Fay's Final Puzzle Strategy Guide

Hey guys. It's me. The one who finally beat FFP after 4 years of trying on and off. I made a short strategy guide for anyone who is crazy enough to commit to beating this infernal dungeon. (Mods if you want to include this in the wiki or anywhere, just let me know.)

Good luck.

SHIREN THE WANDERER DS: FAY’S FINAL PUZZLE STRATEGY GUIDE

I will be brief. It took me ~4 years of playing on and off to beat FFP. Should you attempt this diabolical dungeon, here are my best tips. They won't work every time. And you won't remember all of them every time either. But if you keep trying, you WILL beat it. Eventually.

Note: this dungeon is no friend to the player. The odds are stacked against you. If this were made today, it would be more balanced. It's cruel and unforgiving and even if you do everything right, you'll still die. It's simply TOO. HARD. but...it IS doable... Your best tool is commitment and dedication.

#1 STRATEGY: QUIT WHILE YOU’RE AHEAD.

If you think to yourself something along the lines of, ‘I should probs take a break now,’ then DO IT. If you keep going when you have a feeling you should’ve stopped, you will make a stupid mistake, and you will die. Trust me—happened to me hundreds of times.

Movement Strategies

  1. Punch/slash in front of a space to reveal a trap. Do this before you enter into a room and the last space before you exit a room so you’re not forced to step on a trap. If you’re hardcore, punch every space in a room before you step to avoid traps.
    1. It’s hard to stay vigilant, but remember, when you get sloppy, you pay the price.
  2. Always take the shortest route through a room to another and/or to items.
    1. When returning through rooms, take the same path you did before to minimize chances of stepping on a trap.
  3. If you get into a crazy situation, turn the game off, take a break, and return with a fresh perspective. You might think of a strategy you can do to save yourself that you hadn’t thought of before.
  4. If your Strength goes, you’re pretty much a goner unless you can get it back up quick.
    1. This can happen in the earlier levels from Poison Dart Traps and Ghost Radish. If you get down to 5 or less Strength, you just won’t be strong enough to keep going.

Floor Strategies

  1. 1.Use a Monster Floor List in order to know what types of Monsters spawn on each floor.
    1. Will link in comments.
  2. 2.For Floors about 1-20, try to level up enough so you are about double the # of the floor.
    1. Ex. On FL 2, you want to be Lvl 4.
    2. The most important floors are 1-3.
    3. These are the 3 easiest floors with the easiest monsters: Mamel, Pit Mamel, Rice Baby, and Ghost Radish + Bowboy on Floor 3.
    4. If you do not have decent equipment and items by FL 3, consider starting over.
  3. While many runs can be saved, sometimes with FFP it’s best to cut your losses and wait until you get lucky with the item generation.
  4. FL 4-6 are Food floors
    1. Rice Changers spawn FLs 4-6. You must get a RC to breathe on all of your unwanted items to build up a stockpile of Big Riceballs for the rest of the run.
    2. The Arrow Trick
      1. If you have any Arrows: shoot them all onto the floor of a room.
      2. Put all the items you don’t want to be turned into riceballs on the floor too.
      3. Leave 1 arrow in your inventory, Unequipped.
      4. Find a Rice Changer. Lead it to the room with arrows.
      5. Rice Changer breathes on 1 arrow. Step and pick up another.
      6. Repeat until all the arrows are turned into Big Riceballs.
      7. If there are too many Riceballs to fit into your inventory, eat the extras at 100 fullness to increase your fullness rate by 5% per big riceball.
  5. FL 46-60 are Sleep Radish floors.
    1. If you do not have a Sleepless Armband, leave these floors ASAP.
  6. If/when you spawn in a GREAT HALL MONSTER HOUSE, do your best to get to a corner for safest vantage point.

Item Strategies

  1. Use an Item Buy/sell list to help you Identify items
    1. Mark off items as you find and ID them
    2. Take advantage of shops to narrow down what an item might be based on its price.
    3. This is critical to success.
  2. Make a naming strategy for items
    1. Example: an unidentified herb in the shop you could name “800b1” to show that it’s an 800 gitan herb which could either be an Herb of Strength, Bitter, Dragon, or Poison.
  3. Before you leave each floor, eat all herbs and read all scrolls WHILE STANDING ON THE EXIT.
    1. This guarantees you will be able to exit if something bad happens while identifying.
  4. Identify Staffs by testing them on low level enemies
    1. Shoot a bolt, see what it does to the enemy and name staff accordingly
    2. If the bolt does nothing: Stability staff, pain-share, or lightning
  5. Identify jars by testing with an unidentified weapon/shield or gitan
    1. You can usually narrow down the possibilities by putting an unidentified item in a jar. The reason for putting in these is melding and strengthening/weaking jar purposes.
    2. If you’re unable to determine the jar right away after putting something in it, move to the next floor and check the contents.
    3. If the jar does nothing after 2 floors and multiple items inside, it’s either a Pointless Jar (does nothing), Gaibara’s Jar (does nothing, sells high), Venting Jar (does nothing to items, explodes on impact), or an Unbreakable Jar (does nothing to items, bounces away forever if thrown).
  6. If you throw a BOTTOMLESS JAR onto the floor, it will create 3-5 Pitfall Traps.
    1. You can use this to steal from a shop or escape a dangerous situation.
  7. If a JAR says PRESS, it is either a Chiropractic, Monster, or Walrus Jar. Press in a corner in case of monsters.
    1. DO NOT throw Walrus Jar—it will release several confused Walrus into the room.
  8. If a SCROLL says READ, it is either a Scroll of Blessing, Riceball, Identity, or Extraction.
  9. Place GITAN bags into your INVENTORY to throw at enemies instead of taking them as money
    1. Stand on the Gitan. Insert into a Jar of Holding
    2. Stand on the Gitan. Open Inventory and Trade and Item with the Gitan underfoot.
      1. DO NOT SORT your inventory if you have Gitan that aren’t in jars or it will put them into your money.
    3. Throw Gitan at enemies for 40 damage.
  10. Bitter Herbs and Staff of Misfortune can be used to lower the LVL of an enemy
  11. Keep 1 Riceball in open inventory and the rest in jars.
    1. If something happens to your jar, you still have one in inventory and vice versa.

