Breath of Fire Walkthrough - Chapter 3
The Desert Cave is a very straight forward dungeon - follow the only available route through the entire thing until you reach the end. In order to exit this cave you'll need the Icicle item that we got from Bleak, it will automatically be consumed if you have it in your inventory as you exit back to the World Map.
Now that we're back on the World Map our next destination is a town that goes by the name Arad in the middle of the desert. This town may be a bit tricky to find considering there are no land marks to assist you in finding it, the town is surrounded on all sides by desert. The only real landmark nearby is the dungeon southeast of the town - but that doesn't really help you find the town much.
Arad Town Map Location
Instead of giving you a picture of the town, this time I will give you a picture of the World Map and where Arad is on it. As you can see in the picture above it's in the southern portion of the desert area - so begin your search there. The main thing that we need from Arad is an item called Fife, we can get this from the Mayor of the town.
The Mayor's tent in Arad is the large orange tent in the northern portion of town. Enter inside and talk with the Mayor, agree to defeat the SandWorm for him and he'll give you the Fife. Once you agree to this the game will automatically advance to night time. You'll find the SandWorm that we need to eliminate in the northeastern portion of Arad, exit the Mayor's tent and go into the closed off area northeast of it where the goat was roaming around during the day.
You will notice a circle in the enclosure that is moving - interact with it to summon our next boss, Mr. SandWorm. This is a very easy fight, beat it and you'll be transported back to the Chief's tent. He'll tell you to loot the Fife from the treasure chest behind him, do that and then exit the tent and the town of Arad.
Tip: If your characters are struggling with enemies in this area I recommend you level up a bit before going to the next dungeon. Some of the enemies in this area can be pretty tough... and also rewarding! Rest at the tent/inn in Arad if you need to recover.
Our next dungeon is Krypt which you can find southeast from Arad, it's surrounded by moving sand (pictured below). To enter you will want to step on the stone platform out front and press the A button; doing this will cause a bridge to extend across the moving sands giving you entry.
Krypt dungeon on the World Map
So, Krypt is what I would call the first real dungeon of the game. The first difficult room you come across is Basement 1, which is shown in the picture below. Credit for the full picture goes to the Gamefaqs page here. He does a map of the entire dungeon. Basically, there are multiple trap doors throughout the Basement 1 area - you can see them in blue spots on the map below.
If you fall into one of these trap doors you will find yourself in a very large room with the only stairs out in the northern portion of the area. My advice in that situation is to find the northern wall and run east along it. Don't hug it because you need more visibility than that. Instead keep it in view while running below it, if you reach the wall on the right turn around and run back. If you find this annoying, don't hit the traps!
As far as the treasures go, you have two options. You can wait until you get Karn who can disarm the traps or you can hit them all now. I don't find the traps to be a very big issue so I normally get all of the traps right now. Once you are ready to proceed out of this area go to where it says #3 on the map above. That is where you'll find the stairs down.
The stairs down will take you to a room with a B. Rang stuck in a rock on one platform and a HeadGear in a chest on the other platform. Further north in this room you will find another platform with the next boss on it, EyeSpy. After you defeat him head downstairs and you'll find the treasure room. There will be 6 chests, 5 are normal colored and one is blue. Save the blue chest until last because that will start flooding the room.
Once the room floods you'll have a scene during which you meet your next party member, Karn. When Karn is at the front of your party you can open locked doors and disarm traps by interacting with them. Remember all of those locked doors we've been running across all over the place? Karn can handle them easily!
Switch Karn to the front of your party and open the locked doors in front of you. Continue through the dungeon grabbing whatever chests you want along the way. We still have a lot to go through, most of it is linear, but there will be a lot of random battles and side tracking in some rooms if you want to collect all of the treasures.
What you're looking for in this dungeon is another large open room with a couple of large gray caskets in it. Inspect all of the caskets with Karn at the front of the party and when you inspect the last one you'll get the message "Something is written in the casket: The casket is the Book!" and Karn will celebrate. That's the end of the dungeon, we can now backtrack out of the entire thing and return to the World Map.
