Walkthrough - Guide for Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix
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Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix A walkthrough for the children by Thomas Wilde ================== Table of Contents: ================== - Disclaimer - Introduction - Weapons - General Hints - Walkthrough Part One: The Aqueduct - getting into and out of the aqueduct Part Two: The Palmetto Maze - Rain above the party Part Three: The Life of the Party - Hana at the party Part Four: An Elevator Clinch - reuniting Rain and Hana Part Five: Matchmaker - the Wing Chune Building Part Six: Weapons of Mass Distraction - Rain's clever escape plan Part Seven: No One Ever Goes There - the Temple of Xi'an: uniting the mercenaries Part Eight: Unrest Easily - Hana in the Queen's Tomb Part Nine: Tests - Hana and Glas' first tests Part Ten: Demons in the Garden - the Elemental Challenges Part Eleven: It Isn't Even Past - Glas' flashback Part Twelve: Final Exams - Hana and Glas in the Tower Part Thirteen: Showdown - the last boss - Plot Summary - Plot Questions - Codes - Hana and Rain - Endings - Conclusion =========== DISCLAIMER: =========== Hana, Rain, Deke, Glas, Mist, Jin, and all other heavily armed or otherwise bastards are the intellectual property of Kronos and Eidos Interactive, and their usage in this document does not comprise a challenge to that copyright. This walkthrough is copyright 2001 by Thomas Wilde. Please report any unauthorized usage of or alteration of this document to [email protected]. All requests to host or use this document should be directed to the same address. Please read the document in its entirety before e-mailing me for gameplay questions; odds are, if it's not in here, I can't help you. This game deserves its Mature ESRB label. As a document about this game, this walkthrough probably shouldn't be read by the young or the easily offended; it contains talk of demons, insectile gynocology, revisionist theology, murder, and a straight guy talking about lesbian relationships. All in all, it's pretty stupid. ============= INTRODUCTION: ============= You may be a king for the moment, but I am a queen, understand? and I got your pawns and bishops and castles all inside the palm of my hand -- Poe, "Control" This document is intended to get you through Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix with as few problems as possible. This game is an improvement in almost every way over its predecessor, with the slight exception of its plot; the control is tighter, the puzzles are a little more intuitive, the animation is better, combat isn't as intensely difficult, and there's actually some replay value. The voice acting is a lot better than other video games could even dream of (incidentally, Hana's voice is provided by Wendee Lee, who also played Faye Valentine in the dub of Cowboy Bebop). Make no mistake, though; FE2 is still out to kick you in the face and make you like it. It's like six John Woo movies, the MENSA test, and a punch in the stomach all mixed into one. You know how in Gamefan, they used to talk about the games that separated the "hardcore" from the "weaksauce" or the "sausage?" Strange terminology notwithstanding, FE2 is one of those games. It takes a special blend of hatred, skill, reflexes, and sheer bloody determination to get all the way through to the end of this game on Normal. If you can, Hard isn't that much more difficult. I do have to mention one thing here. Eidos has made quite a big deal out of Hana and Rain's relationship in the months leading up to this game's release. In the game itself, Hana and Rain are quietly involved, and neither make a big deal out of it. While the very inclusion of Hana and Rain's relationship is completely gratuitous, made all the more so by the way Hana and Rain both look (there are lesbians, there are lipstick lesbians, and then there are porn lesbians; guess which category Hana and Rain fit into), it's treated in a more intelligent manner than I was expecting. I'll discuss this more later, because, well, I just don't know when to leave well enough alone. This walkthrough is written using the assumption that you have a copy of the instruction manual. Therefore, I won't waste your time and mine with a description of the controls. Also, so I've mentioned it: I have managed to write this walkthrough without cheating or, for the most part, looking at online guides. I did consult Edwin Chow's puzzle guide at one point (I wish I hadn't, since that puzzle turned out to be so bloody *simple*), which is available at www.gamefaqs.com, and Kevin Kaelin's walkthrough--available at www.gameshark.com --was invaluable when I was dealing with that %$#@ing floor puzzle in the tower. I'd like to thank both for their help. Other than that, this guide is brought to you solely by me. I mention this, because I am quite proud of it. ("Pride... the cancer within us all..." Oh, shut up.) ...and now, on to business. ======== WEAPONS: ======== Things need shot in the gritty futuristic dystopia of Fear Effect 2, and you're here to shoot them. A note or two, then, on your basic tools for that holy task: Melee, Smakjack, Knife, Brass Knuckles: Various characters' hand-to-hand weapons. FE2 isn't shy about handing out the ammunition, and with the exception of one optional boss fight, you're never forced into hand-to-hand combat the way you were in FE. Melee weapons are the only silent weapons in the game, so you'll be using these for sneak kills. For the record, though, if you *do* need to slug it out with something, the melee weapons are a lot more powerful in FE2 than they were in FE. You still shouldn't use them on anything other on human opponents, though, and you shouldn't use them on human opponents unless you've got the element of surprise. .90 Pistol: When Hana's got these in a cutscene, she's an unstoppable engine of destruction. When you've got these in gameplay, they will make you feel woefully inadequate. Even when you use them both at once, the pistols don't have the stopping power to put enemies down quickly, or the rate of fire to make them stop shooting back. You can get some use out of them in the Temple of Xi'an to conserve your other weapons' ammunition, and in the Aqueduct, you can pair the pistols with judicious use of the EMP and thus stock up on rifle ammunition. Other than that, though, the pistols are worthless. They're even moreso after the Temple of Xi'an, when their ammunition supply dries up. It's strange, though. In other games, .357, .45, and .50 caliber pistols are treated as though they're antitank weaponry, but in FE2, a .90 caliber pistol is the weakest gun in the game. This is indeed a bleak future. Assault Rifle: A full-auto death machine, the assault rifle is always a decent choice. It kills many things with a quickness, and knocks away what it cannot kill (i.e. the robed priests in the Temple of Xi'an). Annoyingly, the teleporting demons in the Garden can shrug off rifle fire, so don't even try it against them. Against enemies that are close together, you can simply hold down the X button and your character will wave it around for you. The assault rifle and shotgun are your basic bread-and-butter weapons, as well as the easiest to find ammunition for. The true value of the assault rifle is that most enemies who are being shot with it will stop moving and/or shooting back at you. This paralytic feature makes it *very* useful against Fixers, skeleton warriors, and gun-wielding humans. It's also the best weapon against most of the bosses in the game, particularly the stone golem. Shotgun: Ammo is scarce for this at the start of the game, but the shotgun owns the Temple of Xi'an and the Elemental Challenges. Resident Evil players will be shocked to find that the shotgun still packs a respectable punch at range in FE2, but its slower rate of fire gives gun-wielding opponents the chance to shoot back. Against enemies who are going to return fire, use the assault rifle or Uzis, but against teleporting demons, skeleton warriors, statues, and other melee-minded opponents, the shotgun is your best option. It's rare, but you can catch more than one opponent in the shotgun's blast. Hand cannons: Deke carries a couple of sawed-off shotguns which he can dual- wield. Do it. Deke's ammo capacity is somewhat limited, but considering how fast the dual shotgun treatment will kill almost anything that gets in his way, he'll have plenty of time and space to reload. Uzis: Once again, you can't be seen in public unless you've got one of these in each hand. Uzis hold 15 bullets, and can throw all of those bullets at an opponent in about two seconds. The Uzis' problem is that they don't really have much of a punch; it takes about two clips' worth of Uzi ammo to drop anything in the Wing Chune, and everything from the temple mutants on up can shrug off Uzi fire. For that matter, their rate of fire can actually work against them, as a lot of creatures can absorb an Uzi clip, then rush you while you're reloading. Further hamstringing the Uzis is a lack of ammo for them, as you simply cannot find any more Uzi ammunition once you've passed the Palmetto Maze. Arc Taser: When *I* think "taser," I think "stun gun." When Kronos thinks "taser," *they* think "electrocuting people from across the room." Rain gets this out of Jin's Package in the Palmetto Maze, Hana will get one from the package in the Wing Chune elevator shaft, and Glas starts with one. The Arc Taser fires a bolt of electricity which hits your initial target, then extends out to strike anyone else within the room. Your direct target will be injured the fastest, while secondary targets will drop a bit later. Either way, hold down the X button until everything involved drops. The Arc Taser's big draw is that all the enemies hit with it (usually) stop moving, so it's just the thing when you've walked through a door and into a mob of guards. Additionally, it has effectively infinite ammunition, as it'll slowly recharge after you're done using it. It's your single best weapon on the 86th Floor. Unfortunately, later enemies can walk right through it, so ignore it once you've reached the Temple of Xi'an. (On Hard Mode, the Taser's effectiveness takes a serious hit. Most enemies are now durable enough that it takes the Taser's entire charge to drop them. You'll need to take time to let the Taser recharge after every fight, or you'll be left in a bad situation.) EMP: An electromagnetic pulse generator. Hold down the fire button until its whine stops getting higher and let go. The resulting flash will stun mechanical enemies for a *very* short period of time. In general, the EMP is a good "stealth" weapon for when you see a Fixer around a corner waiting for you, but its long charge time and short stun time limit its effectiveness. Later, when Glas runs up against mecha, the EMP is your only (slim) chance for survival. Note that the EMP burst will work on all enemies within a camera angle, regardless of whether you're pointing at them or not. The targeting crosshair is superfluous. Sonic Boom: A strange weapon that Deke and Rain both have later in the game. It works like the EMP; hold down the button until the whine gets really high, and let go. The Sonic Boom will release a pulse which will damage or kill everything within a certain radius. Like the EMP, the time it takes to fire limits its effectiveness, but if you have time to get it out and charge it, it does all right as a "street-sweeper." The only enemies you'll use this against are all temple mutants, and the only characters who *have* it are characters you don't use much, so the Sonic Boom's major use--conserving bullets--becomes obsolete. If you've got it, you don't need it. If you want it, you won't have it. RL 480: It's supposed to be a rocket launcher, but it winds up being more like a shotgun with a contrail. The RL 480 has a nice rate of fire, but it's got schizophrenic damage; it can knock insane amounts of health off of bosses, but a human opponent or a teleporting demon can handle two or more rockets before kicking over. Furthermore, and more importantly, the rocket launcher's explosion can hurt you if you fire it at point-blank range. Seeing as how many of the enemies in this game are both very fast and have a habit of charging you, this can wind up being a severe liability. The RL 480 is still the third best weapon in the game. You do, however, have to put some thought into using it, or you'll wind up blowing yourself into next week. It comes into its own against slow opponents, and can be used to decent advantage against the flamethrower-wielding morons in Glas' flashback, but in any other situation, don't use it. SS 2000: A flamethrower with remarkably good range. It's very effective against acrobats and Catseyes, but, as is becoming a theme here, later opponents aren't terribly bothered by it. The soldiers in Glas' flashback are particularly irritating about this, as they need to get tagged three times with it (five times in Hard Mode) before they die. Its ammo does last a long time, though; you can load your entire ammo supply into the SS 2000 with the Triangle button. GL 120: A grenade launcher. Deke starts with one, though you don't use Deke much, and Glas has one during his flashback. Launched grenades travel a fair distance, roll a bit further, and explode upon contact with an opponent. Unfortunately, both the blast radius and the grenade itself are small and weak, making this weapon something of a waste of time. As if to add insult to injury, you can't find any more grenades. This, moreso than even the Smakjack or Brass Knuckles, is a weapon of last resort. Plasma Wrists: Rain will have to use these on the 80th Floor, largely due to a lack of alternatives. The Plasma Wrists fire three-round bursts at a decent rate of fire, and have infinite ammo Unfortunately, their advantages end there, as the three-round bursts in question are neither powerful nor terribly accurate, particularly against the acrobats you'll be firing the Wrists at. The Wrists are okay, but it'd be nice if there were options. ============== GENERAL HINTS: ============== -- Save. Save often, save repeatedly, and save every time you get something done. This game will kill you just to watch you die, and the only way to cure your wounds is to have a Rush Moment. The lone exception is when you're running on red, and you know just one more attack will kill you. If you were in better condition on your last save, you might want to keep on going; the alternative is saddling yourself with having to keep restarting with a close-to-death character, right when he's about to head into a serious fight. Next time, you can tread more carefully on your way to the next save point, and hopefully save when you're in better condition. -- After any firefight, get into the habit of tapping Square, Triangle. This will call up your current weapon on your inventory screen and reload it. This is particularly vital with the shotgun and pistols. Just don't do it twice in a row, without thinking, or you may switch weapons. There's nothing quite so infuriating as shooting at a group of people and realizing that the reason you're taking hits is because you're brandishing the EMP at humans. -- Without an inventory screen to fall back on, you'll have to rely on your reflexes in the middle of a fight. The Square button calls up your inventory starting with your weapons, starting with whatever weapon you are currently holding and then cycling through the rest. The Circle button calls up your inventory starting with your "quest items"--keys, keycards, your cell 'phone, and so on. Later in the game, those spare seconds could mean life or death, so remember the distinction. -- Practice movement until you can do it smoothly and intuitively. There are a lot of times in FE2 where something --a monster, an explosion, what-have-you--will be hot on your heels and you'll need to outrun it. Get into the habit early on of going straight down hallways without bouncing off of the walls or running "against" them, and you'll be better off when you have to race death. -- Whenever you switch characters, you'll receive a Rush Moment, returning your health meter to green. You'll also switch arsenals and quest items, so try to take a moment to examine your inventory. Many times, a new character will have a new item that you should take into account, such as Glas' Grappling Hook or Rain's Sniper Scope. -- Resident Evil players may be curious about the "running away" dynamic in FE2. In FE, running away was usually a bad idea and a good way to get killed, as both mediocre hit detection and narrow hallways were working against you. In FE2, on the other hand, simply evading opponents and leaving the room is much easier and incidentally, a really good idea. Granted, you'll probably want to drop anything that shoots at you, since you aren't going to be outrunning a bullet anytime soon, but most anything else is fair game. A couple of disclaimers do apply to this, however: -- if you leave enemies alive in a given room that you have to come back to later, those enemies will still be there, as well as event-triggered ones. For example, in the atrium at the Queen's Tomb, if you leave the guardian statues alive, they'll still be there when you come back through to use the lily-butterfly-moon door, as will two story-triggered skeleton warriors. In other words, if a