This is the ultimate walkthrough for our game DragonScales 5: The Frozen Tomb, written by our friend and guru Match 3 player Kathy Lew (SynthpopAddict). Currenlty this walkthrough is only available here.
Generalized useful tidbits:
- If you’re a “best time” completionist, make sure you have “show stats” enabled at the top of the screen so you can see what the time to beat is (it’ll be in tiny text near the top left). Finishing the board faster than the listed time awards you 100 coins. If you don’t beat the current best time you get 10 coins.
- Pay attention to the star icon at the top of the screen because once again, it’s not all that obvious when there’s a hidden star in the board. There’s a small red flashing message near the star icon when a hidden star is present in the board.
- You can buy more cards (powerups) by clicking on the potion bottle icon to the left of the screen, but cards sure seem expensive and coins don’t seem that easy to come by. It’s best to try to make it through as many of the boards without powerups as you can and hoard the ones you get for free from the storyline characters for the really tricky “mission” bonus boards or for the boss battles.
- From what I can tell so far, these are the most useful cards so you should pick these if Dragonphant offers you them:
1) Berserk which you should save for the group scales boards with patterned scales and skulls. Clear out the patterned scales and any runes first since they hold up skulls, then use berserk to remove all the regular scales so the skulls drop en masse if your board is getting really full. Try really hard to hang on to your Berserk cards until level 17, because you pretty much HAVE to do this trick in almost every board of level 17.
2) Multiple arrow cards for boss battles (really great when there are minions around so you can shoot the minions out much faster).
3) Silence card to stop any boss from attacking you.
4) Additional health points cards (if you’re a completionist who has to do coliseum mode, try to hoard these cards for the last few stages of coliseum).
5) Fury Storm card (takes off 250 hit points from the boss).
6) Blade has limited usefulness, but comes in handy on the “pop” boards and the “swap” boards for getting a skull that’s stuck one space from the bottom.
Everything else I never used or used maybe once in the game…
- Rotating group scales boards are hard. You don’t want to leave too many holes in the board but I found it more efficient to limit how much I “spun” the sets and concentrate on just putting the groups down to either match stuff on the bottom first or use the groups to build “stacks” up to top spaces needing to be done. Getting best time on these boards was quite tricky!
- If there are skulls to drop off the bottom, the most efficient strategy is to clear out a path underneath the scale holding up the skull and then place the matching scales on the sides of that scale (but not underneath, unless the match will clear all the scales underneath).
- On the “click to pop” sort of boards with skulls, you’ll probably find that some of the skulls will get stuck above a singleton scale that you can’t pop out easily; you’ll have to wait until you get the free blade powerup from “pops” elsewhere and use the blade on the single scales holding up skulls from the bottom. The board will automatically replenish more scales when there are no available moves, but spotting the move when there’s only one move available can sure be a hassle. I preferred to restart the board instead of using the clairvoyance powerup if it seemed like I was “stuck” but that’s just me.
- It’s worth it to play the “mission” levels when you get enough stars to unlock them because you get free powerups and gold for solving them. The amount of “extra loot” awarded goes up the further you go along in the game…it was 400 coins for most of the first half of the game but eventually you’ll start getting 1000 coins.
- Level 14 “Do You Have the Need for Speed?” All the boards in this level work like a traditional M3 where you swap 2 scales for matches. Unfortunately you can’t do the usual thing of dragging on a tile in whatever direction to swap…you have to do the extreme old-school way of clicking 2 adjacent scales. You also can’t make moves all the time but I didn’t find these boards all that tough, especially after several earlier levels of group scales boards. If there are skulls present, make sure you focus on dropping the skulls first to be most efficient. You still get the free blade powerup every so often for making enough matches as in the “pop” boards earlier, so if a skull is hung up one space away from the bottom, save your blade for that.
- If you spend coins to buy cards but hit the reset button without completing the board, you’ll get your coins refunded (of course the cards you bought will also be gone). This is a good way to figure out alterations to your current strategy without blowing your money stash, if you’re having trouble doing a board as is and want to experiment with the powerups.
- There’s not a particularly easy way to see if you beat the default best time on levels in coliseum and missions. From what I can tell, you have to open up a board you completed and look for a little crown by the time in the stats. If there’s a crown, you got the best time. In the adventure mode, if the circle for a board is glowing you beat the best time. For getting the “100% of best times” trophy, you only need to have the best time in all of adventure mode. Trying for the best time in coliseum and the missions will likely cost you a ton of gold and doesn’t help your game.
