Kingdom Hearts Mushroom Hunting FAQ 1.06 English/JIS FAQ Copyright of Casim Neff (mecasim) 2002 ..last updated September 29, 2002 (small additions/corrections, stopped using inline references to submitted material as it started to look messy. I will likely remove/reformat all current inline references. Detailed credits are still and will always be at the end though) This FAQ was created with with the intent of allowing free unlimited use/copy/distribution to anyone who so wishes to use it. Read: This FAQ is intended for personal, private use. This FAQ may not be used for means of profit, or trade, except by me, the copyright holder. The one exception I make to this "no-business" rule is that (as of FAQ version 1.00) any internet site may post/host this FAQ freely, as long as the site ONLY uses banner-advertisments as a means of generating revunue. Sites/services which require memberships (pay or otherwise), pay-per-view, or any other direct means of generating revunue besides banner-advertisment are not permitted to use/host this FAQ. If you or your site don`t fall under the above, please do not use my FAQ. If you do, go for it, you don`t need to mail me for permission. Thanks in advance. Table Of Contents ------------------ I. The Long Intro to FAQ. II. The White Mushroom (ホワイトマシルーム) A. Intro B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure C. Where to Find White Mushrooms D. Final Notes on the White Mushroom III. The Black Fungus (ブラックファンガス) A. Intro B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure C. Where to Find Black Fungi D. Final Notes on the Black Fungus IV. The Rare Truffle (レアトリュフ) A. Intro B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure C. Where to Find the Rare Truffle D. Final Notes on the Rare Truffle V. General Hints, Tips, Comments.. VI. Japanese to American Name Changes VII. The End, Thanks, Contact.. ================================================================= ================================================================= I. The Long Intro to FAQ. ================================================================= ================================================================= First thing first, this FAQ has Japanese text in it, so if you see any garbage text when looking at it, its cuz you don`t have Japanese fonts installed correctly. Don`t worry tho this FAQ doesn`t have much raw Japanese, only where certain names are concerned, and even then I have English translations (which I am borrowing from Yuna10`s FAQ for consistency). Also this FAQ was originally made for the JP version of Kingdom Hearts, so errors probably abound. That being said.. I think you might be wondering why a mushroom FAQ? Especially considering some of what your about to read has already been covered on various message boards on the net... namely the rather well known fact now that the mushroom monsters in Kingdom Hearts drop the only source of Full Water (満たされるしずく) (Mystery Goo in the US version) which is needed to complete the some of the more important item creation recipes in the game, namely Sora`s Ultimate Weapon. But, regardless, even with the mighty message board knowledge base, the mushrooms tend to be few and far between when it comes to hunting them and many people I bet don`t know where they can find a good supply of the mushrom Heartless monsters. Nor is there a complete guide on how to take down all the mushroom guys, including the elusive jumping type. And...I`ve yet to read anything about the other mushroom exclusive dropped items. So, got your attention now? GREAT! Read on, and learn the secrets o` the fungi, for I have spent many sad hours becoming the mushroom master and I need someone to read my sad tale! One last thing tho, although I have taken an ill amount of time fighting these three lil critters, I may of course be yet missing something (especially where it concerns mushroom spawn areas, special item drop significance), US release names for some items etc.. so if you`d like to add anything, please drop me a line at mecasim@yahoo.com. Or if you`d like to challenge my self-proclaimed mushroom mastery or just generally flame me, thats a good address too. Ok, I`m out of chit-chat, so lets start this bad boy FAQ now. First up, the White Mushroom... ================================================================= ================================================================= II. The White Mushroom (ホワイトマシルーム) ================================================================= ================================================================= A. Intro --------- This is the mushroom with the red hat and white robes who is the one that most people will likely encounter first in the game, probably on the Tarzan stage. Pretty much an enigma on how to beat them, until you hear/read someone say, "Use Magic!". How obvious, considering they disappear very quickly if you attack them normally, leaving you with no dropped items. But what magic to use? And how many times? B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure -------------------------------------------- Well, you need to cast 3 spells on it to send it away properly to get an item (mess up once and it`ll