requirements. If you have enough ingredients and a flask, click "Create" to make the potion. ############## # Bug List # # MKBL # ############## MKA has been released in a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time form. (An occurrence all too common with PC games.) Here are some of the more egregious problems with the game. Some of these are fixed with the v1.01 patch. If you purchased your game on CDs, it should auto-update itself. If you purchased the game from Direct2Drive* or your gaming PC isn't connected to the Internet, you'll need to download a manual patch: D2D patch: http://www.direct2drive.com/patches/index.aspx Retail manual patch: ftp://65.87.26.22/pub/MKA_v1.01_Manual_Patch/ *The D2D version of the game is already v1.01 if purchased after September 30, 2006. 1) Looted items will not stack with items in your inventory. This problem is fixed with the v1.01 patch. 2) The pathfinding is horrid. Be prepared to click open ground and have your character run in place because there's an obstacle in the direct line to where you clicked. 3) The game is capped at 30 frames-per-second. Framerates never rise above 30, though they can drop below 30. Players with high-end systems will not get the ultra-smooth framerates they have come to expect. 4) Forged items occasionally cannot be unmade. 5) Unmaking forged items in multiplayer sometimes gives you random magic items rather than the magestones used in the forged item. 6) Companions set for ranged combat will, after dying, "forget" their setting and revert to melee combat. Teleporting to the nearest city using your runestone will usually "reset" the companion. You can also save and reload. 7) The game goes wonky if you have a controller plugged in. You have to unplug any controllers, as well as any controller converters (such as PS2-to- USB). The game also goes wonky with some types of specialty gaming keyboards. 8) Players with Realtek AC97 audio codecs (common on many systems) will need to use "Generic Software" under the Sound options, as detailed in the "Game Options" section above. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ WALKTHROUGH \O/ ' MKWK ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ########################## # Choosing a Character # # MKCC # ########################## When you begin a new single-player game, you must choose from five characters to use as your PC. After selecting a character and clicking NEXT, you will receive some limited choices (5 options each) to change the hero's hair style (horn style for Sarus), hair color (horn color for Sarus), face type, skin color and eye color. Click PLAY to begin the game. *NOTE* If you start the game in Multiplayer mode, you can change your chosen hero's name. You can then save the game immediately and load it up in Single Player mode. You now have a custom-named hero. Each character has some type of magic energy level that defines how they can use their special attacks. This magic energy, which is typically called "mana" in games of this type, has a different name and works differently for each character. During the game, you will meet the other heroes and have the opportunity to add them to your party as "partners". If, at the point in the story where you meet another "Oathsworn", and you are playing that hero, you won't meet the hero and won't get a partner. (This has the largest effect on Janos, as detailed under his information below.) You have almost no control over your partners. When you first add them to your party, you can choose what path they will follow. Otherwise they act independently. While part of your party, you can issue ATTACK, FOLLOW and STOP commands. Use either the hotkeys (as detailed above) or the icons below your party members' portraits on the left of the screen. Partner commands affect every one of your companions; you cannot issue orders to them individually. *NOTE* Your companions will frequently seem to get "stuck" and will refuse to move. They're not actually stuck, they've just forgotten what they're supposed to do. Give the FOLLOW command and keep moving, they'll catch up. Get used to pressing 'T' a lot, your partners love to twiddle their thumbs. *BUG ALERT* Partners don't follow their chosen path very well. After dying they tend to only want to use melee attacks (and standard melee attacks at that). This can be really bad for, say, Sarus, who is a weak fighter and will spend most of the time dead if you let him get away with this. The only sure way of fixing the problem is to save and re-load. Sometimes you can portal back to town and then teleport back and they'll "reset"; but, that doesn't always work. Chela: Amazon Huntress ------------------------ Starting Stats: Skill Trees: * Health...........25 * Bear Stance * Strength.........35 * Jaguar Stance * Agility..........20 * Eagle Stance * Stamina..........20 * Wisdom...........10 * Intelligence.....10 * Chela's magic energy is called Energy Chela begins with a two-handed weapon (claymore) and a longbow. With special attacks, she can do quite a bit of damage with both weapons. She also has the highest starting armor rating of the five heroes. Playing Chela requires you to choose a stance (Bear, Eagle or Jaguar). You can only use a skill from a particular stance while in that stance. Changing stances uses up about half of Chela's energy and takes a couple of seconds; doing so in the middle of a pitched battle can be problematic. Bear Stance skills are used with a melee weapon and mostly increase damage done in a single strike. There are Bear Stance skills to improve shield armor rating, two-handed weapon damage and blunt weapon damage. Bear Stance also has skills to stun your enemies. Bear Stance is best used with a two-handed weapon. Eagle Stance is for ranged fighting. All Eagle Stance attacks are made with a bow (or crossbow). There are also special skills that allow you to lower your target's resists and to see invisible enemies. Many of the Eagle specials are damage-over-time attacks. Jaguar Stance is for finesse-style melee fighting. There are bonuses for using slashing weapons, and a dual-wield skill to use two one-handed weapons at the same time. Some of the Jaguar skills increase Chela's chance to Dodge attacks or Resist attacks. Requiring the player to switch stances makes Chela slightly less versatile than other characters. She cannot blast enemies from range using special attacks, then pull out a melee weapon and pound them close-up with special attacks. She has to stick with either ranged or melee attacks; however, she may be able to pull off one change of stance in large battles. Chela's Energy regenerates over time. She can also use Energy potions to restore Energy in the midst of battle. Janos Freeborn: Dwarf Gunner ------------------------------ Starting Stats: Skill Trees: * Health...........25 * Physical * Strength.........35 * Guns * Agility..........25 * Explosives * Stamina..........15 * Wisdom...........10 * Intelligence.....10 * Janos's magic energy is called Heat The first thing you learn about Janos is his magic