Boss battle tips:
- The battles are a lot harder in this game than in earlier DragonScales, and the arrows you collect in one battle don’t seem to carry over to later levels and future battles. 🙁 From what I can tell, you get one or more arrows after making a few matches in the boss battle. I think you get 3 turns for every one of the boss’ turns; try to match as often as possible with your scales because the bosses now attack you directly taking off at least 50 hit points when they do so along with the earlier tactics of adding or removing scales from the board.
- Using the arrows takes some practice to learn the mechanics. Here’s how to use the arrows:
1) Click on the arrow type you want (the little circles on the right showing your available arrow stash). The circle will turn green.
2) Pick a scale in the scale set up top that you want the arrow to go onto. You can move the arrow around if you made a mistake or change your mind.
3) Place the scales into the board. When you match the scale with the arrow on it, a wood or gold arrow will automatically go off and hit the boss. Iron and silver arrows have to be aimed at either the boss or the boss’ minions.
4) For arrows you aim, a circular icon with an arrowhead appears. Point your cursor in the center of the icon and move the mouse, keeping the cursor somewhere in the middle of the icon to aim the arrowhead. To fire the arrow, click while your cursor is still somewhere in the center of the icon.
- You have to play a long time to get more arrow upgrades after the initial early upgrades of the elven bow and iron arrows – it took me until level 12 to get more than iron arrows! Check your open missions because the silver arrow upgrade is for completing mission #8 and gold arrows are for completing mission 10. The next to last mission gives you ether arrows which you can probably live without if playing the adventure mode (there is only one more boss in the adventure mode by the time you even unlock this upgrade) but ether arrows are great for the completionists who want to play coliseum mode.
- Even if you can’t get a match right away with an arrow, it’s best to use your arrows as they appear in your stash and put them onto the board for future matches. You can have up to 3 arrows on the board at one time. If the boss erases your scale(s) with arrows, the arrows will stay so you can put new scales there later.
- Try to set up scales so you can get two matches with one set of scales for more damage.
- If you didn’t play earlier games in this series, the bosses can put out green potion bottles on the board which you don’t want to match over…matching over a green potion gives hit points back to the boss.
- When there are floating eye minions going around the board, your first priority is to use your iron or better arrows to shoot out the eyes because the eyes fire a lot taking off 50 hit points every time they do so. The first few minions only need 1 iron arrow each to remove but later in the game the minions get stronger and need multiple arrows unless you have ether arrows, which will take out even the red slit-eyed minions with one hit. Killing a minion will also count as a hit to the boss’ hit points.
- The boss at the end of level 8 is crazy hard taking off 250 hit points every time she attacks…use your arrows and the shielding spell. I’m pretty sure that’s why the game gives you 4 shielding spell cards just before you get to this board, as I have now found it’s possible to play the rest of the game without this card. At this point the silence card hasn’t unlocked yet, so you really have to use the shielding spell to have a chance.
- Using the multiple arrow cards allows you to shoot 2 or more of that type of arrow when you set off an arrow in the board. Click on the card right before you make a match which would trigger the arrow on the playfield and you’ll have multiple arrows based upon the number of arrows in the card. It’s best to save this for the better arrows and/or for when you are about to make a match which would set off multiple arrows in it because all the arrows which activate will then be multiplied. If you manage to get the final ether arrow upgrade and use a multi arrow card on this you can really pound on the minions and also really damage the boss when the minions are removed! Just make sure you aim carefully – I sure hate it when I miss!
Tips for Coliseum Mode:
- You really have to hoard all the free extra hit point, silence, multi arrow, and fury storm cards you get from Dragonphant in adventure mode. It also helps if you work for the best time on as many boards as you can and hoard your coins too, because you’re going to need them for the final bosses of coliseum.
- Don’t try coliseum until you’ve completed the main game and all the missions, as having all the upgrades from the missions makes coliseum mode considerably more bearable.
- Dragonphant will still give you free cards for making enough matches while playing in coliseum, so it’s worth it to try replaying bosses you beat to either get the best time or just to get Dragonphant to gift you some more.
