Training Continued

Some more training, thanks to the „gold” cheat. Tadana is now Oceana already, Vesbat evolved into Stobat, and Tinezard is higher in abilities. A very mundane play, so nothing exciting to look at. Now I plan to go to the cellar in the Cottage, and later to Misty Swamp to get the Nature Card from Shadow Elves.

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Training

This was a short play lasting 15 minutes, and I entered it with intention of training my three permanent fairies. I at first wanted to do that through battling wild fairies, but during the first fight my touchpad viciously kept being blocked and it was very irritating. I tried to clean it during the game, hence the rapid movements of the screen at one point. Since the fights were supposed to be only for training, I decided not to risk my nerves anymore, and went to the Fairy Garden trainer. I used golden carrots. Nothing more happened except that. There is some long way ahead of me when it comes to training. Tadana however only needs to be raised five levels up, so five carrots I need for her. But Vesbat needs to be trained for fourteen times yet until level 27. Tinezard I want to raise to the 20th level only. But their highest evolutionary stages are quite soon after level 25 for Tadana and level 27 for Vesbat. It's six or seven carrots more per each of them. So I think I will train them to the highest level. I need about 40 golden carrots to achieve all of this, and I have seven now. Therefore I will need to visit Tiralin. I'll buy 32 carrots, which will cost me 8 thousand. So that's my plan for the future.

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Decisions

I have made some decisions concerning the game.

I believe I will not get the Light fairy, because the most logical is the Suane fairy, and in the game she must be traded for Segbuzz in Tiralin's store. Of course then one needs to capture a second Suane fairy, but I think that this trade offer is a hint from the game that Suane is not so good or profitable at all. Also Suane has been widely advertised as a must on the internet for many years – this game is old – and I think these adverts come from ill-wishers. So I will not input Suane into my deck, and instead use my water fairy Tadana.

Also I will not get the Ice fairy, because it should be either Stone or Ice in the deck, and Stone is strong against Ice, which is another hint. Interesting that this strength has been hidden in the Effectiveness Table as it is one of the three mistakes of this chart. Also, the best Ice fairy is a bear, and it is programistically symbolic as a system harm, so I will follow this symbolics and not include the bear of Ice into the deck. Instead I will use my stone fairy Vesbat.

So the deck will be: Air, Psi, Fire, Water, Stone –

and I already have fire, water, and stone. They only need training. Fire needs steady growth, as a Tinezard does not undergo any additional evolution. Water Tadana will evolve into Aquana at level 25 and into Oceana at level 32. Stone Vesbat will evolve into Stobat at level 27 and Garbat at level 33. And he is a good choice for a permanent fairy also judging from symbolism of rock and number 27.

Psi I will have to catch next, and will need my current nature fairy to do this job, and I will include Psi into deck instead of Skelbo of chaos. And then I will have to catch Air, and Vesbat will largely help with that, and I will include Air into deck instead of Viteria of nature. And then I will have all my permanent fairies and a perfect deck.

Air must be Sirael, who evolves into Gorael and later into Fathrael.

Psi must be Mentaur, who evolves into Clum and later into Clumaur. I used to hear a lot of gossip about betterness of Clum in comparison with Clumaur – his higher evolution stage – and I even followed this advice when playing Zanzarah a few years ago, and I stopped the evolution of Clum into Clumaur, instead keeping him on the Clum stage permanently. However I don't remember the reason for all this gossip, and this time I do not intend to do it anymore – unless I find out some evidence for Clum being better than Clumaur.

I first wrote about the ideal fairy combination in my post Plans. The only pity is having to give up on Viteria, because she is a very strong nature fairy who's caused most of my victories so far, so she will be missed. But that will happen only when I catch a proper air fairy.