energy, called "Heat", works in reverse. As he uses special attacks, his Heat meter fills up. When it's full, he can't use any more special attacks. Over time his Heat "cools down". You can also consume Coolant potions to lower the Heat meter. While the concept is interesting, it changes the basic paradigm used in countless games (as well as for the other four heroes in MKA) and is one of the sillier things the developers did in this game. Janos can switch between melee and ranged attacks (using guns for range, rather than bows) easily and has pretty good special attacks with each. The big problem with his specials is they fill up the Heat meter very quickly, especially at low levels. This forces you to drop back to basic attacks more often than you would like. While Chela can go an entire battle using nothing but specials, Janos will either be quaffing Coolant potions like water or have to settle for low-damage attacks. Janos has another problem, especially for inexperienced players. He is the first "Oathsworn" to make an appearance in the story as a potential partner. If you play Janos, you miss out on a companion early in the game and going solo at low levels can be a real chore. Be prepared to die a lot if you play Janos, even at Easy difficulty. Kithana: Vampire Nightblade ----------------------------- Starting Stats: Skill Trees: * Health...........20 * Necromancy * Strength.........20 * Assassin * Agility..........20 * Vampiric * Stamina..........10 * Wisdom...........20 * Intelligence.....30 * Kithana's magic energy is called Mana Kithana is a cross between a melee fighter and a caster. She cannot use a ranged weapon; but she does have some ranged spell abilities. Unfortunately, she doesn't get the real good ranged spells until a little later in the game. This makes it difficult to take on enemy ranged fighters during the first Act. You'll have to sneak up on them (using Shadow Walk) and then hit them with something like Poison Touch or other Blood Harvest. Kithana is also pretty weak at melee. Your best bet is to use Vampiric skills to siphon health from enemies. This will not only damage them, but heal Kithana and cut down on your use of health potions. If you stick with Vampiric skills, once you get Bloodreave and Mindreave, Kithana becomes almost invincible. The Necromancy skills are quite weak. You can only have one zombie fighting for you at a time, and they are not that strong. Kithana uses the standard "mana" for magic energy and can replenish it with Mana potions or by waiting around while it regenerates. Sarus: Draconum Mage ---------------------- Starting Stats: Skill Trees: * Health...........15 * Earth * Strength.........10 * Fire * Agility..........15 * Storm * Stamina..........15 * Wisdom...........35 * Intelligence.....30 * Sarus's magic energy is called Mana Sarus is a typical mage. He has a variety of ranged attacks, with many different types of damage. He also has some personal protection spells, which will come in useful since he's a very weak character (low health and low armor). He's not much use as a melee fighter and doesn't have any ranged weapon--just the spells. His mana regenerates naturally or you can consume Mana potions. Of all the characters, he is the most dependant on mana--he essentially has no other method of fighting. Tal Windstrider: Elven Guardian --------------------------------- Starting Stats: Skill Trees: * Health...........20 * Martial * Strength.........20 * Holy * Agility..........15 * Aerial * Stamina..........35 * Wisdom...........20 * Intelligence.....10 * Tal's magic energy is called Faith Tal is MKA's representation of the bog-standard paladin--a holy warrior with healing and buffing magic. He has many strong melee and ranged attacks, not to mention his spell selection, and he can freely switch between them. His one big weakness is his Faith does not regenerate naturally. You can replenish Faith three ways: * Consume Holy Water, which restores Faith in the same way a Mana or Energy potion does for other characters. * Stand still and Pray (use Prayer skill). This restores Faith; but, you must remain still and can take no other action. * The Salvation passive skill, which you have from the start, allows Tal to "leech" the soul energy from dead enemies. Stand near a corpse and energy will stream from the body to Tal, refilling his Faith meter. This works for any enemy corpse--but only once per enemy--and Tal did not have to kill the creature. Salvation alone won't typically keep Tal's Faith meter filled. Thus, after almost every battle, you're forced to turn on Prayer and sit there watching the Faith bar increase. It's boring and really detracts from the game. Further, Tal's ranged attacks are not as good as Chela's; though, unlike Chela, he can switch back-and-forth rather quickly. Comments ---------- The easiest starting characters are Chela and Tal. Both have powerful melee and ranged attacks, decent health and lots of armor. Chela is the slightly better choice as her ranged attacks are stronger and Tal can be boring to play as you have to Pray a lot. Janos also has a high initial armor rating and health; however, his melee and ranged special attacks build up Heat very quickly, meaning you can't use them as consistently as Chela and Tal can use their special attacks. Not to mention playing him denies you a companion early in the game. Kithana and Sarus take more skill and more experience with action RPGs. Kithana, early in the game, must rely on sneaking up to enemies using Shadow Walk, poisoning the ranged fighters, then using Blood Harvest to finish off the group while restoring her own health. Sarus can use Diamond Skin to increase his armor, and cast powerful, long-range attacks. But you'll need to stop and rest fairly frequently to allow his mana and very low health to regenerate. ############## # Tutorial # # MKTU # ############## *NOTE* Each character plays a bit differently. You should play through the Tutorial with each character in order to learn how to use that character's special abilities. Then check the "Skip Tutorial" box under Options > Gameplay. Follow the instructions and talk to Gron, the troll, sitting nearby as the mission begins. Proceed east along the path and break through the barricade (attack it) and kill the orc beyond. Collect Gron's tools from the orc's body; return to Gron to receive a character-specific weapon as a reward. Go back east along the path, breaking through three more barricades and killing more orcs. After the third barricade, your path forward will be clear of obstructions; but, there are a lot more orcs. Most of the orcs and their pet stone boars are in groups of three or four. Do not rush forward and possibly spring two or three groups at once. Use a ranged attack to draw the orcs to you rather than rushing them. Work your way south through the swamp. As you island-hop through the swamp, try to go around the "backs" of the islands. If you rush through the center, you'll soon find yourself surrounded by a half-dozen or more orcs and it will be respawn time. At the south end of