- The first 6 or so bosses are pretty doable sans cards, but around the halfway point I had to start using my stash of free health point and multi arrow cards when I got a silver or ether arrow match set up to blast the minions. Watch out for Sinestra’s super attacks – you definitely need a few health point cards to get past her.
- Archmage Cedric is by far the hardest boss to fight in coliseum, even though he’s not the last boss because he regularly does the super attack of taking off 250 of your hit points. You have to be a little lucky and hope he doesn’t choose to do that too often when he’s choosing his attack and use the silence card a few times. Otherwise, just throw the book at him with your assorted attack cards (fury storm, multi-arrows). The bosses after him are almost a little underwhelming because they don’t do the super attack, so it’s more a matter of hanging in there long enough for everyone after him if you just want to beat them.
Hidden Star Spoilers:
If you’d rather search for the hidden stars yourself, something I’ve noticed with every DragonScales game is they don’t ever put stars in spaces that have a “special” tile, symbol, or skull on them at the start. The stars are only ever on a plain space, even when they’re hidden so that reduces the possibilities a lot for where to match over when you’re star searching. 🙂
The first “hidden” star isn’t really hidden as the in-game tutorial points to the spot it’s hiding in. The other hidden stars are:
3-4 bottom spot of the far right column
3-5 top right corner
3-9 the isolated singleton space connecting the 2 larger sections of the board
4-2 bottom right corner
5-3 top right corner
5-8 count 6 columns from the left; it’s the top spot of that column
6-6 the spot immediately above the blue patterned scale on the right side
8-4 top left corner
8-6 count 6 columns in (you can use either side); it’s the 2nd space down from the top in that center column
9-2 3rd spot down from the top in the 3rd column from the right
9-8 the space immediately to the left of the bottom right corner spot (I would also call this the rightmost space on the 2nd row up from the bottom, but remember that since the boards aren’t square, this space is not all the way out on the edge)
10-1 bottom right corner
10-5 count six columns in from the left side; it’s the top spot of that column
10-6 the top space of the “notch” near the left (3rd column from left)
11-4 top right corner
11-7 2nd spot down on the far right column
11-9 the top spot of the first full column on the left (not the singleton spaces on the far left)
12-2 the top spot of the 5th column from the right
12-6 top left corner
12-8 top spot of the 3rd column from the left
13-1 2nd spot from top on the 2nd column from the left
15-1 bottom spot of the 5th column from the left
15-5 3rd spot from the top in the 4th column from the right
15-6 bottom right corner
15-8 top space on the far right column
17-3 count 6 columns in from either side; it’s the top spot
17-5 count 6 columns in from the right; it’s the 3rd space from the top
17-9 top left corner
18-1 bottom spot of the 4th column from the left
18-2 count 6 columns in from the left; it’s the 3rd spot down from the top
18-6 top right corner
19-4 count 7 columns in from the left; it’s the bottom spot *Important* get this space early on and quickly otherwise the star doesn’t appear!
19-5 middle spot of the far right column
19-7 2nd spot down from the top on the 2nd column from the left
20-2 3rd spot up from the bottom on the 3rd column from the left
20-4 top spot on the 5th column from the left
20-6 top spot on the 5th column from the left (no, I’m not duplicating myself)
20-7 top spot of the 6th column from the left
20-8 top spot of the 4th column from the left
Walkthrough:
Note: I will list the mission levels at the point of the game in which they first appear, assuming that all the stars were obtained. For quick reference as to where to find the missions in this walkthrough, they are at 2-7, 2-10, 3-7, 5-6, 8-4, 10-2, 11-5, 12-7, 13-8, 15-7, 18-7, and 20-9. The loot you earn for completing a mission is only given for the first time you do it, so replaying these for best time isn’t worth it, and does not count towards the best time trophy anyway.
1-1: gravity is downwards which means scale sets can break apart and scales will fall to the lowest open space. It’s a tutorial board, but you can click the X to close the dialog if you’d rather just play. Put the scale set you get at the start down such that both the pairs on the playfield match out simultaneously.
1-2: gravity is downwards. Match the scales on the board until you’ve collected 30 scales.
1-3: gravity is downwards. Gather 9 of each of the colored scales shown at the bottom. This is your first real opportunity to practice using the gravity to drop the scales into setups and cascades as well as getting multiple matches (super combos) with one scale set.