room has a locked door or a puzzle you can't solve, clean it out before you leave. -- holster your weapons. Otherwise, your character will execute the "disarm-arm" animation upon trying to open a door, and you can get hit while you're doing it. -- human opponents and Fixers are both carrying firearms, and can drop vital items such as ammunition or vital equipment. Get into the habit of dropping them. -- Sneak kills are good. This is when you crouch-walk up behind someone and your targeting crosshair turns red. This means that whatever you do to that enemy will be fatal, and if you do it silently with a melee weapon, you won't alert any other guards in the vicinity. Sneak kills both restore your character's confidence, raising you back towards Green condition on your Heart Monitor, and the enemy drops about half again as much ammunition. Unfortunately, you won't get the opportunity for sneak kills very often. For one thing, sneak kills are only possible against human opponents, and for another, the soldiers in Glas' flashback will all notice you trying to sneak up on you regardless of whatever else you do, with one lone exception. The guards in the Palmetto Maze, on the other hand, are much dumber and easier to sneak up on. -- turn Quick Draw off in the Options menu before you start playing. It's never useful, since a character will always Quick Draw a single pistol, and there are a couple of places in the game (the party in the Wing Chune, the 80th Floor) where accidentally Quick Drawing will end your game. ============ WALKTHROUGH: ============ This document is written assuming you're using the default control setting. I play a *lot* of RE, so I don't think it's as clunky a control setup as most seem to. ============ Part One: The Aqueduct ============ We start with a series of cutscenes, reintroducing us to our antiheroes from FE. Deke's in a bad way, Glas is a suicidal alcoholic, and Hana's... being Hana (she's exhibiting the writers' "Eszterhasian sex-is-death phobia," to quote David Smith's review on psx.ign.com, and that's such a great line when applied to a video game that I have to repeat it here). In Hana's sub, Jin, who FE players will remember, know, and probably loathe, tells Hana about your goals. While your mission objectives will be restated as you advance through the Wing Chune, try to remember the images Jin shows you. It'll save you a bit of frustration later if you, say, remember what the genetics computer lab looks like. Afterwards, you'll meet Rain and be dropped off in a hallway. Follow Rain. (There's a keypad on the wall in this first hallway, but you can't use it until your second time through the game. See the Codes section, below, for more on this.) When you reach her, Rain will tell you what you have to do: start up a nearby generator. Go out the left door. Head down the hallway. One side door can't be opened for a while yet; another leads to a small room with a red grating on the floor. Ignore both of them for now. Keep moving down the hallway until you hear clanking and Hana's heart monitor starts up. Draw a weapon. (By the way, take a moment to admire Hana's Croftpack (tm). Look at all that *stuff* she's got in there!) Go around the corner to make your first wary acquaintance with the Fixers. In this situation, I recommend using the shotgun to blow them away one by one. You'll net pistol ammo from the wreckage, as you will from most Fixers. ============================================================ Enemy: Fixers Fixers can be extraordinarily dangerous, although they're manageable with practice. The EMP can come in handy against mobs of them, letting you get the drop on the lot, while the assault rifle can also come in handy. Note that green Fixers have a gatling gun, blue Fixers drop from the ceiling, and red Fixers roll moderately powerful grenades at you. Red Fixers are also the most durable, and are thus the greatest threat. (Hard Mode Fixers are virtually identical to their Normal Mode counterparts, albeit a little tougher.) ============================================================ There's a locked door in the center of this room. Note that the keycard reader next to it is yellow; this is what those of us in the trade call a "visual cue." You can't get it open yet, so don't worry about it. There's an EMP hidden in the dark alcove to the right of the door, if you're into that sort of thing. However, to advance our plot, head down the hallway to the left of the door. Move forward to the twisted grating, and after the cutscene, Take the Metal Hook. Go back up the ramp, past the save point, and into the unlocked door in the hallway. Use the Metal Hook on the grating to receive the Yellow Keycard. Go back to the yellow door where you fought the Fixers, and Use the Keycard on the keycard reader. You'll be let into the generator room. Climb down the ladder and Use the generator lever. Rain will radio and tell you to return to the main hall. While you activated the generator, two Fixers have arrived further down the hallway. As you walk towards them, another one will drop from the ceiling. You can't just dash in and start blasting away without getting killed, but you *can* use the EMP to deactivate them briefly. While they're stunned, hit them with pistol bullets until they explode. Back in the main hall, the door will close in Hana's face. Rain tells Hana to flip the switch again, so it looks like you're heading straight back to the generator. On your way there, another Fixer will be waiting in the hall by the ramp; this one rolls grenades. EMP it from around the corner, then switch to the pistols to finish the job. There's one more blue Fixer ready to drop from the ceiling in the room with the yellow door; have the shotgun ready and blow it apart. Use the Yellow Keycard again, climb down the ladder, and throw the generator switch. When all's said and done, Hana's trapped, you're apparently not as sneaky as you think you are, and you're now playing as Rain. Rain is carrying most of the same weapons as Hana, so not much has changed. She runs like a girl, doesn't she? (*Yes*, I *know* she's a girl, I'm not *blind*, it's an *expression*, shut *up*.) You'll start in a long hallway with a save point to Rain's left. The steam jets are operating on a specific pattern; this is basic platformer stuff. Picking your way through them should be easy. Equip the shotgun before you leave. What gets difficult is that you're between two Fixers when you exit the room. Immediately run to your left, hit that Fixer with two shotgun blasts, and ambush the second when it comes around the short "corner." The gray door here leads to a dead end, so head around the corner and go down the ladder. There's another save point, and another door. This hallway is lined with hydraulic steel platforms. Get used to seeing it, because you'll come back through here more than a few times. This isn't really all that difficult, as the platforms move slowly. I've never been able to discern a pattern, but I can usually get through if I simply run for it. There's a Fixer with its back to you in the next hallway, and an invisible Uzi on top of a nearby crate. Destroy the one, grab the other, and head to the next door. Ready the assault rifle, because there's a cutscene lurking in wait. ============================================================ Enemy: Technicians They're all over the place in the Aqueduct, and you'll meet your first in this room. They can be a bit annoying, as they may confuse your auto-aim, but they're harmless unless you put a bullet in them first. Once you do, they'll run closer to you and open up with a pistol. Technicians are weak, and they drop useful things like Uzi ammo and, in this first encounter, an Uzi. However, in the long run, it's beneficial to leave them alive. See Part Twelve, below, if you'd like to find out why. ============================================================ Now, things will get crazy. There are four Fixers and a scared technician in this room. Ideally, you should shoot the Fixer directly in front of you as you enter. Now, stop firing; the target at the foreground is the technician. Wait for him to run away, then take out the Fixers one by one as they come marching in from the right. You can do this without taking a hit if you're fast and smart. There are two additional doors in this room, one on either side of the large gray machine. Go through the one on the right first; you can't do anything here quite yet, but you can save your game. Return to the large room and go through the left door. You'll have to dispatch two Fixers here, but it's easily accomplished with the assault rifle or your two-gun Uzi mojo. The left-hand door in this hallway leads to a dead computer, so it's useless for now. However, in the other room, you can use the Flash Disc on what you may recognize as the security console Jin showed you. Unfortunately, it's got a toy surprise inside. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Gas Trap Rain and her huge brain get the first puzzle of the game, and it's a bitch, particularly since your objective isn't really made clear. (It almost never is.) You need to manipulate the buttons to form the numbers 80 and 86, to do so by pressing only six buttons, and to do so within three minutes, or Rain will be gassed to death. Figuring out what you're to do here is the first obstacle. After that, it's fairly simple. Answers: 80: 1, 2, 3, 4, c, d 86: 1, 3, 4, a, c, d (These codes worked for me. However, I can't help but notice that anyone else who's written a walkthrough for this game has a different set of codes. I am forced to conclude that this puzzle has multiple solutions, and as such, despite the time limit, is probably the easiest one in the game.) Success will unlock the door and program your Flash Disc with the security access codes. ============================================================ Head back to the main room, the corpse-strewn abbatoir, and go through the right-hand door. Save your game again, and this time, go through the unlocked door on the left. Remember that the door on the right in here requires a numerical combination. Before, all of these doors were locked. Solving the gas trap puzzle unlocked one of them, and your next objectives are inside. Take note of the broken-down Fixer in this corridor, as it'll prove useful to Hana later. Dispatch the lone surprise Fixer that's waiting for you and open the door. There's a technician in here, but, as before, don't bug him and he won't bug you. Use the glowing console to find your next puzzle. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Security Console The legend for this puzzle is in the upper right-hand corner, and the alphabetical codes are on the right side of the machine. When you figure out a password, which isn't difficult, punch it into the system and hit the gray switch on the right. You'll need to put them in in a certain order to solve the puzzle. Note the colors on the left side of the machine, next to the three keypads, and the color of the flashing light on top. The light on top of the machine is currently flashing blue. Punch the code into the keypad with the blue light, then activate it: 31452. The light should fill in a bit and turn yellow; repeat the process with the yellow light, and later the red one: 45123 and 23451, respectively. Success will activate a machine in the room with the sunken platform, turn on the dead computer you saw before, and activate the console next to you. Go use it. ============================================================ No rest for the wicked: ============================================================ PUZZLE: Control System Once again, it isn't so much the puzzle as it is figuring out the puzzle's rules. The top row of numbers is positive and the bottom negative, but that doesn't matter, since these equations basically solve themselves; the answer to the fifth equation doesn't appear on the top row at all. I didn't notice the positive/negative symbols until my third time through the game. The puzzle's "trick," as it were, is that you can pick numbers from the bottom row by highlighting them and pressing X, then highlighting the space between numbers on the top of the puzzle. Press X again to enter the number. This is basic arithmetic, when you get right down to it. The answer, from left to right: Top row: 2, 5, 10, 13. Bottom row: 1. ============================================================ Solving this puzzle drains the submerged walkway. You'll switch back to Hana, standing next to the ruined generator. Save your game. Across the waterway, there's a videotape lying on the ground and a door, shaking disturbingly. Walk forward a bit, until the door splits open, then quick-turn with L1 and *run like hell* back across the makeshift bridge, to your starting point. The rats will fall into the water or scurry into the wreckage, and it'll be safe to proceed. (The death-by-rats sequence, incidentally, wins my coveted Golden AIGH! Award for Nastiest Fate To Befall A Videogame Character. Previous winners include Steve Burnside, Melissa Pearce, and anyone hit with the Cerebral Bore in Turok 3.) Take the Videotape A. There's a single Fixer around the corner that's easily dealt with, and two technicians cowering just past it. Head through the first door you see, and take the Fixer Piston from the wrecked Fixer. There's also a "hidden" Uzi inside the small fort made of barrels. Back out in the hallway, passage is blocked by a wall of steam. In order to get rid of it, you've got to solve another puzzle. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Steam Vent As frequently happens, there's a clue to this puzzle on the opposite wall. Note the number of missing lines on each graph, and their color. Also note that the gauges on the console are both circled by lines of matching colors. I'll give you another hint: it's not as complicated as you think it is. Plug in, left to right, the number of lines on each graph, accomodating the colors. In other words: 5 blue, 4 blue, 3 yellow, 2 yellow. That's the puzzle I consulted Chow's guide for, and I still feel like an idiot over how simple it turned out to be. In any event, the steam will clear. ============================================================ At the end of the hallway, Hana will meet another technician. He'll give her a Mirror Segment and a Green Keycard. Hana radios Rain, and suddenly, they lose radio contact. You'll switch back to Rain, still in the control room. Pull out the assault rifle and head out. There's a Fixer just outside, ready to be destroyed by point-blank rifle fire, and some ominous things waiting down the hall. In the save room, you'll find another Fixer, but the real trouble there is if you left the technician alive. Turn away from him so Rain's auto-aim doesn't get confused and take out the Fixer, then save your game again. In the wrecked lab, go straight toward the foreground, around the barrels. As you reach the bottom of the room, a cutscene will begin, featuring a large mutant with a large chunk of pipe. This will start a fight, but the boss will start with Rain behind him. Empty a rifle clip into him from behind, and you'll drop him in short order. Use his body--you can't leave the room, annoyingly--and you'll get a little cliffhanger. You're back with Hana. Climb the nearby ladder. There's a Machine Cog on a dead guy at the top of the ladder; take it, and Use the Green Keycard to open the nearby door. You'll be back in the second hall, at the side door you couldn't open before. Head back to the main hall, and this time, leave through the right-hand door. Be careful, though, as a surprise ceiling Fixer has arrived while you were away. On the formerly submerged bridge, take out the sentry Fixer from the platform before you climb down the ladder. Grab the Fixer Head Key from the wreckage at the bottom of the ladder, then go out through the other door. You're back in the room just past the steam vents, which means there's a save point nearby, *and* Hana now gets to deal with that same damn sliding metal corridor that Rain did before. There are also two more ceiling Fixers to contend with, but they should be becoming old hat by now. They drop, they turn, you shoot them, they explode. It's an intricate ballet. Past the sliding metal corridor, there's another Fixer and another ceiling Fixer in that conspicuously long hallway. The wrecked lab is empty again, however. In the lab, Use the Machine Cog on that large gray machine. This will activate a Fixer above the first corridor, which means you have to backtrack *all the way back* to where you started the game to destroy it. Save your game along the way; the sliding metal corridor is actually quite difficult when you try to go back through it from the other side. There'll be another Fixer just outside the lab and a grenade Fixer in the main hall. When you've destroyed the newly activated Fixer, you'll get a Fixer Battery from the wreckage. Take it, and go *all the way* back to the lab. Feel free to get really annoyed about all of this running around. Go through the lab door to the left of the machine. Two ceiling Fixers are waiting in the hallway. You need to go to the room at the end of this hall, the one with the previously offline computer, and destroy a Fixer inside. That Fixer will drop Videotape B when destroyed. Use the computer; Hana will automatically insert Videotapes A and B into it. Videotape A isn't really relevant--although it is decidedly twisted--but Videotape B has a keypad combination for you. Write it down. Go back to the lab and out the right-hand door. Save your game here, and input the combination from Videotape B into the locked door. Be careful of the lone ceiling Fixer that's standing guard. In here, there are two grenade Fixers waiting on the upper platform. Down the ramp, however, Hana will see a crowd of Fixers repairing a work area, and refuse to go any further. You need to provide a distraction. Go back to the upper platform, and leave through the door across from where you came in. This is your distraction. Note that you can Use something on the barrel in here. Use the Blasting Cap on the barrel. Hana will muse that she needs to hide before the Fixers come, so duck into the darkened alcove and wait for the Fixers to run by. You'll get a Rush Moment. Sneak out the door. You'll have to deal with a parade of four Fixers, but they come at you one at a time; they're all rifle bait. Destroy them, as well as a final sentry on the lower platform, and take the Fixer Chip from the desk. Head back. You've now got all the parts you need to repair that broken Fixer Rain saw earlier. Go over there, dispatching the Fixers that will try to stop you, and Use the Fixer Head Key on the wrecked Fixer. Match the chips at the bottom of the screen with the appropriate slots, and it'll reactivate. After fixing the nearby broken door, it'll break down again. There's a lone technician on the other side of the door. Leave him be and save your game. Climb down the nearby ladder, and you'll see someone strapped to a circular platform on the other side of the room. Guess what. It's Rain, now starring in the community theater production of _Barbarella_. Fasten your seatbelts, kids... 