Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger

Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger is a game released for the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System.

Gameplay
The game borrows heavily from other major RPGs of the time, primarily Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda, and uses experience points, like most typical RPGs.

The player controls a female character throughout most of the game. A male character is played towards the end of the game. The game uses "Levels", HP, items, and upgrades. Three game saving slots are used, rather than passwords. Overhead view action oriented battles. Randomly generated battles while traversing the overworld.

Story
The game begins with an introduction telling of a prophecy that has come to pass, though not devulging much detail into the matter. The player controls a female character with no official name, however the player can name her anything up to six characters long. She wakes up within a township named Ehdo and the first "mission" is to rescue the kidnapped princess from an evil wizard. The main character then travels to the Tower of Gelve near Somusa. She then navigates through the tower, slays a red dragon at the end, and rescues the princess. As they leave, the tower collapses. Although the reward is the princess's hand in marriage, this is not possible because the main character is female.

The king instead throws a party with caviar that he bought, however it turns out he bought it from a mysterious masked man, whom poisoned it. The main character has to travel to a township named Riria to obtain medication for food poisoning. She then travels by boat across the ocean, only to find the bridge to Riria destroyed.

The main character has to travel to Highria to get a magic seed to fix the bridge with, however the citizens are scared of a scissor monster in the Tower of Gelve. The monster is invincible unless the main character owns a golden stone. After obtaining the stone from an old man deep in a cave, she goes to the Tower of Gelve and slays the scissor monster. As she leaves, she collects a magic ring which restores her health and the tower collapses, just like the first.

She heads back to Highria, obtains the magic seed, and heads back to the bridge, using it to fix the bridge. She buys a capsule from a hospital and returns to Ehdo's hospital, curing eveybody from food poisoning. When she gets to Ehdo Castle to inform the king, she finds out that the king has been turned to stone! She has to defeat the monster that cast the spell in order to turn him back to normal.

The main character heads to Ehdo to try and learn who turned the king into stone. Since people are gossiping about weird stuff happening in Somusa, she goes there. She finds out that the monster in a nearby cave is only vurnerable to golden weapons. Fortunately, there is a goddess in the northern lake who will turn stuff into gold if dropped into the lake. The main character gets some golden arrows, then heads into the cave and slays the monster.

However, this monster didn't cast the spell, so the king is still stone. She comes out on the other side of the cave to look for the monster. On her travels, she meets a sailor who won't let her on the ship because she's a foreigner. However, she meets an old man who gives her a letter to use the ship regardless. When she gets off the ship, she goes to the North Tower to slay the monster that resides there. Upon its defeat, the main character finds a pair of Sky Shoes and leaves. As with all the other towers, it collapses.

This monster didn't cast the spell either. The main character is told that a woman can help someone with Sky Shoes to get into the Sky World. She goes to find the woman and is promply sent up. An old man in the Sky World says that magic rope, that can be used to climb mountains, can be found on an island below a small hole in the clouds. The main character then drops through after a search and finds the rope. She uses it to reach the township of Zellia, where there is only one house. Inside, an old man says that the princess is an impostor! He gives the main character a Crystal of Truth, so that she may enter the Phantom Tower, a tower with five fake images that look like it to confuse anybody trying to enter.

Using the Crystal, the main character manages to destroy the images and enters the real tower. She destroys the monster at the end of this tower and rescues the real princess. As they leave, the tower once again collapses. They go to Ehdo Castle, where the impostor is revealed to be none other than the wizard! The main character and the wizard battle, in which the main character wins. As the wizard dies, he plans to transfer his spirit into the body of a dragon in order to become invincible. He also plans to block the sun out in order to freeze everyone to death.

After the wizard dies, it is revealed that the main character is actually a male, who was cursed by the wizard. This marks one of the earliest examples of transsexualism in video games. He has to kill the dragon and the wizard before they completely merge, thus becoming invincible. He heads to the Town of Baig, where they wouldn't let him go in before because he was a woman. He passes through the ice dungeon into the Final Tower. He fights the wizard again, defeating him and sealing him in the Legendary Sword found inside the tower. As he leaves, the tower, as with all others, collapses.

He heads back to the king to inform him of the wizard's defeat. The princess wants to marry him, but the main character refuses, stating that he must go back home. She follows him to his village, where the game ends.