1-4: gravity is downwards. Clear out the red scales blocking the skull so it will fall off the bottom.
1-5: gravity is downwards. As long as you don’t fence off your matches, clearing out the 2 scales on each side to drop the skulls shouldn’t be too tough.
1-6: gravity is downwards. Dropping the skulls requires you to set up some cascades, since there are always 3 different colors in a scale set.
1-7: gravity is downwards. The patterned scales are immune to gravity, so you have to build your way up to the blue one. Otherwise, you only need to clear the red and blue patterned scales with matches.
1-8: gravity is downwards. Work from the bottom up, clearing the patterned scales as you go along, then use the stacked up leftover scales to help you reach the top before making the setups for the patterned scales at the top. The hard part is trying not to make a cascade while attempting to reach the top scales.
1-9: no gravity. IMO this makes this board easier since you don’t have to worry about the scales falling down away from the patterned scales when creating setups, but be careful not to fence yourself in.
1-10: no gravity. First boss battle; read those text popups because they are full of useful information about how to shoot arrows, which is essential for winning battles. This boss is extremely easy once you’ve figured out how to use the arrows. You will randomly get more arrows for making matches in boss battles. A useful strategy for all boss battles is to not only use the arrows, but try to set up multiple matches simultaneously including the arrow match for causing even more damage to the boss.
2-1: gravity is downwards. Clear the patterned scales first, but avoid placing any scales immediately underneath of them so the skulls above can fall out immediately once the patterned scales holding them up are gone. The patterned scales in the larger section on the right side are pretty simple to build up to along an adjacent column. For the red and pink patterned scales in the narrow left side, pick one of them to work on first and wait until you get scale sets with that color in them before putting anything on the left. This will require using the gravity strategically to drop the correct color into place, as well as making sure the scale sets you use have the correct color in the proper location on the set so that you don’t block yourself off. Make sure the skull above whichever patterned scale you chose to work on first on the left has fallen out before trying to clear the other patterned scale.
2-2: gravity is downwards. The general idea is to start by clearing out the pink patterned scale in the middle and drop the skull there, then pick a side to work into and get the patterned scales holding up the skull and drop the skull before getting the last patterned scale in the top corner. Repeat on the other side. This is the first opportunity for you to use what I call the “build in and clear out” strategy as all the scales already on the playfield block a good part of it, so you have to regularly discard scale sets you can’t use by putting them into setups somewhere and then matching them out to reopen the spaces before eventually working your way into the scales you want to get rid of. Save your powerup cards for now as the game will get a lot harder later and you’ll need those cards then!
2-3: gravity is downwards. Get the coin bag first if you can, but otherwise work from right to left on the patterned scales, dropping the skulls out before you move along. The coin bag will not allow anything to fall on top of it. You have to place a scale onto the coin bag and match it out.
2-4: gravity is downwards. The first star in the game appears and isn’t too hard to obtain, but like the coin bags, stars will not let anything fall on top of them as you have to put a scale onto a star and then match it out. Work on getting the star first, then get the middle section cleared out so you have working room for the stuff on the sides.
2-5: no gravity. This is the first boss which can directly attack you, removing some of your hit points. Still not too tough as long as you keep using the arrows. I always load an arrow at every opportunity and keep making at least a match setup so the arrows will go off as soon as the scales are cleared.
2-6: gravity is downwards. Get a setup on the star – I put a blue scale onto it so it will also match the blue patterned scale later – and then work gradually from right to left, going also from the bottom up.
Mission “Puzzle A” unlocks at 2-7. Easy jigsaw puzzle. Left clicking swaps pieces, right click to rotate a piece.
2-7: gravity is downwards. Work on the star first, then go from the bottom up left to right until you reach the right side, then get the patterned scale closest to the one space wide area before working your way downwards to get the patterned scales below. You’ll want some cascades to happen on the right side.
2-8: gravity is downwards. Get the star, then work from the bottom up going from left to right where you drop the lower skulls out before trying to get the stuff up top. You should be able to build towers of scales in the adjacent column by each of the upper patterned scales once the patterned scales on the bottom have been cleared out which will let you reach the upper scales without blocking off the upper skulls. Don’t forget to match out the coin bag before clearing the patterned scales in the area.