'cause this bus ain't stoppin' til *weird city*. ============================================================ BOSS: Spooky Call him what you will. He's big, he's got a big gun, he looks like he was run over by the ugly parade, he considers Hieronymous Bosch to be erotica, and he calls people "kitties." He's pretty Spooky. As with all boss fights, you'll receive a Rush Moment right before you start. In any event, Spooky is apparently immune to small-arms fire. He is not, however, immune to electricity, which makes one wonder why he chose to ambush you near an electrified waterfall. Maybe it was the only place where he could hook up whatever the hell that thing is that he strapped Rain to. In any event, haul out the assault rifle and get to the shootin'. (I do so love the shootin'.) You'll notice almost immediately that Spooky gets serious knockback off of just about anything; your assault rifle can toss him around like a hockey puck. Take advantage of this to send Spooky careening into the electrified waterfalls at the top and bottom of this room. He'll get shocked, but then he'll get right back up; as he comes towards you, reposition yourself and knock him into the waterfall again. Do this three times, and Spooky is, quite literally, toast. ============================================================ After Spooky falls, go back over to Rain (oh, good, thank you, *another* closeup, *that* was necessary) and Use her (no laughing in the back, please). Rain will tell you that Spooky set bombs elsewhere in the facility, and she'll unlock two doors. You should recognize them; they were shaking ominously earlier. You have two minutes to get the job done. Head back there--these are two separate doors, incidentally; the camera is not playing tricks on you--and Use the bombs to defuse them. One room has a scared tech in it, and the other, a single Fixer. In other words, this is a piece of cake. A delicious, pointless, playtime-padding piece of cake. On your way back to Spooky's lair, be sure to save again. Climb back down the ladder, and Spooky will get right back up, the loveable goof. Hana triggers an explosion to deal with Spooky, and both women dash through the nearest door. When you get control of Hana, just hold Up and start running; when you get to the end of the tunnel with Rain, hit the Triangle button to open the door. This may take a couple of tries, but there's not that much to it. Just run for it, and be very careful about the left-hand turn. After you escape the explosion, Hana will get down to what she does best: fanservice. ================= Part Two: The Palmetto Maze ================= You'll begin this disc in control of Rain. As is de rigeur upon a disc change, save your game. Head outside, and you'll find yourself looking at a guard with his back to you. Creep up behind him and sneak-kill him, then lay waste to the two guards nearby. You'll get two Uzi clips and another Uzi. Move forward, around the corner, and down the ramp. There's a massive waterfall here that you should take note of, but only after you're done shooting five guards to death. This can get a bit tricky, but fortunately, guards can't shoot at you unless they're in the same screen as you. If you crouch, they'll usually miss their first shot, and you can make sure that they don't get a second. A nearby ramp heads up into the Palmetto Maze. Note that there are two guards on either side of the top of the ramp, and one more standing guard at the corner leading to the Palmetto Maze itself. Sneak up the ramp with the R2 button, and quietly dispatch these three with your knife. Otherwise, you'll have to deal with all three at once, and three-on-one gunfights never go well. There's one guard at the start of the Palmetto Maze. Uzi him, then cautiously sneak around. If Rain's heart monitor starts up, a guard is coming into the screen. Wait for him, then blow him away. The Maze is remarkably easy to navigate, for a maze, so that won't be much of a problem. There are two areas in the maze where there are red squares next to a section of wall. If you step near them, a secret door will open (be sure to check out the goofy look on Rain's face as the panels drop). At the first door you'll probably find, Rain will note the presence of guards on a small "island" in the maze, as well as a banner moored nearby. You may notice that you'll get a targeting crosshair while you're looking out this door, but don't fire just yet. Go back into the maze and look for a second secret door. Rain will radio Hana, and Hana will tell her to take out the guards. You'll wind up overlooking the island with the Use prompt highlighted. So. What do you have in your inventory that could possibly help to take out guards from a distance? Use the Sniper Scope. Rain will dispatch both guards, although one of 'em will blow the Scope off the rifle with a _Matrix_ homage. Then proceed carefully back to the first secret door and shoot the banner. Rain will swing down to the island. A switch on the wall will raise a ramp back up to the Palmetto Maze. Jin's Package is on the island nearby. Take it to start a cutscene and switch characters. ===================== Part Three: The Life of the Party ===================== Save your game in this front hallway. Almost everyone in this area is window dressing, except the guards. The guards themselves are harmless as long as you don't actually touch one of them, but if you do, it's Game Over. If you don't already play with Quick Draw off, I recommend that you turn it off now. Accidentally drawing a weapon here will end your game, unless you do it in the women's restroom. Note your new selection of "quest" items, including the Silver V.I.P. Bracelet and Hana's fragmentary Dress. The party has three levels to it. The first level has nothing of interest except the escalators. The second level has a women's restroom (another save point), a men's restroom (presently inaccessible), the elevators (currently locked down), and an open bar. More on that later. On the third floor, a red carpet leads to a special guarded door. Your Silver V.I.P. Bracelet won't help you here; it's V.I.P.s only past this point. No, I don't get it either. Also on the third floor, for your viewing pleasure, is the single most frightening thing in a game filled with mutants, demons, devils, and mad gods: THE MACARENA SURVIVED TO THE MID-21ST CENTURY. Shake it off! Keep going! Fight on, Hana, for everlasting peace! On the second floor, to the right of the ramp, there's a guy in a tuxedo. Move towards him to get ineptly hit on. (Points for courage, buddy.) Change screens, come back, and Big Tom will have a Filled Glass for you. Hana will take it. Head upstairs. Walk past the red carpet. You'll have a brief conversation with a mysterious benefactor, and receive a Bell and a Gold V.I.P. Bracelet. Use the V.I.P. Bracelet on the guards at the door, who will now let you through. The V.I.P. balcony is crawling with guards. You might want to backtrack to the women's restroom and save your game at this point, as this part can get a little tricky. Carefully thread your way through the guards and head right. Dr. Gyen-Won Liu is the guy in the white jacket, leaning on the right-hand corner of the balcony. Use the Glass on him to make his damn year, and leave the V.I.P. area. You've gained a Hair Sample and an Empty Glass. One cutscene later, you're back in control of Rain. Go back up to the Palmetto Maze using the newly opened ramp. Once there, look around a bit; there are a few more guards to deal with, and there's also a wheel on the wall around here somewhere. Use the wheel to turn off the waterfall I mentioned earlier, revealing a ladder. Work your way out of the Palmetto Maze, back the way you came. There'll be more guards in the Maze and another set of three morons just outside it, ready and waiting to get knifed to death. One guy's waiting by the waterfall, but he's no big deal. Ready the Arc Taser and climb the ladder. Three guards are waiting for you just inside this door. Pivot slightly and hit the closest one with the Arc Taser. The bolt will rebound to all three of them; hold down the X button until they all drop. Use the Maintenance Keycard to get through the door. There's a save point in the next room, and one guy is standing guard in the room beyond that. Use the Flash Disc on the computer against the left wall for the first in a series of three puzzles. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Geometric Lock Here, you'll have to shape the right symbol to look like the left. You can choose which direction you'll stretch it with the control pad, with the "neutral" position meaning you'll leave it alone. X will make your choice. As always, hitting Triangle will end the puzzle and let you start over. Legend: U = Up D = Down L = Left R = Right - = No change Normal Mode: #1: D, U, D, U, D, U, D, U #2: U, D, U, D, U, D, U, D #3: U, U, U, U, D, U, U, U #4: D, D, U, D, D, D, U, D #5: D, L, D, L, D, L, D, L #6: D, R, U, L, D, U, D, U Hard Mode: #1: U, D, U, D, U, D, U, D #2: D, L, D, L, D, L, D, L #3: D, R, U, L, D, U, D, U #4: D, U, L, D, -, D, R, U #5: D, L, R, D, -, L, -, R #6: L, D, R, U, -, D, L, U Solving this puzzle will open up the maintenance system. ============================================================ Go into the next room and Use the control panel. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Electronic Loop Listen to Rain; she knows what she's after. You need to use these pieces you're given to set up a looped circuit which begins at the blue dot on the left-hand side. The game doesn't tell you that you can select a piece, then rotate it with the Circle and Square buttons. The game doesn't tell you a lot of things. The game... is a bitch. Basically, you need to start and end a loop circuit with the blue dot. Your circuit cannot connect to any of the other pieces on the board, and it must reduce the voltage to "zero." You'll know that you've placed a piece correctly when you hear a "bloop" sound and the voltage drops. Here's the puzzle solution, for you slackers. Consider the circuit board a grid, like so: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A - - - - - - - - B - - - - - - - - C - - - - - - - - D - - - - - - - - E - - - - - - - - Put Straight Connectors at: B4, C1, C3, C7, D8, E5 Put Corner Connectors at: A6, B2, B5, D4, E4, E7, E8 Put T-Squares at: C2 Always rotate these pieces so they connect to those around them. You should hear a "bloop" each time you put an accurately rotated piece in place; this will drop the voltage by one. When the voltage is at zero, hit the OK button. Solving this puzzle will fool the video surveillance into running a looped image, thus deactivating it. ============================================================ Go to the next room and Use the tangle of wires underneath the bank of screens. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Fusebox Listen to Rain. The key here is to rearrange the colored rods so that they match the pattern shown on the bottom of the left-hand graph. However, you must rearrange the fuses so the rods can be moved in the first place. In order for there to be no current running through a rod, you must arrange the fuses so that the colored fuse housings that match the rods you're trying to switch have no fuses in them. For example, if you want to switch the blue and white rods, switch the fuses around so the blue and white fuse casings, on both the top and bottom of the fusebox, don't have fuses in them. The little sparks of electricity on both the blue and white rods will disappear, and Rain can pick them up and move them. Once you've figured that part out, this puzzle is as good as solved. Just move the right fuses and rearrange the rods. ============================================================ Rain will radio Hana, and then you're back on your own. You can't use the door in this room, as there are too many guards behind it. Go back the way you came. There's a new guard in each room, both of whom have their backs to you. Knife them to death--boy, that Sneak Kill count is just rackin' up, isn't it?--and keep moving. You'll get the Bridge Control Card from the first one. In the room at the top of the ramp, go in with your knife equipped. You can sneak-kill the first, switch to the Uzis, and kill the guy on the next screen--who, judging by where he is, was *looking at you* while you shanked his friend. Nice guy. Good thing you shot him. Sneak and shoot your way back through the Palmetto Maze, through a fresh wave of guards. You see, you might've noticed a control panel back on the island that you couldn't do anything with. That's what you're after. Head right once you're in the Maze, go through the first secret panel, and go down the ramp. Use the Bridge Control Card on the panel, and Rain's off to the party! ================== Part Four: An Elevator Clinch ================== Buy the Fear Effect 2 clothes-changing theme, "The Sleaziest Guitar Riff Ever," now on Elektra. Rain changes into an evening gown (keep it in your pants, boys) and hits the party herself. All the same rules apply to Rain as applied before, with Hana, including the caveat about Quick Draw. Hana's told you that you need to catch a security guard on a break, and use their access to get to the elevator. Where do you think that you could find a security guard on a break? The first thing you'll notice is that the men's room is now unguarded, and that should be all you need to know. Head in there. If you get caught by a guard in here, you'll be sent back out of the room, but it won't be game over. Sneak cautiously up to the guy at the back of the room and--ahem--Use him. When the cutscene's over, you'll have an Elevator Keycard. Go to the elevators by the women's bathroom on the second floor and Use it on the elevator. You'll switch to Hana. Go to the same elevator and get in it. Use Rain (one more snicker and you're out!), and then walk over to the security camera in the corner. Use your Dress on it. The resulting cutscene... well, um, it's not porn, *but*... Anyway, it's time to change discs. Ahem. ========== Part Five: Matchmaker ========== You begin as Hana. Save your game, then head forward and climb the ladder on the side of the elevator shaft. Keep climbing even as the elevator starts heading up again, and Hana will take care of the rest. You'll switch characters. As Rain, equip the Arc Taser and head through the door to your right. ============================================================ Enemy: Acrobat Unlike the other human opponents you've fought up to this point, the acrobats are very nimble. They'll start doing cartwheels and backflips immediately upon getting shot at, which makes them very hard to hit with bullets. Right now, the Arc Taser is your best bet for taking the acrobats out. It'll paralyze and eventually kill an entire roomful of acrobats and assorted other enemies, as long as you've got enough of a charge in the thing to do the job. Be sure to let it recharge every time you use it. Later, as Hana, you'll find that the SS 2000 is just as effective, and if the acrobats annoy you as much as they annoy me, it's also quite satisfying. BURN, YOU LITTLE--!! AHAHAHAHAHAH!!! ...excuse me. Ahem. ============================================================ Whack the acrobat here with the Taser as she strolls towards you; she has the Biohazard Keycard. Head back out to the front hall, across the skyway--pausing to save your game--and use the Biohazard Keycard to open that door. Two more acrobats aren't paying any attention on the other side, and they almost demand a pair of sneak kills. The only unlocked door in this next room is the one on the left. Go to the flashing cocoon on the wall and Use it. Rain will change into a biohazard suit. Take a moment to reexamine your inventory. You've lost all your weapons, replacing them with the considerably-less-useful Plasma Wrists. You've still got the Flash Disc and a Blasting Cap, but you've gained a Video Room Keycard and a Bypass Keycard. Remember what the green-suited woman said in the cutscene; unnecessary rooms have been locked down, and all codes have been changed. >From here out, this becomes a stealth mission. If you pull a weapon on the yellow-suited women, they'll respond in kind, and they're much better with these things than you are. It's easier and safer to pretend they aren't there and go about your business. Head back to the main hall and go through the door on the right. In this hallway, there's a single locked door with six digits on it. They don't work on this keypad, but write them down anyway. Now, head back, through the main hall, into the hallway on the right where you got the Biohazard Keycard. Your Video Room Keycard will open the door on the left. Go to the console with all the screens on it, and punch in the number you just wrote down. You'll activate the video archives system, and have to solve a relatively easy puzzle. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Video Maze Note the direction that the arrows are heading in. When you press the control pad, you'll release your marker into the maze. Send it to the right; it should flow into the outside lanes of the maze. When it reaches the top lane, send the marker down twice, through two more lanes, and as it passes over the red dot, hit down again. This is more a test of your timing than anything else. (On Hard Mode, everything about this puzzle is much faster, but nothing else has changed.) When you solve this puzzle, you'll activate the security screens. ============================================================ There are nine screens here. Seven are worthless except as curiosities, but the middle right and lower right screens hold valuable clues. The former shows someone entering the code to the door in the next hall--4615207--and the latter will tell you the solution to the next puzzle. You can view a screen as often as you like, so you might want to take the time to write these passcodes down. Leave the Video Room, go to the front hall, and cross the hall to the next door. In this hallway, punch the code into the keypad and enter the lab. There's nothing here at the moment but unsuspecting acrobats, so leave them be. Use the Bypass Keycard to enter the next room. In this lab, Use the Flash disc on the glowing red screen. Unfortunately, the codes have been changed. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Alignment Code You still have the code. It's across the bottom of the screen. Rearrange the digits of the code in the same pattern that you saw on the Video Room monitor to solve this puzzle. In order, assuming the top slot is 1st and the bottom is 6th: 4: 3rd place 2: 5th place B: 6th place 3: 2nd place D: 6th place A: 4th place For further clarification: - - - - - - - - - 3 - - 4 - - - - - - - - - - A - 2 - - - - - - B - D - Arrange the letters in such a fashion. When you complete this, you'll hear a chime. ============================================================ Problem solved. Rain will radio Hana, who will promptly trigger a motion sensor. Oops. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Motion Sensor Hana has 30 seconds to find a way out of this trap, or she'll get nerve gassed. Y'know, if I were Hana (and for the purposes of this game, I *am*; think about that for a while), I wouldn't leave the house without some atropine. Run across the room, to the door on the right-hand side, and shoot the panel you find on the wall there. You'll turn off the motion sensors and blow out a fusebox in another room. I mention this as a puzzle because it's so counterintuitive to every other puzzle solution in this game. I discovered it by accident; I was just sweeping the room with Uzi fire because I was frustrated. ============================================================ Before you leave this room, grab the Dispersion Canister off of the counter and get out the Arc Taser. There's an acrobat in the lounge here. Zap her, pick up the Security Keycard she dropped, and save. Leave through the door to the left, zap another acrobat, and use the Security Keycard to get through the door at the end of this hall. Use the fusebox in this room and switch the fuse to the top slot. You can also enter the right room on this hall, and find a valuable clue on a computer. Remember how DNA's various parts relate, and remember what colors they're identified by on the filmstrip. Now, go back to the lounge and leave through the door on the right. Hana will start walking across a bridge, and will get waylaid by a cutscene about halfway across it. ============================================================ Enemy: Catseyes This is your first encounter with everyone's favorite lazy kamikazes, the Catseyes. They're slow, and fairly stupid, but they're also persistent. If a Catseye touches you, it'll explode for significant damage. Even a dead Catseye is dangerous, as its wreckage will explode shortly after you dispatch it. If you're standing near the explosion, then you'll get hurt about as much. The Arc Taser will paralyze the Catseyes, unto death. While just about any other weapon will do the job nicely, the Arc Taser is the only one that will make the damn Catseyes stop moving while you're shooting them. Also, as with the acrobats, the SS 2000 will cut down Catseyes like a scythe through wheat. ============================================================ In the next room, two Catseyes are guarding a box of Rockets, an EMP, a case of Flame Canisters, and two doors. The door on the left has to be blown open with your Blasting Cap, but it has radiant prizes inside: an SS 2000 and an RL 480. A Catseye and an acrobat are guarding them, but a little taste of the Arc Taser will win the day. (You can skip this without any problem, admittedly, but the flamethrower comes in handy later.) Through the other door, two Catseyes are guarding the first of the four labs you'll need to visit. Zap them and Use the Hair Sample on the computer Jin showed you. You'll get the Genetic ID Card. Head back to the lounge and save. Go change the fuse again, this time to the bottom slot, and Use the Security Keycard to get through the door to the left of the fuse room. Zap both the acrobats in the decontamination shower, and Use the Genetic ID Card on the door at the end of the hall. This room looks safe enough, but you'll notice that not only does the Use prompt come up, but Hana takes damage if she takes more than a couple of steps forward. Use the Dispersion Canister to reveal yet another timing-required hallway, this one lined with infrared lasers. This is the easiest hallway of its type in the game, with long safe periods and plenty of space to stand. Once you get to the other side, Use the door. Hana will radio Rain. As Rain, leave the security room. A console that used to be dark in the outside office is now lit up. Use it to get Hana out of her present fix. You'll go back to controlling Hana, who's had a Rush Moment. Go through the now-unlocked door, and then through the door right next to it. You'll be in a small room with a cylinder -shaped object in the corner and a Catseye. Blast the Catseye, and Use the E.L.P. (whatever that is) on the heavy steel door. You'll get the Centrifuge Tubes. Now turn around and Use those on the cylinder to receive the Purified Tubes. Head back the way you came. You need to change the fuse for the last time. In the fuse room, put the fuse in the middle slot, then head back to the darkened room where you started the level. Zap a couple of sentry Catseyes and look around for a gadget you can Use in the far corner of the room. When you find it--no, not the computer, the other gadget, the one that didn't have power earlier--Use the Purified Tubes on it. You'll receive Gland Blot G, Blood Blot A, Nucleus Blot T, and Cell Blot C. Each of these slides is a different color, and you've seen four computers with screensavers flashing in those four colors at various points on this floor. It's time to do a little backtracking. Find those computers again--one's in this room, one's in the room with the DNA film strip, one's in the lab where you made the Genetic ID Card, and the final one is in the laboratory just past the infrared laser room--and Use the appropriate Blot on them. You'll receive four Discs: Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thynine. Be *very* careful while you're doing this. As usual, enemies will repopulate the stage while you're accomplishing plot-related tasks (you can always tell when you're doing something right in this game, because the game will summon opponents from the ether to try and kill you). A particularly nasty ambush is waiting for you as you go back across the bridge from the yellow computer, where two acrobats and a Catseye will be right on top of you as you come through the door. I recommend that you pull out the SS 2000 and just kinda wave it around until everything's dead. Dodge *this*, Carrie-Anne. When you have all four discs, go to the room with the centrifuge and go through the last door you haven't used. You'll be in the DNA code room, littered with inactive Catseyes. I've never seen these guys wake up, so don't worry about them. Use the DNA Code disc on the computer in this room for Hana's last puzzle on this mission: ============================================================ PUZZLE: DNA Sequence As long as you remember a few things from your items and from the film strip in the laboratory, you can breeze through this puzzle. Specifically, remember how the colors relate to each other. Red always bonds to yellow, and blue always bonds to green. Also note that you can use the Circle and Square buttons to flip a "game piece" over. In other words, match your "game pieces" to the empty spaces in the DNA sequence. It's a bit time-consuming, but it is easy. You can do this without any trouble unless you're completely color-blind. If you are completely color-blind, then you may want to recruit the nearest woman for this. ============================================================ When Hana finishes the DNA sequence, slow-motion hilarity ensues. =========================== Part Six: Weapons of Mass Distraction =========================== You'll switch to Rain. You need a distraction. Fortunately, one will present itself. Head out to the main hall, and back through the Biohazard door. Remember that big, shiny, candy-like red button that you couldn't do anything with? Use it. You'll be ushered into the room to the right that you couldn't enter before. Walk up to the green-suited woman, and she'll hand you a DNA Virus. After she leads you into the containment room, save your game. Distraction, hm...? What have I *possibly* got that could provide a *distraction*...? Explosives! Why, of course! What occasion *doesn't* call for explosives? Use the Blasting Cap on the window in the containment vault. Rain will blow a hole in the vault glass and radio Hana. Stealth is out the window at this point, and the acrobats know that you're an impostor. Equip the Plasma Wrists and go out shooting. Three acrobats are in the lab room, and they won't die easily (although I've noticed that if you skip the post-explosion cutscene, they'll be "inactive" and you can sneak up on one of them). With luck, though, they *will* die, and you can get out of here. On your way to the next save point, you'll need to dispatch a Catseye/acrobat team, as well as two acrobats and two Catseyes in the main vault room. Finally, there are three acrobats on the bridge outside, guarding the save point. It can be difficult to get through these rooms via plain combat. The acrobats are deadly accurate, and you aren't. You can get through this with a great deal of luck, or you can simply keep your guns in the Holster and run for it, as recommended by alert reader Vincent Merken. I'd say that you'd do well to run past the first three rooms' worth of enemies, but the three acrobats on the bridge really have to go. Either way, keep trying, and eventually, you'll make it to the save point right before the bridge. Use it. As you cross the bridge, run, and don't stop for anything. An iris shutter will start closing as you run towards the front hall, but Rain will Wachowski her way through it if you reach it in time. See? There's a reason she's so slim. On the other side of the door, you've got company. ============================================================ BOSS: Spooky #2 *Uh*-oh. Spooky's back, and this time, he's discovered the wonders of the gun. He's *very* slow, not so much walking as lumbering, but he's got a very impressive firearm. He can attack with bursts of rifle fire, or an occasional poorly aimed rocket. If you had any of your usual weapons, he wouldn't be a problem, but all you've got are the Plasma Wrists. This is going to be a little problematic. Here's your key to winning this fight, a key that it took me a shamefully long time to pick up on: Duck. That's right. Hold down R2 as the fight starts, and immediately open up on Spooky with the Plasma Wrist. He won't touch you with his machine gun barrage, and when he goes to one knee, get up and run past him. When he stands back up, quick-turn, kneel again, back away from him, and fire at him all the while. He'll do some damage with his machine gun, but his rockets will miss by a mile. More to the point, you'll hit him hard enough and often enough that you'll outlive him. The moment he drops, the game takes over, and this mission is complete. ============================================================ ====================== Part Seven: No One Ever Goes There ====================== Hana and Rain get another change of plans dumped on them by Jin. Meanwhile, a cutscene reintroduces you to Jakob "Deke" Decourt, who I'd almost forgotten about by this point. When you get control, pick up the Genetic Marker from the freshly dead guy on the floor. This triggers a cutscene, after which you'll have to make Deke outrun his own explosion. That's some nice planning there, Deke. After you've done this, Deke pauses to dress up like Crocodile Dundee and meets with the Chinese guy. When the cutscene's over, you're in some slums and you're being swarmed by mutants. Ain't that always the way? ============================================================ Enemy: Temple Mutants The mutants are very tough and very slow. They usually show up in groups of two or three, making dual-wielded weapons a good bet against them. They drop a wide assortment of ammunition and items, and can take a *lot* of punishment before keeling over. In close quarters, use a shotgun; at long range, use whatever you feel like. It's a good idea, as Hana and Glas, to use weapons like the pistols and Uzis on the mutants so you can stock up ammunition for the rifle and shotgun. (On Hard Mode, the mutants' resilence shoots straight past "impressive" and goes well into "stupid." They're just as easy to knock down as they are in Normal Mode, but trying to kill them can sometimes seem like an exercise in futility.) ============================================================ Deke's hand cannons are your best bet for this stage. You should be able to mow the mutants down with relative impunity as long as you stay at a good distance from them. One of the first mutants you kill drops a Machine Key. Go through the next door you see, wiping out mutants as you go. Head to the left in this area to find a massive truck. Go to the next door, and you'll find Diesel Fuel inside. Save your game, then head back to the truck. Use the Diesel Fuel on the gas tank, climb the nearby ladder, and Use the Machine Key on the truck's cab. Deke will start up the truck and express his displeasure with the doublecross in a creative, healthy fashion. Ugh. That is *not* coming out of the grille. At the side of the crater that swallowed your new truck, you can find an RL 480 hidden in the shadows on the crater's other side. I'd save that for Hana or Glas, though. Blowing away the near-constant stream of mutants that keep dropping from the sky, go through the nearest door. Inside, you'll fight three mutants, two of which have things you want. One has an Elevator Lock Key, and the other sports an RL 480. Of the three new doors in here, two are locked. Shoot the lock off one of them with your current weapon (you'll get a crosshair out of nowhere), and go through. Another lock will need to be shot out. You'll come into a room with an elevator nearby and have to take out two mutants in *very* close quarters, but they're guarding a save point. Use the Elevator Lock Key on the nearby--get this--elevator. You're back outside. Ignore the two suicidal mutants ("Og destroy intruderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." *splat*), and busy yourself with the two "dragon doors" in this area. Both doors hold a welcoming committee of three mutants, but each door also has an Ancient Crank behind it. The red door leads to the Ancient Gold Crank; the gold door, the Red Crank. Use the Cranks on the appropriate dragons in the appropriate rooms, and the door between the two dragon doors