Boring Stuff

This was boring. I am not content with my Skelbo the chaos fairy, and will give it up. Tinezard I have trained a bit, and I defeated one Shadow Elf, and that's all. But the Elf was strong, much stronger than I expected. However none of my fairies got hurt in this battle, they only lost some mana, except for Vesbat, who however levelled up after that fully healed, and except for Skelbo, who died instantly upon entering arena. I think he may be bad luck, because chaos and dark is used by Shadow Elves, who are the main adversaries in the game. I used to have an aim of catching both Skelbo and Manox, the dark fairy, but now I think I will not use either of them, even if I manage to get a Manox. I have already established my perfect fairy deck in my Plans post and I will stick to it.

Because I don't want Skelbo the chaos fairy, I will not train him. But I have to focus on training Tinezard of fire and Vesbat of stone. I will feed them golden carrots often.

I have also caught 10 pixies already, and I know from this site here that the reward for this is the Key to the Cellar inside Cottage, and I finished my game in the Cottage, so maybe I will take a peek. Manox is possible to be caught there, and surely if I defeat him I will capture him, but I will not use him in the game. Chaos and dark fairies are in the Cellar, and Tinezard, Viteria and Tadana are very effective against them.

So there is something to do in the future. The Cottage Cellar is one thing, and the rest of Shadow Elves in the Misty Swamp is another thing. Plus I have to train Vesbat and Tinezard.
I just want to add that Light Spurs, the damage spell of nature fairies, is very difficult to bear in the game when used by the opponent, as it makes shooting impossible, and it is the main reason for problems with catching Tinefol in my past gameplay. In the today's game the first fight was with Worgot who also had this spell. I think it's the worst nature attack spell in the game, of course from the perspective of being attacked with it. And I did capture Tinefol thanks to Light Spurs, after I equipped my Viteria with it. So that's something to remember.

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Small Play

One more short film from the game – short because I didn't feel like doing anything serious, and I also simply wanted to wrap up my gameplay after obtaining Tinezard. Viteria needed healing and I achieved that through getting her on a higher level. I also checked Tinezard in battle against wild nature fairies, and he was good battling Corgot of level 9. I think I can go to Dunmore already with the deck which I have now, but I feel tempted to raise levels of Tinezard and Vesbat. But I would need golden carrots I think for that. And I'd rather not waste them on levels lower than 20.

When it comes to Skelbo, I don't know if I will train him at all. He's good against water and psi, but nature is also strong against psi, so I could catch a wild psi fairy only with Viteria. But until I get an air fairy, I will still need him to fight water. So maybe it'd be good to train him too. I don't know. And I haven't yet decided on the method of training. Perhaps I will battle wild fairies in the Enchanted Forest. Or in Dunmore. If I choose to use the Fairy Garden trainer, then I will need to use golden carrots all the time.

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Plans

I peeked into my plans which I made in the F1 post, and it turned out that I realised all of them, except that I didn't defeat all of the Shadow Elves in the swamps. So that's one of my next moves.

I then peeked into the Effectiveness Table, and found a third mistake in it, so I updated the Effectiveness post with this information.

I studied thoroughly the Table, to see the strength of my fairies now. I currently possess such fairies: nature, water, fire, stone, chaos. They are effective against everything except light and stone. To defeat light and stone I best need a psi fairy. However I can not have six fairies in my deck, only five. So I looked for the perfect combination of fairies, of which Eirik in Tiralin told me already.

To be perfect, which means effectively strong against all kinds of fairies, I need not only a psi fairy, but an air fairy. The air fairy can easily substitute both nature and chaos. So I then would have my water, my fire, and my stone, plus psi and air.

And even better it would be to substitute water with light and stone with ice in such a fairy deck. The combination looks like this:

Air

Water / Light

Fire

Stone / Ice

Psi

So it turns out that I will need the fire fairy until the end, which I think would do justice to the game and this site's logo – which comes from official game materials – as I will then stick to my freshly gotten Tinezard.

Until I get an air fairy, I will keep my nature and chaos in the deck, which means I have to train the Skelbo of chaos to make him evolve into Skeljaw and thus become better. I also should train stone and fire. This aim creates the second objective of my plans for my next moves. Training – and Dunmore's Shadow Elves.