2-9: gravity is downwards. The first “hidden” star is introduced here but the tutorial text is pointing right at the space it’s in. Match it out, then work from the bottom up going from right to left. As in 2-8, drop the lower skulls out before going for the patterned scales higher up. The patterned scale near the bottom left corner requires you to work into it from the left side.
Mission “Blue Greedy” unlocks at 2-10. Gravity is downwards. Pick a side, and focus on one patterned scale and its skull above before going on to the next pair. Because there are skulls in every column, you will have to spend a fair amount of time clearing out the blocking scales to drop the skull in each column before going on to the next patterned scale until you get around half of the skulls/patterned scales, then it gets a lot easier since you will later be able to build up from the adjacent column on the side. Don’t lower more than 2 skulls in the beginning or the board will become impossibly hard to do without using a powerup.
2-10: no gravity. Use those arrows and it’s easy, especially if you also get big setups or multiple matches while firing the arrows.
3-1: gravity is upwards. Get the star, then the lower patterned scales before the ones on top. Don’t forget that you can still stack scales below the lower patterned scales for setups if the upwards motion is throwing you off.
3-2: gravity is upwards. Get the coin bag, then work from the bottom up. Pay attention to the color of the patterned scales above you while working on the lower ones so they don’t get blocked off; you want the “other” scales to fly up into setups if possible.
3-3: gravity is upwards. Get the star, then work from the bottom up.
3-4: gravity is upwards. The star is hidden in the bottom spot of the far right column, and hidden stars do not give away their position by having scales “stick” to them resisting the gravity like the visible ones. Use the patterned scale a little higher up as a blockage so you can work on getting a setup made to match out the hidden star before going for the patterned scales from the bottom up. When you reach the blue patterned scale in the singleton spot bridging the left and right sides, match out that blue patterned scale by working in from the right side so you don’t fence yourself off in the narrower left. Clearing the left side efficiently will require you to wait for scale sets where there is a color for a lower patterned scale as well as one higher up so the upwards motion will make setups for you.
3-5: gravity is upwards. The hidden star is in the top space of the rightmost column; use pink there so you can clear the pink patterned scale nearby too. Then work from the bottom up using the same strategy as in 3-4 where you also pay attention to what’s above you while doing the lower scales so the up gravity will make setups for you.
3-6: gravity is upwards. Instead of going for the star right away, clear out all the patterned scales on the top left because doing it the other way around causes the patterned scales to get blocked off. Build your way back downwards for the star. When you reach the pink patterned scale on the lower part in the middle, match it out by working from the left side, and then do the same thing for the red patterned scale next to it before working from the bottom up on the narrower right side. You want some cascades to help you on the right, so use only scale sets with both green and blue in them there and discard other ones on the left side.
Mission “Puzzle B” unlocks at 3-7. Like Puzzle A, this one’s pretty easy.
3-7: gravity is upwards. You need some luck and fast clicking to get best time on this one, as the time to beat is very short, so you’ll have to get a lot of cascade action going. If you don’t care about beating the best time, just don’t fence yourself in.
3-8: gravity is upwards. Work from the bottom up, paying attention to what’s above you while working on the lower patterned scales so you don’t wall off the top part.
3-9: gravity is upwards. The hidden star is in the one space making up the 3rd column from the right. Get the blue patterned scale on the top right first, then match out the star (I put pink there so as to get the pink patterned scale to clear out with the match too). Then do the rest working from the bottom up.
3-10: no gravity. Follow the tutorial for using the iron arrows, as this is a critical battle tactic for nearly all of the “better” arrows. You’ll preferentially want to use the iron and other improved arrows you’ll receive later in the game for more damage to the boss instead of the wood arrows. It’s a little tricky remembering that you can only aim by putting the cursor inside the circle and then left clicking to fire, and you must aim at the circle where the boss is on the upper left corner, but with a little practice this will become second nature. You don’t have to be a sniper as even touching the edge of the boss’ circle with your arrows will count as a hit.
4-1: gravity is downwards. The rune tiles are introduced here and like the patterned scales, resist gravity so won’t let scales fall into them from above; you have to manually place a scale onto them to match them out. Collect the lower ones first, then build upwards to reach the ones on top.
4-2: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the lowest spot of the far right column. Use the rune tiles and patterned scales like obstacles so you can put the matching color scales around them easier. You’ve got a lot of flexibility with how you’d like to clear this one.
