PrinceWatercress plays Hydlide - Part 5 of 5

Enjoy your ending! You just beat Hydlide for NES!

First | Previous

PrinceWatercress plays Hydlide - Part 4 of 5

The end is near. Tune in next time for the ending.

First | Previous | End

Overworld Map (by Starfighters76)

Underground Maps (by Starfighters76)

At the start of the video, I'm almost at maximum level. I have 90 HP, and my strength is at 100. My magic is also at 90.

I forgot to mention the other spells in the game that I can use in the game, so I might as well mention them now.

Ice throws ice balls, much like how Fire throws fireballs. Unlike the fireballs, the ice balls can go through walls. You need 40 Magic points in order to use Ice.

Wave sends shock waves to the sides, and will do a lot of damage to any monsters that it hits. You must have 50 MP to use Wave.

Flash is the most powerful magic, and it damages all on-screen enemies. You must have 70 MP to use Flash.

Believe it or not, the ring does more than just heal you. It also serves as one of the three jewels you need to summon Boralis, with the other two being the Jewel and something else that we have yet to find.

The light blue Ropers are known as Hypers. Once you get powerful enough and attack a Slime, the Hypers will replace them. They can pack a punch if you're not careful, but they will give you experience when the zombies in the graveyard eventually won't.

Head back through the Shield/Ring maze and go south. Enter the hole near the castle to end up in the water. Watch out for all of the Eels that are waiting to attack you. You'll want to avoid them as you head northwest and into an opening in the wall. You'll face some dark blue enemies that look like magicians in cloaks. You'll need to use Wave to defeat them both at the same time, which means you need to line them up horizontally and then let loose with Wave. Doing this will net you Fairy 3.

The Goblins show up and replace the Kobolds when you get powerful enough.

When you get all three Fairies, you'll be carried off to where the dragon guarding the castle is. You've seen him just earlier; now you'll actually have to fight him. Save and password, then heal up. Go up to the tree in front of the castle and set it on fire with Fire to open up a hole, then go in the hole. Make your way through the maze and avoid the Blackams and the Skeletons, and attack the lone gravestone from the south side. By breaking the gravestone, you'll drain the water surrounding the island. From here, get back to the dragon. If you're hopefully trapped by the Blackams, use Flash to get rid of them.

Now it's time to fight the dragon. However, there's a way to defeat it. You have to run into it...in defense mode. If you hold A, you will get destroyed. Get your shots in, and watch your health. If it gets low, pull back and heal up. When you defeat the dragon, you'll get the Medicine, which is a one-time auto revive in case you lose all your health. You'll want to save this for Boralis, and not a moment sooner.

Leave the island and head east. You'll find a chest containing the Ruby. You'll need it along with the Jewel and the Ring to summon Boralis. Heal up in the formerly flooded area, then get in the castle. Use Flash to get past the Darkams if you need to, then enter the area where the gravestone originally was to find Boralis (named Varalys in-game). Don't fight him yet; instead, go back to where you entered from and stay there. Not only will you will be able to heal up, but you'll also make it so that all the Darkams come out from only one side and are unable to get to you. Be ready to save and password where you're standing once you're healed up, and get Flash ready.

Use Flash to take out the other enemies, then move into Boralis from a corner while in Defense mode. You'll both trade blows, and it's going to hurt. The trick is to get away from him when your health gets low enough and get back to the maze and heal up in the northeast exit. You can heal up, but Boralis cannot. You'll have to keep going back and forth between the maze and the battlefield to destroy everyone else with Flash and beat down Boralis bit by bit. When he's close to death, that is when you want to use the medicine for one last all-out assault. Once you're there, you'll be able to beat Boralis.

Unfortunately, I can't do it...so we'll have to wait until the next video!

THQPHKRNJ8QNH3D3 - powered up

MNHTDLBJM9RD8GB0 - dragon

LMQMLMPMX74JGB93 - water drained

PHTPPBNGPQR1P8K4 - Boralis

PrinceWatercress plays Hydlide - Part 3 of 5

As you can see, getting prepared for Boralis is not easy.