go away with no items dropped). The magic you need to use depends on the mushroom`s "moods" though..full list below.. Fire = Use when it crosses its arms and looks like it is shivering. Blizzard = Use when leans back and fans itself, or according to CJayC, it looks like it is giving the "Bring it on" taunt. Thunder = Use when it has a light over its head which is casting a shadow on its face. I believe this is to show that it`s depressed and needs some encouraging as it looks very much like how manga characters sometimes are drawn when depressed. Cure = Use when it has fallen on the ground. Note that you will need to get pretty close to it in order for you to be able to cast on it. Normally, only Sora/Goofy/Donald can be cast cure on, but if close to a mushroom a 4th option named Contact(コンタクト) will appear and you can use this option to cast on the fallen mushroom. Aero = Use this when its spinning around. The same need to get close in order to cast this like Cure applies. Stop = Use this when the mushroom has frozen in mid move. Gravity = Use this when the mushroom is floating in mid-air. Mind you, you have to be QUICK in casting this, because the casting animation for Gravity is long and often times will not hit the mushroom until it has changed into another mood. Summon = I don`t believe there is a summon "mood" for the mushroom. I`ve tried, but nada. Too bad. However, it IS possible to hit the mushroom with some summons. Namely, the Mushu fire breath summon will act as a fire attack for when the mushroom is shivering. Unfortunately, even after being hit 3 times with Mushu, a mushroom still won`t drop items. A bug perhaps? Ok, so you hit mushroom with 3 spells, and it dropped an item, but not the Full Water item you needed, but instead. Tough, right? Gotta find another mushroom. Well, yes and no. First there is an ultra special catch to making it drop Full Waters. Here`s the deal.. If you hit the mushroom with 3 of the same spell, it will always drop a Full Water item. Always. Also, in addition, it will drop 1 of 7 different Secrets Manual (免許皆伝) dependant on which of the 7 spells you casted three times to finish off the mushroom. If you used 3 Fire spells, you get a Fire Secrets Manual (ファイア免許皆伝), if you used Blizzard only, you get a Blizzard Secrets Manual and so on.. These manuals, don`t, as far as I know, have any use. Even the description for the item in the menu says that "They recognize your master skill in Fire/Blizzard/Etc. But it seems to have no use". They are sellable for mere 250 in Traverse town tho. ***CORRECTION*** Etoh21 writes to me.. "Collecting all 7 manuals and then talk to Merlin in Traverse Town cave. He'll give you Goofy's second most powerful weapon 'Shield of Dream' (The sister weapon of Donald's Rod of Dream when you have all the magics to the -ga level). C. Where to Find White Mushrooms --------------------------------- Well, now that you know the secrets of the White Mushroom, you`ll want to know the best place to fight em. There are a few, but let me list the locations in order of ease of finding them for items. 1. Deep Jungle - Outside of Tent - This area is the best, as you can quickly run/glide back and forth between the area you fight Clayton in (the guy with the gun) and tent area and have the game continually respawn either of the two tent encounters, which is either monkeys or mushrooms. (See my "General Hints, Tips, Comments.." section at the end of this FAQ for the respawn trick). 2. End of the World - Room Before Last Rest Save Point - This area is great for mushrooms, best in the game, but since all mushrooms randomly spawn here, its not as good a place to only fight White Mushrooms. Use the End of the World save trick to get them here. (See my "General Hints, Tips, Comments.." section at the end of this FAQ for the this trick). 3. Halloween Town - Graveyard - This is the first graveyard area you can enter, thru the gates up the stairs from the Guillotine Plaza. Sometimes they spawn here, sometimes not. 4. Deep Jungle - Jungle Hideout - The place you first start out in this world. Sometimes they spawn here as well. 5. Hades Cup - #7 Tier - You can fight them here, but only for practice..no dropped items in the Collisieum fights. Too bad. ***ADDITION*** Klarc adds to the above list.. "Just to let you know, in Kingdom Hearts you can also find White Mushrooms in Traverse Town's Hotel Room (red)." ***ANOTHER ADDITION*** Mewten adds some more locations "I found 2 locations where you can find the White Mushrooms: Wonderland: In the forest to the left of the Queen of Hearts. Atlantica: In a cave... I forgot the exact location, but it's around a Trident pointing upwards. (They'll RARELY appear here.)" ***CLARIFICATION*** Cypher clarfies the above Atlantica location.. "I found a bunch of white mushrooms in Atlantica in the area called the Undersea Cave which if you're coming from Triton's Palace is the room right before the Calm Depths room with the upward jet of water. All of the used the stop "mood" repeatedly." ***ANOTHER ADDITION*** Mesoian adds another location to the list of White Mushrooms.. "Hey. Just to let you know, there's another place where you can find the