******* * *** * * * * ** *** *** ** ** * * * ** *** **** *** **** ******** ** *** * *** * *** **** **** * *** ******** *** *** * **** *** ** **** *** ** *** *** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** *** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** * * ** ** ** ** ** ** *** * ******* ** *** ** ** * ********* ****** *** * *** *** * ** * ***** ** *** *** * ** ______________________________________________________________________________ Table of contents ______________________________________________________________________________ I. Welcome II. Version history III. Controls IV. Story V. Horse taming/riding VI. Walkthrough VII. Horses VIII. Acknowledgements IX. Contacting me X. Disclaimer _______________________________________________________________________________ I. Welcome ______________________________________________________________________________ Welcome to my guide for Spirit or, to be more precise, Spirit: The Stallion of the Cimarron: The Search for the Homeland. I hope this guide, when completed, will cover all your questions about this game. Let's begin! ______________________________________________________________________________ II. Version history ______________________________________________________________________________ Version .25-First version. Completed Sections I-IV, the first two parts on the walkthrough, started Horse Section, and completed sections IX and X Version .4-Second version. Changed some incorrect information, completed IV D (Cliffs and Caves) Version .5-Added section dividers and ASCII art and fixed grammar and spelling errors. Version .60-Fixed formatting and spelling, added a couple additional acknowledgements ______________________________________________________________________________ III. Controls ______________________________________________________________________________ Start-Brings up a menu allowing you to restart or quit the level or quit the game Control Pad-Allows you to move the character or horse A-Allows you perform an action B-Allows you to shake trees and bushes for fruit R-Allows your horse to kick and selects action L-Allows you mont/dismount Select-Brings up several screens. The first one shows your horse's picture, name, training difficulty, and how it feels. The second screen shows you how much water and food you have and the actions you can perform The third screen shows any special items you have collected. ______________________________________________________________________________ IV. Story ______________________________________________________________________________ Told by Spirit: "When we ran free in the Homeland, we sometimes felt like nothing could touch us, but Mother Nature is always ready to remind us who is really in charge!" My friends are panicking! I must calm them! Oh no! Rustlers! Where are they taking me? My friends and I need your help!" [While this is happening, a violent storm is occuring.] ______________________________________________________________________________ V. Horse taming/riding ______________________________________________________________________________ One of the biggest challenges in this game is getting a horse tame enough to ride it and having it stay that way. ==================== Selecting your horse ==================== Before each stage, you must select a horse and tame it. Before you start to tame a horse, go to the Select menu and look at that horse's taming level. A horse with a higher level will obvisously be harder to train, but it will also be harder to maintain the horse's happiness level. My advice is to save these horses for the middle stages because you'll be more seasoned than at the beginning of the game, but you won't be in the desert areas where food and water are very scarce. Also, plan ahead regarding what horse you will pick! Food in the base area doesn't regenerate, so keep that in mind, and save your food stock according. NOTE: The game won't let you select certain horses until later in the game. ================= Taming your horse ================= When you first go up to a horse, it will most likely be hungry. In the base area, horses will only eat their favorite food. To avoid wasting food, check the Horses Section (not yet completed) of this guide or turn off your game and restart if the food you tried wasn't the right one. I know this is time-consuming, however, I must state over and over again that food is rare! Your horse will also want water (which is in infinite supply in the base area), and will want to be sung to and talked to. See the Keeping Your Horse Happy Section for more details on what actions to use at what times. Your horse's happiness bar has to be full before you can mount it (with L). ======================== Keeping your horse happy ======================== Your horse will need constant care and matinence if you hope to successfully complete any of the game. Watch the two meters at the top. If the blue one decreases in fullness, your horse is either hungry, thirsty, or lonely. Here is what to do in all of these situations: Hungry: Feed your horse (Out of the base area, it does not matter what food you feed it.) Thristy: Give it water. Either give it water from your water skin or take it to a drinking pond or river and press B. Lonely: Pet (Hand), sing (Music notes), or talk (Mouth) to your horse. After the Forest, you can play a flute for your horse, which is a very good way of cheering it up. Sometimes your horse will respond better to a certain action, so try all three. Also, sometimes it will take more than one use of an action to cheer up your horse. The other thing you need to think about when taking care of your horse is its health bar, the red bar with the heart next to it. This is far less complicted than the blue bar; it only goes down when your horse is attacked by a wild animal. To get it back up, use red hearts. They come in abundance and you'll use them a lot less than you will use food and water. NOTE: If your health and/or happiness bar gets drastically low (near empty), you will have to start the level over again. ================= Riding your horse ================= First of all, go up the horse and mount with L. Press A to jump over rivers when you come to them. B and R are attacking buttons, so go up to the animal in question (such as a bear) and press R to back kick. I prefer to use R over the A (front) attack because it is generally more accurate. If you want to get off your horse, press L again to dismount. Sometimes, if the horse's happiness level goes down far enough, your horse will buck you off. The first time this happens, you will be allowed to get back on, but you better take care of your horse quickly because if its happiness meter gets any lower you will be bucked off and not be allowed to get back on until your horse is happier. There are many things in this game you can not do on horseback. Here, for your convience, is a list. You cannot: Collect food Get water Collect special items Shake trees Talk Sing Pet your horse ______________________________________________________________________________ VI. Walkthrough ______________________________________________________________________________ ============= A. Base Area ============= The area where you start out. Immediately to the left is a water skin. Pick it up and go right to the lake to fill it with water. It holds four drinks at one time. Next go around and collect food and hearts. You can only hold ten food items at one item. Here's a list of what you can find: Oranges (orange): 8 Corn (light green): 5 Berries (red): 6 Hearts: 4 Peas (dark green): 7 NOTE: These numbers may be a bit off, but at the very least this will give you a general estimate on what you should find. Tame a horse (I very highly suggest Rain), stock up on food and hearts, fill your waterskin, mount your horse, and you're off! Follow the arrows to the first stage. ============= B. The Forest ============== Okay, life on the trail is tough! Some basic guidelines for this stage are as follows. Ignore most enemies; at this point in the game, there aren't that many of them, and if you do attack them, you run a serious risk of hurting your horse. Your most dangerous advisory in this stage is the bear and it's in a spot where you'll more or less be forced to fight it. Keep plenty of hearts on hand for ths fight, and back kick a lot. Keep a very close eye out of food and watering holes. When you reach a watering hole, unless your horse is already thirsty, put as much water as possible in your waterskin. Regarding food, again I must tell you, DON'T WASTE IT! Nearing the middle to the end of the stage there are "dry spots", areas with very little food and water. Also, nearing the very end of the level, you will encounter a river. Firstly, this river is like the lake in the base area; that is, they never run out of water! Give your horse a drink (it probably is not in the best of shape right now), and then fill up your waterskin. I know I say that a lot, but trust me, you really don't want an angry, thirsty horse that won't let you ride it when you're far away from water. Near the river, you'll see a beaver. If go up to it, it will "tell" you it wants five claw-stick things, so go back and find them. In general, search in groves, especially in the extreme lower and upper parts of the screen. Give the beaver the items after you've collected them, and he'll let you on the bridge. Go across it, and you'll get a password. For the last part of the stage, simply go along the bottom of the screen until you are blocked by hedges, and then go up until you see an object at the base of a tree. Dismount, and pick it up to see that it is a flute. This is a more efficient way to cure "Loneliness" than singing, talking, or petting your horse. Ride off the screen to end the stage. You'll arrive back in the base area. Pick up any food you find, fill your waterskin, and start taming a horse. Your best bet is to select one with a Difficult or, if you think you are up to it, Very Difficult taming level. Ride to the left most part of the base area by the rocks, and follow the arrows to the next stage. =================== C. Cliffs and Caves =================== First of all, when you first enter this stage, head to the left. Don't bother going up because there's nothing there. Ride along, avoding all the mountain lions until you get to the ram, who is asking for five white...things (I'm not quite sure what they are). Anyhow, to find the first one go back, take the first trail you see before the ram down, and go to the right. For the other four, simply go down the path under the ram, and look in the extreme right and lefts of each plateau. After retriving all five, go to the ram, dismount and give them to him. Before following him up, get your horse in the best shape possible because the game will give you a password. Now, you get to experience the "cave" part of Cliffs and Caves. On the first cave screen first go in the upper cave and collect the water, food, and items. After you've finished getting your horse taken care of, go back to the first cave screen, and go in the the other cave. On the next screen, go to the cave on the far side of the screen, not the one next to you. The one next to you contains berries and water, but it also contains a vicious mountain lion, so it probably won't be worth your trouble to go in there. On the third and fourth cave screens go in the upper caves (to the left). On the last screen, pick up the Taming Talisman, which allows you to go through the opening and complete the stage. Once again, you'll find yourself back at the base area. You know the drill: pick up food, fill the waterskin, and tame a horse. Go to the lower left part of the base area. ~~~To be continued~~~~ ______________________________________________________________________________ VII. Horses ______________________________________________________________________________ Rain Body color: White with light brown patches Mane: Cream Taming level: Very easy Favorite food: Oranges Buttercup Body color: Golden Mane: Golden Taming Level: Difficult Favorite foods: Peas/Oranges Dream Body color: Dark brown Mane: Cream Taming level: Very difficult Favorite food: Corn Shadow Body color: Gray Mane: Black Taming Level: Average Favorite food: Peas ______________________________________________________________________________ VIII. Acknowledgements ______________________________________________________________________________ God, for too many things to count My family All the people who worked on this game, for their time and effort DreamWorks, for coming up with the idea. GameFAQs and its creator, CJayC, for posting this and for such a great website in general http://www.network-science.de/ascii for the ASCII art. Luna-chaan, a very sweet bird You, for reading this ______________________________________________________________________________ IX. Contacting me ______________________________________________________________________________ If you want to use the guide or large portions of it on your website or need additional help with tihis game, please email me at wolfpiper3@yahoo.com Do NOT send me virsuses, junk mail, chain letters, or anything that is offensive, harmful, or does not relate to this game or FAQ. If you have a hint or strategy you would like to share, send it. However, do not send information for the horses not yet covered in the horse guide, please. If I think what you submitted is of merit, I will send you an email saying so and give you proper credit in the Acknowledgements section. When sending an email about this guide, please put something similar to Spirit FAQ in the subject line. _______________________________________________________________________________ X. Disclaimer ______________________________________________________________________________ This guide is copyrighted 2003 Emily Lund. It is not to be used on any websites other than GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) without my written permission. It is not to be used for anything other than private, personal use and can not be sold for profit.