Look at this pic. What would you think the game was going to be like based on this pic alone? Looks like a pretty kickass RPG, don't you think? Remember when you first played this game? Did it kick as much ass as the picture suggested? Hell no! "Why not," you might be asking yourself? Well, Kid-Niki will show you why, as he presents the much anticipated....

First off, a few things crossed my mind in the production of this page:
1. I hate Hydlide.
2. I am insane.
3. I am lamer and dumber for having even thought of doing this. I can wish and wish all I want, but now I probably never will achieve "brasilhood", whatever that means.

Next, did you ever notice that the coolest games are usually made by 2 guys who dropped out of college running a mom-and-pop organization out of one of their garages? Yeah, me neither. The point is, that Hydlide, in light of this evidence, was made by a team of people with PhDs in computer science. That's the ONLY possible explanation for this game being so torturous and shitty. And another thing, I had a hard time with this game, and it will be reflected in this page because you know how most of the game pages on this site have a lot to do with walking to the right? Well some devious programmer decided you should be able to walk in all directions...so there will be right-walking, up-walking, left-walking, and down-walking (I know you're so excited about that).

With that said, here's the storyline...
Ok...So there's some dragon who used his magical fire breath on a princess, the princess split into 3 faries, as is typical of flambed royalty, and flew away. Because we all know the American Revolution didn't start when we dumped their tea in the harbor, it started when we sent a dragon to set King George on fire. Fuck what they teach you in high school. You can learn everything you need to know about anything from Nintendo games. I can't remember the last time I watched such a moving opening sequence that only took 5 seconds. I really can't. Damn alcohol. Anyway, so far it doesn't seem like a BAD concept...if you want to keep thinking that way, don't scroll down OR play this game.
This is where the game starts. So far, we're still not doing too bad. You've got a life meter, a strength meter, a magic meter, and an experience meter. The experience meter is pretty much the same as in other RPGs only this one slowly fills up instead of using numbers so it seems like it takes a LOT longer to build levels than it should. So spend some time killing slimes and building up those levels. "But, Kid-Niki," you might ask, "How do I kill the slimes?" I'm glad you asked. In all seriousness, run at them and hold A. That's it. I wish I was making that up, but I'm not. When you're not holding A, you're in a "DEFENSE" position. When you are holding A, you're ready to "ATTACK". Ok, not a bad system, BUT, there will come a time when it's wrong to "ATTACK", and that bothers me.

This is important. Press select to bring up this menu. Now opt to save. DO THIS EVERY 3 MINUTES. You will hate yourself if you don't. The one time you forget to save will be that one time you actually got far and got a lot of items and you will undoubtedly go apeshit. I should point out that this game is not battery backed. Basically, the save and load functions are like save states, kinda like the save and load functions of Excitebike, except that these actually mean something. Until you turn the game off. Another thing you should take a look at is the password feature. Should you, god forbid, decide you DON'T want to play for an extended period of time, get yourself a password, and you'll be able to pick up from the exact spot with all of the items you had when you got the password. But who am I kidding, how can you NOT put down this game once you start?

When you die, you do a little dancey thing before you fall to the ground. It's like how Mario dies in Donkey Kong, only it's a lot less cute and you see it here a LOT more often.
So when you die and restart the game, opt to load the game you saved in the previous session. And because FCI cares so much about you, the gamer, they ask you if you're SURE you don't want to start from the beginning EVERY single time you die.
Here's me almost getting a new level followed by me gaining said new level. It can be done. All it takes is patience. Patience and a sedative. But it can be done. And there's something else of importance to note of the game. If you stand still, you regain energy and magic. Take advantage of this whenever you can...and don't forget to save.
At certain levels, you learn magic spells. Namely, you learn the 5 listed at the bottom of the screen. Turn magic is very gay. It makes the enemies walk in the opposite direction they were walking in originally. But it lasts for maybe 2 or 3 seconds, so it's really not worth much. Fire magic is a different story...you get to shoot a fireball. (oooh! I bet you didn't see that coming!)

