@VofEscaflowne
Hint: As you might recall, Lloyd is interested in fireworks from the factory south of town. Head there before you go to Duncan's factory up north.

@VofEscaflowne

Okay, I can definitely see where your frustration is coming from. What happened is that you just powered through the game's longest, most maze-like dungeon solo, which would irritate even the most hardened EB fan. If you happen to still be at the "end" of that area, I highly recommend leaving Crumbs so you can just skip the darned thing later.

A hint: head south of Merrysville instead of north.

The solution: There are two factories by Merrysville, the Duncan Factory to the north and Sweets Little Factory to the south. Sweets Factory is where you need to go with Ninten only, and it's much, much easier than Duncan. The enemies are harmless and the whole thing is pretty straightforward. Once you get the item there, you can give it to Loid to have him join up with you. Then the idea is to take both boys through the Duncan Factory.

The place you need to go is much easier at least! Duncan's Factory is probably the second-hardest section of the game and you charged through it with one character!

It is a little confusing in some ways because of there being two of a few things, but some of the townspeople sort of point you in the direction you need to head.

On the plus side, if your Ninten was able to power through Duncan's Factory solo, he's probably pretty beefy at this point.

@r_hjort

Huh, he never even mentioned that aside from some rocket... I guess I missed the factory down south then. Also what the heck do you do with the canary chick? I just checked a guide quickly and it says I have to return it to the canary village which says is the place where I bought it from. What?

@TriforceBun

Yeah I kinda figured I needed 2 characters at that point so if I did it alone, I'm probably way overleveled

@VofEscaflowne
Canary Chick stuff can be done at any time. It's very quick and you get something important but not anything you need anytime soon. It's close to Podunk so don't worry too much about it until you're visiting your hometown again.

Solution: The Canary Village is on the far left of the map, left of Podunk and below the zoo. Bring the chick there and you should be able to figure it out.

Remember--the black dots on the map are all points of interest! And don't forget to use those Crumbs in a crafty way.

@VofEscaflowne
I think you got the chick from the department store in Podunk, right? The actual Canary Village is located to the west of that town. There should be a sing pointing you in the right direction. You can also check the map for a black dot.

EDIT: Oops, sorry for the excess posting.

@TriforceBun

Ah I figured I'd do it now since I can easily access Podunk anyway.

Okay finally got it... also the random battles are gonna drive me insane.

How important is the Franklin Badge in this? I found one and then accidentally tossed it away cause pressing down to jump to the "Look" option didn't work and instead threw it out. This game is really really testing my patience. Resetting brings me back to before getting Lloyd and at least a couple of levels on Ninten. I'm not sure why I'm even bothering...

@VofEscaflowne
It's not required to beat the game or anything, but it's a very helpful item to have, especially later on. I believe there are two of them in the game, though, so if you accidentally got rid of one you might be able to find the other at some point.

It's pretty important. It always reflects PK Beam Gamma, which is an instant-kill move used by some enemies. Very useful late in the game, and while there're two of them in the game, it's nice to have two characters covered like that.

So I got Ana, and she told me to head to Youngstown...the problem is that the bridge to Youngstown is out. I can walk there (as I have), so am I doing this right? Also, I only have the first two melodies so far. I'm sure I'll get more as I go, but I haven't set foot in Reindeer or Spookane yet.

@ludist210
Sure, you're doing things right. As long as you're making progress you're doing things right, I'd say! Don't worry too much about melodies; you'll get them all eventually, I'm sure.

Okay I decided to not give up on it and returned to the same area where I first lost the Franklin Badge... and now it's not there anymore? Does this game hate me?

@VofEscaflowne
What happened after you dropped the Badge? Did you reset without saving or did you save first? What do you mean by returning to the same area?

@ludist210
You're good--there're several paths you can take right now, and I only would recommend getting Ana ASAP before doing too many of them, so you're set.

@TriforceBun

Nevermind, found it a bit ago. Just missed a door that was off to the side. Now I have absolutely no clue where to go so I guess I'll just explore. Ninten is like level 26 so I should be good for a while.

Also am I missing something or is there no other equipment other than weapons in this game? I noticed Magicant had other gear but I didn't have any cash on me at the time. Are they actually equippable or is it part of another series of random items that make absolutely no sense?

@VofEscaflowne
They are equippable. Since you're at such a high level I assume you have enough money for the Magic Coin and Gold Ring.
There's also the Repel Ring. Might be useful for you!

@VofEscaflowne

There are four slots for equipment:

-Weapon
-Ring
-Coin
-Pendant

Amusingly enough, Magicant and only Magicant sells all of the latter three in the game. Get Magic Coins and Gold Rings for everyone in your party as soon as possible, and the H20 Pendant is probably the most useful of the Pendants. Once they're decked out, they live significantly longer! Also, equipped items don't take up item space once equipped--just select USE and it'll jump to your "State" (status) screen. To de-equip, you must equip something else on top of it.

How the hell do you cure the stone status effect? I checked and the only cure I can find is to use a PSI that Ninten has... but he's the one affected

@VofEscaflowne
You can also have it cured by a healer.

The ones that look like this guy:



Except 8-bit-ier.

@r_hjort

Ugh, that's still a huge pain since they're always out of the way and this area I have to explore is full of enemies that can use stone. If they do it on Ninten, I'm screwed cause Lloyd is next to useless in battle so I have to backtrack my way out again