The elemental island caves seem very unfair, the high rate of attack and heavy damage. I had thoroughly trained for it, I knew every answer almost immediately, however I still struggled and failed several times just trying to type fast enough. The "Battle Typing Rate" setting seemed to have no effect. I almost wonder if it would be difficult to complete even if this was in English!?

I did manage to clear it eventually though. Definitely said I learnt a spell (different spell name to the one learnt on the first island), but still says "No spells prepared" and "The pages are blank".

One other thing: With training focus set to "focus training on next cave", it stopped introducing new words once I reached 220 "words", however I ran into 時 (とき) each time I did the cave fight. After I had cleared the cave, the first fight immediately afterwards introduced 時 for the first time...

Ah, I've noticed how to cast the spells now. I had tried doing what you need to do before, but it just didn't seem like anything was happening. ^^;

Onward to the next elemental island! (Also, I'm guessing there are going to be 7 spells in total?) :D

how do you do it? i don't get it yet

>>948
Have you completed the cave on the first elemental island yet? Where you up to in the game?

yeah, i cleared it.
and sorry i was reading back on this server and i found the answer somewhere back there.
thanks for answering, tho

In case anyone comes back to this thread at a later date, I can add a few answers:

When you gain your first spell you can begin writing it to your spell book. The spell book is found in the library next to the sage in the castle (if you found the first desert island you have already spoken to him).

The spell book is initially blank and must be charged. When you have it equipped it will convert standard kanji to english slimes into Onyomi only slimes. After several defeated slimes (appears to be about 100), the book will be charged and the spell can be cast from the in battle cast menu.

As for the difficulty Mog mentioned, I agree it is obnoxiously tough as you need to defeat all 100+ word slimes in a single battle. Some tips:

- Use Chankonabe immediately before the battle to start with 200+ health.
- (If you are willing to cheat the mechanics a bit) Hit escape immediately after each answer. Slimes do not attack while in the escape menu. This gives you time to think.
- (If you are willing to cheat a bit further) If you encounter a word you do not know halfway through the battle, you can use jisho.org in a pinch while the escape menu is up. There are several tools on jisho for finding the word, kanji, or radical you want.

Even with the above, it can still be tough. Be prepared to need more than one attempt.
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>>996
As tough as those battles still are, they were actually much much more insanley tougher in the past!

Back in build 162 when I did those battles the slimes incorrectly always did maximum damage (6 HP) on every hit, regardless of whether they were supposed to. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they were attacking at 4 times the standard attack rate!

Darrell changed it in the build 163 update, which was released just after I had finished the last of the seven elemental islands. XD

In build 163 the slime attack damage in these battles was fixed, the maximum damage was halved (to 3 HP?), and also the attack rate was reduced to 2 times the standard attack rate.

I've still got a copy of build 162 on my computer. I should record a video of how insane the elemental island battles were. They were more just a sheer challenge of how fast you could move your fingers on a keyboard rather than of Japanese comprehension. I expect even Japanese people would struggle with those fights because of the speed, let alone learners of Japanese! I remember I had to use your hitting Esc key cheat to have any chance of getting through the first couple of islands, and that was with 250 HP (chankonabe + the 50 bonus HP from resting 50 times in the elderly couple's house on Ytlin island). I did somehow manage to do some of the later elemental islands without using the Esc key cheat, but only thanks to being able to use the spells I had learnt from the previous elemental islands to survive a bit longer... ^^;

Wow, this sounds like exactly what I need right now. I never thought to try any of the additional modes as I never completed the story but I think I will be starting a 2nd save for Original Easy Mode. Verbs are my biggest weakness right now.

Thanks for posting this Mog.

Did you give it a go? How did you get on with it? If you just wanted to do the verb forms and grammar forms, the endless forest storyless modes for those specific things might work better for you.

(Tip: Always equip and use the "Slime Shaker" tool when doing the endless forest storyless modes. It makes these modes much less tedious, being able to jump instantly into the next battle rather than having to monotonously keep on walking a few seconds in a straight line between battles.) ^^

Haha. Yeah! That part of the game can definitely be very testing, always wondering about whether or not it makes a difference which square you mine at, and having increasing uncertainty that the particular square you've been mining at for ages might not ever contain the item you need. XD

(For anyone wondering, you can definitely get all the items you need at any of the squares of forest, hills, or mountains. You don't need to find a specific one. I guess maybe the drop rates could vary, but I think this is unlikely. It's probably the same drop rate for all the squares, just that you might be very lucky or very unlucky with whether you get the right item on your first attempt or on your hundredth attempt...)