will unlock. The next room holds a save point and two doors. The one you first see is a dead end, although there's a .90 pistol hidden in the right corner; save that for someone who you'll actually use the pistols with. You'll have to waste two more mutants as you head for the other door, and once you do, one of them will shut it behind you. ============================================================ Enemy: Priests It's time to make your acquaintance with what I think of as the priests; they look like the Servants of Oblivion in Turok 3. These guys are a slower version of the annoying beige demons from FE. They float around, they screech, and they throw themselves at you like robed lawn darts. They're easy to dodge and you won't see them again after this disc, but I've yet to find a weapon that will actually *kill* these jackasses. They do fly back quite a distance when you hit them with rifle fire, though, and that's your best tactic against them. They also can't track targets worth a damn, so you can usually dodge them without any trouble whatsoever. If you do get caught in a bad spot by them, you can counter their lunges with rifle or pistol fire. ============================================================ When you go to the door at the bottom of the room--your only escape route, incidentally--you'll get another mini-cliffhanger and lose control of Deke. After a cutscene starring Glas, Hana arrives at the Temple of Xi'an. She's not there a minute before she falls down through a hole in the ground; you'll start off with her at that same dead end you saw a moment ago with Deke. Grab the .90 pistol now, if you like; this is the last time you'll actually get some use out of the pistols, so go crazy. You can't open the door Deke just went through yet, so head back towards the elevator. At the bottom of the elevator shaft, in the "infirmary," a dead mutant will drop the Archeology Key. Going back into the room with two locked doors, the Archeology Key unlocks the one closest to Hana. Inside, two priests are having a sock hop. Keep them at bay with judicious firepower and snatch up a RL 480 and the second Mirror Segment. You now have a complete Mirror. This is your key for the door Deke ran through, so go back and open it. Dodge the trio of priests by the clever tactic of running in a straight line--idiots--and go out the same door Deke did. You'll wind up on a narrow mining tunnel, blowing away mutants, which leads to *another* mining tunnel, which in turn leads to an ambush. You'll switch back to Deke to dispatch a trio of mutants, a task made irritating by Deke having his Sonic Boom equipped at the beginning of the fight. Switch weapons as fast as you can and take out the mutants, then go through the door on the left. You'll have to dispatch another mutant or two, but a cutscene awaits behind the door at the top of the ramp. Deke, Hana, and Glas meet again... for the first time, and Glas gives Hana two Bandages. After a doublecross and an interruption, you finally play as Glas--in his mech. Muahahahaha. You've only got one weapon: the chaingun on the mech. It's enough. It might be all I'll ever need. Take out mutants and walls along the way to... crashing the mech. Damn. (This is a good example of FE Main Theme #2: Glas likes to be thrown off of high places. Other themes include Hana using nudity as a weapon and Deke getting screwed over at every opportunity.) Meanwhile, Hana corners Deke, but then has to fight off some mutants. You'll take control of Hana again. Cap the mutants and head up the taller of the two ladders. In the next room, Rain shows up in the nick of time, and you wind up taking control of *her*. Criminy. And now, we shall play "Musical Gunmen." Start the tape! There's another .90 pistol lying right next to Rain. Grab it and head down the tunnel. You'll wind up retracing Hana's steps, right down to mutants dropping from the ceiling at irregular intervals. The rendezvous point at the top of the stairs is a wreck, but it's also a save point; of the three mutants guarding it, two of them will drop RL 480s. If you want the "good ending," *go here* and fetch one for Rain. In the same tunnel, you may have noticed a previously locked side door when you came through here as Deke. Go through that, down the ladder, up the ladder, and through the door, where you'll find Deke. One emotionally charged moment later, where Deke reveals that he either isn't human or is the single most extreme bungee jumper in the history of his race--so extreme, in fact, that he doesn't use a *cord*--you'll switch to Glas. Boy, when Kronos designs a level, they use it to its fullest extent, don't they? You've crashed down into the courtyard by the elevator, but debris is blocking the way to the dragon doors. Take the elevator down to the lift room and save your game. Go back out to the area where Deke crashed his truck, and an old man will give you a Peach and the Storage Room Key. That Key will unlock the last of the locked doors around these parts, so quick-turn--ignore the mutants--and get in there, but ready the Shotgun first. Two mutants will catch you in very close quarters in the storage room. Take 'em out quickly, and grab the Rockets and the RL 480 that they drop. A bundle of Dynamite is on a barrel in the upper right-hand corner, so take that as well. Backtrack to the wreck of your mech--watch out for the surprise mutant in the elevator--and Use the Dynamite on the wall next to it. Be careful--the explosion can and will hurt you. You'll clear the way to the dragon door. Go through the center door, save, and go play dodge 'em with the priests again. That's right; you're following this path for the *third time*. When you reach the room where Hana caught up with Deke, Hana will help you fight back a sudden rush of mutants. Dispatch them with the Uzis Glas pulls out, or switch to the shotgun. Either way, this isn't too tricky unless you get cornered or you run out of ammunition at a bad moment. (This can be a real problem in Hard Mode, but it still shouldn't take you more than one try.) When you win, you'll get a ridiculous number of rocket shells and rifle clips, as well as a cutscene. ============= Part Eight: Unrest Easily ============= As Hana, you'll start at a save point with Glas nearby; irritatingly, this is the only save point on the level. (Okay, maybe not. See below.) The entrance to the Queen's Tomb is ahead and to the left. Take note of the strange glyphs on the walls in here; you'll want to remember them later. There's a plain door in the tomb, on the left side of the hallway; inside are three skeleton warriors and 20 shotgun shells (fifteen in Hard Mode). Only come in here if you're really low on ammunition. Otherwise, skip it, as it's far more trouble than it's worth. Using up twelve shells to get twenty isn't much of a trade, particularly when you might very well get killed doing it. Head down the path, to the circular room, and climb down the ladder. You'll enter a cutscene where a ghost appears to Hana. When it's over, you'll have been given a Hair Pin, a chunk of Gold Buillion, the Sun Coin, and the Moon Coin. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Coin Panel This panel is on the wall in the hallway. You should've seen it on your way to the ghost's meeting. Now, revisit it, and Hana will automatically insert the Sun and Moon Coins. You should have noticed one of several panels on the walls in the main hall has a sun and a moon on it. Press the Moon, then the Sun Coin--the top, then the bottom--and press the bottom switch. You'll give yourself thirty seconds to get to that door before it closes, which is easy work unless you still haven't mastered the game's control setup. ============================================================ Past the Moon-Sun door, you'll find a storeroom. The Terra Cotta Key is on a desk, but to get it, you'll have to dispatch a guardian statue. ============================================================ Enemy: Guardian Statue Compared to most of the enemies in the game, I find the statues damned near lovable. They're slow, lumbering, and generally make easy targets. The first two shotgun shells you fire at them will disintegrate their raised shields, and two more will blow off their upper halves. Like anything else in this game, they're trouble in enclosed spaces, but not so much that you can't just blast them. In wide-open areas like the atrium of the Tomb, you can either run straight past them, or you can take them out at a distance with rockets. ============================================================ The Terra Cotta Key fits a door on the upper level of the circular room. Use it. You'll be let into an atrium surrounding a pool. On the raised dias, you'll be revisited by the ghost. One cutscene later, you'll appear in front of a Chinese building, wearing Chinese clothes, without any of your weapons, and with a puzzle of sorts to solve. ============================================================ PUZZLE: The Haunted Inn Something to take note of for these "puzzles" is that the spirit guiding you is *never* just talking to hear the sound of his own voice. He's giving you clues. The clue here is, "...in a moment of self-reflection..." Use the Gold Buillion on the man standing near you. He'll give you back the Inn Room Key and the Butterfly Coin. Run down to the other end of this hallway and Use the Inn Room Key on the door. If you simply Use the bed, Hana will only get a restless night's sleep. You need to Use one of your items. Use the Mirror on the bed. Hana will go to sleep with it on her chest, and the ghost will recognize his own folly. ============================================================ You'll rematerialize in the poolside area. Take note of the symbols on the door in here, as you'll need to know them. As you leave, the statues will reanimate, so take care of them now; if you don't, you'll have to do it later under far more troublesome circumstances. Outside, Use the Coin Panel again, and this time, press the Butterfly and Moon Coins. You'll open another doorway in the main hall. Head over there. ============================================================ Enemy: Skeleton Warrior I should discuss the skeleton warriors at this point. They show up a lot as "after-the-fact" enemies here; that is, you encounter more of them when you're retracing your steps than you do when you're going somewhere for the first time. They're fast and extremely durable. However, the assault rifle has its full paralytic effect, as mentioned above, on them. The shotgun, on the other hand, is effective but unreliable; I've found that it has a tendency to slow the skeletons down, but not stop them until they've had the chance to take a swing at you. Any other weapon is, quite simply, a waste of time. ============================================================ I mention this, of course, because two skeletal warriors are just inside this doorway. Move a bit to your left, and only one will reanimate. Take him out with shotgun blasts or sustained rifle fire, then cautiously activate and dispatch the other. Taking on more than one skeleton warrior in close quarters is one of the fastest ways to die in this game, so, well, don't do it. There are three new doors among the winding paths in the next room. Alert reader "the Krypt Angel" (which is undoubtedly his Christian name) tells me that "as soon as you enter this room, [you should] turn right, and walk a couple of steps. The camera angle should switch to a closer view, and you'll see that the path looks like a L connected to the main walkway. At the end of the L is another save point." I haven't checked this for accuracy, but I figured I might as well mention it. Anyway, about these doors... you can only open the one furthest to the left. Ready the assault rifle and walk through it. Remember what I said about fast ways to die? This room is one of them. Once inside, stick the rifle in a skeleton warrior's face and blow him away. Change clips and do the same to his friend. Now, and only now, get anywhere near the guardian statue. It'll reanimate, and you can take care of it with a flurry of shotgun blasts. After all of this, claim the Dig Key. Head back out onto the winding path. The Dig Key unlocks the next door over. Inside, cautiously creep down, then against the left side of the room. Two guardian statues will animate, but from here, you can hit them both at the same time with shotgun blasts. Dispatch them and take the Wood Planks. Finally, outside, Use the Wood Planks on the last door. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Night and Day Another hint, if you will: the important thing the ghost says here is his speech about the dragon and the phoenix. Talk to the villagers to get the Astronomy Key. It will open the nearby door. Inside, all you can Use are the two window blinds. One has a dragon behind it, while the other has an egg (or something). Remember what the villagers said about their daughter, and the ghost's tale of how day becomes night and night, day. Open one blind and close the other, revealing the dragon and concealing the phoenix egg. When you leave the shack again, it will be night, and a ghost will drift by you. Follow her to the well, and Use it. You'll get the Remains. Return to the house. Open the closed blind and close the open one to bring back the day. Outside, Use the Remains on the villagers to receive the Lily Coin. ============================================================ Now, because the ghost is a jerk and wants you dead, he puts you back down in a room with a statue in one corner, 20 shells in the other, and holsters your gun for you. Ready the shotgun before you take a step, and be ready to greet the statue with five quick blasts. Head outside and save your game, then put the Lily Coin into the Coin Panel. Press the Butterfly, Lily, and Moon Coins in order to open the door back in the atrium. You'll have to whack a couple of skeletons on your way there, though. The most bizarre boss in the game is through this door. ============================================================ BOSS: The Wall This guy's tricky, but the Evasion roll will win the day yet again. He shoots sprays of rockets at you, and they go in a certain direction depending on what face he shows. The minotaur shoots straight forward, and is the only face of the Wall which can be injured. The skeleton shoots to the right, while the samurai shoots to the left. Stay out of their way and wait for your opening. Rifle clips occasionally show up during this fight, but they do so right in front of the Wall. I'm not going to get those. Are you? ============================================================ When the Wall's dead (crumbled?), run through the hole you've created. You'll meet the ghost again, and be sent into another dream of the past. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Justice The important part of the speech here is that justice is blind. Get the Clay Pot from the small stack of them to your left to see a cutscene, then walk forward and Use the gong. The judge will throw you out of court. Walk back to the same stack of pottery to talk to the ghost of Wong Lin again. The guardian statues are blocking her, huh? What could you possibly do... Justice is blind. Use the two Bandages on the statues. Hana will blindfold them. (I'd be a lot happier if I'd actually reasoned this out, rather than Using everything in my inventory on the statues until something worked.) Use the Clay Pot on the judge, and you'll receive the Bull Coin. ============================================================ When you reappear in the Tomb, you'll be standing on top of 20 shotgun shells. Outside in the Wall's room, two skeleton warriors are waiting for you, and whatever you left alive in the atrium is still there. Cap 'em and get outside the tomb to save. You've got an Aussie to shoot at. On the Coin Panel, press the Sun, Butterfly, Moon, Lily, and Bull Coins. The large cube in the front hall will slide into the floor. Unfortunately, those statues that have been making Hana's heart monitor kick in since you started this trip are also going to animate. Take care of them with the fading remnants of your ammo supply, save your game, and jump down after Deke. Unfortunately, that might not be Deke after all. ============================================================ BOSS: Deke Your assault rifle is the best thing for Deke right now, and even then, it'll only do damage while Deke himself is visible. Hold L2 and use your Evasion roll to dodge the readily telegraphed, slow-as-hell grenades he's firing. When Deke rematerializes, shoot him. Rifle clips will occasionally show up, so watch for those. You probably need them by this point. Note that other weapons don't really phase Deke in the slightest. This isn't difficult. The trick is to only roll back and forth right in front of Deke, rather than letting him chase you all over the battlefield. ============================================================ After he's gone, Hana will get the Emperor's Plaque, and outside, Glas will get doublecrossed and dropped into a pit. As Glas, save your game, equip the shotgun, and rampage through the upcoming series of hallways. Guardian statues will try to stop you. They will fail. Eventually, you'll reach an old man. He'll only fight you for about a second before Hana comes to Glas' "rescue." Hana will then proceed to get both her and Glas into a bit of trouble. ========== Part Nine: Tests ========== After the Emperor's cutscene, you'll begin as Glas. The left mirror takes you to a puzzle of sorts, while the right mirror takes you to a dangerous maze. I recommend you start with the left-hand mirror, and save your game every time you're back in this room. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Conquest You'll have to win four "chess" matches to continue. Your tools: Small Soldier: 10/10 Medium Soldier: 20/20 Large Soldier: 35/35 The weaker a piece is, the further it can move in a round. When one of these pieces tries to capture another, the stronger one will win, but will take "damage" roughly equivalent to how strong its opponent was. For example, a Large Soldier beating up on a Medium Soldier will win, but will walk away at 15/35 strength; the same is true if the Medium Soldier attacks the Large. Soldiers with equal point values will stalemate, and both pieces will be taken off the board. The AI for these four matches isn't really very good, so you should be fine. The trick, I find, is to sacrifice a Medium Soldier early on to dispatch your enemy's Small Soldiers, thus giving yourself the movement advantage. When that's done, whittle down your enemy's numbers and use your highly mobile Small Soldiers to reach and capture your enemy's flag. The fourth battle is a bit trickier, in that you have seven Medium Soldiers while your opponent has two Small, three Medium, and two Large. Once again, the key is in movement: sacrifice one Medium to kill both of his Small, then whittle away his forces until he's down to Large Soldiers. You can't even force a stalemate in this fight; he's got more numbers. However, Large Soldiers move like bricks, so you can easily outmaneuver them with Medium Soldiers and snatch up his flag. Note that as with most puzzles in the game, the General will let you replay any match you lose. ============================================================ When you win, the General will give you the Bravery Medal, and tell you the story of Qin Shiquahandi (and I know I didn't spell that right). Afterwards, he'll return you to the outside room. Step through the right mirror, and it's back to straight platformer action. There are five tests on this level, each of which depend more on reflexes than wits. 1: Pass the flame spouts. This is easy work; just watch the patterns and move. Actually, Glas won't get into any real fights for quite a while, so you could run straight through this section, taking three hits, and still be fine. 2: As you round the corner, another stone golem will emerge from behind you. Start running, and don't stop; hug the curves and don't run against the corridors' "walls." Once you get to the curved platform, quite some distance away, the walkway will collapse and he'll get off your ass. This is straightforward, but may take practice. 3: This intricate maze will collapse if you're on the wrong part of it at the wrong time. Slowly work your way along the bottom, staying as low as you can, and keep running. You should be able to outrun the inevitable collapse. 4: Thread your way carefully through the geysers of fire. I usually go straight through the bottom here, where the pattern is thinnest and easiest to see. 5: The stone golem returns! You have a bigger head start this time, but he's moving a little faster. Once you've beaten him, move towards the glowing light in the distance. Glas is done; it's Hana's turn. As before, the left mirror is a puzzle, while the right is a "contest of speed... and footwork!" ============================================================ PUZZLE: Sliding Maze Oh. *This* puzzle. Damn this puzzle to *hell*. Either this maze is random each time you play, or it's at least different on the second play through. In general--once again, the point of this puzzle isn't at all obvious--you need to slide the colored stones into the tray at the bottom of the board. Whenever you press against a stone with your playing piece, it will skid all the way to the edge of the board, in whatever direction you pressed it in. Pieces that reach the bottom of the board, on either side of the tray, will be taken off the board entirely. Be *very* careful with your token. You can ruin the entire maze by accidentally hitting a gray stone. The solution is really just a question of time, but it can be awfully frustrating. I've solved this in twenty minutes at one point, and the next time through, it took me three hours. ============================================================ With the maze solved, Hana undertakes the same maze that Glas just did. The differences here are small and subtle: -- Hana is discernibly faster than Glas. Outrunning the golems is much easier this time around. -- Fire spouts are blocking the route Glas took through the collapsing maze. You'll need to go through the bottom route, then slowly work your way up to the top. -- The pattern on the second set of fire spouts is a bit different, but not tragically so. When Hana passes her tests, you'll be given a Mercury Vial and a Pearl. The door Qin Sheng opens for you leads to a barge. As Hana, you'll need to convince the bargemen to move. Use the Emperor's Plaque on the throne, then go to the front of the boat and use the Mercury Vial. You'll get to steppin'. Next stop: Penglai Shan. ==================== Part Ten: Demons In the Garden ==================== Hana will lose track of Deke and Glas in the fog, and wind up alone. For right now, this place is quiet and somewhat peaceful, so you can relax. Through the doors on either side of you, you can pick up four Bridge Tiles off of floor tiles that look like Chinese characters. Take them back to the main hall, where you can Use them on the water. This will create a bridge. Inside, you'll meet an old woman. She sets you onto your latest challenges, gives you a Tiger Plaque and Dragon Plaque, and sends you on your way. Meanwhile, our old friend Yim Wau Long, the King of Hell, shows up and creates a pack of purple demons. PROTIP: Uh-oh. Outside, an old man will give you a Digging Tool and a Chinese Fan. From here out, you're on your own. This part of the game follows the Space Quest school of puzzle design, where the answers don't always make a lot of sense, and where seemingly ornamental parts of the level are actually vital parts of the problem. Check *everything* here to see if it can be Used or Taken, particularly if it's goofy-looking. You can save your game in the gazebo area; in the Water Garden, on the same screen as the water wheel; and in the Earth Garden, just across the bridge to it. The Chinese characters on the floor are now teleporters, which will take you to different elemental realms if you Use them. More to the point, there are now teleporting demons all over Hell's half-acre, and they're arguably the most dangerous enemies in the game. ============================================================ Enemy: Teleporting Demon FE veterans will recognize thematic similarities between these guys and the hook-wielding gimps from the second and fourth discs of FE. They were mildly annoying there. Here, they're weaker, since you have better weapons, but they're still annoying. The demons' mode of attack is to get in close and claw at you. A teleporting demon will usually disappear again when you hit it with a shotgun shell. They frequently alternate between two locations when they appear and disappear, meaning you can easily track them and fire a second, killing shot. They're fast, and their ability to teleport can result in some very, very bad situations. Your best weapon against them is your own mobility, as they don't lope as fast as you can run, and they never actually teleport right into your path. If more than one of them comes after you at once, run until you have space to quick-turn and shoot once, then keep running. You have to be careful, fast, and smart, or they'll tear you up. Single demons are best dealt with by careful and precise shotgun blasts as they lope towards you. (On Hard mode, the Elemental Gardens turn into a deathtrap. The demons take at least three shells to kill, they drop three shells, I could swear they're faster, they occasionally appear in groups of three, they *will* teleport right into your way like the world's ugliest speed bump, and they guard the save points with a fanatic's zeal.) ============================================================ So. In case it's not horribly obvious, here's where the various garden tiles will teleport you: Upper left: Gold Lower left: Water Upper right: Fire Lower right: Earth In each elemental realm, there are more tiles on the floor. These tiles will teleport you to the other Realms, so you don't have to backtrack through the main garden. A pale gray tile will teleport you back to the Realm's corresponding section of the Garden. Note that the Gold Realm is the only area in the entirety of the Challenges that isn't overrun by demons. Blue tile: Water Red tile: Fire Gold tile: Gold Aqua tile: Earth In order of the Challenges, here's the best way to proceed (not mentioning anything about wiping out the demons, because, well, yes, you *should* be doing that, what do I have to do, hold your hand?): 1: Teleport to Earth. In this cavern, there's a weird section of earth that looks like a fanged mouth. Use the Digging Tool on it to get the Rock Salt. 2: Teleport to Fire. Pick up the Empty Gourd from the bench next to the furnace. 3: Teleport to Water. Use the Rock Salt on the cylindrical gadget next to the pier. This'll grind it fine, turning it into a bag of Salt. 4: Go to the end of the pier. Use the Salt on the water. This will kill the monsters, and Hana, of her own violition, will dive down to get the Water Crystal. In the process, she'll break the Digging Tool. 5. Use the Empty Gourd on the water to fill it. Now you have a Salt Water Gourd. 6: Teleport to the Water Garden. Be careful of the demons, and Use the water wheel by the save point. This will desalinate the water in the Water Realm, turning it fresh again (just how much salt did you dump in there?). 7: From the garden, teleport to Gold. (You didn't teleport straight there from Water because, well, you needed to use the water wheel anyway, and if you teleport into the garden from Gold, you'll materialize with demons on either side of you. It's not a good time.) Use the Salt Water Gourd on a section of the "mud" here to form a plank. 8: ============================================================ PUZZLE: Golden Platforms This is simple. Watch the pattern and move. If your feet touch the "mud," you'll take a hit; dying here means Hana gets changed into a gold statue (or, if you prefer, she gets "Midasized"). The only tricky part of this comes with the upper right-hand platform, which is out to screw you over. You'll need to alternate between it and the middle platform a couple of times before you can move on. Also, take note of the platform at the top center, which connects the upper-right and upper-left platforms. This platform appears twice during the main pattern, and the *second* time is when it appears in conjunction with the upper-left platform. Watch for that; it's probably the single most irritating thing about this particular puzzle. For all of this, you'll receive an Empty Goblet and the Gold Crystal. With the Gold Crystal in your hands, the puzzle deactivates, and you can cross it safely. ============================================================ 9: Teleport to Water. Fill the Goblet and Gourd with fresh water from the pier. (Optional: from Water, teleport to the Water Garden and save your game. The further along you get on this quest, the more demons show up and the more frenzied they get. Right about now, I started saving my game every time I accomplished something, but I usually had to waste two or three demons to do it. The Water Garden is also the single safest place to teleport back to the Garden, as here, and here only, demons don't typically hang out right on either side of the teleportation square. (Furthermore, at this point, you can officially consider the save points in the Water and Earth Gardens off-limits. To quote one of the gamefaqs.com FE2 board regulars, the demons are "goal tending," which is as good a way to put it as any. Your best bet for a save is to cautiously proceed through Water to the main hall, blowing away demons as you progress, and save your game in the gazebo.) 10: Teleport to Fire. Stand on the center tile and Use the Fresh Water Goblet. One of the flames behind you will flare up. Step into it and only it--it can't hurt Hana now--and Take the Fire Crystal. 11: In Fire, note that the furnace is now lit. In order, Use the Empty Goblet and Broken Digging Tool on it; you'll fix the Digging Tool. 12: Teleport to Earth. Back where you found the Rock Salt, Use, in order, the Digging Tool, all three Crystals, and the Fresh Water Gourd. If you were wondering when the element of Wood came into play, there you go. You'll receive a Diamond. 13: Teleport to Water, then back to the Water Garden. Three more demons will try to stop you on your way out, so don't get too complacent. 14: Head to the gazebo. Use the Diamond on the wooden doors, and you've passed the Elemental Challenges. Hana walks into the light... ================== Part Eleven: It Isn't Even Past ================== The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. -- William Faulkner I enjoy using wildly inappropriate quotes for stuff like this, or at least quoting "high culture" when discussing "low culture." This level is the hardest part of the game. Glas, wandering in the fog, has a flashback. Suddenly, he's in military garb, short-haired, and barking orders into a headset. Wherever he is, it's a while ago, and he's back in the middle of something violent. As usual when you're suddenly thrust into a new situation, take a minute to examine your inventory. You've acquired a Grappling Hook, your ammo supply has evened out some, and you've got an EMP. Cautiously creep towards the screen, past the inactive mech. There are two guys standing on the mech's other side, and... ============================================================ Enemy: Flashback Soldiers ...I'll take a moment to discuss the nigh-complete bastardry of all the soldiers in this stage. They can do evasion rolls, just like you. They can also absorb a wildly ridiculous amount of punishment... just like you. As a general rule, the assault rifle or shotgun both work well against them, although prohibitive amounts of ammo are required. Another useful tactic is to get out a flamethrower and hold down the trigger on them, following their rolls and hitting them as they stand back up. Either way, you'll need to be careful. This stage is your last chance to get any sneak kills, so take advantage of that as much as you can. Incidentally, Glas has an Arc Taser, but these soldiers are apparently insulated; the Taser doesn't bother them at all. (In Hard Mode, the flashback soldiers' resiliency shoots up to ridiculous levels. They aren't any more dangerous, per se, but you'll probably be struggling for ammo throughout the entire stage. Consider using the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and Uzi against lone soldiers, the better to conserve ammunition for your more useful weapons.) ============================================================ Open up on these two with your rifle. It'll probably take you a full clip, but try to follow them when they roll out of the way. With a little luck, you can catch at least one of them by surprise. When they fall backward shooting into the air, they're dead. One has a Gate Key, so grab that. Also, check around the parked forklift on the right-hand side of this room for a SS 2000. You'll be getting boatloads of flame canisters on this level, so you might as well get to the settin' on fire. Head out the door those two were guarding. There's a mech coming right for you, so ready the EMP and fire the moment it comes onscreen. While it's stunned--which won't be for long; have I mentioned that the EMP is a gyp?