[More battle tips] [Magic Resistance Statistics] [Cheats] [Experiencing Penn]

Battle tips

Healers

Healers should be the most experienced members of your army. Grace, Kahn and Irene are the only healers in part one and every time they heal they gain 10 experience points.So, the message is basically heal all the time! Even when people only lose 1 hp1 Heal them for 10 experience points! Also, if you run out of Mp during this then herbs and potions will also gain these three characters experience points. You should be able to keep your healers far ahead of the rest of your team as far as experience is concerned. It is posibble to get Grace up to level 30 on the first battle if you wanted! But alas it would be tedious so get her up to level 10 and promote her before the ghost village and you should be fine. Kahn and Irene are harder to deal with due to lack of Mp, but make sure they keep some herbs with them.

Swordsmen, Dwarves, Centaurs...anyone

Just need to fight. And striking the final blow on an enemy always gives you more points. Up to 49 experience can be gained for a kill and that is almost half a level up, so two kills should be enough (late in the game) to get a level up. Earlier on however the baddies only excrete about 20 points for a kill with enemy bosses giving 49. So if someone is behind then make them kill the boss to get the experience points. Also during the game there is an item called Brave Apple. This gives a character a level up, I would use one of these on Eldar and choose someone else to have the other one but if you are thinking about experiencing Penn then you may want to save them for him.

Brave Apple locations:

1. In a house in Quonus

2.In a barrel during the fight in Malorie Castle

Battle tips

Trapping archers

If you want to trap an arrow shooting enemy then you can trap them by surrounding him with for team members, archers cannot attack at close range so they are stuck in one place, cannot attack (unless you move someone into his range!) and then can be killed easily. The only time I used this technique however was during the last battle in chapter 1 where I blocked the gang leader whilst I waited for the rest of my army to finish exploring the ruins on that stage.

Killing the skull mage with poorly experienced characters

You may get to this part of the game, feeling confident and happy about the game. But then you come to this guy and he kills your army within seconds. Tiamat on Synbios and boom your all dead. A handy technique I found out was one where you can use three characters to finish off the skull headed freak.

Firstly get a fast moving character (he's gonna be sacrificed) to move behind the right side of the balcony (with the chest on it). Skully will go and fry him with the Tiamat attack but thats what you want. Because whilst this happened you moved Haward behind the post nearest the entrance (on the right) with Synbios behind him for attacking support, now when Skully moves away from the area where he killed your bloke he should move into a position where you can shoot arrows at him through the post! And he doesen't usually notice it either! From now on you should (it doesent always work :P) to shoot arrows at him and eventually finish him off.

Other tips for Novices

>Don't stand characters next to eachother too often, this leaves you vulnerable to thier multi-hit magic attacks

>Analyse the enemy. Hold the cursor over them and press A and you will know almost everything about the way they attack.

>Split up your forces. You may want to send a group of unexperienced characters out on their own to get some levels up.

More Tips!

A good tip to remember is that aiming Summons spells at large groups of enemies actually makes the attack less powerful - Summons spells should only ever be used on one, two or at the maximum three enemies. Aiming a Phoenix at a group of half a dozen soldiers might look cool, but when it only does 11 damage each you'll have some mighty smell egg on your face.

By the same token, enemy Summons attacks do less damage when used against groups of your soldiers. Bear this in mind when fighting against the Skull Mage or someone like Basanda, but also remember that they have conventional magic attacks that are more than capable of decimating your squad. Just don't leave warriors standing on their own against these two - they'll kill them instantly.

In the game's final stages, statistic-improving spells like Support and Attack become highly important to your team's success. It's well worth getting Masqurin to level 16 Wizard so she can learn the Attack spell, and from that point on you should aim to group your big-hitters in a cluster for when the spell reaches level 2 - it makes the big battles much easier. Kahn's Support spell is also highly useful, and combining these two gives you an enormous advantage on the battlefield. Resist is a slightly less useful spell, unless up against a Bulzome Priest or the Skull Mage, in which case it really could save your bacon.

Form as many friendships as you can, particularly between similar types of fighters - healers and mages complement each other well, as do archers and swordsmen. Experiment to find out which combinations work well, and send them off into mini-groups to gain friendship and experience. But remember to keep them alive at all costs or else the friendship is taken down a level. My favourite combinations are:

· Synbios and Hayward - Synbios raises Hayward's attack for his long range arching, and Hayward returns the compliment with critical-increasing status. Get these two up to high levels and they're unstoppable.
· Noon and Masqurin - both the wizards raise Magic attack, giving twice the death-dealing power. Use this to launch a veritable onslaught of high level Sparks, Freezes and Summons spells for a swift victory.

