Magic Cube(NES) FAQ/Walkthrough
version 1.0.0 by [email protected](spam spoonerism)

Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. You won't be getting
much profit anyway, but that's not the point. This took time and effort, and
I just wanted to save a memory of an old game and the odd solutions any way I
could. Please send me an email referring to me and this guide by name if
you'd like to post it on your site.

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           OUTLINE

 1. INTRODUCTION

 2. CONTROLS

 3. VERSIONS AND STRATEGIES

 4. CHEATS

 5. VERSIONS

 6. CREDITS

================================

 1. INTRODUCTION

Magic Cube is a block drop game without a "next" block. And that is its fatal
flaw, which is too bad, because it is rather interesting. Its other flaw,
which is also pretty bad, is that you can only rotate pieces one way. But
it's really a nice concept, and other than these ridiculously simple things
it's a nice game. Without them, however, it doesn't last long enough. When
you look at the introductory menu you'll see it's not fully complete(at least,
the ROM I got had that) and it makes things confusing.

It isn't a 3-d game as the name implies, but instead you just have a 2x2
block to drop into a well, where the game looks for any 3-in-a-row matches.
There are five different pieces: blue, green, yellow, red and blue +(other
pieces have an L)

 2. CONTROLS

START pauses the game and shows you statistics of what has been dropped,
where.

A rotates 90 degrees clockwise.

Pushing down speeds things up, and you should be able to move left/right with
few problems.

If you match 3 squares, the rest of the square you are moving will continue
to fall down, if it is mobile, and you can rotate it.

A square of one color can bash a gremlin of the same color for extra points,
but it is probably more worthwhile to keep the structure low and balanced.

Also, if you are cheating with save states, the same pieces will drop
regardless of when or where you drop other pieces.

You can play a free game(just regular options) or you can play a game where
you need to assign objects.

When a piece lands, the game pauses to see if 1) it squished a monster, 2)
there is a match and 3) it keeps falling if any part of the piece has
something below it. That makes it easy to

Some point totals:

300 for 4-long
4000 for 6-long

 3. VERSIONS AND STRATEGIES

First, note you will usually get a piece with 2 squares matching. The chance
of this is

1 - ( 1 * 4/5 * 3/5 * 2/5) = 77/125. So you will usually be able to find a
square on the play field with that color, and so you can usually find a match.
This, however, does not make the game trivial. In free play, there is a
tendency just to go for the easy vertical matches, which is bad. You have
blocks of 4, and with a minimum match of 3 pieces, passively going in for one
match at a time will lead you slowly to ruin. If you do start making wells,
you will want to try to make them so that two colors match up, or that you
can look for two colors to match up when you drop something. The best bet may
be to cut a well down from the side. A sideways 3 is a good bet, and a
diagonal 3 is almost as good, if it cuts into a spire.

The key thing to note is that in order to drop something down a shaft, you
have to leave something on either edge, so even if you get a horizontal match
that way, you don't actually gain anything. An extension of this is that if
you create two shafts, you will be hard pressed to chip away at the edges
from either side, and you're basically--shafted. (ba dum bum.) The only way
out is to drop 2 squares of the same color on the top of a shaft edge and do
something creative with the other two pieces. But when the game gets fast, it
will be tough to do this, since there is no "next" feature.

Also because of the short time you get to see a piece on a later round, you
might as well use save states to decide what goes where. The game is
challenging and interesting enough without any time limits.

OBJECT

In general on the object levels you will want to go for the tricky one first.
Since there is no real penalty for losing, you can play as if you might get a
piece you really want. You can also track what pieces you get and then re-try
later if you retreat to an old save state.

You also want to make sure you are not just making any old matches, as that
can lull you into just surviving without a goal, and you also want to keep
squares of similar color away from a structure you are creating. For instance,
in level 1 below, if you involuntarily go in for this structure and try to
zap the y's--oops, you zap the x's first.

 x
 x
xyx
x x

Level 1:

x  x  xxx
x xxx   x
x  x    x
x

The cross is the trickiest. You need to either set up something like this:

x
x  < diagonal y's
xyx
x

Because it really is nearly impossible to hope for a 3-1 block.

For the L, you just need to place

x.. xx.
 x   .
 x   x

Then get two of one color. The chance of getting 2 of a specific color is
(4c2) * (4/5)^2 * (1/5) ^ 2 = 96/625 = 15.36%. That's pretty good, so you can
probably pick off a few random 3's with 2 of another color for a bit to buy
time til you get what you want.

Level 2:

xxxx

xxx
x
x

x
x
 x
  x

The 4 in a row is similar to the 3 in a row above. Just place 2 on the bottom,
then

The T is similar to the L above. You can either leave a vertical or
horizontal 2 dots, or even leave the center dot to kill things off.

The 4-diagonal is visually tricky but you should be able to get a diagonal
piece early on and then use it as the basis for the rest of the chain. For
the 4-diagonal, you don't necessarily need a

xy
zx

As you can just paste 2 different cubes with the same color together. In fact
if you get 4 cubes of 5 with the same color you can paste them together to
form a 4-diagonal. Call them

ca
cc

Then

 33a5
 3a55
11a244
1a2244

There you go--and you can rotate the other squares for a few horizontal
matches.

