The Great Wall(NES) FAQ/Walkthrough
version 1.0.0 by
[email protected](anti spam spoonerism)
Please do not reproduce this FAQ for profit without my prior consent. If you
write a polite e-mail to me referring to me(and this FAQ) by name, then I
will probably say OK. But if I ignore you that means no--and I am bad about
answering e-mail. Sorry.
Another game I'd never have done if not for the NES completion project and
everyone who's contributed over the years.
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OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. CONTROLS
3. LEVEL LIST AND STRATEGIES
3-1. LEVELS
3-2. STRATEGIES
4. CHEATS
5. VERSIONS AND CREDITS
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1. INTRODUCTION
As a game to play quickly, Great Wall is not very appetizing, but from a
strategic perspective it's a bit deeper than Tetris. It's Sachen's take on
another of those crazy block-pitching games, though here, you get a choice
from a random rolling tapestry of shapes, and you have two wells to dump
blocks in. You alternate the wells to drop the blocks in, and the computer
decides how to rotate them. The computer also randomly drops blocks if you
take too long. If you drop a block in one well and a similar one is in the
other, they both vanish. You lose when you go above the top of a well and can
no longer place a block with the next drop.
You don't get any points for trickery, but as you drop more blocks, the
tapestry moves more quickly and your pointer can't keep up with it. Oh, and
you have less time to drop a block. It gets fast enough that you'll almost
have to let the computer drop random blocks as you go about your business.
Still, with a pause feature, there are ways to plot things out, though it
drags the game out considerably.
To play this game for a while, use NESTopia as you can slow it down for the
harder bits. Otherwise, FCEUX 2.0.3 works best--the earlier bits create bad
graphics, and though the gameplay is okay, the pictures are weird. The Sachen
carts can be flaky in lots of ways, but emulation is usually up to the task.
2. CONTROLS
To select the game, push (1) and (easy). (hard) just starts out faster and
it's really too much if you're learning to play.
This is pretty straightforward, although you will want to make sure you are
using the right controls. I had problems at first because I used NESTopia and
controller #1, but the game wanted me to use controller #2. If you use the
wrong controller, you'll get a 2 player game, which is interesting but not
ultimately the most you can get. In that case you need to position your
cursors over matching blocks and throw things up, as they both flip a block
into the air on their sides(blue left, red right.)
So the pad can move the cursor diagonally if need be, and button A fires.
Start pauses the game without blocking off the screen, which allows you to
see ahead.
As the game goes faster, it's tougher to locate smaller blocks. You'll want
to match the stray bigger blocks when you can, because there is more of them
to hit, and they potentially block up the well more. Because the pause button
doesn't blank the screen, you can plan ahead.
3. LEVEL LIST AND STRATEGIES
3-1. LEVELS
Points are easy to calculate. If you drop a piece with X squares in it, you
get 10X points. You get no points for anything the computer drops, and there
is nothing resembling a bonus.
Also, note the average point totals--1 piece with 1 square, 1 with 2, 2 with
3(L and |) and 6 with 4(square, L's, and Z's and T.) The only piece missing
is the 4-long.
That makes 10* (3.2) = 32 points. So you can see 1000 points ~= 31.25 pieces.
Since speed is based on points, it doesn't matter what you throw in. There's
no penalty for dropping 1-square blocks other than that the more blocks you
drop, the more likely you are to mess up--and, of course, the 1-wide are
easier to miss as the game goes faster.
Score|Dynasty and speed
-----+---------------------------------
0|Min Kuo since 1911
2000|Ching 1644-1911
5000|Ming 1386-1644
9000|Yuan 1277-1367
14000|Sung 960-1279
20000|Tang 618-907
27000|Sui 581-618
34000|Tung Han 25AD-19AD (that's what it says. Don't shoot me. I'm just the
41000|Hsi Han 206BC-24AD messenger. And I probably suffered more through
48000|Chin 221-207 BC this game than you're going to.)
I wasn't able to get any more dynasties after this. Nothing happens if you
roll the score over, either.
3-2. STRATEGIES
For the first few levels, you can probably poke around and match pieces, and
the game will be slow enough that you can look for a clump of two that
eliminate each other. You should also become comfortable with moving while
one piece is in the air. Learning this is probably the key to the game. For
now you can cover a lot of ground, and you can find pieces close to each
other. But later, you will need to look ahead, as the pieces scroll faster
than you can move.