Now that we are able to open locked doors there are a bunch of hidden treasures that we can get throughout the world, I will give you a list of all the goodies we can find. You can skip this part if you'd like and head straight to L&D Tower which is where we need to go to progress the story. If you want to go that route scroll down the page a bit until you get to that part of the guide.
Tip: Use Nina's Warp spell to teleport around the world easily and pick up these treasures.
Winlan Castle Basement Treasures: BrokenSD, Turban, FlameRP, Cure, Life2, Life
Agua Tower: LavaSH, LifeAR, IcyDR (the LifeAR and IcyDR are found by inspecting the dragons outside of the dragon shrine in the upper-portion of Agua Tower)
Warp to Romero then head northwest to the tower
L&D Cave: G. Bar, Dart
Warp to Auria and go east; the G. Bar is inbetween the two exits at the end of the dungeon
LifeAR and IcyDR are amazing items and will help you a lot if you use them this early in the game.
Like I say below the picture that's above us, I strongly recommend you stop by Agua Tower to get LifeAR and IcyDR. LifeAR is armor for Ryu and IcyDR is a weapon for Karn. Both of these are significantly better than anything you can get right now and are well worth the time to go get them. After you're done looting the goodies that you want it's time to head to our next dungeon, L&D Tower.
You can find L&D Tower to the west of Bleak. Teleport to Bleak with Nina, run around the lake and enter the tower. For this tower you should put Karn in the front of your party because he can open the doors in the way. This dungeon is a bit like a maze, there are many different staircases - one will always lead towards the end boss and the other will lead to more treasures.
At the top of this tower you'll find a pedestal with a glowing red orb on top of it. Interact with it to fight the next boss, Cloud. Once you have beaten Cloud interact with the pedestal a second time and you will get the DkKey which is one of two items that we came here for. All of the lights in this dungeon will activate now that the boss has been defeated and the entire color palette will change.
Head back downstairs to the second floor of the dungeon where we originally talked to the old guy. Talk to him again and he'll move out of the way so that we can loot the Mirror from the treasure chest; this is the second item that we came here for. Once you've got both it's time to leave the dungeon and finally return to Auria. Use Nina's Warp spell to quickly get to Auria and head inside of the large building in the northern portion of town.
If you remember way back when we first came here we agreed to help save someone's daughter from the "safe" in this building. He's still here pacing around on the carpet waiting for us - so let's finally help him out! Go into the basement of this building and open the locked door(s) to find his daughter. Talk to her and she will tell you that her father plans to trade the LtKey for her safety - she won't budge until you talk him out of it.
Use the Mirror on Ross to knock sense into him
What we need to do now is use the Mirror from the dungeon we just did to summon Ross' wife and have her talk sense into him. Go upstairs and interact with Ross who is now at the dinner table (pictured above); talking to him will trigger the scene with his wife (assuming you got the Mirror).
After the scene with Ross and his wife head downstairs and talk to his daughter once again. She will ask you to help them keep the Dark Dragons away, agree to help and she'll let you pass and loot the treasures. You'll also now have access to a tower dungeon which is pretty linear. At the end of this tower you'll find another pedestal, this one will give you the LtKey when you examine it. Once you've acquired this item exit the tower and return to Ross and his daughter, talk to them and they'll let you take anything from their house that you want... I think this is all talk though because I couldn't find anything in their house that I could actually take..
Exit Ross' mansion and head down the pier in town to find two enemies blocking the way to the boat - get close to them to engage them in battle and beat them. After they have been beaten you'll witness a scene during which they will destroy our only boat... great.
To make matters worse, the two people that offer to help you want you to give them a G. Bar in exchange for their GnPwdr... Hopefully Ryu is never in charge of his own finances because he makes the worst financial decisions I have ever seen. If you didn't get the G. Bar earlier from L&D Cave you can go do that now - alternatively you have to buy one from the shop in Auria again.