I think training could be easy through attacking wild fairies of nature, because I would include Skelbo and stone Vesbat into duels and Tinezard could easily finish the nature fairies, especially the ones from the Fairy Garden. I'm thinking of doing this training also in the Dunmore Swamps, because nature fairies attack there too, but perhaps I should wait until Tinezard gets some levels higher. However I think it is not bad idea to do that even instantly.

Incredible

This has been difficult, but how fruitful! I entered the game after making a decision to search for Tinefol one last time. I wanted to comb through the first Eastern Enchanted Forest district, where the battle elf stands at the entrance, whom I already defeated, and where I caught the last pixie. But also I realised I did not check the doors from Tiralin and only used the ones through which I got there for the first time, and the city of Tiralin actually has two other sets of doors. One indeed turned out to be locked, the one near Eirik the dwarf, whose water fairies I also already defeated. But the other doors were open! – the ones reachable after passing next to the tavern and the magic store – and I used them. They lead also into the Enchanted Forest, a different area, called Northern Enchanted Forest, and according to this site here Tinefol also appears in this woodland zone. So I did some searching, and there are two road signs there, one showing the road to Dwarven Tower, and one to Dunmore. But both roads are blocked and the Air Card and the Nature Card are required to be able to use them. So there was not much of the area for me to search out Tinefol. And at one point I did find a place where always either a Pfoe or a Tinefol shows up. Which was already a success.

I battled many Tinefols in fact, because they all were tough opponents. I reloaded the game after each fight in which I didn't catch him. In first fights I was victorious, but there was no capture, so I decided to be more delicate in next fights and even changed my Viteria's spell to a weaker one, but that resulted in my demises. However the reload helped me out here a lot, and finally after one last reload I did capture the Tinefol.

So I took him to London, got rid of Corgot from my deck, and input Tinefol, and merged him with the Evolutionary Magic of Fire. Which changed him into Tinezard. Tinezard is exactly the fairy which can be admired on this site logo and background.

I feel very proud of myself. This has been a success.

You can read a bit about Tinezard here.

Oh, and there are three films, because I stopped the game first time in order to read up if Tinefol appears in the Northern Enchanted Forest, and the second time because I accidentally pressed a system button instead of Fn button when I wanted to pause the game. The core of my gameplay is in fact in the third movie.

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Luckless

This is most probably the most boring film on earth. It is a film of running around the forest, and nothing more. There is not a single fight, as I decided to use garlic to avoid duels. So I have spread garlic in massive amounts everywhere in the enchanted forest. However I had a purpose, and that purpose was to capture a Tinefol fairy. Yet not one such fairy approached me. I was even attacked by an Abnoberry, and he is not on the list of creatures living in the Eastern Enchanted Forest (see here). I prepared myself to duel only Tinefol, so I garlicked all else. So this is a film of running and distributing garlic, however I did gather some items and coins, and I did catch a pixie. I think it is reasonable to say that there is no other pixie in the area after all this intense search for Tinefol. I searched mainly the area directly next to the Forest Hut, which features a magical pond, but I did also peek into the earlier forest district, and no luck there either. I think I will give up on trying to get a Tinefol, and instead I will train Skelbo into a Skeljaw as quickly as possible, and will go to Dunmore to get that Nature Card. With it, I will have to go to the Forest Hut, but at least I will be then running through the same forest with a more sensible aim.

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High Hopes

Another film from the game, which registered my futile attempts to capture Tinefol. I was attacked by quite a few fairies on the road to the Forest Hut, but none of them was Tinefol. Some of them I garlicked with a garlic atomizer, and some of them I fought, which resulted in raised levels for Viteria, Tadana, and Skelbo.

I'm pretty sure I was in a good place for Tinefol hunting, but it is always a random chance of being attacked by a particular fairy, and he is in fact of rarer status than Corgot or Lana for example. And I believe I should go to Tiralin to buy some crystal spheres and more of lower level spheres for all my future hunts.