the swamp is the entrance to Silverholt. You do not have to kill all the orcs in the swamp in order to enter Silverholt. Once you enter the dwarf town, you cannot return to the Tutorial swamp. ################ # Silverholt # # MKSH # ################ Silverholt Gate ----------------- Upon entering Silverholt, you'll have a long cutscene that sets up the main story. Afterward, talk to Dorin, the Dwarf captain. He should be standing right in front of you after the cutscene. He'll send you to deal with slavers in the hills outside of town. The exit to the Brigand Camps is to the south (to the right of where Dorin is standing) through a narrow canyon. Brigand Camps --------------- Advance cautiously. There are a couple of brigand swordsmen just beyond the Magestone Crystal. They will initially run away. Do no run after them. Wait until they return, then take them out. Just past them is the first brigand camp. You'll have to break through the barricades while under fire from archers--there are a lot of brigand archers in this area. While you're clearing the camp, you may get more brigands from a group that's stationed just beyond the camp; if they come charging in, run back the way you came and rest up a bit before returning and finishing them off. Once the camp is clear, click on the cage with a dwarf inside (there's a blue exclamation mark hovering over the cage). Wait for the dwarf to exit, then speak to him. After he leaves, continue on your way. At the point the path splits, take the left (northeast) fork, clear out another brigand camp and free another dwarf. Be sure to loot the camp thoroughly; you should find your first really nice gear in this camp. Now take the south path to another camp and another dwarf prisoner. This prisoner is guarded by a fireball-throwing mage. If you have any +Fire Resist equipment, now's the time to put it on. After, return to the fork in the path and go east. When you see a Magestone Crystal ahead, stop and prep yourself for battle. Your first boss fight is just ahead. As you walk past the crystal, a cutscene begins. The scene ends with you in the final brigand camp facing a rather large number of enemies. In addition to the boss, there are a couple of mages and several brigands (archers and swordsmen). Your best bet for winning this battle is to run outside the camp and snipe anyone who comes out after you. Drawing the brigands out by ones or twos is a better road to survival than standing in the middle of camp and taking your lumps. Once everyone is dead, free the dwarf and talk to him. After the cutscene, follow the dwarf into the mine entrance to return to Silverholt Gate. Talk to the guard at the bottom of the stairs to get a pass inside the city. Then talk to Sven, at the gate, to open the gates and enter Silverholt. Inside, talk to Dorin, then proceed past him to enter the city proper. Silverholt ------------ Silverholt is your first city and you should spend some time exploring. The city is laid out in four quadrants. The northwest quadrant, the Tavern Quarter, is where you should go first. Head down the entry hall and take your first left. You'll find the city Portal Stone, two merchants, Sythvallis (your "guide" through the story) and Jarl Rolko, leader of Silverholt. Speak to Jarl, then Sythvallis. Sythvallis will introduce you to Janos Freeborn. (Unless you're playing Janos, in which case you're referred to a generic dwarf.) Sythvallis also gives you a runestone. You can now use the purple Magestone Crystals to portal back to city Portal Stones for rest and refit. Go walk near the Silverholt Portal Stone to "attune" your runestone to Silverholt. Near the Portal Stone is a large chest marked "Storage"; this is your place to put junk you can't use yet and don't want to sell. Anything you put in Storage can be accessed from any city. Talk to the dwarf standing near the Portal Stone; if it's Janos, he'll offer to join. When he joins you can choose to make him a melee fighter, rifle- dwarf or grenade launcher. The way east out of the city is now open. Before leaving, poke around a little. There are two merchants in the Tavern Quarter; however, the jewelry merchant is a fake. Don't buy his junk. The other merchant, a dwarf woman, sells magic items. An arms and armor merchant is in the southwest quadrant of the city (the Mageforge). The merchants are marked by coins floating over their heads, and they're marked on your maps as dollar signs ($). When you're ready for the next hack-n-slash fest, head east along the main hall until you exit Silverholt. Abandoned Quarries -------------------- You'll run into Shadow Spawn for the first time at the beginning of this area. These creatures are invisible until they begin attacking you. You can hear them and see their footprints as they come, so you're not totally caught off-guard. You'll also begin running into Dark Dwarf Mortars. These hand-cannon-wielding dwarfs can dish out some serious damage. Load up on Fire Resist items. At the first fork in the path, take the left (north) path to a small encampment you can loot for good swag. Then, continue along the main path until it forks again. If you study your overlay map, you'll see both paths in front of you meet up again, forming a circle. You're at the northwest point of the circle; the southeast point of the circle is a very big battle. You might want to return to Silverholt and stock up on health potions. When you reach that clearing to the southeast, you'll get a cutscene followed by a pitched battle against about a dozen Dark Dwarfs--a mixture of axe- wielders and mortars. Try running around and clearing out the mortars first. If you have some type of attack that will knock-back or stun enemies, now is the time to use it with abandon. After the battle, be sure to loot all the bodies, then head northeast to a purple Magestone. Portal back to Silverholt, sell off your loot, and stock up on health potions. Some buffing potions (+Armor, +Health) would also be a good purchase. Ahead of you lies a very difficult boss fight. Return to the Abandoned Quarries, buff up, and go north over the wood bridge. At the far end is an extended cutscene with the Dark Dwarf King Brekh. When he's finished, he and his coterie of mortars and axe-wielders attack. If you're not playing Janos yourself, you will have his help in this battle, and it does make a big difference. Run back over the bridge and draw as many of the minions with you as possible. Destroy them piecemeal before heading back to King Brekh. Brekh has a powerful knock-back attack of his own, so if you can counter by keeping him on his back, you'll have better luck in this battle. Regardless, keep out of Brekh's way until you've killed all the mortars and can concentrate on Brekh alone. Be prepared to die a few times. That's just the way this game works. Each time you can Revive at the Magestone on the other side of the bridge and quickly reach Brekh again before he regenerates any health. When Brekh is finally beaten, loot the camp, then take the northwest exit to a cave that leads back to