I decided to give Forsaken Land a replay, it's been many years since I've played it, and I managed to make it all the way to level 3 before getting COMPLETELY EVISCERATED. Maybe I'm not remembering the mechanics correctly, but I thought you could only get ambushed, I.E. the enemy strikes first if they run into your back, or fall on you, but I directly ran into this mob facing forward, and still got ambushed. It was 2 ninjas, a minor daimyo and a monk, and each ninja got critical kills, and the minor daimyo nuked a squishy with creta. 3 men down in one fight and there was fuck all I could do about it
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I do remember at some point you could sell monster parts needed to make the magic stones to this guy on level 1, and then you could buy back infinite of them to level up your spell levels, but I forget if it's level 4 or level 5 that I gotta beat to unlock it.
And there's also a class orb merchant on level 5, which I mostly used to equip characters with gear their classes couldn't use, like putting shurikens on my sorcerers/bishops so they get ninja's killing blow % on ranged AAs, and giving them spare knight armor I find, so if I do get back attacked, it's not absolutely guaranteed they die.
I do remember at some point you get soo much money from vendoring equipment drops that maxing out spells, and buying class orbs is no longer a problem.
I haven't bothered with a guide, because I played through once without one, and the quests aren't too complicated, I might have to look up how to complete some of the more obscure ones, but floor maps, what kinda cuck uses someone else's floor map in a cRPG game that maps it out for you?
Early on, the game makes you sorta roll the dice in certain situations. Such as with a group like 2 front row ninjas + monk & minor daimyo on the back row. Minor daimyo could nuke your sorc or priest, but they might target the front row, which would survive, and just need to be healed after the fight, so the choice becomes whether you want your front row to get RNG'd by ninjas so you can spell cancel AA the back row, or do you restrict shot to protect 2 front row members from getting RNG'd? The best option is to restrict shot to protect 2/3rds of the front row, but it doesn't guarantee you come out of the fight without a rip. The ninjas might decide to RNG the the guy you don't have restrict shot covering, or the daimyo nukes your priest, or potentially both. If you get in enough battles, and it's going to go badly for you at some point. You avoid that situation entirely later on by simply using dual cast jateal to nuke the whole squad, but they can still first strike you.