white mushrooms. In the treasure room [with gold and red trinity mark], there were a bunch of white mushrooms who hung around for conciderably longer then they usually do. They all seemed to be gravity (floating)-centric to. Just letting you know" D. Final Notes on the White Mushroom ------------------------------------- In ending the White Mushroom section, there are a few things to keep in mind when going after them for the Full Water, or the Secret Manuals. First, pick one mushroom and stay with it spell-wise. Many of the spells will hit a large area, and the mushrooms often spawn close together making you prematurely send some of the mushrooms away. Don`t worry about it, center on one mushroom at a time, otherwise the chance is high you will screw up, or you will run out of time waiting for the mushrooms to get move away from each other. Second, not all spawn locations have the same "mood" patterns. Especially if you are going after the Secrets Manuals, you will find that precious few places places have Gravity/Stop "moods", while others like Fire moods are easily found. Finally, there is a "mood" behavior that is common to all mushrooms that may throw off some people. This is the action where the mushroom stops for second (not freezes) and look around as if for rain or something before going on to a new "mood". Any attack/magic during this time will make a White Mushroom disappear. You can see this "mood" also in the animation used for the 3D view of all mushrooms in the notebook, if my above explanation was unclear. ================================================================= ================================================================= III. The Black Fungus (ブラックファンガス) ================================================================= ================================================================= A. Intro --------- Ah, the mushroom monsters are cunningly dressed up in different color palettees, say hello to the black-robed, purple-hatted mushroom! Unlike the White Mushroom that we have already discussed, the Black Fungus is relatively straight forward battle, kill it before it dissappears using any means possible. However, also unlike the White Mushroom, since there is no special way to take them down, the devs decided to let these mushrooms fight back in the form of turning to stone (read invincible) as well as giving them an area poison attack that is more powerful than many bosses normal attacks. Have fun! B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure -------------------------------------------- Well, as far as a catch goes, I don`t believe there is one. Sometimes the Black Fungus drops Full Waters and sometimes it drops nothing. I have a theory that if it is beat with only physical attack combo chains it will always drop Full Waters. But this theory, as of yet hasn`t been proven. Also, the Black Fungus will uncommonly drop an item named "Dropped Item?" (落としもの?). If there is a special way to get it to drop this item, I don`t know, perhaps my above theory. Regardless, this item like the Secrets Manual seems useless. Its item description however says that it can be sold for a decent price, and behold (when you get one) it can be sold for 9999 cash in Traverse Town, making it the most sellable item in the game. Useful if you happen to actually beat some of these guys during the midgame. ***ADDITION*** Bal hypothesizes in an email.. "I find that if you use Trinity Limit on the black mushrooms it makes those battles laughably easy, and you get at least one Mystery Goo from each group. It may not be the quickest way, but it works for me." A use for the Trinity Limit!!? It can't be! Good stuff here. YMMV, since I don't have the game in front of me to test. C. Where to Find Black Fungi ------------------------------ In order from easiest to hardest places to get them spawn to get items out of them. 1. Halloween Town - Pumpkin Patch - This is the area with the twirly bridge thing that three little kids walk over. The spawn rate isn`t so hot here, but the Black Fungus does spawn here, and using the respawn trick for the levels (See my "General Hints, Tips, Comments.." section at the end of this FAQ), you can get enounters at decent enough pace. 2. End of the World - Room Before Last Rest Save Point - Spawns all mushrooms so it drops the chances of getting only Black Fungi. Still fairly quick. 3. Agrabah - The Back Right Market Area Facing Away From the Ground Level Entrance to Aladdin`s House - Not the best description, but maybe you can find them there, I did. A little bit out of the way for the respawn trick but its your choice. 