Silverholt. Silverholt (Invasion) ----------------------- Go to the northwest quadrant of the city and talk to Sythvallis. After that conversation, sell off your loot and stock up on potions. Go find Captain Dorin in the Murder Hall (to the west). Talking to him triggers a cutscene that ends with the invasion of Silverholt by a golem army. Captain Dorin will be added to your party (giving you two partners if you have Janos). You'll be surrounded by golems; but, there are also other dwarfs fighting, so you don't have to take on the entire invading army on your own. Yet. During the fight, Dorin will inform you the steam engines have been shut down and this reduces the ability of Silverholt's defenses. You know what you have to do. The steam engines are in the northeast quadrant of the city. You'll have to go and beat down a large group of golems and mages. This is the first in a series of four battles that are all basically the same. You (and your partners) will be pitted against a dozen or more enemies. You will probably die--frequently. You'll revive at the city Portal Stone in the northwest quadrant (the Tavern Quarter), which is conveniently warded against the invading army. You can also use this for respite during battle-- just run away and return to the Tavern Quarter and rest for a bit. The merchants in the Tavern Quarter are also open for business, so you can replenish your stock of potions. The four battles you have to fight will all follow the same pattern: run in, hit as many enemies as you can before you die, Revive, run back in and hit more enemies. Eventually, the combination of your attacks and the efforts of your dwarf allies will wear down the attackers and you'll clear the room. In the northeast quadrant are a number of golems, plus about three or four Atlantean mages. When they are all dead, head up on to the platform in the northeast corner of the room and talk to the dwarf in the white lab coat. The engines will come back to life and Dorin will tell you to go to the Mageforge and talk to Jorgen. The Mageforge is the southwest quadrant. You'll repeat the earlier battle. When the quest-related enemies are dead, several dwarf mages will erect a circular ward in the center of the room. This is your signal to go up on the platform and talk to Jorgen. You'll trigger a cutscene; afterward, you are tasked with getting the Mauler's back on-line. Head to the southeast quadrant, which is the control room for the War Machines. Defeat the enemies in here, then find the red control levers on the east side of the room. Click them to activate the War Machines. Another extended cutscene takes place. Your final task is to get the Aspect of Control from the invading Atlantean mage. This is yet another run-in-bash-die-revive-run-in-bash-die...battle. You'll have help from the dwarfs and your companions, but you're still going to die a lot. That's the challenge in this game--avoiding boredom from dying so often. One option here is to concentrate on Magus Jibarik. If he goes down, all the other enemies conveniently disappear. Kithana's Bloodreave will take Jibarik out in two shots. Once the mage is dead, talk to Dorin. Go to the Tavern Quarter and talk to Jarl and Sythvallis. The big blue guy sends you out to meet Amazons. (Boo yah!) Click the city Portal Stone to be transported to... ################# # Firefeather # # MKFF # ################# The "city" of Firefeather is a small settlement, but it has a Portal Stone, a Storage chest and two merchants. The arms and armor merchant is on the east side of town, due north of the Portal Stone. The magic merchant is Priestess Ixata; but, you have to talk to her about your quest first. Ixata sends you to check on the Rain Temple, east of town, then offers to sell you stuff to help you on your way. Rain Temple ------------- Leave Firefeather by the east gate to enter the grounds of the Rain Temple. Charge up the stairs ahead of you and help the Amazon with the orcs. Afterward, talk to her to get the next stage of your mission: clear all the orcs out of the temple. *NOTE* If you did not choose Chela as your PC, that is who you rescue and she now joins your party. Continue up the stairs to the main landing. There are some orcs at the north and south ends of the landing. Once they are gone, search the east wall for a section that appears different. Click it to lower the wall and step through into a maze, which is, of course, infested with orcs. Head to your left (north) to the next "section" of the maze and look for another "hidden" door to your left. Go through that door, then another door into a building. There are about six orcs inside the building. Dispose of them and go south, over a bridge to a grassy plateau. Fight your way east to a waterfall with a pool below. There's a Magestone Crystal here where you can save your progress and portal back to town to unload loot. Continue east and then turn north into a courtyard full of totemic statues. After a cutscene, the statues start blasting apart. Pick your way through, as quickly as possible, killing any orcs that get in your way. Your goal is a stairway in the central west portion of the courtyard. At the top of the stairs, you'll be on the first tier of the temple. Right in front of you are the steps to the second tier. (For extra loot, run around the first tier, killing all the orcs.) On the second tier, you'll have to go around to the west side of the temple to get to the stairs to the third tier. (Never let a game developer design your house.) At the top of the stairs on the third tier is another Magestone Crystal for saving and resting in town. While you're in town, buy the best arms and armor available (unless you already have better) and stock up on health and mana potions. Put all your collected magestones into your weapons and armor. From the third tier Magestone, go back around to the east side and up the steps to the temple summit. After the cutscene, run like mad. Alright, this boss fight is going to be a little different. The water guardian regenerates while in water, so you have to lure it out of the pool and then you can't die. If you die, it will go back into the pool and will be at full health when you get from the Magestone back to the summit. Fortunately, you should be powerful enough to take on the guardian, but only after you've cleared out all the orcs. This may involve some constructive dying. Once it's just the guardian, lure it out of the pool with ranged attacks. Lure it down to the third tiers and keep running just a little ahead of it, turning to fire at it occasionally, until you get around to the west side of the temple. You should now have it far enough from the safety of its pool to turn and lay into it with everything you've got. Quaff the health potions and take it down. If you're a ranged fighter, don't keep running away--it won't go much further than this; instead, run back around it and lead it back the other way around the third tier of the temple. Just keep it away from the pool on the summit. Once the guardian and the orcs are all dead, talk to the