Also if any player wants to add me on discord:
Kafka#4792

I remember I've watched a couple of your videos in the past. I should probably try streaming this game too. I'm pretty bad with the whole camera youtube stuff and remembering how to do it.

Also, I noticed we can't look at previous pages here. It loads the first page no matter which page number I click on. I was trying to find old posts. For example, here's one of your old posts I happened to stumble upon which is on a previous page. We can no longer get to it without knowing the URL, here:

https://lrnj.com/chan/q/822

Welcome! Always nice to see someone new playing this game. ^^

Nearly everything you've been having issues with is actually mentioned in the "instructions.txt" file. (It's in the same folder as the executable.)

> You start the game in Jenk and Kale's farmhouse. Try talking to Kale a few times and see the different things he says. Kale is a reliable fellow. He doesn't just take care of all the farm work, he cooks three meals a day for them both. Since Jenk starts out hungry and weak, try going to the fire and getting some breakfast.

> One example of a non-tool usable item is the herb. It restores Jenk's lost health, and it's very important to carry into dungeons. You can buy it at the store in town or find it in some dungeon chests. Give it a try some time so you understand how it works.

> You may need special weapons or equipment to defeat certain enemies. These are always available somehow.

> Make sure you talk to everybody, and keep in mind that holding certain treasures may change their reactions.

> Some items can't be used for anything, but serve as quest tokens and change the way people react to you when you're carrying them.

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I think the shark repellent worked in a much older version of the game, but that the purpose of the sharks changed and the item no longer affects the sharks the way they are now.

As for having to leave the desert island early, I don't remember there being really any difference between fighting the sharks around the desert island vs fighting the slimes on the desert island. Don't they train you on the same material? Wouldn't it be easier to just stick to fighting the sharks so you can get back to an inn easier?

The only thing I think you need to step onto desert island for is when you want to head to its cave. I don't remember there being anything else of interest on the island.

Yeah, but that's the thing -- if I'm not done with the cave yet and I'm down much under half my health, I have to flee the cave and leave the island or risk getting killed by sharks on the way back even if I do finish off the cave. (Not to mention that the sharks on the way TO the island mean I'm already down significant health before I even get to the cave.) The sharks make the cave a lot harder than it already is.

I guess I could just buy some herbs and use one herb right before entering the cave, and then one herb afterward if necessary, but... eh.

Yeah, definitely take herbs.

Have you done Ytlin yet? (The horseshoe-shaped island.)

If not, I'd recommend leaving the desert island for now and doing the cave on Ytlin island first.

It sounds like you haven't got the chankonabe item yet. This item you find in the cave on Ytlin island fully restores your health, raises your max health +1, and gives you a temporary +100 bonus health too. This is a permanent item once you get it. You can use it once per day. Having this chankonabe item would make the desert island cave much easier as using you can use it before entering the cave and have 200 health at the start of the battle. ^^

You need to get the armour from the next island.

Usually the idea is to skip Cots Whee and go straight to Honey Kamey, then do what you need to do on Honey Kamey with the dog to get the 'key to the world' for the next island. Get the armour from there. THEN, with this improved armour, go back to Cots Whee to get the Mattock.

It must have been rather tough getting the Mattock on the Cots Whee island without having the appropriate armour to sustain the damage! Well done though! :P

After you've done Honey Kamey and also the island with the armour, then you just have one final dungeon to do to reach the end of the story. ^^

>>960
Hey mog, thanks for posting for all these years. I've recently been coming through the old forum and the channel and making progress solely due to your posts.

You mention there's one more island after (Kami no Mushi I assume), Cotts Whee, Honey Kamey, and Bokudoku Row. I've completed those four islands with the Chronolabe and dont know where to go from here. Is there another key to the world that I'm missing? I'd appreciate some hints

Hey. Thanks for the warm words. ^^

Technically there isn't "one more island". I purposefully switched from saying "island" for the last three mentioned places to saying "dungeon" for this final one, hoping it might be taken as a possible hint to not sail around endlessly trying to find a new island.

I also avoided calling this a "cave", as I didn't want people to think there's another cave to look for either.

This final dungeon isn't on a new island and it isn't a new cave. It's an extended part of a cave(s) you've been in before. (Some of the caves had areas that are closed off, where you could see chests and ladders that couldn't be reached. These are actually reachable now.) ^^

However, although I've said this, there is actually another key to the world that you're missing! If I'm remembering correctly, I'm pretty certain that you don't need it at all to get to the final dungeon (I think this final key is found inside this dungeon.)