First | Previous | Next | End

Overworld Map (by Starfighters76)

Underground Maps (by Starfighters76)

At the start of this video, I'm at Level 5. I'm as strong as I can get from the Ropers in the maze.

Once in the maze, head north, then east. This lets you get to the chest that contains the Pot, which lets you see holes in the floor that you could not see before. This reveals a hole in the southeast corner of the maze, which you'll now need to head to.

Once you go down the hole, you'll need to open every chest until you find the Key. The Key is in a random chest every time you play. Along the way, you'll need to watch out for the gold soldiers known as the Goldams as you do this. Once you do that, you'll want to leave the maze where you came in from in order to heal up. You can heal anywhere if you stand still long enough, but it is best to do it in the light green grass, as healing speeds up on those titles as opposed to in forests or in castle-like areas.

The little brown guys running around in the forests are the Kobolds. They're weak for this point in the game.

From the maze, I head to the graveyard to the south and open the chest there now that we have the key. This lets us get the Jewel, which we will need later.

From there, go back into the maze and go through the hole on the other side. When you're back above ground, go north of where you came out from, and save and password. When you go north again, you'll see four trees moving around. One tree does not attack you when you run into it in attack mode, and if you run into that tree long enough, you'll get Fairy 2. Once again, save and password near the trees, and be prepared to load a lot.

From the trees, run west through the desert and avoid the sandworms. There will be a hole that you need to enter. Get in the hole, then save and password. While the Goldams are still powerful, the Ladyams - the pink soldiers - are a little easier to defeat. You'll need to fight them until you get the Shield, which increases your defense. From here, you'll need to heal up while still in the maze, then beat up some Goldrms until a chest appears in the southeast corner of the maze. You may have to load several times just to get enough of them to show up away from the hole on the east end of the maze. When the chest appears, open it up to get the Ring. The Ring allows you to heal twice as fast, which will work wonders with making progress in this game. Too bad the faster healing time only applies to the light green grass tiles.

Go through the hole at the east end of the maze to get back to close to where you started the game. From here, I head to the graveyard and farm experience from the zombies running around in the dirt. For best results, stay on the green grass, and attack from any direction other than in front of the zombies when they get close enough.

PBT8GJHDB3V9B2L3 - beginning of maze

Y21LLK1N78RKKMK7 - near the trees

M1XMQB2QHBL6B5DJ - Fairy 2 collected

M9NB9PNJH4Q89PL1 - Shield collected

RHMKDTRTV8WKH774 - Ring collected

PrinceWatercress plays Hydlide - Part 2 of 5

Now that we're leveled up a bit from the slimes, it's time to complete some tasks in order to get further along in our quest and get ready to level up again!

First | Next | End

Overworld Map (by Starfighters76)

Underground Maps (by Starfighters76)

Head west of where you start and open the chest you see to find the Cross. The Cross is needed for what we're about to do. From here, head east of where you start, then get a password and save your game. Go to the hole near the castle and press A to go into it. Avoid the bats as you go through the maze. To the south of where you came in is a vampire. You'll need to attack him from behind or the side, or else he will annihilate you as soon as you run into the front of him. This takes some doing, but it's not impossible. When you defeat him, you'll get the lamp, which lights up the rest of the underground areas in the game. Now save and get another password, then get out of there and make the save and password again.

Once you get out of the castle, recharge your health, then enter the hole to the north of the castle. Save and password (I'll call it this from now on) before you go in. Watch out for the fireballs as you travel through the maze to get the sword, which increases your strength by one level. You'll need to get even stronger and fight tougher enemies earlier. Save and password, then get out, save and password again, and recharge your health again.

Head south of where you started. There are ten big trees on the screen. Save and password, then run into them from the south end while holding A. All of them contain wasps that hurt you and fly away when they go off-screen, but only one of them contains a Fairy. The tree that contains the fairy is random each time you play. Keep your health high, and remember which trees you ran into. It makes getting this fairy a lot easier. Eventually, you'll get Fairy 1. Once you get Fairy 1, get out of there, save, password and heal up.