astral projection of Priestess Ixata in the pool. Use the Magestone on the third tier to portal back to Firefeather, and talk to Ixata again. Head out through the west gate of Firefeather. The Fist ---------- In front of you is a camp with about a half-dozen orcs. Beyond is another camp, this one with a half-troll leader. Up next is your first Magestone Crystal, then a couple more orc camps. Finally you reach a mini-boss fight against a bunch of orcs, some wolfkin and the head shaman you've been seeing in the cutscenes. The shaman has a nasty whirlwind that sucks you up and holds you still while he unloads lightning on you. Try to keep your distance and snipe him, or rush in and use a knockdown attack to keep him off balance. Once he's gone, there are plenty more orcs and wolfkin to wade through. You'll also start encountering orc cyclopes. These giant beasties fling boulders at you. Use a very long-range attack or get in close and beat on them. You may need to run away and heal yourself--they won't follow as far as other mobs. Eventually you'll wind your way down to the Forbidden Temple and a boss fight on the bridge. Your little party will be surrounded by the orc Khan, some Amazon zombies and a bunch of wolfkin. Run back along the path and try to draw the wolfkin with you and take them out. Once they have been dealt with, you can concentrate on Khan. He's got a powerful knockdown attack; don't close with him unless you can resist it. A nice damage-over-time ranged attack will work wonders. Don't worry too much about the zombies, they move so slowly they're not really much of a problem. When everyone is dead, advance toward the main gate to the Forbidden Temple; after the cutscene, step inside. Forbidden Temple ------------------ Clear the orcs out of the entry area and walk toward the altar with the green light coming out of it. There should be a blue exclamation mark hovering over the altar. If there's not, you left a few orcs alive. Click the altar and you'll be transported to the gate area. The first set of gates will open and you'll have to kill a bunch of orcs. Backtrack to the entry area, killing more orcs; then go south to find the altar with the yellow light. Kill all the orcs around the altar; then, click the altar to open the second set of gates. This time there's a couple of half-trolls mixed in with the orcs inside the gate. After all the gate guards are dead, backtrack to the entry area and go north. Find the altar with the red light. There are more orcs, some half-trolls and a couple of orc cyclopes guarding this altar. When they are all dead and the blue exclamation mark appears, click the altar to open the third set of gates. Inside these gates are a lot of orcs, at least three to four half-trolls and two orc cyclopes. Fortunately, there's the Magestone just back a ways from the gates, so if you die, you don't have to run far to die again...err, finish off the mobs. Once all the orcs are gone, advance through the gates to see the inner part of the temple strewn with Amazon warrior bodies. Pretty soon a cutscene plays and the zombies start to rise. You'll have to work your way down to the central plaza, where the zombie queen awaits. There are a lot of zombie Amazons between you and her, but you'll rarely face more than three at a time, and they move slowly, so you shouldn't have much of a problem with them. You shouldn't have much of a problem with the zombie queen either. You may be noticing the game is getting much easier. You are on the verge of becoming super-powerful and wiping out your enemies easily. Crank the game difficulty up a notch if you're getting bored. (That won't help your boredom, but at least you can brag about beating the game at High Difficulty later.) The queen has a whirling strike that can do serious damage, so use a knockdown or stunning attack, or stay back and snipe her from range. When she's dead (re-dead?), go up the stairs and loot the chests near the Magestone Crystal. Use the Crystal to return to Firefeather. Talk to Ixata, who gives you the next stage of your quest. Shop if you wish, then click the Firefeather Portal Stone to be taken to the undead city of Ashton. ############ # Ashton # # MKAS # ############ Immediately in front of you is Kithana. She'll fill you in on proceedings, then offer to join your party. (Unless you're playing Kithana, then you meet a generic vamp.) Head north to find Sythvallis and talk to him. Nearby is the Ashton Portal Stone and Storage chest. Blasted Lands --------------- Your first order of business is to exit Ashton by the southwestern gate and explore the Blasted Lands. This desert is rather sprawling and probably the largest region in the game. Your main objective is to watch your map and head for the objective points marked on the map. These objectives are a bunch of stelae (nine total) rising out of the sands. Click each one to add a short translation to your Quest Log. As you traverse the dunes, you'll fight a lot of gnolls (pretty weak) and some sand creatures. The sand creatures have the ability to travel through the sand so they can almost instantaneously be on top of you. Fortunately, they're solitary creatures; try not to take on three or four at the same time. After the last stelae has been translated for you, a bunch of gnolls appear around a nearby doorway. Kill all the gnolls and a portal opens in the door. Step through to your next mission. Aridaxis ---------- The ancient city of the minotaurs looks pretty new. With good reason; you've just traveled 1,000 years into the past. (As if this story really needed time-traveling. Never fear, you'll get the full headache-inducing "explanation" some time later.) Kill the minotaurs that immediately beset you; then, take stock of your surroundings. There's a Magestone Crystal nearby; you can teleport only to Ashton. (For some reason the city appears the same 1,000 years in the past...oh, well.) Sythvallis is no longer in Ashton; instead, you can talk to an orange Solonavi named Varythmasis. He won't tell you much. Back in Aridaxis, take a left at the first intersection and begin winding your way through another city that was deliberately designed to make you wade through as many enemies as possible. Rather than, you know, convenience for the inhabitants or anything like that. You have to go north, then east, then west, then east again. You'll run into a water fountain inhabited by a water guardian. (A small version of what you fought on the summit of the Rain Temple.) Once it is dead, find the small temple-like structure just east of the fountain. Go up the south steps, kill the minotaurs and go down the north steps. Wind your way through some more narrow, ambush-happy streets. When you reach a large, clear area, you'll enjoy a nice cutscene that ends with a mini-boss fight. Try and stay away from the king of the minotaurs, as he has a nasty whirling strike. His minions shouldn't pose much of a problem. When the king bull is dead, head north into... The Altars of Power --------------------- As you enter this temple, you'll get a cutscene followed by a battle with about a dozen nightblades. This won't go well, especially since there are a lot of archers. If you have some AoE skills, now's the time to use them; anything to keep the archer off balance so they aren't all using you as a pincushion at once. When you finally kill the nightblades, you'll have to complete four very similar tasks. There are four altars--two on the north side and two on the south side--that have to be disabled. During the cutscene you saw the guardians go through the doors to their altars. You can open these doors and follow. Each little mini-quest follows the same pattern: 1) Step through the door into a small maze. Fight your way through hordes of enemies (various types--though one, the southwest altar, has harmless slave girls rather than monsters) until you reach the altar room. 2) Enjoy some tete-a-tete with the altar guardian. 