Guys, this is making me want to load up the game and play it again. I loved this game SO much!! I think I'm going to load it up and hope that my recent video-driver update hasn't made running the game properly, problematic.

Marita, I am at best a complete action klutz and was at first all thumbs with the fairy fights. But after a while it became like second nature to me--and my son was astounded when he came by and watched me in the middle of a big fairy fight at one point and I was kicking serious fairy butt. It really is worth persisting. The environments are fantastic and the whole game just has a tremendously magical feel to it; I've never experienced anything else that compares to it. It is unique!

I WISH, I WISH that the add-on to this game hadn't been canceled. It's one of my biggest gaming sorrows.

I do hope you enjoy the game, cailyn!

JohnBoy, when it says you've lost all your fairies, all the game will do is bring you back to the point before you had the fairy fight. At that point, you can try the fight again, or you can go back to training them up to higher levels back at the village of Endeva, so they can beat the other guy next time.

Also, when you fight and only one of your fairies has bitten the dust, you can revive them with the herbs, and then build their strength back up with the healing potions.

BUT, there's a cheat for the healing potions. Once you revive the fairy (you have to buy the herbs), close out the fairy book and type "health", then open it up again and your fairy will have all of her health back. With the cheat for gold (crystal works the same way), all you really need to buy are the carrots (a GREAT way to level them up quickly and easily), herbs, medicine, and the spheres for capturing wild fairies.

MaG, don't you dare give up. This is a beautiful game.

Maybe I need to more.

But I end up

At the end

I don't mind - snicker. I deserve it.

Melia,

I only have the one nature fairy I chose at the beginning of the game. Am I suppose to have more?
I need to look for my manual. All my stuff is messed up and scattered from Katrina. Its a good thing I wrote the cd key number on a piece of paper and tucked it in the sleeve or I would not have been able to even load the game.
Also in the village I was told to look for a bag to catch the pixies in. I never did find the bag. Do I need to go back and find it. Also I remember one pixie that was in a shop tormenting the shop owner. I thought I was probably suppose to find the bag and capture the pixie for her. Or perhaps I go back and do that later?
Anyway I am off to find my manual. Any answers to the above questions would be appreciated.

JB, you will be able to get the pixie bag a little further down the road; then, you can not only get that pixie in the shop but many, many other pixies scattered around Zanzarah as well (and will be rewarded for doing so).

You start out initially with only the one fairy you chose but after you win fairy fights you will be given the option to capture defeated fairies and add them to your collection. You can build up a huge collection of fairies and pick and choose which you wish to train up and use in fairy fights. Once you get more fairies than there are slots for, the remaining fairies are left in London and you will be able to go back there and swap them in and out at your discretion. Later on in the game, you will see that certain types of fairies are better at defeating other certain types of fairies.

The command for bringing up the table of effectiveness within the game is F1; there's lots of information there. Just keep using your right arrow key to scroll through the pages and you will find the effectiveness table.

I just installed the game myself and am pleased to find that the game runs perfectly at the highest resolution, even with the latest Catalyst drivers. With an earlier driver I had a glitch where the icon that showed my coins on the main screen was blacked out, but everything now shows perfectly. I'm very pleased!

Not having the manual is a drag. I hope you can find yours. Replacementdocs doesn't have it, unfortunately.

This game is nonlinear; you don't have to worry about doing things in a specific order. There are some areas you won't be able to access until you've accomplished certain things, but you can pretty much go around and explore and do whatever you want.

Fortunately you really don't need the manual - all the commands (if I'm remembering correctly) can be accessed via one of the F keys, and as Marian said, a ton of other information.
Remember you need a globe to capture each new fairy. You can find them or buy them in the shops. There are also different colored globes - the more advanced fairies will need better globes, but you won't run into that problem for a while probably.
When you can capture a fairy, a block will pop up asking if you want to capture the fairy.

Oh yes! Very important info I left out about the globes, Nickie! Thank you for mentioning that.