Head to the maze north of where you found the cross. You'll need to go around the perimeter to find the entrance. From there, stay in the open field, and attack the Ropers - the blue octopus enemies - that move around from the side of behind. You'll need to do this until you level up two more times. Stay in the open field to heal up in case your health is low, then get back in there to farm for experience again when your health is good. Remember save and password as soon as you level up.

HH9PP5MBL3ZJVTJ7 - before the vampire

76XBBBKLLGJ90887 - vampire dead

57WH95MGHGD9GH54 - at north hole

G6HKK6LJG9TN7640 - sword get

BKK9G6N5JB7DDG42 - fairy trees

N6KPG5J9N5K7GH66 - octopus maze

PrinceWatercress plays Hydlide - Part 1 of 5

I can't believe I played through and beat this game.

Next | End

Believe it or not, this game has a bit of a story to it as well as names for the characters. You are a knight named Jim. Someone has stolen a jewel and unsealed Boralis (named Varalys in-game), and Boralis has turned the princess into three fairies with a magic spell before unleashing monsters all over the land. It's up to you to find the three fairies and defeat Boralis to break the spell.

Compared to other games, this one is pretty simple and basic. Believe it or not, this game came out before all of the big RPG's of the 1980s in Japan on the MSX as far back as 1984, and was ported later on to other systems with even the Famicom version - known in Japan as Hydlide Special - coming out in 1986, a month after Zelda and not before like I stated in the video. Interesting. By the time the game came to the States, it was the summer of 1989, all the big RPG's for the system except for Final Fantasy had landed on the NES, and the game ended up feeling basic in comparison to everything else up to that point.

Overworld Map (by Starfighters76)

At the start of the game, the D-Pad lets you move around. Holding A lets you attack as you move around, as opposed to staying in defense mode when you don't have A held down. You can tell which mode you're in by looking at the lower-right corner of the screen. B lets you cast spells, although that will be explained in time as we don't have any magic yet, since none of the spell names at the bottom are lit up at the start of the game. Select brings up an in-game menu, while Start pauses the game.

The in-game menu lets you look at your inventory, switch between normal and fast for the game speed, save and load your game, and use passwords. The save and load commands save a game into memory and load it up, respectively, but that in-game save will disappear the moment you power off or reset. This is where the password comes in. At any time, you can pull up a password. Be sure to write it down carefully and keep it where you can find so you do not lose progress.

To the right of the gameplay screen is your health, your strength, your experience and your magic points. You'll also be able to see what monster you're fighting and how much health that monster has left. Each white notch on the gauges indicates a unit of 10, so you have 100 points for each of these four stats. In the case of life, strength and magic, the long white line indicate your maximum values for those stats, which will increase over time.

You'll want to start the game by going to the east of where you start and holding A while rushing at the slime enemies. You'll need to do this to gain experience and strength. As you do this, watch your health. If you start running low, stop fighting enemies and stay in the light green grass to slowly recover your health. If you flash red, you've taken damage; if the monster flashes red, the monster has taken damage. If any enemies approach you, get away from them until your health is back up. It is possible for your health to dip slightly if you run around a lot so be careful. You can heal in other areas, although healing will be slower. Once you're healed up, go back to grinding for experience. You don't want to game over, as losing the game and re-loading or using a recent password cleans the slate for the experience gauge, meaning that you'll start at zero experience for the current level again.

When you fill up the experience gauge, save your game and get yourself a password. You don't want to do all that progress again. At Level 2 comes more life, more strength and more magic points. You'll be able to take out those slimes more easily, but you should still be careful. You'll also get the Turn magic. To use Magic, select it with B so the name of the spell is white, hold A, then face the direction you want to cast it in and press B. Turn just turns an enemy around and away from you. You'll need to get even stronger to get the good magic, such as Fire at Level 3. Fire lets you shoot a fireball in the direction you are facing.

When you reach Level 3, you won't be able to get experience from the slimes any more...so you'll need to fight more powerful monsters to get stronger at this point. We'll be doing that next time.