Once you have the G. Bar return to the fishman on the pier and trade the gold to him for the gun powder. With the gun powder we'll be able to clear a path to our next destination, so leave Auria and travel north to the Cape Cave. Inside Cape Cave head north until you hit the wall then go left down the hallway that is currently a dead end. When you run into the rubble you'll automatically place the explosives and blow away the blockage. This will grant you passage to another area.
You will come out to an area with a lone building (there is nothing inside) and a path that continues west. Follow the path and you will be attacked by two SpearMen - neither of them should be any difficulty to you; defeat both and continue west along the path until you run into another ship (pictured below).
The Dark Dragon's Ship (soon to be our ship)
This is the Dark Dragon's Ship - since they destroyed ours it's only fair that we take theirs, right? Head inside of the ship and make your way down inside fighting the guards as you go. Eventually you will run into the boss of this ship - Squid. Like the name suggests, you'll be fighting against a giant Squid. My advice for this fight is to use Bo's Fry spells and/or Ryu's ThrDr to make quick work of this boss. Seeing as how Squids are water creatures - thunder damage is their weakness!
Once you have defeated the Squid search the drawer next to the bed for a V. Ptn which will permanently increase the Vigor stat of the character you use it on. You will also find some treasure chests in the room that's down the nearby stairs. After you've grabbed all of the available loot all that's left is to backtrack all the way back to Auria which is where we can find our ship captain!
Return to Auria and speak with the captain who is waiting for you on the pier. After talking to him you will automatically be taken back to the Dark Dragon's Ship and a scene will play out, during which you'll take control of this ship. When you regain control of Ryu it will be during a battle with some pirates who board your ship. There will be a few battles like this one with the boss fight against Octo, another giant squid.
Much like before you'll want to use Ryu's thunder dragon to quickly deal with this boss. After the boss has been defeated you'll have another lengthy scene - during which the fishman will ask you to sell your soul for his ability to swim underwater. He actually asks for tons of gold but still, he takes all of the money you have - but technically you don't lose it...
During this next part of the game you will actually take control of Gobi and you will have to do a bit of story progression on him alone.
The first thing you'll want to do is equip any upgrades you have onto Gobi to make the next part of the game easier. Once you're ready go into the water and travel west once you're underwater. Avoid combat as much as possible because Gobi will struggle with these enemies a lot by himself. You can win but you need to spam Herbs during battle.
Our destination is the town of Prima which is what you're looking for to the west underwater. Prima is a merchant town and you have the unique chance to set up your own shop in this town if you're interested. In the middle of Prima you'll find a large building with an empty merchant stall inside of it.
Stand in front of the stall with Gobi and you will setup a merchant, people will come to you and ask to purchase something from your inventory. Turn them down two or three times and the price will go up each time you tell them No (this is basically you haggling). Once you are happy with the price you got - you can sell the item. You can make some gold this way if you'd like, or you can just progress with the story.. that's up to you!
Note: Some shops in Prima have very high prices and you could consider them scams. Be careful what you purchase here. I'd only recommend PoisonBW for Bo, one or two IcySH, one or two HornHT and a Javelin for Gobi. If you don't have something better then also get a PowerSD for Ryu.
When you're ready to continue with the story visit the building in Prima which has the picture of a fishman on the front of it (the picture looks just like Gobi). Inside you'll want to talk with the big blue fishman in the back, he'll tell you that they don't have any Gills in this town and that you'll have to visit Gant to get some.
Exit Prima and head south (and a tad bit east) until you find the location shown in my screenshot below. The wall will have some light coloring and no hard lines - this is how you know that you can exit the water by going into this area. use my screenshot below if you need help finding the area that I am talking about.
Exit the water and go to Gant by going onto land here
Once you're back on land follow the linear path until you reach Gant. If you'd like to be thorough search all of the houses in Gant for goodies, the southwestern most house in town will have an HrGlas which is a rather unique item - it lets you change from Day to Night and vice versa on a whim.