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Some Failures

This was an unhappy play for me. Because I didn't catch the Manox, even though he attacked me in the Catacombs. It was a quick victory, not a capture. So I reloaded the game but again was victorious instead of catching him. I did not try again, because the Manox was a dialogue NPC as well, and I considered it possible that he can not be captured, because of his NPC function. So I gave up on it, and there was no other dark fairy in the Catacombs. I did catch a Skelbo though. There is an area of Catacombs which I couldn't enter, and perhaps in there I could get a dark fairy, but I have not yet obtained a key to the iron gate which allows entrance into this area.

In the Catacombs I gathered the Evolutionary Magic of Fire. Now, with it I could get a fire fairy. But I need Tinefol first, apparently, as I read in F1 information notes. It is a pity, because at first I thought that maybe I can change any fairy into fire fairy with this magical stone, but no. A fire fairy is a good substitute for a dark fairy when it comes to duelling nature.

Skelbo turned out to be a bit disappointing, because even though he is very effective against water, he is also a bit weak overall, and my last fight ended up in his defeat, after which I resigned from further playing for now. It was the first fight with the use of Ocean Conch, but Skelbo was not good enough to defeat the water fairy by himself, and he quickly died. I don't want to have this defeat on my game account, so I just reloaded the game. So there was no Ocean Conch fight.

But Skelbo will be good, I think, when he evolves into Skeljaw, and I want to use golden carrots for that. He is currently on level 9, and he'll turn into Skeljaw at 22, and I will train him to change quickly. The training in Fairy Garden is less pleasant than normally in this matter, because Skelbo is chaos, and the training opponent is nature, so he is ineffective when fighting her. However the training fairy does not attack at all, so I can sacrifice myself and train Skelbo with her, feeding him golden carrots.

Nevertheless Skelbo was good when fighting Eirik in Tiralin, however I also had to use Viteria to win this fight against three water fairies. I thought I will gather some reward for winning that duel, but no. I thought I'd perhaps get the key to the gate inside Catacombs, to explore them further. But I did read on zanzarah.fandom.com that their lower areas were sealed by dwarves, so I have to wait until I meet dwarves, because definitely a key can be obtained from them. And apart from that nothing else is left than going to the swamps and getting the Nature Card from Shadow Elves.

I also checked on the same Fandom site, and learnt that Tinefol can be captured in the Enchanted Forest, on the road towards the Forest Hut. So perhaps I will go there and try to get him, before handling the Dunmore's Shadow Elves. I would evolve him into a fire fairy then. And I want to evolve Skelbo into Skeljaw also before fighting the Shadow Elves. So now it will be Skelbo, Tinefol, and finally Dunmore Swamps.

Even though I don't know if that Tinefol fairy is any good, and maybe I should resign from this idea. I don't know. I am a bit confused now to know if this decision is reasonable. I will eventually want to have a dark fairy. But until I don't have it, why not have a fire fairy made from Tinefol. If he is possible to be captured, of course.

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Some Successes

This has been 30 minutes of gameplay, and I did well. I tackled the Shadow Elves in Dunmore, and then bought spells from the magic merchant. And I went in Tiralin for the Key to Catacombs, but I decided not to enter them yet, because I was already a bit tired from the Shadow Elves. I used a golden carrot for the first time, and it was a good decision, because now my Sillia is a Viteria and she has a very nice firm amount of health points. And I also got the Ocean Conch! because I defeated the Shadow Elf General. With it I will be able to summon water fairies for duels to capture them.

Now, I need to go further into swamps to obtain the Nature Card, which can remove all the prickly bushes which grow in different areas, blocking paths. After that I will go to the Forest Hut, because I know that I will help there thanks to the Nature Card.

And I also need to enter Catacombs and capture a Skelbo and a Manox. That's the second objective. Also there is a magic merchant in there to buy more spells from.