This might seem obvious, but keep your characters using the same type of weapon for as long as possible, eg keep Synbios with a sword, Masqurin with a wand etc. This causes them to become more proficient with that chosen weapon and allows them to learn three special attacks for its weapon class - when a new special technique is learnt, your character's attack increases by 5 points, so by sticking with one sword you've already granted yourself a 15 point advantage over the rapier, blade or knife. Whilst you shouldn't be afraid to experiment, as a rule of thumb the character's initial weapon is the type to stick with - Frank should stick to claws whilst Justin should use crossbows. There are some cool quirks to experimenting with various weapon types, as seeing Kahn slice up his enemies with a claw is cool, but generally stick to the intended set up.

Whilst not being the most important part of the game, knowledge of magic resistances is nonetheless a useful tool to have in your arsenal. Magic resistance is split into six categories, each related to a specific type of magic - fire, ice, lightning, wind, light and darkness. The higher the magic resistance, the less damage you'll suffer when hit by an attack of that type.

Cheats

It took us a while to do a cheat guide for shining force 3. Mainly because the selection of cheats is about as varied as a box of Cadburys roses after Christmas Day…just a load of coffee creams. But have a look anyway, maybe some of the more hardened SF3 players will relish the secret difficulty option.

Secret Character
This cheat doesn't work, but you can try it if you like.
At the start screen press Y, A, B, B, A, DOWN, A, B, B, A, DOWN, UP and then hold down START. Then you WILL NOT hear a chime because this cheat doesn't work, if you do hear a chime then get your ears checked because quite clearly this cheat is FALSE and the people who make up these annoying fake cheats don't have the right to call themselves webmasters! Grrr!

Battle Difficulty & Music Select
Now; onto the real cheats. This one isn't exactly a cheat anyway because it requires you to complete the game. Once you've done this a sound select and battle difficulty option should appear on the pause menu when you start a new game.

Last battle: Extra Player in Second Group
Hey, you may think this is strange but. The more soldiers you have, the more chance you have of winning a battle.
Yes, there is a way to do this, and I am about to tell you. Firstly go to Mr.Palsis in your team base and ask him to change the team. Then you have to put Fynndyng into your main team. After this and you go to the last battle he will automatically revert to the second group with the extra man staying with him. Cool eh? Except now your first team will be one man short…Doh!

Get more experience!
When you get to the mansion battle in Quonus make sure your ready for battle, because this battle is tough. But you can put the slimy green fella to good use. Once you've killed all of his guards and he has used up all of his MP. Take your characters in for one on one battles with him, obviously the single attacks will be feeble and won't hurt him as he heals continuously but it seems to give you quite a lot of experience points.Not bad.

Clear Attack Screen
Oooh, what a nasty cheat! Hold down the start button during any attack to see the display boxes removed. You naughty people better not use that, it's just unforgivable!

He may be the cutest thing in the game…heck, my girlfriend loves the little guy. But when it comes down to the battlefield Penn can find himself becoming an ant among soldiers. So, what can you do to make Penn into the ultimate warrior? It'll take along time whatever you do, the little guy starts off at level 1 (before promotion) when you find him in Storich. He takes off a mere 1hp with every attack and he dies in a single blow from any enemy. Mots people dismiss him to the reserves instantly…but if you feel a little sympathy for the guy and want to make an effort to involve him in the mass carnage…please read on :)

Step 1 - Keep him alive!

Keeping the little rascal alive is one of the toughest things to do before you begin to pile on the experience points, although it isn't if you know how! Make sure that the enemy Penn is attacking is always standing next to Synbios, because then the enemy will always choose to attack him instead of killing Penn. Also, keep Penn away from large groups of enemies!

Step 2 - Weaken the enemy!

With weak attacks, like the Tornado spell! Or Ratchet. Make the enemy easier for Penn to kill by lowering its HP to single figures, if he does his special attack, then Penn will be able to kill them straight away. Almost every enemy that Penn kills will give him 49 experience points

Step 3 - Use Support!

Make sure Penn gets a good alliance with Ratchet. He will increase Penn's attack as a support effect! Every ounce of help to Penn's attack is a big help, even though he won't do more than 2HP damage until after promotion!

Step 4 - Accessorise!

After promotion Penn will be able to harness the spells from cursed items. For example, the black ring can be used in battle to perform blaze level 2…and remember, don't equip the weapon! Use it as you would a healing drop during battle. The Iburu ring is also handy for using Spark level 2. Another idea is for him to use the Elbeseem orb, although the damage caused by this is minimal. Make sure that you also equip him with a silver ring, any other statistic-increasing accessory will also do.

Step 5 - My sneaky tactic

The best place to experience Penn is in the Volcano battle. About halfway through the stage there are two Hydra's sitting around that don't attack you! They just sit there as if they were asleep! So take advantage of them, weaken them with stronger characters and send Penn in for the kill, get Synbios and Ratchet close by to give him attacking support and watch those experience points fly by!