3) Slay the altar guardian and her horde of minions. (Easier said than done.) Some of the minions, especially the pain wraiths in the northeast room--are a real problem. Any nightblades will go invisible, which makes things even worse. The altar guardian also goes invisible and is much better at making attacks while staying invisible. This can get real nasty real quick. 4) Once the guardian and her minions are dead, kill the nightblades that are standing on pedestals around the room. This disables the altar. 5) Leave the way you came in and be ambushed by invisible nightblades as you exit the altar room. Needless to say, this can be pretty tedious. Fortunately, there's a Magestone in the main room, so you can return to Ashton at any time for rest and refit. When you've disabled all four altars, click the big doors on the east end of the room and enter the final arena. You're in for a very bad fight. You'll be attacked by constantly respawning pain wraiths and skeletons, not to mention the sorceress who's controlling them. Concentrate your attacks on the witch and try not to allow yourself to be surrounded. This is difficult because the wraiths are very good at stunning you. If you do get surrounded, you're probably dead. Once you kill the sorceress, she summons the titan you've been hearing about. Now, at least, the skeletons and wraiths stop spawning; though, whatever were left from before the titan are still there. Mop up the minions as best you can before turning to attack the titan. The big thing to watch out for here is that bone whip he's carrying. When he crouches, then slams that thing to the ground, you're about to be blown off your feet. This not only hurts, it immobilizes you for about five seconds. When you see the titan stop and crouch, start running; you may even be fast enough to avoid the explosion. Other than that, the titan is a big wuss; especially if you have some strong ranged attacks. Avoid his special attack and keep out of his way (he's pretty slow) and you should be fine. Once the titan is dead and the cutscene has played, loot the room; then, step into the glowing circle on the east side of the room. You'll arrive back in present-day Ashton and you can talk to Sythvallis and Varythmasis. The convoluted time-travel story will make your eyes ache; but, that's the price you pay for "enjoying" this game. Sythvallis will send you to the Draconum. Head for the north gate of Ashton to get to... ################# # Chrys'alara # # MKCH # ################# Chrys'alara is an Asian-themed village of streams criss-crossing beautiful gardens with houses built on wood platforms surrounding peaceful pools. What this means to you is Chrys'alara is like a maze; you have to make your way around the wood platforms on which the houses are built, since you can't get anywhere just running through the gardens. Cross the bridge in front of you and go up on the wood platform at the end of the bridge. Sythvallis is in a house on the north side of the central garden, next to the town Portal Stone. Talk to him; then, go see Calabra, Speaker and Priest for the Dragon Gods. You'll find Calabra northwest of town--go west from Sythvallis, then north down into a garden and from there up a set of stairs to the island shrine where Calabra awaits. Calabra sends you to talk to some ghosts. Great... The Mausoleum --------------- To get to the Mausoleum, go back down to the Portal Stone and go east into the house where you can find the arms & armor merchant. Go out his "back" door and over the bridge to the crypt entrance. Head up the stairs to the main doors and you'll be transported inside. Go to the end of the first room and sit through the cutscene. Afterward, find the column with the blue exclamation mark hovering over a glowing button on the base. It's on the north side of the room and slightly behind you after the cutscene. Clicking the button opens a door into the main crypt. In the crypt you'll face mainly mummies and ghosts. The mummies only break out of their sarcophagi if you click the sarcophagi, so...don't. The ghosts are harder, as they can remain invisible even while attacking. Use a "see invisible" skill if you have one; e.g. Chela's War Trance (Eagle Stance). Go straight east through the first room of the crypt and to the east end of the large room beyond to find the first sacred fountain. Click it and then turn around and go back to the first room. Go north and then head east down a long hallway full of ghosts. At the end of the hall, where it turns south, you'll find the first ritual brazier (it has a blue exclamation mark hovering over it). Click it to light it. Turn around and go back west just a little bit and find the door on the south wall of the hall. Leave this room through a door on the west wall; turn around after going through the door to see ritual braziers two and three. Click them, then return the way you came to the long hall. Go south until the hall ends. Ritual brazier number four is in the corner. Go through the door to the east and enter a room with a lot of sarcophagi and a large Old One statue. Go through the north door and turn around to see the final two ritual braziers. Light them, then go straight south to a Magestone Crystal. From the Crystal, go west and through the first door on your right (north) into a small room with the second sacred fountain. Click it, then head west down another large hall to a meeting with the Makers. After the meeting is over, go through the newly opened door to return to Chrys'alara. Sacred Caverns ---------------- Return to Calabra and tell him what you were told by the Makers. Calabra doesn't understand it either; so, he sends you to Dardanus. You may have already spoken to Dardanus, he's the magic merchant for the town. Go back into town and work your way to the Archives, which are on the southeastern end of town. Dardanus tells you of problems in the Sacred Caves and sends you to investigate. If you are not playing as Sarus, you are first told to go to Sythvallis. Sythvallis introduces you to Sarus and the Draconum mage now joins your party. If you are playing as Sarus...well, you get bupkus. From Sythvallis, head straight west and over a bridge to reach the Sacred Caverns. Once inside, you have to work your way around to a large cavern (hmmm...looks like a boss arena) that's marked on your map with the objective marker. Just use your map to work your way through the caves; they're not that difficult. You will have to slog through a lot of corrupted draconum; and, they tend to burst out of their chrysalis cocoons right on top of you. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. When you reach the boss arena, you get to fight a two-headed draconum and a lot of lackeys. It'll be so much fun, you'll be happy to know you have to kill him three times. Doesn't that just warm you from your head to your toes? This is a difficult fight because there's a lot of rubble, a lot of enemies and the poor pathfinding means you will frequently get pinned and be unable to escape the horde of mini-dragons surrounding you. Concentrate your attacks on the boss. Each time he dies, the draconum run away to protect his cocoon, from which he'll emerge in a moment. This will give you a brief respite from the gang that's attacking you. What makes this even more fun is the huge explosion the boss can unleash--and he unleashes it regularly. This is especially problematic when you're pinned and can't run away. On the plus side, the explosion may unpin you! After the third death, he stays down and some new bad guys show up. Head for the southeastern cavern to find the entrance to... The Shyft Tunnels ------------------- Wind your way through the tunnels. The overlay map will be helpful in determining which branch paths lead to dead ends. You should be able to make your way quickly enough to the Matriarch. After the short cutscene, you'll be mobbed by a couple dozen minions and be a sitting duck for the Matriarch's grenades. It will actually work to your advantage if you die at the beginning of this battle. After reviving, you will find the Matriarch's minions have scattered and the room is large enough you can work your way around the periphery, taking them out one or two (occasionally three) at a time. The Matriarch will ignore you while you do this. Once all the minions are dead, you can turn your attention to the Matriarch. This is a good thing, since you have to kill her four times. Yes. Four. She has only one weapon, grenades (of various damage types), and you can see them coming so they're pretty easy to dodge. Unless, of course, you choose to melee her, in which case you may not have room to get away when she winds up. If you can avoid the grenades, this will be an easy fight (or four); otherwise, you might have to Revive a few times to defeat her. Once she's really dead, her minions miraculously revive and begin attacking again. Don't waste time on them, run back to the Magestone Crystal and teleport back to Chrys'alara. Speak to Sythvallis to receive your next quest. Click the Portal Stone to get started. ################## # Vale of Dawn # # MKVD # ################## If you're playing as Tal Windstrider, the guards at the entrance to the elf camp will let you in. If you're not playing as Tal, you'll meet him now in a cutscene and he'll join your party. Once inside the camp, which is the "town" for this Act, find Commander Darkmoon and speak to him. He sends you on a mission to recover some stolen artifacts from Mistral, Lord of Winter. The Frozen River ------------------ Exit the elf camp by the east gate and follow the frozen riverbed. It will twist and turn a lot, which means plenty of opportunity for you to kill hordes of monsters. Once the slogging is done, you'll approach Mistral's Keep, where you meet the big ice man himself. He'll spring a load of minions on you. You'll have to kill most of the minions before you can touch Mistral. This will be difficulty because you're on a narrow path and there is no room to maneuver. Hopefully you have some decent melee fighters in your party. When Mistral pulls his big sword out of the ground, start attacking him. Again, this will prove difficult due to the narrow path on which you're standing. Mistral will also freeze you once in a while. This won't do much (if any) damage, but you will be stuck for a while and Mistral can beat up on you as he pleases. Using ranged attacks from a distance works best here. Once Mistral is defeated, you can continue up to the keep. The Winter Keep ----------------- The keep is, of course, teeming with enemies. At the end of the entry hall, hang a left (west) and wind your way through a hall and a couple of rooms until you come out into a courtyard. Here you get to have it out with Mistral and a couple dozen of his closest friends. Yep. Again. At least this time you have some room to maneuver. Ranged fighters will appreciate the ability to run away from the confusion and snipe the stragglers. You can also more easily keep away from Mistral's freezing spell. After the fight, go up on the balcony that runs along the west wall and head back inside; then, go east along a hall. The hallway will make a little jog to the south; after it does so, find the door on the south side to enter another courtyard. No fight with Mistral here; bust through the blocked doorway to the southeast and wind your way into yet another courtyard. At the north end are two exits: a blocked door and a set of stairs up to a balcony. Go up the stairs and head north into another courtyard. Ah! Here's another fight with Mistral. Rinse-and-repeat your tactics from the earlier fight. There are more minions this time around. When the courtyard is clear, take the exit at the southwest corner of the yard and follow the concourse west and then a little north into a large yard that runs the entire length of the keep. You've got perhaps three or four dozen enemies to clear out of this yard. Once they are all dead, a large door in the center opens and you can enter the throne room for your final confrontation with Mistral... Well! That was easy. The room with the trinkets mentioned by Mistral is to the left of the throne (west). After you've looted to your heart's content (or backpack's fullness), go through the door across the throne room to find a Magestone Crystal. Portal back to the Vale of Dawn. Fallen Citadel ---------------- Talk to Commander Darkmoon; then, talk to Sythvallis. Sythvallis tells you to talk to Darkmoon again; but, actually, he has nothing useful to say to you. Find the exit just past the commander, and wind your way up to the Fallen Citadel. You'll have to trek up a frozen bridge, harassed constantly by Atlanteans. Shortly after entering the area, some of Lord Mistral's minions show up and offer to help. Say, "Yes". When you encounter your first large group of Atlanteans, the minions will pop out of the snow and take care of business. With a full party and the help of the minions, the trek to the citadel itself is pretty easy. Once inside the citadel proper, take a good look at your overlay map. Even though you can only see half the area right now, you'll see it's laid out in an octagon and you're going to circle that octagon a couple times to get to the center, which