My fairies did very well in all the duels, and I even had a chance to use Vesbat the stone fairy against an energy fairy, and the only fairy of mine whom I didn't use is Corgot.

I think that Catacombs are most important now to handle, because I need a darkness fairy, and also a fire fairy, however I don't know if any fire fairies reside in the Catacombs. But I need a dark fairy, and Manox is the best. While Skelbo the chaos fairy will be very effective against water, and I can duel water fairies now that I have the Conch, so I will need him. But Manox is more necessary, because dark is great against nature, and nature fairies attack in the Dunmore swamps constantly. So to get the Nature Card, I should first obtain Manox, and additionally some fire fairy (they are also strong against nature), and a chaos fairy (because I might meet water fairies there too).

So that's my plan for the future. First Catacombs, then Dunmore.

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F1

I've made myself notes from the Effectiveness Table because I couldn't access it in the game as my F1 key does not have this function – I actually read, by the way, that Zanzarah may not be fully compatible with notebooks, and my computer is a laptop, but apparently that's only the reason for cursor lag which is repairable through changing the resolution. And now it turns out I don't need the notes, because I did some more reading on the F1 button, and I discovered that when the F keys have an additional function (e.g. mute sound by F1), then the problem is solvable thanks to the Fn key. Fn key is in a different place on the keyboard than the twelve F keys, and the article on support.hp.com informs about that. And it also informs, amidst confusingly many other advices, that to make F keys work, they need to be pressed while the Fn is pressed.

So I visited my game to check that, and it's true. The F1 key works as a pause when it is pressed while holding the Fn button. And now I can access the Table of Effectiveness inside the game.

I did not play the game today except in the morning, and my plans encompass:

A)defeating as many Shadow Elves in Dunmore as possible – the Effectiveness chart will help me in that

B)visiting the Forest Hut in the Enchanted Forest – even though there might not be much to do there until I deal with all the Shadow Elves and get the Forest Card of Nature from them

C)gaining the Key to Catacombs – this is something which I already could have done, but I wasn't bright enough, however thank goodness I read up on that on zanzarah.fandom.com and now I know that the Key is in the house of the golden carrot merchant, and it's just waiting to be picked up

D)visiting the Catacombs in Tiralin and catching one of chaos and one of dark fairies, preferably Skelbo and Manox

E)buying at the magic merchant in Dunmore (water and psi spells) and at the magic merchant in Catacombs (ice and chaos spells)
I also today added one more paragraph to my Effectiveness post, because I found one more mistake in the Effectiveness chart. But I didn't feel like playing, however surely it won't take long before I get back to the game.

First Shadow Elf

A game at a very early morning, six o'clock. I trained my fairies a bit higher and went to Dunmore for the first time, where I found the Tiralin rune without fighting. However I did also fight with one Shadow Elf. He had three fairies against me, and I made a mistake because I thought that Skeljaw, his third fairy, is of Dark element, and so I put my water fairy Tadana against him, because Water is strong against Dark. However she was ineffective, and Sillia of nature defeated him instead. I later after leaving the game checked info on Skeljaw and learnt he is of chaos. When it comes to the Effectiveness Table, there's a bummer, because it does not show in my game. I tried pressing F1 key, like it has been advised, but it doesn't work. It should cause the pause of the game and information screens to show up, but it only works as a sound mute button and doesn't have the pause function. I tried to find out on internet if there is another way to have a pause in game, and also checked the control options inside game for this, but without success. So I will not be able to see the effectiveness info while in game. I will have to use the info chart before playing, and I have it on this site in the Effectiveness post, and on my windows desktop, so I should be fine.

I've done some shopping and nothing else important in fact. There are two movies of this morning's gameplay because I had to take a break for a bathroom soon after starting the game. In my next gameplay I plan to achieve some more successes in Dunmore, and will prepare notes from Effectiveness chart for that. I also plan to go to the Forest Hut, which is on the way from Fairy Garden to Tiralin.