When you are ready to advance the story visit the house in the northern most portion of Gant. Go up all of the staircases to reach it, if you're having trouble finding it. Inside that house you'll want to talk with the Blacksmith, he'll ask you to bring some Goods in the chest behind him to Prima. Also, upstairs in that building you can inspect the drawer for an A. Ptn item which will give you a permanent increase to Agility when used. On your way out of town stop by the house with the roof that looks different than the others, search the drawer and you'll find a L. Ptn, an item that gives you a permanent Luck boost.
Now we can return to Prima with the Goods and exchange them for the Gills. Talk to the owner of the Guild just like the last time we were here and you'll exchange the items. A short scene will happen after you get the Gills, during which Gobi will talk to a ghost and then negotiate with the guild owner.
Basically, Gobi tells the guild owner that he can bring a warrior to get rid of the ghost but it's going to cost him. Turn down the guild owner twice and you can get him up to 6000G for you bringing Ryu here. Once the negotiations are complete exit the building and return to the island that Ryu is on. Speak with Ryu and the party will be reunited - now it's time to return to Prima and take care of that ghost!
After entering Prima you'll want to go inside of the Inn to the left - the second floor of this building is where you will find that ghost. Interact with the ghost to begin the boss fight against Morteo. This is an insanely easy boss fight, keep hitting him until he goes down and then watch the scene that follows. When the scene is over you'll have a new party member, the injured traveler named Ox will join your team.
Much like all of the previous characters that join your party - Ox will have his own special ability. Ox is able to smash breakable walls or objects to reveal new paths. You remember all of those breakable walls that we have passed before now? Including that rock we saw with the B. Rang inside Krypt? Well, Ox is the guy who will help us claim all of these treasures!
Now that we have Ox it's time to do some side tracking and grinding. You want to level up Gobi and Ox to reach level 20 - the best place to do this is the area around Prima. Before we advance the story any further, let's do some side tracking and use Ox's unique ability to collect some treasures and to get a very powerful upgrade for Karn, Gobi and Bo.
Make sure you get Karn the Shin spell in Gant!
Below are the optional items we can get with Ox from the various dungeons/areas that we have already explored. The only item on this list that is a requirement to get is the B.Rang in Krypt. Although, I strongly recommend you get the Karn spell from Gant too.
Gant (Karn Transformation Spell): Return to the building in Gant where you originally got the Goods that we took to Prima. To the left of this treasure chest there is a dresser that blocks a hole in the wall - use Ox to move the dresser over so that we can enter the hole behind the wall. Use Ox again to destroy the boulders blocking your way and then talk with the old guy (pictured above) with Karn. He'll teach Karn the Shin spell which allows him to fuse with Gobi and Bo making one super character. This also allows you to use all 5 party members in a single group since you can fuse the two extras into Karn.
Agua Tower: Warp to Romero and enter the tower. On the entry level floor you can use Ox to gather 3000GP, SilverBR, Life2 and Life. Additionally, if you didn't get the treasures from here before scroll up the page until you see the LifeAR picture and read that part of the guide.
Bleak Cave: Warp to Auria and travel east to the cave. You'll find a room Ox can break next to a room that Karn can open at the end of this dungeon. Inside of the room you'll find A. Ptn and L. Ptn.
Krypt: Warp to Arad and enter the Krypt to the southeast. Scroll up to the earlier part of this guide if you need to use the map for the dungeon... Or you can walk with Karn in the front of your party so you can avoid the traps (he will alert you instead of falling into it). Return to the part of the dungeon where you fought the boss and use Ox to smash the rock with the B.Rang on it. You need this item for the story so you got to get it now or after the next dungeon anyway.
The B. Rang item in the Krypt dungeon
After you acquire the B. Rang exit the dungeon and then use Nina's Warp spell to visit Gant again. From Gant you'll want to travel back to Prima and then from Prima you'll want to travel to a new spot on the surface which is just west of Prima. Our next destination is a dungeon called Hidden Fort which you can easily access by following the linear route once you're back on land.
Continue to Breath of Fire Walkthrough (Chapter 4)
Return to Breath of Fire Walkthrough (Chapter 2)