This game is so wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that after having spent some time with it today, I was moved to write to Funatics and beg them to reconsider publishing the add-on (which was well under way before it was canned, based on what I have read). What the heck--I know my puny little note won't move mountains, but I felt better after having done it.

Thanks everyone. I am getting ready to load it up again. Can't find my manual. I think I know where it is but I would have to move to many things to get to it. If my back is better tomorrow I may try moving things out of the way. I really need to do this any way. I have about 200 manuals in this particular box. Will be back if I need help.

Nicki I already won 2 fairy fights and I was not asked if I want to capture them.

If the fairies belong to someone else, you can't have them. Also if you win a training fight, you can't have those either. Out in the wild though, you should get the option, unless they run off (and they will if they can). You have to be close in to them, I think. It used to be so aggravating to have them run giggling off and disappear.

Marian, I think that was a good idea - certainly can't hurt. The last I heard they hadn't ruled it out, but were busy with their other games. And remiss of me - thanks as always for all the very descriptive info you give on these games!

You also need the right globes in order to be able to capture them (or you won't be given that option).

Nickie, my memory is a bit rusty on some things but it's coming back to me as I begin playing the game again. It's a pleasure to post about this game.

I am not going to be able to play anymore until I find my manual. There is just to much I dont understand ,and cant figure out. Like how do I know when to give the fairy mana and how much? Why do I lose all my captured fairies when I lose a fight. Do I need to fight them again to get them back? Why when I save my game it does not save it at the point I save. The save brings you back to the beginning of the last save point no matter where you save. So why even have a save system? I could go on but I wont.
Ya'll say a novena that I find the manual.

JB...Question 1: look at your fairy after each fight. Hit the "enter" button. It'll bring up the in-game menu. Across the top of the menu you can click on (from left to right) "save game", "open rune menu", "open fairy collection", "map", and "object menu". At the far right is the "X" that'll take you out of the menu...or hit "enter" again to get out.

In the "object menu" you'll find all the fairies you've collected, with your top 5 shown on the left side. Their pictures will be there and their strengths, etc. There will be a number that looks something like 15/15 or 30/30. The first number shows how much mana is left. The second number is how much they can have when they're full. If the first number is low, for example 8/15 or 15/30, you need to give them mana.

Question 2: If you lose al your captured fairies after a fight, the game takes you back to the point just before the fight....so they're not all lost. In my previous post, I addressed this. Just back up a page and you'll find it.

Question 3: the game will save your progress as far as objects collected, fairies collected, fairy strength, etc, but when you quit the game, it will always take you back to the entry point of that level. If you already collected a rune or some other object at that level, you still have it, you just won't be at exactly the same spot on that level - crummy but workable.

You really don't need the manual. A lot of this stuff is learned on the fly....so to speak. LOL.

Any more questions? We're here to help.

Whew! Lots of lost fairy masters out here...can i try to help?
First, in a fairy fight, you are shooting and wounding the fairy that is attacking you. You can see his/her health by the red bar above their head. The only way to capture a wild fairy, is to beat it until it's too weak to resist...gads that sounds so brutal! But really, you can shoot your spells at them, wound them, and if you have the spheres, when it gets weak enough, the caption "capture this fairy" pops up. You can then either shoot agian to kill, or you can tag the weak fairy and capture it if you have any spheres to hold it. After you catch a fairy, you will get asked if you want to catch it, this is in case you caught it and don't really want it cause you already caught a bunch of those fairies! You do need a few of each fairy, because they evolve as they level up and to fill your fairy book, you need all forms of evolution.
Note that when you catch a wild fairy (the one you fought and caught) it's level goes down! You caught a wild fairy, and made it tame, that brings the level down some okay? Those wild ones fight dirty and you are now gonna teach it to fight clean! Sorry, couldn't stop laughing at that one!