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Effectiveness

Well, I entered the game ready to battle Seamus, however it turned out that he didn't want to battle me at all. I felt a bit amused at that since I talked about fighting him many times so far, and I was sure I would have to duel him. So anyway, I left the Fairy Garden through that easily unblocked second entrance, and got to Tiralin. Only two worgots attacked me on my way. But inside Tiralin there was Seamus again! and he wanted to battle me in fact.

The battle was stressful, because I considered it important, and I won it with use of both Sillia and Tadana. Sillia herself might have not succeeded all alone, so it's good I had Tadana trained already to ninth level.

Then I visited the merchant of golden carrots, but I did not buy from him anything, and then I started searching Tiralin for the rune. Instead I obtained a Swamp Rune, and at that remembered that the rune of Tiralin is in fact in the swamps. But Shadow Elves are there, and I knew I might have to duel some of them just to reach the Tiralin Rune, so I resigned from going there for now. Because in fact I wanted to do some reading about strengths of fairy elements, and to know what elements are nature and water fairies strong against. This is possibly the most important information required to have a successful game of Zanzarah.

Additionally, in the magic store I met another magic merchant and did not buy from him anything either, and when I was near him, I opened my menu, and the list of all items scrolled down by itself to only the last object, and my mouse cursor got blocked. It stopped working inside the menu. So I left the program – hence two movies of this gameplay, not one – and went back in, and after restarting the saved game everything was back to normal and menu was working again. So I wandered around Tiralin a bit more, and then, when I was leaving the city hall and opened my menu, again everything scrolled down to show only the final item, and the mouse cursor again stopped working for the menu. But I know it is repairable by exiting the program – simple reloading however does not solve this problem and the game must be entirely left and re-entered – and so I don't worry about it.

Having written all that above, I went on search for the table of fairy strengths and weaknesses, and was reminded that it is accessible in the game:

”You can call upon the Effectiveness Screen any time in-game by pressing F1. This menu also has several more information screens which you can go through with the arrow keys. It is also useful as a fast pause button, battles included.” (quote from: steamcommunity.com)

I wanted to put the Effectiveness Table into the site margin, but since it can be had in the game, then I won't. I'll just keep it here. I vaguely remember from the last time when I played this game, and it was some few years ago, that there is some mistake in the Table. I think that one strength/weakness is missing, and it may involve nature fairies.

After a while I just want to add that I found that mistake, because it is more of a typo mistake. Dark is strong against Nature. And that's not marked. However it is marked that Nature is weak against Dark. And I thought that's the only error of the table.

Unfortunately however it is not, because there is another mistake of the same kind. Air is weak against Energy, which is marked in the chart - but it is not marked that Energy is strong against Air.

These are actually serious mistakes.

Especially that that's not the end of them. There is a third error of the same type. Ice is weak against Stone - this is marked. What's not marked is this: Stone is strong against Ice.

I checked the Effectiveness Table very carefully and there are no more mistakes than these three.

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Tests and Trains

I returned to the game with the aim to train my fairies before a duel with Seamus. The duel I did not do, because it's too early in the morning and I prefer not to perform too exciting activities. But I did train my fairies: Sillia is on level 18 now, and Tadana is on level 9. And these two fairies are most important to me at this stage of the game. Vesbat the stone fairy will quite soon become strategically significant, so I will have to in the future include him into battles. For now he and Corgot are on beginnner levels.

I tested the new controls, and FEDS turned out to be very nice to use. The A button for flying turned out to be too good, because it worked so nicely that I accidentally fled during my first fight with the new controls. I was used to more failures from the flying key, and it resulted in an involuntary fleeing. So I put more attention to this key use in later fights and was careful not to end up fleeing again. FEDS is generally easier to use, and Spacebar is closer for the hand thanks to them, and the fights I considered to be more stable, and calmer.

I only did easy fights for training, and the next time I play, I will tackle Seamus who blocks the second entrance from Fairy Garden, because there's nothing else I can do in the game now.

