| Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Game Arts |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo Entertainment System |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Action role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Media/distribution | ROM cartridge |
Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger, known in Japan as Faria Fuuin no Tsurugi (ファリア 封印の剣, lit. "Faria: Sealed Sword"), is an action role-playing game (RPG) for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was developed by Game Arts and published by Hi-Score in Japan in 1989 and by Nexoft in North America in 1991. It has many of the same action-RPG elements from RPGs like Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series, and Crystalis by SNK, while also featuring some turn-based elements akin to the features of The Magic of Scheherazade by Culture Brain using experience points while mostly engaging real-time combat.
The player controls a female character with no official name, referred just as a "Soldier" in the introduction. She wakes up within a township named Ehdo and the first quest is to rescue the kidnapped princess from an evil wizard. Although the reward is the princess's hand in marriage, this is not possible because the Soldier is female.
The King instead throws a party, but the food was poisoned. So, the Soldier has to travel to a faraway township to obtain medication for food poisoning.
When the Soldier gets back to Ehdo Castle to inform the king, she finds out that the king has been turned to stone. She has to defeat the monster that cast the spell in order to turn him back to normal. After long travels in the northern continent and in the sky world, the Soldier reaches the township of Zellia, where an old man says that the princess is an impostor. He gives the Soldier a Crystal of Truth, so that she may enter the Phantom Tower, a tower with five identical fake images to confuse anybody trying to enter.
Using the Crystal, the Soldier manages to destroy the images and enters the real tower. She destroys the monster at the end of this tower and rescues the real princess. They go to Ehdo Castle, where the impostor is revealed to be none other than the Wizard. As the Wizard dies, defeated by the soldier, he plans to transfer his spirit into the body of a dragon in order to become invincible.
Also, after the wizard dies, not only is the curse that turned the King broken, but also the one that turned the Soldier into a woman. He now has to kill the dragon and the wizard before they completely merge. He passes through the ice dungeon into the Final Tower. He fights the wizard again, defeating him and sealing him in the Legendary Sword found inside the tower.
He heads back to the king to inform him of the wizard's defeat. The princess wants to marry him, but the Soldier refuses, stating that he must go back home. She follows him to his village, where the game ends.