This is me wasting space demonstrating the Fire spell. It will be useful later, and you can bet on Kid-Niki telling you just when and where this application will take place.
When you get strong enough to rip through enemies in one hit, or, if you're especially daring, if you walk up to an enemy in defense mode and it dies (it happens), it means you won't gain anymore experience fighting them. This will change later, but for now, just know that's the case. And in this case, walk 2 screens to the left as I did, to find the treasure chest in the pic on the right. "Self," you might be asking yourself, "Why am I still playing this game?" No..that's not right...it's supposed to say, "Self, what does the cross do?" Well, it helps you kill the vampire. Wow, dragons, faries, AND vampires. What a little adventure FCI churned out for us all. Ok. With Cross in tow, go right (woohoo! right!), up, left, and down to come to the entrance of the maze. You meet a new enemy here, Roper. I like that. I like a game company that's not afraid to borrow shit from Three's Company. But they coulda gone farther I think. Like maybe instead of the Indiana Jones ripoff of a theme song, they could have bastardized "Come and knock on our door...". Well, that might be going a bit TOO far. Spend some time beating Ropers and gaining a level or two before you try to negotiate the maze. Once you're strong enough, go get the pot from the maze. The pot is also very gay. It lets you find hidden entraces to dungeons. Of course, there's only one hidden entrance and it's in the same goddamn maze. But don't go there yet. You're still not strong enough. And I know I might be asking to much of you, but PLEASE don't forget to save a few hundred times. Once you have the pot and a few more levels, go to this castle. It's one screen to the right of where you start the game. Go in. you'll be strong enough to knock off the Stirges in one hit, so they won't give you any experience. The pic on the right..it's that evil vampire!!! Oh no! Good thing you got the cross. No, it's a good thing you remembered to save (I hope).
How do you kill the vampire? I wish it was enough to say all you need is the cross, but sadly, that's not the case. You actually have to chase him around and run into him in "DEFENSE" mode. I hope you're shaking your head saying "How gay" right about now. Would you believe me if I said it only gets worse? When you kill the vampire, you'll find the lamp in that chest. If your brains have turned to mush from playing so long, I think I'll take the liberty of telling you that the lamp lets you see everything in the other dungeons.
In the overworld, one screen up from this castle thing is this dungeon. You should be strong enough to go in...
And if you're not, kill the wisps for more levels. When you feel confident enough, go get that chest and you'll get the sword. Now the rules change a bit...
Now you CAN rip through enemies in one hit and gain experience for it. Another little change is that under the red square in the pic on the right is a new enemy, Goblin. Nothing to worry about if you know how to run recklessly at things.
Thankfully, the pace of the game begins to pick up here. Unless you didn't spend time building levels or saving or anything, then you might never see this. One screen below where you start, if you run into the trees here, wasps come out of them. If you kill all of the wasps in a certain tree, you save one of the fairies. Back in the Roper maze, go into the dungeon that the pot uncovered. In one of these chests there will be a key. You need this key to unlock certain chests around the world. I wish I had the patience to find out which chests needed the key, but then I really wouldn't have a life, now would I? 2 screens down and maybe one to the left of the start is where I know for sure you need the key...to open that chest, which contains one of the three jewels you need to find. That's another thing I forgot about that's probably in the manual. Not only do you have to save the 3 fairies (as they make up the complete princess), but you also have to find these 3 jewels...because just having to save fairies would be downright silly and we all know FCI was never one to be responsible for silly video games. One screen to the right of where you saved the first character, by this point the the game, a new enemy will show up. I forget what they're called, so I'm going to call them Biteys. They're strong but fairly stupid. Just run behind them and "ATTACK" to build up those last remaining levels. And save often, because the last thing you want to be doing is, well, you should have gotten the hint by now. I think one screen up or so from the Roper maze is this dungeon. It's the next one you