I must however add that there is still a control problem during fights, because my touchpad gets frequently blocked. And touchpad controls the view and the direction of moves and shoots. So it is important. The block occurs often and I am almost always then completely helpless until it gets unblocked. I know that keeping it clean does help to some extent, and nothing else except that I can think of that would solve this problem.

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FEDS

I put off playing Zanzarah for some time, but here I am again. I had a two-day long break. Now, I had a worry, because of these unwanted crashes of the game during fights, which occur upon flying. I use left shift for flying. So I've decided to change my move controls, and I'll change them from WSAD to FEDS. That way I will be able to use A for flying, and this will keep me away from the thing which causes crashes.

Crashes take place by sudden closing of the game and appearance of a question box on Windows desktop, which asks if I want to turn permanent keys on.

I didn't know what is exactly the reason for crashes, and I thought it's capslock and that I press it accidentally, but the answer turned out to be more interesting.

"Jeżeli chcesz włączyć lub wyłączyć Klawisze trwałe jedyne co musisz zrobić to wcisnąć klawisz Shift pięć razy z rzędu. Spowoduje to wyświetlenie następującego okna." (quote from: pcworld.pl)

Of course since I use shift for flying, I have to press it many times quickly to have my fairy fly in a satisfactory way. Keeping the shift pressed in does not result in flying, because fairies fly thanks to jump energy, and therefore to have them fly, you've got to jump them up by short multiple presses of the button.

So now we know that shift is not good as any steering button.

And so I will switch my move controls to FEDS, and choose A as a fly key, and stick to Spacebar as an attack key.

I'm planning to continue my game pretty soon, and am very curious if my new button controls will pass the exam.
After writing all this, I have found out that there is however another option, and that's turning off this 5xShift shortcut in my system. And I have done that already too, so theoretically now the crashes shouldn't occur even if I remain using old key controls. But it maybe will be a bit better to change to new button layout, as it might be more comfortable. So I will try the new controls, and if they fail me, I will stick to using Left Shift and WSAD.

Replay

I replayed the game from the start, and I must say controls still cause problems. During fights my touchpad became blocked a couple of times, but what's worse, I don't know what it is that I'm clicking, but a couple of times I pressed some wrong button, just like once recently before, and got thrown out of the game. When that happens, I get a question from the system if I want to turn on permanent keys, and I don't know what button causes that question to pop up. But this always results in ending the game. It's a key next to left shift, which I use for flying. Anyway, I replayed it all, had several fairy duels, and defeated the vicious fairy of the silver sphere, which got me my Tadana the water fairy. I had to try that a couple of times, and during one of the battles strange glitch appeared, as my spacebar, which I use for shooting, was at the same time causing a switch to another fairy. Every time it happened during one particular fairy duel. Spacebar worked as a shooting button, but at the same time functioned as a key for switching to a different fairy in the collection. It was frustrating and I don't know why it happened, but it only happened during one fight. It's in a movie number three, and I would like to know why that strange mode was turned on during the duel, and why my spacebar had a second function. The strange mode did not occur before or after that, and later I had no problems with a spacebar.

I did get a Corgot, because I just couldn't refuse, it was as if a gift from the game. And I also got a Vesbat, so now I have four fairies in my collection. Everything is almost as it was in the previous gameplay, however Sillia is on level 17 now, and Tadana needs training. So I should have some more fairy duels to raise Sillia to 18 or 19 and Tadana to about 10, and then I will go get rid of that Seamus who blocks the other entrance of the Fairy Garden.

Oh, and I did finally use cheats, as I ran out of money while buying at the magic merchant, and I helped myself to „gold”, and therefore could end my shopping having bought all the important spells. I am glad I have a Vesbat, because he is a very strong stone fairy, and am happy with Tadana, but of course I don't need the Corgot, because I got Sillia. However I suppose he is better than Sillia and it's good to have him.

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Reactivation

And so I am playing again. From the start. Because I lost my saved game file. It was wiped out after I found a solution to the mouse lag in menus and text boxes.