Level 3:

x x
x
x x

xxxxx

 x
x x
x   x

Go for the 5 first, dropping stuff on the bottom shelf. You can build the
bottom bits of the caret and drop the last square something on top. The X is
slightly tricky, and you have to drop the middle square in last.

Level 4:

x   x
x x
 x

xxxx

x
xxx
x
x

First take care of the V. It requires a well, but once you get it, it
flattens out other wells. And while you are building it, you can start
building the cross structure on the side, since when it collapses the cross
should be intact--though you may need to account for a square right of it
falling ie
   y
   y
  yz
  zyy
xd dxb
ax xca
bc abc

When the V is complete, the y's will align to form most of the cross.
You'll want to go for the cross second here. It's the trickiest and an
extension of level 1. Again you can't wait for a 3-1, so

y
y
yzy
y

Knock out the z and you have that. 4 in a row horizontally should then be no
problem.


Level 5:

xxxx

xxxxx

xxxxxx

Get the 6 in a row first. In this and other levels you will probably need to
mess around with probability to get things going. You should start off with
whatever color has 2 squares in the first block, then when that color appears
again, drop a block so that color falls to the bottom ie

ab
xc

vv

 xx

Repeat til clear, then work on a 5 in similar fashion, and then a 4 is easy.
As long as things don't pile up. And they should not, since you have time.

Level 6:

3  x  2 xxx 1  x
 xxx    x    xxx
  x     x     x
              x

Nothing new here, just more of it, so be more careful than usual. This is a
real endurance level and harder than a lot of later ones.

Level 7:

2 x x 1 x   x   x
  x     x x   x x
 x x     x   x   x

Place the caret first, then go with the V. For the caret you just need to put
a 5x2 block out there so that you can drop one color on top, and then you
need to make a well for the V. Though if squares are in the right position(2
of the same color away from each other,) you can pick off an X first.

Level 8:

x  x x    x   x
xx   x    x x
xx    x    x
x  x    x

The X is the toughest of these to make, and we haven't discussed it yet, so
let's do that first.

x  x
a  a
b  b
xccx

Drop in 2-1-1 pieces from the sides to nail this down. Then go for the other
shapes.

Level 9:

 2         x   x
x   x   x    x x
x x   x x    x
 x   x   x  x x
           x   x

You've seen the first two shapes but the second is very tricky. You need to
use the edge and will probably need to smooth out a lot of horizontal 3-
matches to get this going, because you can't really expect 2 of 1 color. You
need to use the well judiciously since the final X will be the one in the
center, and you need to be able to cut things down on the sides.

Level 10:

      2
x   x xxx xxxxxx
x x    x
 x     x

This is more endurance than other things. It's probably easier than the
previous. You've seen these shapes before, so I'll pass.

Level 11:

x  x x    xxxxxx
xx   x
xx    x
x  x    x

Again, you've seen all these shapes before. In fact, you've seen just about
everything from here on out, so I will reserve comment other than to say "do
X first."

Level 12:

x   x   2  2
x x       x
 x        x
x x  xxxx x
x   x      x

Do the 4-high first. It's not the toughest, but in this case, you can
probably work on a couple while building and polishing the structure you need
for the big X. The 4-wide comes last.

Level 13:

x   x  2
x x  xxx
 x     x xxxxx
x x    x
x   x

See above as to why to start with the 5-wide. It can get messy otherwise.

Level 14:

    2   2
x  x x
xx  x
xx  x xxxxx
x  x x

The cross-X is probably the nastiest of these, but get the 5-wide first while
the terrain is assuredly flat.

Level 15:

2        2
   x  x
x x  xx   x
x   xx  xxx
x x x  x  x

Having to get 2 +'s is tricky enough that you just want to get that first.

Level 16:

x  x x   x
xx   x x
xx    x
x  x  x x
    x   x xxxxxx

6 first, then big X, then small X.

You don't get anything for winning these, not even on level 16. You just get
a "start" square flashing. But it is fun to try.

 4. CHEATS

0x5f0 = UL square
0x5f1 = UR square
0x5f2 = DR square
0x5f3 = DL square

For these offsets, the data is:
0 = blank
1 = blue +
2 = red L
3 = yellow L
4 = green L
5 = blue L

These values give a key as to how to populate the well. The red area starts
at 0x500, with a 6-wide well.

0x53c = the end of the well. So the well is 6x10 in the safe area with 2 rows
in the top area.

End of FAQ Proper

================================

 5. VERSIONS

1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 12/27/2007, complete

 6. CREDITS

Thanks to the usual GameFAQs gang, current and emeritus. They know who they
are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done.
Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow
Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog and
others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-banned message
board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him to be part of
mine.
Thanks to the NES Completion Project folks for keeping it going.
Special thanks to odino for notifying me about this game.

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