should hit after all of that level building and saving. Beat the right Ladyam (the pink one) in the left half of the maze, and you get the shield, which does nothing but give you one more picture to look at when you call up your item window. You'll surface in this little desert thing with Worms all around. Go to the right enough, then down a little, then to the right again, and you'll come to this... This hole is where the Roper maze exit leaves you. Just wanted to throw that in because I don't think I have enough pictures yet. Anyway, one screen up from here is where you can save the 2nd fairy. Here, the trees move. I've never had trees run around on me. Maybe I've just never drank or smoked enough. Or maybe I just play too much Nintendo in between. In any case, run into all of the trees. The one that doesn't sap away your life has Fairy #2 inside. Back in the desert, one screen down from the exit of the dungeon where you got the shield is this castle. Enter it and you immediately exit in the water. I could just picture the tabloids now...LOCH NESS MONSTER SPOTTED IN SHITTY VIDEO GAME...you saw it here first. Check out the center pic. Find the spot I did for the rightmost pic and you'll find out how to save fairy #3. The two wizards are a pain in the ass, as if this game wasn't so fucking hard to begin with. To kill them, you have to use Wave magic when they're lined up horizontally. The center pic is how NOT to do this, and the right pic is how to do it the right way. I'm glad I don't ACTUALLY have to show you how to do this because this took a long time to get right. A normal person would have either quit or destroyed his NES by now. So the wizards die and you save Fairy #3. The fairies whisk you away to this island where a dragon guards the castle. The dragon kills you instantly, so if you're willing to die on purpose for once, save your game and try to do anything to it. BUT, there is hope for beating the game yet. No, don't look at me like that, there are things you can do. First, you can use Fire to destroy the bush in front of the castle to gain entrance. Save your game in between each of your copying the actions of the pics because this is a big pain in the ass. So this is the castle. The Blackams and Skeletons can do serious damage so try to avoid them. "ATTACK" the grave in the bottom left pic and you "Break the grave"...then all this cool shit happens... For one, all the water in the world drains out. Where it goes is anyone's guess, no use trying to find it now. Why not? Because you can kill the dragon now! And how do we kill the dragon? "DEFEND" it's underside...and in between ever few hits, step away, recharge your life, save, and repeat. When you kill the dragon, you get medicine. What does medicine do? It restores your life. And you only get one. Only one. So don't waste it because you WILL need it. Your next duty is to wander around where the water used to be to find this chest...it's where the second jewel is hidden. Before I could go on, I should apologize for the banality and general unfunniness of the last half of the page or so. I just want to get to the end, and I'm sure you would as well at this point. Go back here to the maze where you got the shield. You'll be able to get out of the former water thing at the topmost desert screen. Beat one of the Goldams and a chest will appear. I forget which Goldam you have to beat, but the point is only beat them until you see the chest, otherwise the chest disappears meaning you have to repeat this little process who knows how many more times. By the way, the chest has the final jewel. Go back to the evil castle you beat the dragon in front of (hey..."Castle Of Dragon" appears in that sentence :D). Now you can fight Varalys. You would think that since this is the final boss you would actually have to "ATTACK" it, but, alas, no, more "DEFEND" running ensues. Also it'll help to use the gay Turn magic to keep the other enemies away from you. And another little trick that will help, run into Varalys a few times to do some damage, then run to the room to the left of this one to recharge your energy. When you go back into this room, don't move from where you start, the Blackams won't be able to get you from where you are. So recharge, then go back to Varayls' room and repeat. NOW you have an excuse to use the medicine, BTW, if you think the whole attack/recharge takes up way too much time. Anyway, run into Varayls' feet enough and you get the following end sequence... Capped off by...

a CONGRATULATIONS! screen! And that's Hydlide. Knowing what you know now, was it all worth it?

I wanna know what you're thinking. There are some things you can't hide....
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