Escaping from Meridell Castle

It is simple. By helping Valrigard get as far through the castle dungeon as possible, you can not only get yourself a nice bundle of Neopoints every day, but you can get yourself one of the nicest looking avatars known to Neopia, and if you master the game (which you hopefully will after you are finished reading this!), you should be able to earn a trophy as well!

The Basics

Now, I bet you are wondering how you can possibly get past all the guards and traps, let alone escape from a castle that has never been escaped from before? Well, that is a difficult achievement to reach, but it can be done. First you need to learn the controls. The controls are fairly simple to learn and master.

Hold in the up arrow to fly.

Hold the right arrow to go right and the left arrow to go left.

Press the space bar to swing your sword.

After you practice flying for a while, there are some important things you need to know to escape from Meridell Castle. First, you cannot swing your sword while you are holding the up arrow. If you need to fly and defeat an enemy in mid-air, you need to quickly let go of the up arrow, swing your sword, and immediately start flying again before you fall back down. Second, there are some areas in the game that require you to fly farther up than you normally could. This is a simple technique to master, but requires some practice. You need to start flying like you normally would, but rather than holding the up arrow in, repeatedly tap it so that you waste less energy while still going up at a steady rate.

Now, I bet you are bored of reading all this and you want me to get to the good stuff, right? Not quite, I still have a few things to say to help all you beginners!

The Bad Guys

There are many baddies for you to get through in order to escape from the castle. The first one you see, and the most common one in the game, is a purple Grarrl. All it does is walks back and forth, and it is hardly a threat. Just get near it and swing your sword, and Poof! The Grarrl is gone.

The next enemy is the purple Korbat. It is like the Grarrl, except it is flying back and forth. The best way to get rid of these is to fly above them, let yourself fall down above them and hit the space bar before you fall into them! This requires some practice but it can easily be done.

One of the most common things to see is a row of spikes somewhere. They are the easiest thing to get past, but you die if you touch it. Just don't touch these and you'll be all right!

Next, there is a steel object that moves back and forth like the Grarrl. It has four points on it like a compass, but there is a catch: You can't kill this.

This is an indestructible enemy that you will simply have to avoid. It is not too hard because it doesn't surprise you by moving in a different direction without warning, but it is a pain when there are a lot of these in a small area.

Then there are the drops of red stuff that appear after level 5. Whatever this stuff is, it is dangerous because it kills Valrigard instantly on contact. Avoid this at all cost.

One of the more annoying enemies, the cannon aims at you every few seconds and fires a cannonball at you. Sometimes it has fire coming out of the end of the ball, which makes it go at a steady rate, but it also allows it to go up in the air without falling, and sometimes there will not be fire on the end, which makes it deadly if the cannon is facing straight down. It will go very fast, but if the cannon is aiming up, it will immediately fall down. You cannot destroy these so avoid them.

The next enemy is by far in my opinion the most annoying. The Splikey will spin around making itself look like a tornado, and it is invulnerable in this state. You need to be careful with these, because they don't move at a steady constant rate. They are very dangerous to be near because they can run into you without warning. You can only kill them when they stop spinning around. I would suggest steering clear of these because you can lose a lot of lives by trying to defeat them.

Next, there is the Flamey. These don't appear until towards the end of the game. You can't defeat these little fireball-like creatures, but all they do is go up and down at a steady rate, so they should be easily avoided.

Last, and definitely your worst nightmare, is the boss. When you reach level 20, you have to fight the final boss who can shoot fireballs at you, fly, and move very quickly. You have to wait for him to land and take a break to hit him, but believe me, it is easier said than done. He only rests for about 2 seconds and he shoots a fireball at you instantly when he is done. My advice: run from side to side constantly to avoid the fireballs, and when you think he is about to land, run toward him and be ready to jump clear of a fireball just in case. If you are close enough, run in and swing that sword before he blasts you!

Goodies

There are a few goodies to collect throughout the game.

The first one is very important. There are several little gold stars that are worth one point each. They are each worth one point, and there are so many of them that it is worth it to get them all (or at least as many as you can). For every 100 stars you get, you get an extra life! If you can get all of the stars in the first 5 levels, you get enough for one extra life already!

The second one is the mystery block. It is a yellow square with a white question mark on it. You can get various amounts of points from it, and they are worth getting. They are usually worth 1, 2, or 3 points, but can be worth 100 or even 500 points if you are lucky!

The final one is the energy orb. You don't see these too often but they completely refill your energy bar, so if you are low on energy and you are flying up, get one of these if it is available. It looks like a blue circle.

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Now that you know how to get through Meridell Castle, go earn yourself that trophy!