is your objective. This entrance hallway only goes around the north side of the octagon, and then you enter the main concentric portion of the citadel. At the point where you turn into the first ring, you'll kill a lot of magi and golems in a large room. After all the enemies are dead, before entering the first ring, look in the corner of the room. You should see a desk with a blue exclamation mark hovering over it; click the desk to pick up some ley line charts--you'll need these later. Enter the first ring and fight your way around the citadel. At the point where you turn into the second ring, keep going around the first ring. In the room at the end, kill all the golems and look on the back (north) wall. You'll see a machine with a blue exclamation mark. Click it and Janos will pick up a key used to power up the skiffs. You'll need it a bit later. Turn into the second ring and fight your way around the citadel again. At the end, kill all the enemies and click the levers on the big machine with the gears. A door around the northeast side of the second ring will open and you can get into the center of the citadel. There you are in for a big fight. Some 50 or 60 enemies will swarm you; many of the mobs are miniature flying gunships--always a fun time. It will take a while; but, there's nothing special about these enemies. Just keep hacking and slashing; after all, isn't that what this game is all about? Once the enemies are dead, you can click the ramp on the skiff in the center of the area. Assuming you picked up the charts and key earlier, you'll enter a cutscene to the next Act. If you didn't pick up the key or charts, you get to do a lot of backtracking. Have fun! ################### # Vurgra Divide # # MKDV # ################### Vurgra Divide --------------- After the cutscene, you find yourself at the southeast corner of a volcanic crater. You have to travel around the outer part of the area, shutting down spires. You shut down each spire by killing the acolytes that are controlling the spire. The fighting at this points gets crazy stupid. The game will throw *hundreds* of enemies at you as you go around to the five spires. Even at Easy Difficulty you will die more than once. Try to ignore the mobs and concentrate on the spire at each location. Break through the obstruction leading up to the spire, then kill the acolytes that are feeding energy to the spire. As soon as the acolytes are dead, you'll get a cutscene and most of the enemies will disappear. There's no "easy" way to do any of this. You will frequently find yourself surrounded by 30 or 40 mobs, with no way to move and nothing you can do against that many. The Magestone Crystals are positioned such that, should you quit and reload the game at any time, you'll be forced to wade through the hordes all over again (though you won't have to shut down spires you've previously stopped). The trek around the Divide is a true test of your patience. The best path around is to travel clockwise. Go west from your starting position and take out two spires. You'll then find a Magestone Crystal where you can save your progress. From the Crystal, go north to the third spire. From there, go east, bypassing the bridge to the Temple. (Try to bypass the guards too, they're just a waste of your time.) Just past the bridge is another Magestone Crystal. Save your progress, then head southeast to the final two spires. After the fifth spire and the cutscene, backtrack northwest to the Magestone Crystal. Save your game, and take a breather if you need to. You can safely quit now without having to re- do any portion of the Divide. Now head for the bridge on the north side of the are. You'll find yourself up against yet another horde of enemies. Ignore them. Bash your way across the bridge as quickly as possible and enter the final area. The Temple of the End ----------------------- Off to your left you'll see the Landshatter Dragon; you can't touch him now so don't worry about him. Down to your right is a Magestone Crystal and a merchant. Yes! A merchant. He sells everything: weapons, armor, magic items, the works. So, you don't have to portal back to a town; although, you can do so from the Crystal. Ahead of you is a ramp leading up to the temple. Kill the bad guys on the ramp and turn right at the top of the ramp. Kill another group of enemies and then go down into the main temple. You'll have a nice long chat with Katalkus. When the cutscene is over, ignore the spawning monsters and run to a pair of acolytes in front of one of the spires. Kill them, then click the base of the spire when you see the blue exclamation mark. The monsters will disappear and different monsters will take their place. Ignore them also. Just concentrate on running to each pair of acolytes, killing them and clicking the base of the spire when you see the blue mark. Try to stand near the spire while killing the acolytes; that way, you won't be blocked by mobs and unable to reach the spire when the priests are dead. (They respawn after a moment, so you want to click the spire very quickly.) You should get a nice cutscene; and, when all five spires have been de- activated, you get to fight Katalkus. He's not that tough, especially if you've got some good ranged attacks. At least you only have to fight him (no minions). When he dies, the Landshatter Dragon appears and the final battle is on! And...it's a bit anti-climactic. Get behind the behemoth and what at its tail. It has some very nasty attacks, including an instant-death attack, but they all come out in an arc from the front of the beast. It will also summon vampire skeletons that will attack you. Best to leave them alone and concentrate on the dragon. The dragon does regenerate health, and quickly. If you die, run back into the temple as fast as possible so it won't be back to full health. If your companions are still alive, they may be able to help a little. Still, this is mostly a matter of getting behind the dragon and staying behind the dragon. You're actually pretty safe back there and you should be able to take him out without dying even once. Congratulations! You've just finished Mage Knight Apocalypse. Don't you feel good about yourself now? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ VERSION HISTORY & CREDITS \O/ ' MKVH ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ v1.00 2006-10-16 - First published version +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ___ ___ \O/ LEGAL \O/ ' MKLG ' +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Written & Copyright 2006 by Barry Scott Will Trademarks and other marks are reserved to their original owners. This guide is not endorsed or authorized by Wizkids, NAMCO BANDAI America or InterServ. This guide is for informational purposes only and no explicit or implicit warranty is made with regards to the suitability of this information. The reader agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the author, Barry Scott Will, from any consequences of using this information. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/