Next, Johnboy my friend! How ya doin? Mana, well, if you hit the enter button, it pulls up your fairies, your inventory, your spells, and more! So when you look at your fairies, you can see numbers like 90/100...if this was your Mana, it would mean you have 90 out of 100. Now if it said 99/100, that means you're only short 1 little point to be back in full mana. You'll get to know how much mana you need to be at peak performance...but as far as how much, well, different mana potions give different amounts. If you need 1 point of mana and feed your fairy 10 points, well, you lose the nine points. You can't overfeed your fairies anything. They know what they need in their diets! Oh there I go again!
Saves...when you load a saved game, you are saving all the stats - all the leveling up, all the fights done, all the fairies captured, etc etc, and when you load, you will start out at the opening point with all those stats.. Like when you left Rafi's lovely garden cave area and went to the village of Endiva, just before you entered the village, you hit a short black screen moment right? That will happen in several places in this game, and that is always where you'll start back up after your last save...just when you save, you keep your stats. If you lose a fight and all your fairies get killed, you start over from exactly that point, the short black out screen - it's the moment when the game keeps your place for you. Does that make sense??

Okay, I'm afraid this post is too long...so I'm gonna go now!

Melia! :kiss:

Great minds huh?

OK. You guys have convinced me to reload this game and start fighting fairies again! I got through it the first time with no cheats and just had a ball. John Boy, I didn't use the manual at all.. just learned "on the fly" like Melia says. It did take me forever to learn how to fly! I though I could just hold down the mouse button the they would keep flying. NO! You have to keep "lifting" them! When I finally figured it out, I had far too much fun flying as high above the fighting fields as I could! Some of the stages are really beautiful from on high!

Woo hoo, Drac! Glad we got you back in the game! LOL!

OK all the stats are still there when I reload but my 2 captured fairies are gone. Are the captured fairies suppose to still be there after you've lost a fight? Cause if they are, where are they? The last fight I had I had my nature fairy and one named blum something that I captured. I lost the fight using Blum... Now she is gone. Even when I reload the game. I know this cause when I went to repair them with mana the only one showing up on the chart was my original nature fairy, Sillia, I think thats her name.

There's a lot of help in understanding the game in the walkthrough at gamefaqs:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/search/index.html?game=zanzarah&platform=5

JohnBoy, you've got me stumped. Looney, have you heard of this happening?

When you lose a fight, the fairy is supposed to be in your stats, just the mana is all gone and she needs to be revived. Have you been saving right after you capture a new fairy?

That is very strange. I never had any totally disappear even if they lost in a fight. Could they be in London?

Drac, they'd only be in London if he had more than the five he can carry. How many did you have, JB?

I bought this game when it first came out.The guy at EB store looked at me kinda funny. Started playing the game & my daughter Katy watched me play,after that she would always bug me to play and she would watch.Kinda was a hard game and a loooong game.We never made it past the last boss fairy fight,I got tired of leveling up our fairy collection.Still have the saved games on file,and Katy still mentions this game from time to time,we both liked it. Dunn.

I agree Melia, I've only had that happen when I didn't save my game.
Will you try it again JB? I sure hate to see anyone give up on such a wonderful experience! Just wait till you get to see Tinefol! Gads he's such a treat!

Ah, so many fairies..I love them all! Okay, not all, but most!

That's what I thought, Melia. I was just grasping at straws, as they say! I just spent about 3 hours in the game and I have 4 fairies. I leveled each of them up to at least 15 before I went to Tiralin. Of course when I went into the Enchanted Forest on the way to the swamps, I finally ran into a level 31 Silia. We came close, but as I expected all 4 got defeated. This is what I was trying to do to figure out what was going on with JB. I was simply returned to the entrance of Tiralin with the fairy stats I had before I entered. No one was missing even though they were all defeated.

I WANT my Jumjum, but haven't found him yet! Oh, and looney, the Tinefoil. What a hoot with his tiny little helicopter thingy! That is worth playing the game all by itself!

Melia, didn't you get one of each and fill up the whole fairy book last time you played?

Yes I did. How did you know? I sent a picture of my filled fairy book to Looney and kept one for myself. I keep thinking I'll go back to the endgame and play different fairies to see how they do, but I've been too lazy to do it. It's fun just to wander around Zanzarah, though and enjoy the scenery and the music.