4. Pegasus Cup - #5 Tier - Ah, the annoying battle which makes the speed battle for this cup rather annoying at times. Again no dropped items here tho, only practice. D. Final Notes on the Black Fungus ----------------------------------- Nothing really. There is not much to the Black Fungus. Just be careful of the poison cloud attack, as it can be ultra deadly to a mid to lower level Sora, and inevitably Goofy and Donald will just let themselves get killed by it because of their lame AI. Also, if you need to go about killing these things fast (for Full Waters) or otherwise in the Collesium, a Gravity seems to be a good way to cut into them quick, should you lake the Trinity Limit. ================================================================= ================================================================= IV. The Rare Truffle (レアトリュフ) ================================================================= ================================================================= A. Intro --------- Ah, the last and perhaps least understood mushroom of the bunch, weighing in with a blue robes and a yellow hat. If you are like me, you perhaps only fought two, during the Hercules/Hades Cup, before the the first time you beat the game. They are that rare, unless you know where to look for them. But before I get to that, the main focus of this truffle is the jumpy. It jumps up and down, up and down and will dissappear over time (the same with all mushrooms). What you need to do, as the notebook explanation in game suggests, is to keep them in the air with "air combos", until they decide to throw down Full Waters on you. But this is easier said than done, especially when I first started out to beat one of these mofo`s down. B. The Trick and the Extra Special Treasure -------------------------------------------- Like the White Mushroom, they are however, pretty easy once you know the trick, and that trick is to bounce them up in the air over and over and over again. I quoted the word air combo before, because, although its is how it is written on the message boards, it is impossible to pull off a true "in-the-air" combo with the Rare Truffle, especially where it concerns its special prize, as you will see. Now tactics! Tactics are easy, but they are fairly exact. Here they are. 1. When you come upon a Rare Truffle spawn, you must first lock on to one of the Truffles with lock on, abosultely needed. 2. Watch as the Truffle jumps, when it lands, run up to it and smack it once and only once. You notice that when you hit it, it bounces into the air, despite the fact it was on the ground before (in fact, all attacks will bounce it in the air, unless it lands again, at such time it will disappear and give you no [more] items). 3. Anyway, you have just smacked the truffle in the air. What you want to do now is wait a split second then jump after the truffle and attack it in the air once. Read this carefully one more time, I will put it in bold letters for you. JUMP and then TAP the ATTACK BUTTON ONCE. This will have you attack with an uppercut attack, and not the aerial spin attack (if you have that ability equipped). If you attacked with an aerial spin, it`s because you didn`t jump before hitting the attack button. 4. Once again, after #3, you will notice the Truffle bounce back up in the air. Whee! This is where you repeat processes #1-3 over and over again for the mega-combo items...jump, uppercut attack, land, wait a split second, jump, uppercut, attack etc.. Actually it is possible to NEVER jump and combo bounce the fool Truffle (my max is only 8 hits this way tho). However, the above 4-step way, once you get it right, is the obvious way the developers made to defeat the Truffle for items. But you say, you don`t care about this weak, different way to try to beat the Truffle and only wanna hear more about the "mega-combo" items. Well, here its is..the list on what you get for the combo limits.. 10 times - 1 Full Life + 1 Elixir 50 times - 1 Full Life + 1 Elixir + Master Scroll (達人の証) 100 times - 1 Full Life + 1 Last Elixir + Grand Master Scroll (名人の証) The Master/Grand Master Scrolls items, like the other special items are again, without much worth, the game explanation simply noting that these scrolls show your ability in being a master of bouncing the Truffle 50 or 100 times (sellable for 100 and 500 respectively). Perhaps not worth it, but you know you want the honor of this victory, you know it! C. Where to Find the Rare Truffle ---------------------------------- Again in order from easiest to hardest in order to get items from it. 1. End of the World - Room Before Last Rest Save Point - Again, the save reload or respawn trick here. Fastest, and most importantly, easiest place to fight the Truffles outside of the Collieseum. 2. Neverland - Deck of Ship - This is the area you fight Captain Hook, tho of course you will not see Truffle`s here the first time you get there. The ship structure makes truffle fighting really not easy, but there is always the option of flying for a real air combo... 3. Halloween Town - Area Right Before Boogie`s House - This is the area with the short bridge and the water passage which leads back to the fountain in Guillotine Sqaure. Spawn rates seem very small, but its possible to find Rare Truffles here. However, again, due to the geography of the area, it makes Rare Truffle combo`ing really not easy. 4. Hercules Cup - #6 Tier - I highly recommend beating the time attack for this cup so you can freely select to battle Truffles here. Of course no dropped items, but practicing here is invaluable time-wise. If you mess up a combo during a free select battle, and you are quick, you can push start and choose to refight the battle, thus respawning the Truffle without having to talk to Phil again. 