One possible move to get rid of stuff quickly early on is what I call the B-
A-A-B move. If you see one piece, a quick match, and a match for the first,
that is as good as just matching pieces right away. And if you are short on
time, that is probably a better way to go about things than to let a spare
piece drop.
Eventually you will get spare pieces dropped, and you need to figure a way to
do that. Because it's quasi-random what side a piece is dropped on, after a
while you may find one side has two or three more pieces on it than the
other. It will stay that way, because either you drop pieces on each side,
which cancel each other out, or two pieces on each side vanish. If that is
the case, let a couple pieces build up on the other side. You can actually
take a break there, as you can evaluate what pieces have dropped. You can let
a few drop in a row, since the sides don't switch when the computer drops a
piece. You can tell which side will get the piece based on what side the dot
is going up the helical bit next to the portrait. Note pieces the computer
drops can never cancel out pieces on the other side.
Big pieces are a priority to get out of the way, especially ones at the
bottom of a well. You can undercut a mess of blocks by taking out the bottom
one. And the more different pieces you have on one side of the well, the more
potential matches there are on the other.
So another important thing to guard against is dropping the same piece in a
well. That is because you are less likely to be able to find a match on the
other side of the well so quickly if you have, say, 4 3x1 blocks on the
other. Smaller pieces are less of a priority to get rid of this way, so you
can just let things slide in that case. If you must dump a piece, similarly,
dump a 1x1. It will do the least damage and is easiest to get rid of later.
You should, as the levels go on, watch the right side of the board for a
piece that will run into your cursor. You can't really backpedal unless
there's a really good piece to hit--it's the only one of its kind in the
current tapestry, for instance--but you can just wait for something to
arrive. You need to learn to do the Great Wall equivalent of moving without
the ball. Stay about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way to the right of the edges, and
adjust as the game rolls by. You won't be able to rely on a clump of 2
similar pieces to get a quick pair as you did before, and in fact you may
continually need to look for one of two pieces as the game gets faster.
Eventually you will need to look about 1/4 of the way down the screen for the
next piece, as moving backwards isn't an option. And if it is a long piece,
you are better off hitting the wide part of it than trying to hit one square.
What's really tricky is that, on the fastest level, there is a 2 square wait
between the time you push (A) and the time the hammer kicks the piece up.
Once you get to a new level, or the game seems to increase speed, re-gauge
how fast everything is. Try and hit something ahead of time. If the hammer
seems to be going slower, the game is going faster, and you need a slightly
bigger buffer of squares before you fire a piece up. You can move diagonally-
back if you need to, from the tip of an L to the body, for instance. But as
the pieces go faster, you'll probably have a couple chances to hit the piece
you want, so look ahead and plan ahead. Don't get too panicked if there's a
square nearby and you miss it. The tapestry is 16x6 and about 3/4 of the
screen goes by as the ball reaches the top on the fastest level, so you can
hunt for new stuff if need be.
Colors are important in this game. They can tell you if a piece is left- or
right-handed. I forget which means which, but basically
3-L and T = green
1 and backwards L = gold
L and 2 and S = red
3 and Z and square = blue
If you can remember them by letter, you can drop things in a little quicker,
or you can look at the well and you can figure which color you need. Also, if
you need to pause the game to figure out handedness, try and do so with the
ball appearing as low as possible, so you remember which side the block will
drop on. Not seeing that creates one more variable.
When the screen goes wavy between levels, it's very slow, and you can match a
lot to cut the clutter down. For this reason, when you get close to the next
level, be sure each side has the same number of pieces, so you can at least
get close to having empty wells.
4. CHEATS
4e9/4ea/4eb = the score, low byte to high, that appears on your screen.
Building it up gives a lot of the wavy lines that indicate a new level. You
may skip through several if you boost your score right away.
2ec = the distance the left ball is from the top
2f1 = the distance the right ball is from the top
End of FAQ Proper.
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5. VERSIONS AND CREDITS
1/8/2009: sent to GameFAQs, complete
Thanks to odino for suggesting this game to me.
Thanks to GameFAQs for being, well, THERE.
Thanks to the NES completion project in general.
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,
Lagoona, Da Hui, StarFighters76 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.