Because hey – I found a solution to the mouse lag! I searched for answers on internet, and I learnt that many people nowadays have this problem. Its reason is what I already said in some previous posts - „modernity” of a computer on which this old game is played. The newer computers all don't allow Zanzarah to display properly. The mouse lag is the most common trouble.

And some sites suggested using external programs to fix this bug, but one of people on some gaming forum informed that changing resolution in the game is enough. I checked, and it is possible to change the resolution in Startup Menu from x16 to x32, and in fact three resolution choices there are among x32. The two higher x32s caused the lag to diminish, and I was already happy with the minimised problem, and the saved game was still in its place. But after that I discovered that the lowest x32 (640x480x32) makes the mouse cursor run as smoothly as the knife in warm butter.

And at the same time I also followed another advice to switch on Zanzarah in accordance with XP. And I did that, together with changing resolution to the lowest x32. And it turned out that I have lost my saved game.

I checked the game files and it is not there. So now I am playing the game again.

The game controls became switched to default after this change, and I input my choices again. When I was doing that, I noticed that the mouse lag persists a bit still in the menu, but generally it is much much better now. So I will from now play the game quickly, and the quickness will I hope be possible due to no or little mouse lag. Because that made my gameplay very long. And distressing.

What I lost is 1 hour 28 minutes of play. It is not so much, and with better cursor work, and better game orientation, I should be able to repeat my actions much faster. I am planning to do in fact the same things which I did during my lost gameplay.
Except that I do not want to catch the third fairy, because I think I don't need it. I caught a Corgot last time, whom I defeated to obtain Tadana in exchange for a silver sphere, and in fact I'd rather not catch any fairy. Tadana and Sillia will be entirely enough for me at least until I leave the Fairy Garden after defeating that boy that blocks the second entrance. That I have not done yet, but was close to it in my lost saved game. Anyway, it will be completely achievable to again own Sillia and Tadana.
When it comes to my plan of using "gold" cheat, I have not done that so far and will not do that until it is profitable. Golden carrots can't be purchased before getting to Tiralin, and that still would be ahead of me only, and the money I get in the game is enough for now to buy spells from the magic merchant in the Cottage.

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Heads and Shots

So this has been a fruitful day, or morning in fact, however I don't want to describe it in details because why spoil the surprises? You can watch all of it in the movie. The control of buttons during battles has gained new depth, because it turned out it does not happen when I use a water fairy. Because I have a water fairy now. The Tadana water fairy is controlled very easily and much more rarely I have problems with her. The problems namely are about the attack button. It is spacebar in my case. During fights my thumb goes off the spacebar without my will, as if it was pulled away by somebody. And it happens notoriously during fights with Sillia the nature fairy, while much more rarely during use of Tadana. It is possible it is a sign of something good, apparently it is a sniper problem. But I don't know much about this strange sniper curse, and would like to. There is a possibility that it means that nature fairies are the ones which will bring me most achievements in the game, because the pulling away of thumb from shoot button happens when I use nature fairies. But I don't think that's the answer. I used to know surely what such a sniper problem means, but now I don't remember.

Amy loses her head very often during this gameplay, and not only her. And unfortunately during last fight with a wild fairy I accidentally pressed some other keys and got thrown out of the game, which caused the recording to stop. I went back and started recording again, but it turned out that the fight was cancelled, as if it did not happen. Which is ok. The accident occurred mainly because I was smoking and fighting at the same time. So after returning to the game and seeing nothing bad has happened, I turned it off. Which is why the second film is very very short.

I actually also don't know the reason for the frequent head losses which take place during the game. It is apparently a thing of the same category as the sniper problem. Also there is another head thing, also frequent, when Amy, and sometimes one of other creatures, puts her head up in an abnormal position and stays like that for quite long, as if staring into the sky; however the head tilt is a bit too unnatural. The head tilts and head losses are apparently also symbolical, same as the sniper curse. Perhaps in the future I'll finally learn what they mean.

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