Just did another playthrough

[Simon]

Been a while, so I decided to replay it again from scratch.

I used Chani, Halk, Stamm and Gando.

Took a few hours. I only obtained 2 boots of speed

Everyone was pretty much equal in magic skills thanks to excessive war crying.

I got lost in the rat part for AGES because I forgot I stepped through an invisible wall.

The skull key staircase seemed to bug because it was pretty much useless. I thought you could go all the way up to the firestaff level until you picked up the completed firestaff and walked across the floor while holding it, but for me it was locked off right from the start. Only found a couple of skull keys so I ended up not using it, which made for some crazy running around. Would like to know what happened there, perhaps I missed a switch?

I seem to remember more stuff, I think I must have skipped quite a lot of content, I only saw a couple of spiders, and a couple of knights. Gigglers didn't pose any problem at all, they didn't steal anything in my primary hand which was odd.

I notice there's no war cry sound unlike the amiga version (I'm playing csbwin) and torches look different on the ground to the amiga version. Also no ending animation where the firestaff rebuilds the town (I don't think that was in the amiga version but maybe).

Gando was the most annoying because I had to chain feed him so many stamina potions to keep him from slowing the party down, even with him wearing the boots of speed! Everyone else was fine! Not sure what stat affects that but I won't choose slow characters that do that for my next run. Four fighters would be best, bit of war crying at the start and you're sorted. I didn't use many spells really because regenerating mana takes too long. Skipped most of them.

Game still holds up pretty well

[Ameena]

Since you were playing the CSBWin version, that's why Thieves weren't stealing from your off-hand, as CSBWin is the Atari version and they never did so in that version. This is the version I'm familiar with, having played it back when I was about six, and thre was no mention of any town or anything, just the little speech from the Grey Lord about how you figured out the true nature of the Firestaff and all that.

Bear in mind you never have to take four people - my preferred number is two. Having less than four means everyone gets more turns at attacking stuff (physically or magically), therefore a greater share of the overall exp as you go through the dungeon. You can carry less but then, there isn't a great deal of stuff that you actually need and unless you get stuck somewhere for hours, you don't even need much food either. If you want people's mana to regen faster, you need to up their magic levels as this increases their Wisdom, the stat that affects mana and mana regen.

Don't know about the problems with the Central Stairwell. It's locked on all levels until you unlock each one with a skeleton key, but there's one key too few so you need to skip one - I tend to miss out Level Twelve because it's horrible, and I never go back there once I've left with the Master Key and all that .

[Jan]

Good, good! I also replayed DM this summer (a solo run - reincarnated Chani, but I tried to go everywhere and see everything so it took me many many hours).

There can't be any bug in the skull key staircase in CSBWin. I can't really understand your problem there but perhaps you forgot to open the stairway at the top (i.e. on the Ghost arena level)? Could you explain your problems in more detail? There are one too few keys for the stairway but all of them are quite well hidden of course.

In CSBWin the gigglers only steal stuff from your left hand (i.e. the non-action hand). There really is no war-cry sound in CSBWin and there's no ending animation (thanks God because, honestly, it was rather horrible ) and there are many other subtle differences from the PC or Amiga versions.

EDIT: Damn, Ameena was faster (than light) again!

[Simon]

Fair enough, yeah most of my stuff is based on the Amiga version which I played first: Gigglers definitely stole from both hands, and there were a few other differences. As I recall, the blue trolls looked different as well. It's been a while though.

I probably did forget to open the top of the stairwell which confused me.

I have done it solo in the past with Stamm and Tiggy, but it has been a while

[Saumun]

The Skeleton Key stairway doesn't go to the Firestaff level. The top of it is a level below (ghosts/skeletons/mummies).
There is another staircase that runs from the southern end of the Firestaff level down to Chaos level. Maybe this is the one you remember?
The two staircases can be connected by opening a wall via a green or blue button i think. Can't remember the colour, or which level the button is on though.

I could be wrong, but i think the ending animation that you mentioned is only on the pc version.

[Jan]

Can't remember the colour, or which level the button is on though.

It's green and it's on the Ghost Arena level. It creates one of the most beautiful mishmashes of stairways at one spot.

[Simon]

So I did another replay with 4 warriors, stamm, halk, daroou and hissssa, cos I run really fast and puny wizards get tired and run out of stamina.

Yep my first playthrough I totally forgot/missed the first skull stairwell entrance thing which made it a nightmare, this was way better!

Didn't find the winged key, nor did I see any other stairwell from the firestaff down, but I was legging it from those stone golems.

Breezed through until I hit the first ghost which I had no way to kill since no-one had any mana or real spellcasting ability... Luckily got the 2nd vorpal blade this time through so could do some decent damage.

Got lost quite a bit on some of the levels, only found 2 boots of speed again including the one locked in the room (I can remember roughly where the third one is but couldn't find the hidden wall, and I can't remember where the 4th is at all!)

Stamm made it to artisan wizard and priest with 68 mana by the end.

Lots of dispel staffs vs those water blobs which seem to have insane HP.

Ran past a lot of monsters.

Couldn't figure out if armor actually did anything.

Fun stuff!

[Saumun]

In the part where you open the Ra door with the Ruby key, before you get to the room with the scrolls and the last Ra key... There is a small button in the long passage (the one with the elements).
This opens a wall at the opposite end of the passage. Going through this eventually takes you to the other staircase. After entering this area there is another small button in the next long corridor. Pressing this and then backtracking a few paces gets you the Winged key.

Boots of Speed:-
Behind one of the four ornate doors on the Firestaff level (turquoise key).
Behind a fake wall on the Scorpion/Wizard Eye level (need to find a couple of small switches to get to it).
Behind some fake walls at the end of the Water Elemental/Trolin level.
In the room full of Oitus on the next level down (Knights).

[Ameena]

Cool, are you going to take that team into CSB now and see how well they do?

[Simon]

I played CSB on the amiga and a couple of times on the PC, I end up getting lost and going around in circles so it's not much fun Even using a map/guide I couldn't figure it out.

I can't take the same party to CSB either cos they are much too low level compared to starting CSB characters.

Thanks for the BOS locations, I remember flicking those switches but I couldn't figure out what they did!

[Jan]

Oh, c'mon, don't be such a coward, we'll help you! No problem with taking your party now to CSB, believe me. Give it a try, you'll see it's not that hard.

[Saumun]

Yeah... Go for it!

[Ameena]

Yeah, don't worry about getting lost - that's pretty much the entire point of CSB until you get to know the different sections of the dungeon - even then it's not always obvious how to get between them . And we've all been there before, got lost, died horribly in multiple different ways (plenty of them self-inflicted), and so on. When me and my dad finished it back in the early '90s we didn't have any maps or walkthroughs or anything . And now you have all this help - not just the Encyclopaedia and stuff, but also you can of course just ask us and we can give hints and all that kind of stuff . In terms of skill level I would say having the various skills around at least Adept should be enough. Personally I never get NInja past Journeyman but the rest are usually between Adept and Lo Master. But that's with just two characters who both do lots of spellcasting and hitting stuff (and both permanently have a flask in their off-hands so I can make potions as and when I need them - I never carry spare flasks or pre-make potions), rather than spreading it all out between four.