--run past it and use the Gate Key on the door. Through this door, you'll find two guards. The one you can see has a rifle, and you can pick him off from here. The other has a flamethrower, and will casually attempt to creep towards you, for he is an idiot. Shoot him as he does so. There's only one door in here, and you can't open it right now. Backpedal, and--hoo boy. The mech will crash through the outside doors. The moment you regain control of Glas, open fire with the assault rifle, and you should knock over the mech. Glas will use it to climb to safety. Up on the rooftops, there's one guy in front of you with a flamethrower, and a second hiding in the shadows behind you. Take out the one in the shadows first, and then you can leisurely riddle the other guy with bullets. There's another SS 2000 hidden in the second guy's hiding place. Use the Grappling Hook where prompted to swing across to the next rooftop, where two more riflemen and another flamethrower await their gruesome deaths. Give it to them, then Use the corner where prompted to jump across. On this rooftop, there's a gridwork of fifteen fans in a row. The one in the dead center stops occasionally. Cautiously make your way across the fans and Use it while it's stopped. Note that the fans will chop you up if you step on top of one of them, and that if all the fans stop at once, that's the background animation restarting; it isn't a pause in the fan pattern. When you reach the center fan, Glas will drop down a ventilation shaft into a warehouse, where he'll grab a C4 charge. There's a save point here. Outside, you'll climb into a thoughtlessly unattended mech. Unfortunately, you'll then get into a fight with another mech, which is an exercise in frustration. Open up on it and any stray soldiers with your chaingun, and just try to be as accurate as you can. It will die... eventually. Once it does, turn and run down the street in the other direction. A helicopter will open up on your mech, but it can't do much damage unless you stand still and let it. Keep moving, whatever happens, until you see a ladder. Glas will automatically abandon his mech once you reach it, and you'll be back on the rooftops with a helicopter shooting at you. Glas seems to attract these kinds of situations. Fortunately, this time, there's none of that stupid "shoot the flags down" nonsense (okay, Glas, if you can shoot a flag off its pole, why can't you shoot the gunner in a helicopter?). Run over to the raised object next to Glas. You can't Use it, but that doesn't matter, because Glas will eventually use it of his own violition. It's an anti-aircraft gun, and he'll shoot down the helicopter. After that, he'll swing across the rooftops again, and wind up behind a pair of soldiers. Kill them with all due speed. One of them has the Utility Key. Use it to open the nearby trap door, and hop down behind another soldier. A Crowbar is your reward for killing him. Open the nearby trapdoor again. Glas will come up behind yet another unwary soldier. Kill him. The nearby door will let you back into the first room of the stage, with a soldier right nearby and two more coming. Save your game here after the ensuing bloody fight. Outside, where the mech was, two soldiers are standing guard. Take 'em out. Two more are inside the hangar where the mech ambushed you, and the locked door in here can be opened with the Utility Key. One more guard is behind it with his back to you, just asking for a sneak kill. Do it, and exit through the trapdoor. Glas will set the C4 and run for it. The explosion totals large chunks of the base, and puts you in a bad situation. Wait for the screen to finish scrolling forward before you move, or you'll have to do everything over again. Note the presence of a save point right near here. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Electric Maze This does look completely impossible at first, but careful study will show you how to do this. The electrical arc always flashes at specific patterns--large flash, pause, half-flash, half-flash, pause, large flash, and so on--and the half-flashes follow the lines drawn on the floor. Study the floor during large and half-flashes. There are small bits of wreckage, scattered on the floor, which aren't conducting electricity. You need to make carefully timed dashes towards them, wait out the flashes, and move carefully from wreckage to wreckage. This is frustrating, and allows for almost no margin for error, but it can be done. The bigger your television is, the easier this'll be. ============================================================ When you get to the door, pull out your EMP and Use the Gate Key. The moment you're through the door, hold down the X button and fire; there's a mech breathing down your neck. As the mech is stunned, hit Square to change weapons and wax the one soldier in here. When he falls dead, change back and fire the EMP a second time to put the mech back down. Now, Use the Gate Key to get out of this deathtrap. Boy, never a dull moment, huh? The next two rooms have three soldiers each, two with rifles, one with a flamethrower. Gun them down with wild bursts of whatever long-range weapons you have left and, in the second room, find the door under the red light. It may take a bit of exploring. When you do find it, Use the Crowbar to pry it open. Inside this remarkably sterile and peaceful laboratory, Use the guy on the table. This is the cue for a lengthy cutscene. When it's over, run for the gun on the floor, which is about two steps in front of you, and you'll be done with the flashback. You'll receive a Paper Doll from Glas' brother. Glas materializes in the Elemental Gardens, by the Gold tier. I've never checked, but I believe he has the same weapons on him that he had before the flashback. While he can teleport to the Elemental Realms the same way Hana did, there's no need. Cautiously slaughter a few more demons and leave via the gazebo. ============ Part Twelve: Final Exams ============ All of those esoteric items Glas and Hana have been picking up are about to come in handy. Each room they enter in these tests has an emblem hanging on a door somewhere. Use the item that you have which looks like that emblem. In order, on each floor, you'll Use the Bell, Phoenix, Chinese Fan (you actually Use this on the first two squares of the floor puzzle, which makes it the exception that proves the rule), Paper Doll, Mirror, Bravery Medal, Hair Pin (I was hoping to use this to pick a lock; imagine my disappointment), and Peach (and how that Peach has remained unsquashed after all of the things Glas has been thrown off of, I'll never know). =========== First test: Hana will play an ancient Chinese version of "Simon." There are eight steps, all of which are pressed fairly slowly. This is a hard test to fail. (On Hard mode, this test starts with three button presses and goes as high as eight, all of which are totally random. I recommend watching the pattern and writing down the number of the buttons as it goes, then putting it in. Otherwise, this gets real tricky. I always did suck at "Simon.") ============ Second test: Glas will encounter the pasty white woman in the cheongsam again. She challenges him to a child's game. You have to beat her to the dragon's eye. This is one of those games that's so easy that it's actually difficult. In short, try to roll high at the beginning, then try to roll low when you get near the end. Whatever you do, try to stay just behind or way ahead of the Immortal's pip; she has a nasty habit of rolling *just* what she needs to knock you back a few spaces. If you lose, you can try again. And again. And again. (On Hard Mode, the computer rolls high with irritating consistency, but isn't as good as rolling just what it needs.) =========== Third test: This is the last real puzzle of the game, and it's a doozy. ============================================================ PUZZLE: Floor Tiles This is the one that made me beat my head against the table and go looking online for help. I wasn't able to figure this out given the clues provided; alert reader Michael Piatko says that the "safe" tiles are the ones marked with the characters on either side of the exit door, and the "bad" tiles are the ones that match the characters on either side of the entrance door. Note to self: learn friggin' Chinese. In any event, here's the solution to the puzzle, courtesy of Kevin Kaelin's FE2 walkthrough at www.gameshark.com. You need to step on the tiles in a certain order, or you will incur wounds. (Incidentally, you get a Rush Moment at the beginning of each new test, from the character switch, so don't worry too much about damage.) Whenever you step on one of the key tiles, you'll hear a faint, shallow gong sound. Think of the puzzle this way, like a grid: +-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 A | x x x x x x x x B | x x x x x x x x C | x x x x x x x x D | x x x x x x x x E | x x x x x x x x S The solution to the puzzle then becomes: S, E4, D4, C4, C3, C2, C1, B1, A1 retrace to C4 C4, B4, B5, B6 retrace to E4 E4, E5, E6, E7 retrace to E4 E4, D4, C4, C3, C2, C1, D1 retrace to E4 E4, E5, E6, D6, D7, D8, C8 retrace to E4 E4, D4, C4, B4, B5, A5 Clear. Boy. Didn't *that* suck. Onward. ============================================================ ============ Fourth test: Glas must choose between his brother and his father. It's a trick question; either way you play this, you have to fight the Teleporting Demon From Hell. ============================================================ BOSS: The Teleporting Demon From Hell In most ways, this guy's identical to the teleporting demons from the Elemental Gardens, but if he gets close, he'll exhale flame instead of clawing at you. This isn't a true "boss fight," in that there's no life meter, but this demon can take all the love you have to give. After using up three rifle clips and three Uzi clips on him, then dying, I switched to the rocket launcher, and yes, I know I said not to use it. Shut up. *That* did the trick in about five shots (eight shots on Hard Mode). ============================================================ =========== Fifth test: Did you cap any of the cowering guys in jumpsuits, back in the aqueduct? If you did, o/~ you're in trouble... o/~ One of the Eight Immortals was apparently masquerading as the guy who gave you the first Mirror Fragment, and he objects to your shabby treatment of his brethren, as do I, to his face. Fortunately, I'll be caving in his face forthwith. ============================================================ BOSS: Immortal What's-his-face will teleport from corner to corner in his room, moving fast and not staying in one place for long. When he does stick around, he'll raise his sword and throw purple lightning at you. If it doesn't hit in that initial blast--I'm not entirely sure it *can* hit--it collects at the center of the room and sweeps around counterclockwise. You can dodge it without much trouble. The big problem in this fight is that the Immortal has decreed that he's immune to your weapons. You have to get up in his face and kick him to death if you want to get this done. You can do this, regardless of how bloody stupid an idea it seems to be. Run in when he raises his sword and kick him a couple of times, then dodge his lightning and repeat. All in all, this is remarkably simple. (I was able to beat this Immortal on the first try in Normal mode, when a single kick skims about a tenth off of his life meter. However, in so doing, I was nearly killed. You can safely assume that the Immortal is far more dangerous in Hard mode, just like everything else.) ============================================================ If you spared all of the technicians, he compliments Hana on her compassion (either he didn't watch the opening cutscene, or he didn't much care for Leung either) and lets her pass without further incident. Needless to say, this is why I was encouraging you to leave the technicians the hell alone. =========== Sixth test: Why is it that more of Glas' tests involve mortal danger? Glas must now face his ultimate enemy... ============================================================ BOSS: Royce Glas A recurring theme in my leisure time recently is that of oneself as one's worst enemy. First I watch "Evangelion," then I read _The Great Gatsby_, and now this. Criminy. Evil Glas, or at least Considerably Less Morally Ambiguous Glas, is really just you with more ammunition and a bigger health bar. He alternates wildly between rolling grenades, shooting rockets, and opening up on you with his assault rifle. He's used the flamethrower on me, too. Treat Glas like a particularly tenacious normal enemy. Most any weapon will wear away quite nicely at his health bar. If you're quick on the control pad, the only thing you have to worry about is his assault rifle, and even that's only minor damage. Use the pillars for cover, sneak up on him, and let him have it. Some of the tactics you developed to deal with the rolling soldiers in the flashback will come in handy here, since Glas rolls around a lot if you get the drop on him. If you hit him with an SS 2000 volley, Glas will roll to avoid it, and you can just track him from roll to roll until the flame runs out or he dies. ============================================================ ============ Seventh test: We get a glimpse of the deaths of Hana's parents (complete with some nice synchronicity with FE; do you recognize the doll?), her first meeting with Madame Wu, and how she met Rain. The ghost from the Queen's Tomb offers her a choice: Rain, or her parents? The life that might be yet, or the life that could have been? I haven't picked Hana's parents. Rain seemed to me to be the natural choice, and as I didn't get killed or get into a fight, it would seem to be the right one. The Immortal will warn you that you've picked a path fraught with sorrow, and send you on your way. ("Jimbo," on the Gamefaqs.com message boards, has posted that picking Hana's parents results in a fight with two Teleporting Demons From Hell. I'm *not* picking Hana's parents. *Ever*. Alert reader A. Stewart, however, mentions that you do get a different and longer cinematic after this fight than you do if you pick Rain.) ============ Eighth test: To Glas' consternation, the old man with the missing donkey is the Eighth Immortal. Glas must take a final gamble on a platform floating in space, because he was brought into all of this by sheer chance. You start off with a choice between two blocks to step on. One will hurt you; one won't. Pick one and trust to luck, as they've been different both times that I've played through. This theme continues, although, fortunately, you shouldn't have too much trouble with this. Choosing wrong doesn't really do much damage, so you can probably bulldog your way through unless you pick *very* badly. That's the last test. It's time to meet Rachel Kazra and settle this. Glas gets some more background on the Retro Helix, and steps through the last gate. ============== Part Thirteen: Showdown ============== You start as Glas, in this, the Void. Save your game. Move forward and Rain will teleport in, waving a *really* vicious-looking needle. Suddenly, Deke shows up... with Rain. Or is it Mist? Hana arrives just in time to keep Deke and Glas from shooting each other (they had to do the John Woo guns-to-each-other's-heads pose sooner or later), and the choice is left up to her. Which Rain is which? ============================================================ PUZZLE: The Qin Twins You'll be given a crosshair and both Qins to choose from. One has a needle; the other, the Flash Disc. Consider these factors, when choosing yourself a Qin to shoot: -- the needle. That looks a lot like the needle from the opening cutscene, doesn't it? The one that got jammed into Rachel Kazra's bellybutton and turned her into some kind of demon? -- the Flash Disc. Rain had this the last time you got to play as her. -- the EINDS cure. Why would Mist give it to Deke? -- why would Mist urge Hana to shoot them both? All of these are valuable clues. In other words, the Rain with the disc is the real one. Shoot the one on the left; Hana's pointing at her anyway. ============================================================ Regardless of whichever Qin gets shot, Mist will wind up jamming the needle, which turns out to be chock full o' Dark Cipher goodness, into her own stomach. You'll be introduced to Rachel Kazra, who is no longer even vaguely human, and told that Mist intends to make sure the Perfect Being is reborn. That's the theory, anyway. Now you get to disprove it. ============================================================ BOSS: Mist Qin If you shot Mist, you'll be fighting as Rain, who's carrying the equipment she had the last time you played as her, plus a flamethrower. Otherwise, you'll start as Hana, and after you inflict a certain amount of damage, Glas, and finally Deke ("...I don't like you."). Mist's new form teleports around the crazily spinning battlefield. She launches an attack, and when it's over, she'll disappear again. Mist has three basic tricks: Flamethrower Mist Mist materializes, flops onto the ground like an inchworm, and begins twirling around. She shoots fire from either end; jokes about her "eating bad Mexican" would be horribly uncouth. So don't make them. Mist will move from one side of the screen to the other while she's shooting fire, and will dematerialize when she reaches the opposite end. While she's doing that, try to run around her, moving in the same direction as her flames, and roll when the flames get too close. This is probably her most dangerous attack, and it's the one she tends to use the most often. I still get hit at least once every time she does it. Big Ass Blast Mist ...okay, now she's just asking for it. Mist appears, glows, and fires a massive beam straight ahead. This is easy to dodge unless she's got you in the corner, especially because Mist stops pivoting right before she fires. Once you're out of the way, move towards her and start shooting; you should be able to do some serious damage while she's recovering. Lightning Ball Mist Mist appears, spins in place, and fires four balls of static electricity. Here's the key. The moment Mist appears and does her little flip, head straight towards her while shooting. She's wide open, and the only safe spot from the lightning barrage is directly in front of her. I have noticed that many other FAQ writers, professional and private, have written that the way to beat Mist is to use, alternately, the Arc Taser, Sonic Boom, and SS 2000, depending on which form Mist is in. Many other FAQ writers are apparently smoking paint. Don't let the flamethrower ammo on the battlefield fool you; this