Hope this is enough to go by. I can't actually remember the exact details beyond this for certain, as it's been a long time since I did that part of the game. I could give some more hints if you want if you still have no luck finding where to go, but I might not get it completely right if I do.

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>>978
This does help immensely, thank you!

I admit I've had less drive to play because I was just sailing around using every combination of direction and chronolabe/apparatus I could think of to find something new. I revisited every town and NPC and retrecked through a couple of dungeons, but clearly not all of them. Thanks for pointing this out, it shouldnt be too hard to re-clear the dungeons from the beginning just to make sure I'm not missing anything!

I feel you dawg. Been waiting for it for a while. So happy.

Did you ever get it working in the end?

Is that the latest version, build 189?

Which Operating System are you on? From your screenshot I'm guessing it's Windows 7?

Afaik, there shouldn't be any issue running the demo of the latest build on Windows 7.

The only things I can think of right now is that maybe an antivirus program is interfering, or possibly the game wasn't installed correctly.

Darrell is the creator of this game though. I'm just a regular user. But if you can confirm which build of the game and which operating system you are using, I'll try to test it myself as I'd like to help. ^^

Wow, congratulations mog86uk. I was happy enough with reaching all 1972 kanji myself, but that doesn't hold a candle to your stats. Makes me motivated to get there though.

By the way, where did you get the dog item, and what does it do? I can't recall that from my play-through, although I had never finished off all the optional island quests.

>>955
Thanks Drahcir! ^^

I wish I could claim to be the first person to achieve this. However, two years ago an "Anonymous" poster wrote that they'd reached the exact same stats: >>756

Sadly I slacked off. Initially this was because of real life stuff happening around that time. But months later when I badly wanted to get back into playing SFA again, I then had a new problem where I no longer used either of the two Japanese keyboard input methods that the game offered. I'm extremely thankful to Darrell for adding the "custom kanatype" feature. Without this feature I might not have ever managed to get back into the game properly. I was able to use this feature to create the Japanese keyboard layout I use (NICOLA 親指シフト) and have it working in the game. ^^

The dog tool is from episode 5 (Honey Camey island, with the sweets and the dog). Equiping this tool makes forest battles have bluey-grey "compounds" slimes instead of the usual bright-green "kanji" slimes. I think you might have it, judging by what you said back in the following post: >>825

I think I'm going to have to set a more extreme goal. In less than ten days I've increased my "readings" stat by over 800. Not even half-way through the month and I've almost completed the challenge I set myself! I thought it was going to be a lot tougher (or at least that I wouldn't find it as fun as I have). ^^

New goal: complete both "readings" and "compounds" by the end of this month (June).

Bearing in mind my "compounds" stat is currently on "54", and I think there are a total of 1399 compounds to learn in the game, this should be a very difficult goal to reach in time. Only 18 days to do the last 100 readings and 1345 compounds. Can't back out of it now I've written it here. Let's see how this goes. :P

End of the month. I still have a couple of hours left, but there seems to be a bug inhibiting the appearance of final few "readings" and "compounds". Really annoying. It was a couple of days ago that I reached the point where new readings and compounds slimes stopped being given. But, even with the bug, if I keep playing for hours the stat sometimes increases by one or two. So I might get there eventually, but could take a whole extra month at this rate!

Anyway, here are my current stats (as seen in my screenshot to the left) -

Kanji: 1972 / 1972
Readings: 1952 / 1972
Words: 1385 / 1385
Compounds: 1362 / 1399(?)

I still have two more hours before the end of the month. Two hours would be enough time to finish the rest of the remaining readings and compounds if the bug were to suddenly go away.

Anyone have any ideas of what might be preventing the remaining slimes appearing? I already tried toggling the "Training Focus" and "New Before Review" settings, even thought they should have absolutely no effect, and it didn't change anything.

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Two hours of alternating between readings and compounds slimes later... New screenshot!

In case it's hard to see what changed in those two hours, readings stat went up from 1952 to 1953. ^^

I've had no luck at all the two days since I reached compounds 1362 at making the stat increase. So I'm going to assume this might actually be the max number (although I saw a post elsewhere in this channel which said it is 1399 instead).

If it takes an hour for each +1 increase of the readings stat, I'm going to have to keep drilling readings slimes for another 19 hours to finish the last 19 readings! ^^;