Monster Strategies

  1. 1.If you throw any type of Riceball at any monster in the Riceball family, it deals 100 damage and kills it.
  2. Infernos CANNOT be thrown staves, herbs, meat, or shot arrows. It burns up.
  3. You can shoot a staff at Inferno though.
  4. Monster Meat is your best friend.
    1. If you find a Bufu Staff or Bufu Cleaver, use it wisely. Enemies that are very helpful to eat as meat:
    2. Pacorepkin Meat—allows you to float in walls where no other enemies will be able to hit you. Good for escape or in a monster house.
    3. Cell Armor Meat—allows you to knock a shield (or sword) away from enemies. Good to get melding material.
    4. Polygon Jive Meat—allows you to dance next to an enemy to increase your fullness.
    5. Air Devil—makes you invisible, able to attack enemies and go around the stage without them noticing you. You can only turn an Air Devil to meat by THROWING a staff at it OR Bufu cleaver. If you shoot the staff, it will reflect off the monster and turn you into a riceball.
    6. Bowboy/tank—allows you to shoot an infinite # of arrows. Use to build a stack of 99 arrows to take with you.
    7. Field Bandit—allows you to throw weeds. Use to throw a bunch of weeds to eat and fill you up when out of riceballs.
    8. Popster Tank—allows you to shoot tons of cannonballs and obliterate enemies. Good for group attacks.
    9. Curse Sis—eating the meat will break all the curses of items in your inventory.
    10. Soldier Ant—allows you to dig in the level and make escape paths
  5. DO NOT eat Kigny meat. It turns you into a Kigny like a Kigny Seed and you wander around for awhile attacking any enemy that you find.
  6. Tiger Uho family monsters can THROW you from one room to another if you get close to them (I got thrown INTO a monster house)
  7. Best way to fight Grey Simes is to REMOVE sword and shield. Otherwise they will Rust and/or remove your melds.
  8. If you get SEALED by a Skull Demon, get away asap.
    1. While Sealed, you can’t access Inventory or use Items. It lasts around 30 turns. You are very vulnerable.

Shop Strategies

  1. Shops are very helpful for identification
  2. Name all the items in the shop based on buy price or abbreviations of what they might be even if you don’t buy anything, because if you find that same item later, it will have the name on it.
    1. Ex. “REST SITE1” for an herb that’s either a Restorative or Herb of Sight.
  3. Name all inventory items by placing each one by one in the shop and then check its sell price to narrow down what it is.
  4. Ways to Steal
    1. Walrus Jar—line up the items you want in a line at the start of the shop. Stand one space outside of the shop. Press jar and walrus will get the items you want. Since you’re not ‘in’ the shop, it doesn’t count as stealing.
    2. Bottomless Jar—creates pitfall traps you can escape in
    3. Monster Meat—such as Pacorepkin or Air devil. Riskier though.
    4. Staff of Postpone or Paralysis to freeze/postpone all the sheriffs and dogs
  5. Armband of Identity can ONLY be found in a shop FLs 30+
    1. It is the only armband that is 30,000
    2. Even if you can’t afford it, equip it and identify everything in the shop and your inventory before leaving
  6. Melding Jars are the ONLY jars that will cost 6500, 7000, or 7500
    1. The melding jars is more important to have than the strengthening jar for a good run
  7. Seed of ILL LUCK can ONLY be found in a shop FLs 50+
    1. The terrible herb that reverts you to LVL 1 Shiren. Only eat if about to beat the dungeon.

Equipment Strategies

  1. Hide shield to slow hunger
  2. Evasive shield to make enemies miss more often
    1. Really comes in handy especially if your shield isn’t super strong
  3. Good basic sword and melds as soon as you can (mastersword/polearm/katana)
  4. ANTIDRAIN armband will prevent your level from being lowered by Twisty Hani and Skull Demons.
  5. Use the Trap Armband to check for Traps in each room, then slash over the spaces to reveal.
    1. DO NOT keep your Trap Armband on because it reduces all gained experience to 1.
  6. Armband of Sight is good to see where items/enemies are on the stage, so you can get them and leave.
  7. Always check if you’re wearing a Pitcher’s Armband before throwing something.

Here's the file download link:https://file.io/eOlOqV1UfwrH

it has the ITEM CHECKLIST and MONSTER FLOOR LIST.