fight is all about the rocket launcher. Remember how I said not to use it? I lied. I lied like never before or since. I'm a bad man. Use the rocket launcher. On Normal mode, one rocket will knock about a fifth of Mist's health bar off, while on Hard mode, you'll need to hit her with about fifteen of them. Mist is too low for rockets to hit her while she's in Flamethrower mode, but she is *meat* in either of her other forms. You can fire another rocket just as soon as the last one's detonated, so you can completely unload into Mist while she's recovering from her beam or ball attacks. On Normal Mode, this fight can be ended in about five seconds if Mist opens with the Blast or Ball attacks. If you don't have the rocket launcher--if you missed it back in the Temple of Xi'an when you last played as Rain--you can *barely* make do with barrages of rifle fire. Rain starts this fight with 210 bullets for her rifle, so you've got the ammo to do it. The problem here is that the difference between victory and defeat now rests squarely with Mist; to wit, if she uses the flamethrower too often, you probably won't survive long enough to take her out. When you win as Rain, Mist will curl up into a little ball. If you don't do something fast, she'll get right back up and you'll have to do this *again*. Don't let that happen. Walk up to her, circle her until you get the Use prompt, and Use the DNA Virus. When Mist is dead, one way or the other, it's game over. ============================================================ ====== CODES: ====== Upon beating FE2, you'll receive a series of button sequences after the credits. These button sequences, when put in on the ----> TITLE SCREEN <---- of the appropriate game disc, will unlock that disc's Art Gallery, in the Extras menu. The last two codes were sent in by Kevin Myers, and I've tested the first three. Disc 1: L, R, U, D, D, Circle Disc 2: U, U, R1, R1, R1, Square Disc 3: L1, R2, L1, R2, L1, Square Disc 4: Circle, Circle, Square, L2, Square Furthermore, on your second time through the game, you can use the keypad in the first hallway to input secrets. Kevin Myers also provides these codes, all of which I've tested: 11692: All weapons 61166: 999 ammo for all weapons [Note: this isn't "infinite ammo." This is "more ammo than you will ever conceivably need unless there is something seriously wrong with you." It's a minor distinction, but one that someone had to make.] 10397: Big head code It would appear that these three codes are it; there aren't any more. One would imagine they'd've surfaced by now if there were. How disappointing. Please note that I do not and *will* not own a Game Shark. Codes for that particular crutch will never appear in this document, and I will not respond to letters asking for them. If you can't beat this game on your own, you don't deserve to beat it. ============= PLOT SUMMARY: ============= FE2 is sorta cumbersome, with all the plot twists it goes through. I've written this down to help both myself, and, hopefully, you, the reader. ==== Four billion years ago, the Ancients destroyed a creature known as the Entity. The Entity chose to hide from his destroyers, concealing himself within the primordial ooze that would one day create all life on the planet. From this ooze, humans were eventually born. The Entity is referred to several times in FE2 as the Maker of humanity. Three thousand years ago, a man named Qin Zhang tried to unlock the secrets of immortality. He was only partially successful, in that his potion made his body immortal, but failed to prepare his mind. His body thus became an eternal prison, and he slumbered for a time. This failed attempt at divinity, called a paradox by one of the Eight Immortals, created a Dark Cipher, which in turn was a possible way back to the world for the slumbering Entity. This Dark Cipher is also referred to over the course of the game as the Retro Helix, the DNA sequence that causes EINDS. Twenty-two years ago, the first case of EINDS (Environmentally Induced Nucleotides Degeneration Syndrome), a disease that attacks cell reproduction, is diagnosed. This disease rapidly spreads, and by the time of FE2, roughly half the world has it to some degree. Also, as is remarked upon by various Immortals during the game, this is the same year that Hana was born. Apparently, EINDS is the move and Hana the countermove, in the chess game between the Entity and the Eight Immortals. (One of the Immortals tells Hana that the Eight Immortals only act through people, since they learned long ago that they only make things worse if they directly intervene. If you pay attention, a *lot* of the Immortals' tests are games, or versions of games--chess, mazes, riddles, hopscotch, dragon's eye, the musical memory test --making FE2 a game about games within games. The mind boggles.) Twenty-one years ago (maybe; I'm basing this off of the supposed age for Rain in the instruction manual), an archeologist named Rachel Kazra discovered the sleeping body of Qin Zhang at an excavation site. She injected herself with his genetic material, attempting to create the Perfect Being. Instead of dying like most mortals would have, she became pregnant with twins; one would imagine that her injection and subsequent pregnancy are what's depicted in Rain's dream. These twins were half immortal and half human (which must have made them insufferable in grade school; "*Our* dad can destroy your dad on a cellular level! And our *mom*..."). She named them Rain and Mist. Later, Kazra won past the challenges at the Tower to gain access to the Genomic Void, and there conducted her experiments in recreating the Perfect Being by uniting the two children (sort of like the Wonder Twins, but with more demons). Her countless failures, brainless mutants existing only to kill, were scattered throughout the Temple of Xi'an. Qin Zhang was set in place below the Temple as a guardian of the path to the Void. (It is probably no concidence that both Rachel Kazra, assuming that's her in the opening movie, and Glas' teammate Jake exhibit the same symptoms. One would assume based upon this that the Dark Cipher extracted from Qin Zheng, when introduced into the body of a human, will *usually* kill that human via accelerated EINDS. This would make Qin Zheng EINDS' "patient zero.") The Entity was looking for his opening. If Kazra's experiments succeeded, he would be reborn in the form of the Perfect Being. In this he was aided by Mist Qin, who embraced her divine heritage. Rain, on the other hand, embraced her human side and fled from her mother and sister. She made it to China, where she collapsed outside a graveyard and was found by Hana. They became friends, partners, and lovers. At the start of Fear Effect 2, Glas has a blood sample from one of his former team members, and Deke is sent to obtain a Genetic Marker. When Hana brings the DNA sequence disc to the Temple of Xi'an, they've put together the pieces of the cure for EINDS. Glas and Hana realize that Glas' blood sample is unnecessary if Hana has the DNA sequence on disc, and Deke's genetic marker is likewise obsolete. They've all brought basically the same thing to the table. That's because the courier job is a ruse by Mist and her allies on Earth to get the cure's parts in one place, where she can destroy them all at once. EINDS is the final stage of the Entity's plans for humanity, and when the disease has run its course, the Entity has plans for the survivors. Mist is working to make sure the Entity's plans bear fruit, which presumably makes her and her allies the people who made and unleashed a more readily communicable version of EINDS. However, Glas and Hana manage to survive the Temple of Xi'an. Despite Deke being possessed and used as a catspaw, Hana and Glas pass the Eight Immortals' tests and make it to the Genomic Void, where Rain faces off against and kills the mutated Mist Qin. Mist is dissolved at a cellular level by the DNA virus Rain found in the Wing Chune building, thus forever dividing the Perfect Being and foiling the Entity's shot at rebirth. More to the point, Hana makes the cure publically available to the world, and EINDS is never allowed to complete its set task. Of course, Rachel Kazra is still alive, out in the Genomic Void past the Weak Water... and at some point, Hana will apparently return to the Twin Juniper Garden, and become stuck there for the rest of her life. There's a sequel hook or two here, if you just look for them. =============== PLOT QUESTIONS: =============== Why is the older Hana waiting for herself in the gazebo? Yim Wau Long's comment only complicates matters. Is time itself warped somehow by Penglai Shan? Is Penglai Shan in some way linked to the Chinese underworld? Will Hana return to the Twin Juniper Gardens at some point, and become trapped there for the rest of her life? What the hell happened in that lab below the aqueduct? It's easy to conclude that the lab is where Rachel Kazra was injected, but the carnage is apparently too recent for that. Are we to conclude that the aqueduct is the site of some of Kazra's genetic experimentation, and that Gyen-Won Liu is a participant in the same conspiracy that hired Deke? That would seem to explain the Brothers Spooky, although it's a bit too convoluted. A more ready explanation may be that some of Dr. Liu's experiments had similar results to the ones Rachel Kazra conducted in the Genomic Void. How has Deke managed to survive EINDS more than twice as long as anyone else? Has he been working for Mist's buddy that long, and been provided those drugs to keep him alive? One of the Immortals seems to suggest that Deke is one of Rachel Kazra's mutants. Could we get some more information on that, please? ============= HANA AND RAIN ============= So... yeah. When this game was initially announced, it looked like they decided to take FE, tighten up the control, and add some softcore porn. All the screenshots of Hana and Rain were of them in their wetsuits, and every preview I read mentioned their (coy wink, sly chuckle) mysterious relationship. I thought it was going to be a complete mess of gunplay and HOT GIRL-GIRL ACTION. w00t! That's what I thought, anyway, when I rented the game. I had heard that the storyline was flat-out strange, involving genetic viruses, Chinese mythology, and the implications of the existence of an insane God, and well, if you add lesbians and the whole "survival horror" aspect of it all, you've got a game that I can't pass up. I'm a philosophy minor and I'm addicted to B-movies. This is my genre. So I played it, and kept playing it, and, well, it wasn't as goofy as I was expecting. Yes, there's a lot of undressing and accompanying panty shots; yes, Hana's party dress is more the suggestion of a dress than a dress itself; yes, there's the elevator scene; yes, that thing Rain gets strapped into is not right, will never *be* right, and now that I've seen that, I'll never be clean again. (H.R. Giger called. He wants his beetle back.) But Hana and Rain never get really *stupid* about it. It's gratuitous and sensationalist enough that they're apparently lovers, and the game only rarely does anything with that. They flirt occasionally in the aqueduct, they bicker a little, Hana's very protective of Rain, they distract the security guys in the elevator by making out, and that's about it. Then you get out of the Wing Chune building, and the fanservice comes to a shrieking halt. In the Temple of Xi'an, when Rain more or less vanishes, Hana and Rain's relationship is brought into clearer focus. Hana is told multiple times that trying to find Rain will only end in sorrow (a sorrow that has yet to materialize, unless the Immortal is talking about one of the bad endings in FE), and she keeps going; the very idea of abandoning Rain makes her lash out at the ghost. Whenever she's talking to one of the Immortals, Hana actually acts *desperate*, and then there's the kicker: a line, spoken by one of the Immortals, about how Hana's love for Rain is her strength. While I don't care for the way it was used to sell this game, I do have to admit that Hana and Rain's relationship is treated with considerably more care than I was expecting. While its being in the game in the first place is sensationalist and more than a little distracting, I can't honestly find any fault in the way it's depicted. Why did I include this section? For one thing, I wanted to say something about Hana and Rain, because, as I mentioned above, I'm shocked by how mature their relationship is, especially compared to what I was expecting. For another, I wanted to do my bit to clear up any remaining misconceptions that gamers might have about this game. FE2 is a lot of things, but it ain't slash 'fic or all-girl p0rn. ======== ENDINGS: ======== THIS IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING. Unless both I and the entire online fan community have missed something, these are the only possible endings for FE2. ============================================================ Save Rain, Normal/Hard Difficulty: Rain pushes Hana, Deke, and Glas back, saying that she needs to fight Mist alone. She proceeds to spank Mist like a naughty monkey. Rain dips her knife into the DNA Virus (I hope that wasn't an airborne virus, Rain!) and stabs Mist in the throat. Mist screams and dissolves into a greasy stain. Hana offers Rain her hand, and Rain accepts it. A pair of newscasters say, smiling, that a cure has been found for EINDS. Back on their hydroplane, Rain says that she's surprised Hana didn't just sell the cure, and Hana says that she didn't think that'd be right. Surprisingly, Deke and Glas went along with it too. Rain asks to go along on Jin's "retrieval mission," and Hana says that Rain's staying home this time. She doesn't need a tech-head because the job is so simple. Rain gives Hana her knife so Hana won't break a nail, and Hana gives Rain Qin Zhang's Pearl: a gift from Rain's father. In a restaurant, Hana (wearing her clothes from the first level of FE) invites Deke and Glas (likewise) to join her on Jin's "little runaway mission." It's a big payday for easy work, but Glas is wary of it. Deke signs up almost immediately, Glas grudgingly agrees, and they set out on the job that winds up becoming the first FE. Elsewhere, the King of Hell laughs. (It has been noted on the gamefaqs.com boards that this ending contradicts FE in a couple of minor ways. For one thing, this ending looks as though it takes place a few days, if that, after FE2, but everyone in FE is two to six years older than they are in FE2. This is yet more proof that when playing cinematic horror games, you should never trust the background information in the instruction manual. It lies. It always lies. (If you finished FE, there are a lot of injokes in this scene. Glas' line about being chased by dragons is one; Deke saying "Just make sure you cover all the angles" is another.) ============================================================ Save Rain and Lose, Normal Difficulty: The King of Hell is shown sitting on a throne. He muses how "they saved [him] the trouble." He laughs, and the Game Over screen comes up. I think this might be foreshadowing for Fear Effect 3. I'm not *sure*, mind you, *but*... ============================================================ Don't Save Rain, Hard Difficulty: Dying, Rain says that she'd rather die in Hana's arms than live forever without her. Mist laughs at her, saying that all Rachel Kazra needs is Rain's body. Hana screams in rage and grief and attacks the newly mutated Mist; after you knock about a third of Mist's life off, she kills Hana and Glas jumps into the fray. Glas gets similar results, and finally, Deke is able to knock Mist down. However, Mist clearly isn't dead. As she writhes in pain, Deke picks up Rain's body and flees through a convenient portal. The credits roll. This is another surprise; the ending where Rain dies is obviously not the right one. I expected that Rain's absence from FE would be explained by having Rain get killed. No, no... she just stayed home. =========== CONCLUSION: =========== Thanks to Kevin Myers, Brandon Chaput, Michael Piatko, Vincent Merken, A. Stewart, and the "Krypt Angel" for their contributions to this FAQ. Also, as mentioned above, thanks to Edwin Chow and Kevin Kaelin for writing their guides, and to David Smith for telling me where Spooky's sex table is from (specifically, it's from the cover to Giger's _Necronomicon_). This document can be found on the following websites: http://www.gamefaqs.com http://www.cheatcc.com http://www.gamespot.com http://www.psxcodez.com http://www.fookes.clara.net http://www.redcoupe.co.uk/ http://www.bdgames.net http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/junkdrawer.html Note that the last site is my own, and as such, will probably be updated more often than the other locations will. Please report this document's presence on any websites other than the above to [email protected]. I can be reached at [email protected] with comments, questions, and whatever codes you'd like to pass along. I don't know how helpful I'll be re: game advice, as I don't actually own FE2, but I'll try. Please be literate in any letters you send me; anything that I can't readily make sense of won't be replied to. Thomas Wilde a.k.a. Wanderer a.k.a. Storyteller on the gamefaqs.com boards and Evil-Online [email protected] http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/