5. Hades Cup - #46 Tier - You can fight this one fairly easily without having to do time attacks to get the selectable battle option. But really, if you have the Hades Cup open, the Hercules time attack should be doable. ***Addition*** several people wrote into me on this one, thanks goto Kurai_ryu, MAGUSZ888, doggiebiscuit, and Onslaught who all mailed me in the same day..I will use Onslaughts email as it is the most to the specific.. "These have actually appeared for me in the room just before you fight the boss in Monstro. I think the room is titled Stomach. (The room with a pool of acid around the outside)" D. Final Notes on the Rare Truffle ----------------------------------- First, practicing againist this Truffle in the Coliseum fights is highly recommended. Not only for the practice before fighting the Rare Truffle in the wild, but also to learn the importance of fighting the Rare Truffle at the End of the World spawn (because a flat open space is pretty much a must if you want to hit a 100 combo limit). Second, this is the Truffle that once you got your jump then attack rythym down, you will have the Full Waters rolling in. I was fighting the them the other day and checked how many Full Waters I had, and my count was at 22! Enough to make enough Attack Point items to max out Sora`s attack level at 100;p During a typical fight don`t expect to get much more than 4-6 Full Lifes however, as getting the 100 combo limit takes some time, and you only have enough time to combo two Truffles up to 100 before the others dissappear (this is assuming no mistakes on your part, and not accidently hitting other Truffles as you combo the Truffle you have locked onto..a fairly common occurence. But as with White Mushrooms, centering one mushroom at a time is important for success). Still, it`s much faster than beating up other mushroom Heartlesses. Third, a note on combo`ing the Truffles. You can bounce them fairly high, but you don`t really want them flying too high, which is what happens when you hit them offscreen (the uppercut attack, especialy with the longer keyblades has an insane vertical attack range from somewhere at Sora`s knees to 2 body lengths above him and can easily hit off screen Truffles). Now, The auto-tracking for attacks (not the camera strangely enough) in game is superb and will often track things way over your head in battle, but its still possible to lose Truffles you bounce too high. So when you combo a Truffle, make sure he is on screen when you hit him. Don`t worry, you will hit a Truffle if you let him drop in altitude before you swing, as Sora`s uppecut hits a larger area than you may think (as written above). Last, you may want to pre-kit your character ability-wise for fighting Rare Truffles if you expect an encounter. Namely, un-euipping the Glide party ability helps (Fast Glide is ok, but the normal Glide is bound to the jump button tho). Also, un-equipping the Aerial-Sweep ability from Sora`s list can help as you will want to be hitting with an upper-cut, not an aerial spin anyway. ================================================================= ================================================================= V. General Hints, Tips, Comments.. ================================================================= ================================================================= Ok, this is the section for general hints/tips applicable to finding/beating all of the mushroom Heartless. -All of the mushroom Heartless are timed battles. If you take too long they will dissappear. Doesn`t usually happen with Black Fungus, but is something you will happen with White Mushroom hunting a lot. -White Mushrooms and Rare Truffles will, 100% chance, dissappear without dropped items if you don`t use the proper attacks. -You may want to summon something when fighting some mushroom (especially White Mushrooms). Reason being, Donald and Goofy will often do a superb job of blocking your view on whats going on, and thus aught to be removed. At decent level, a single summon will last you long enough to take out 1-2 mushrooms. Recommendations go to Mushu (white mushrooms) or Bambi. -In order to help spawn some mushrooms in the world areas, realize that once you beat completely beat a battle in one small area of the game (i.e. outside the tent area in the Deep Jungle world), a new battle will not respawn until you run 2 areas away from area you want respawned with new monsters. So in the tent area case, running to the first bamboo forest area and back will not respawn the monsters at the tent, but running to the area where you fight Clayton and back will. An easy way to get new monsters. Also an easy way to level up in certain places of the game which allow you to run in circular patterns, thus constantly spawning monsters. The only area in the game where this works differently is at the the room before the last save at End of The World. This room will ALWAYS spawn new monsters, whether you ran 1 or 2 areas away from it. -The End of the World room before the last save is most easily taken advantage of spawn-wise for mushrooms by first saving the game at last save. Then