Long long ago, there was a small and civilized country named Oddesia. This was a land of peace and harmony where people helped their neighbors and life was happy and tranquil.
The symbol of Oddesia's prosperity was the ancient and mysterious ORA Stone. The ORA was special because it controlled the power of the people's will. Whoever held the stone ruled the country and its citizens.
One day, unfortunately, aliens from another world heard of the stone's magic. These were wicked men with evil powers of their own. They wanted the stone so they could dominate the people. However, one man saw this danger and hid the ORA Stone so no one could ever find it. Terror reigned as the aliens became master of the dungeons and vented their aggression on the people.
The King of Oddesia saw the ruins of his once proud country and made a desperate plea for someone brave enough to defeat the aliens and retrieve the stone.
One day a visitor came to town and offered the trouble King his help. The King and his country placed their fate and only hope in this brave and gallant stranger. Thus the search for the ORA Stone begins...
If you let the game's attract mode run past the story, you can see all of the eight character classes, their attacks, their magic and their starting stats.
Here, we'll be playing as the Warlock. Their White magic is the Stunner, while their Black magic is the Silencer. The Stunner briefly stuns all on-screen enemies, while the Silencer attacks all on-screen enemies. The Warlock has pretty even stats.
When you press Run to start the game, you'll see the opening cutscene of some of the playable characters looking over the land where the adventure will take place. You'll then be in the town's tavern. Hold the Run button until the number of times the word "OK!" appears matches the number of players you want to play with shows up. (We'll just be doing one-player mode for this Let's Play.) From here, you can choose your character class, or inputting a password. We'll be playing a new game as as the Bishop. Button I confirms, Button II backs out, and the Control Pad chooses. You'll then have your character.
The Control Pad lets your character move in eight directions. Button I lets you use your currently equipped magic (assuming you have a charge for it), Button II does your regular attack and can be aimed by holding it down with a direction on the Control Pad (you cannot attack and move at the same time), and Select lets you switch between the White magic and the Black magic with a red arrow pointing downwards showing which one you currently have equipped. Pressing Run pauses the game and lets you choose between the current password, your current status and your current status level with the Control Pad and Button I. The password changes as you do things, so always make sure to check your password and write it down (thankfully, it's ten letters) for later use in case you have to turn the TurboGrafx-16 off.
The tavern is the inn, and is the place you go to if you need to heal, as healing your character is hard to do in-game. You'll always start here when you start a new game or continue a previous game. Once you leave the tavern, you'll be in the town. Unlike other games, you only talk to people as soon as you enter their house, and they only have one or two lines of dialogue. By talking to people, you'll find out that the King wants to see you in the rear room of Axis Castle to the north. You'll also learn about colored crystals that increase your stats, treasures that will help you fight, and that the devil himself Natas (which is "Satan" backwards) is looking for the ORA Stone.
The side rooms of the castle aren't of much use...yet. There is a multiplayer battle mode in the side rooms if you go north after entering them, but I cannot show it off due to playing solo. Instead, enter the bigger opening in the center, then go north and meet the King. Press Button I to go through the text slowly, or press Button II to go through the text more quickly. The King will tell you to go to the Loch Dungeon south of the castle, and that his man Judas (yeah, this sounds ominous) will be waiting there for you. He will then give you one charge of White Magic (signified by a white bottle with a W on it) and one charge of Black magic (indicated by a green skull with a B on it). Be sure to talk to the King when you complete a task, as he will always give one charge of each magic when you get your next task.
The Bishop's White Magic is Mortal Bless, which is a full heal. The Bishop's Black Magic is Vaporizer, which has a random chance of eliminating enemies. I use the White Magic a lot more often as the Bishop.
From here, leave the castle and go south. The slime here can be defeated easily, and the man in the house will tell you that Melba Village will be to the west from the dungeon. Enter the stairs to go into the dungeon. Judas will be there, and will tell you that the King has sent him to tell you that Bullbeast is near and that he is mad. From here, you're on your own. Be ready to destroy anything that monsters come out of, as those are enemy generators. If it isn't obvious at this point, you're playing a clone of Gauntlet...but a rather good one. From the slime generator, go down the stairs going down to move further.
From here, you'll meet guys in gray armor who are a little bit faster than the slimes, but not impossible to deal with. Be careful when fighting enemies from a distance, as they can drop items. Unlike Gauntlet, where only one errant hit can destroy an item, it takes a few hits to destroy one, but even then it can be easy to destroy an item in this way. The blue potion briefly repels monsters away from you for as long as your character is flashing, and the blue winged boots increase your Agility. The gold ring refills your HP and give you a few extra HP beyond your maximum to work with.
It is possible to get a gold ring. It will refill a little bit of your health, and if you're at maximum health when you pick one up, you'll go slight above your maximum.
Thankfully, the dungeon layouts are pretty linear, and you can easily tell where you need to go and you are easily able to find your way to where you need to get to.
The purple floating eyeballs go down in one hit, and there is a chance they can drop White Magic charges. The axe will increase your Attack. Rocks can be destroyed with your regular attack, and in the case that they can't, they can be pushed by just walking into them.
If there are too many enemies on-screen and you're spending too much time near enemy generators, a blue fireball will eventually appear. It can go through walls and wreck your health if it hits you, and while you can destroy it, it does take a little bit of work to do so. Thankfully, you can off-screen enemies that come out of the generators to get rid of them if you need to.
The green lizard men tend not to move towards you, and it is really easy to off-screen them and have them disappear. They have a chance of dropping a White Magic charge. The crown increases your Intelligence.
You'll eventually meet Bullbeast. Stay on the move and run around the room in a circle, don't get cornered, and remember that the Bullbeast can only attack in diagonal directions. As far as hitting him goes, hit him when you have a bit of distance between yourself and the Bullbeast. As the Bishop, you'll want to keep your White Magic ready, as you'll need all the full heals in this battle that you can get. When you beat him, a magic crystal will show up and switch between four different colors. Orange is Agility, light blue is Attack, purple is Strength and green is Intelligence. Match the color up with the stat that you want, and grab the crystal while it is that color. Keep this and the colors of the status gauges in mind if you want to increase a specific stat. When you pick up a crystal, you'll not only refill your health, but you'll also increase your level, change your password and get some extra health to build on what you already had. You'll then be able to return to the first room of the dungeon after a little more exploration and head to Melba Village with the staircase to the west.
In case you die, you do have a few continues, which are indicated by the icons that look like torches (flowers?) at the top of the heads-up display at the bottom of the screen. Once you use them all, it's game over and you'll have to put in a password and get back to where you died. Keep in mind that any stat-boosting items that aren't crystals (such as crowns, axes, etc.) will not be saved to your password, and that you will have to get them all over again if you continue from a password.
If you go back to the King after beating Bullbeast, The King will tell you about Melba Village and the terrible Gutworm that lives nearby in addition to giving you a Black magic charge and a White magic charge.
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