run into the room before this. If the desired mushrooms aren`t there, simply reset with the quick reset. This is not the reset button on the PS2, rather push and hold START + SELECT + R1 + R2 + L1 + L2. This will take you straight to the New Game/Load Game screen. For some reason, tho you can use the area respawn trick for this room, reloading over and over again is almost always quicker. I believe there is something in the coding for how the game parcels out mushrooms encounters, in that it gives a higher chance of a mushroom encounter if you have just arrived at the world, and not if you have been actively looking for mushroom encounters. -There is a another strangness in how encounters with mushrooms work sometimes, or maybe it is funny luck, judge for yourself if this happens to you. Sometimes, I will have absolute droughts looking for mushroom encounters in the worlds, while at other times I will have incredible chance breaking luck like hitting a mushroom encounter in the same area five times in a row. The former situation, could just be bad luck, as the mushroom encounters don`t spawn frequently at all, but the later situation...the odds are highly againist it, or maybe this is me winning my "lottery ticket" odds in life. I, of course, would prefer the lottery ticket, but seeing as this sorta luck has happened a few times to me, I think there is some sort of way to set up a situation where you will almost assurededly encounter mushrooms. Just a theory at present.. -Finally, if you do end up fighting for mushrooms at the End of the World alot. Be aware that mushrooms aren`t the only special items you can collect there. The devil and angel monsters which spawn the most at End of the World will infrequently give out Orihalcon (オリハルコン) and Mithril (ミスリル) in addition to their normally dropped Destructive Wind item (吹く荒れるかぜ). So doing the normal respawn fighting while looking for mushroom spawns may make sense, if you are keen on maxing out your level/attack/defense/AP parameters, rather than relying on the quicker save/reload trick for mushroom only encounters. ================================================================= ================================================================= VI. Japanese to American Name Changes ================================================================= ================================================================= This FAQ was first written for the Japanese release of Kingdom Hearts, with some names not having any real English names, except that which I have given them and are of course, completely different in the US release. For the most part, I think everyone can figure out what I mean when I say something like "Full Water", but for completeness I have added this section. However since I do not own the US release, I do not have access to the US names. So this section will be a user response section to clarify names anyone would like to add to it. Full Water = Mystery Goo XXX Manual = XXXX Arts, where XXXX is the type of magic. I.e. Fire Arts ================================================================= ================================================================= VII. The End, Thanks, Contact... ================================================================= ================================================================= Thanks go out to not whole lot of people, but I`d like to devote a section to the people whose work helped me with this FAQ creation in no particular order.. -CJayC`s Kingdom Hearts FAQ for being source material for a few of English place names, as well as his running of the best FAQ site (gamefaqs.com) in existence and the first to carry my stuff. Wonderful work man. -Yuna10`s Kingdom Hearts FAQ also as source material for a few item name translations into English. Thanks, I realize how hard it is translately-wise! -Etoh21 for the White Mushroom Manual/Shield of Dreams thing. Thanks yo, I missed that completely. -Klarc for sending me info on an extra White Mushroom spawn area. Nice! -Mewten for more White Mushroom locationny fun and pointing out a sentance mistake! Yea! -Bal for pointing out some grammar mistakes which I should be on top of, using the Trinity Limit to take out Black Fungus and starting me on the new naming section to this FAQ. -Cypher for clarifying the Atlantica White Mushroom locale, good stuff! -Mesoian for the Cave of Wonders White Mushroom spec, thanks! -GameWizard3000FF for a good idea on quickly killing Black Fungi via Gravity. -Kurai_ryu, doggiebiscuit, and Onslaught for seperately pointing out the Monstro Rare Truffle location! -MAGUSZ888 for pointing out the above as well as more grammar mistakes;p -cworrell for adding some mood info location and Donald/Goofy suicide info which I never put in. -Starwind9484 for the US naming for the White Mushroom Manuals -The country of Japan for not only employing me, but giving me games and a fascinating culture to be addicted to. I love you baby! and last.. -You the reader, for reading this far. Especially if I have been of any help or have been able to entertain you to some small degree. You`re the reason I wrote this FAQ! Copyright Casim Neff (mecasim) 2002.