4-3: gravity is downwards. Work from the bottom up, using the upper runes as parking spots for unwanted scale colors if needed, or to keep your setups from falling down too far. The only tricky spot is the top right corner, where you might have to “build in and clear out” a bit first before you can get the patterned scales there.
4-4: gravity is downwards. Pick a side and work from the bottom up before repeating on the other side.
4-5: no gravity. Considering how DragonPhant will start giving you free powerup cards after this battle, not sure why he acts like such a wimp in the dialog before this level. Play this like all the earlier battles. The only difference is that this is the first boss who can put green potion bottles on the board. Avoid matching over the potion bottles because that will give hit points back to the boss.
4-6: gravity is downwards. You should be able to figure this one out since you’ve played several boards like this in level 4 already. The DragonPhant meter on the far right will slowly fill as you make matches and when it’s full, you’ll get a choice of a free powerup card. It takes a few boards to fill the meter.
4-7: gravity is downwards. Get the star first, then everything else generally going from the bottom up. It’s not a hard and fast rule to always work from the bottom as the runes and patterned scales provide plenty of places to make setups higher up easily.
4-8: gravity is downwards. Clear the runes on the bottom first.
4-9: gravity is downwards. Work on getting the 3 runes in the narrow bottom right before going for the coin bag and the rune in the top right corner – it helps if you use red on the runes closest to the bag or red patterned scales to match multiple items simultaneously. This will require you to do some “building in and clearing out” which will likely get the runes along the bottom for you in the process. You can do the rest.
4-10: gravity is downwards. Not a battle board for once. Work on the runes on the bottom first as you did for 4-8 and you should be able to figure the rest out.
5-1: gravity is downwards. This is the first level in which all the scale sets are in a locked group so you can’t fold them however you’d like into the playfield; they will only rotate. The entire group must fit into the area where you want to place them before your move will work. Gravity will break the sets apart so portions of a group can fall into lower spaces on the playfield. Use this to your advantage to split up the groups so the matching colors will fall into setups until you’ve gotten the 60 scales required. I don’t spend that much time trying to rotate the sets, just get them to where they will break up the most efficiently. The left side of all grouped scales boards is the “preview” area where you can see the next set you’ll be getting as the topmost one.
5-2: gravity is downwards. Cover the runes on the bottom and clear them first, then try to cover adjacent runes on the top with the same color to make it faster.
5-3: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the topmost space of the far right column. You’ll have to “junk up” the right side in order to build your way up to a setup over that spot. Don’t forget that you can drop the scale sets in anywhere there’s enough room for the set to fit and it will fall down so you don’t want to focus only on the very bottom open spaces. This is the first board in which locking the playfield can be an issue so don’t just randomly drop stuff without looking at how it could set things up.
5-4: gravity is downwards. Dig out the patterned scales on the left side first by matching the regular scales which are above them and then clear the patterned scales. You’ll want to wait for just the right set(s) before dropping them in so you don’t block one of the patterned scales off while working on the other one. The right side is pretty easy. After clearing the patterned scales there, you’ll probably still have a few regular green scales to collect for the last goal, so keep matching away until the board finishes.
5-5: gravity is downwards. Get the star first, then build up to the green patterned scale on the right, then the blue one working in from the adjacent column so the skulls will fall out immediately as soon as their blocking scale is gone. The red patterned scale on the top left and its skull are tricky because you have to “build in, clear out” to reach it. Clear out everything except the patterned scale and skull in the far left column. Then fill the adjacent column back up so you can reach the patterned scale.
Mission “Yela” unlocks at 5-6. No gravity. Play it like any other battle level you’ve already encountered.
5-6: gravity is downwards. Dig out the red patterned scale first, then keep on matching if necessary until the board finishes. You need some luck with cascades and fast clicking to get best time on this one.
5-7: gravity is downwards. Work from the bottom up and try not to block off the skulls too much. As in 5-6, you need some luck to get best time.
5-8: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the top spot of the 6th column from the left. Work on getting the star first, then clear your way out to reach the runes in the bottom half before building your way back up to the top ones.
5-9: gravity is downwards. Work on clearing out the right first, which will get you some of the runes in the process. If you aren’t getting the correct colors in the scale sets, work on the easy middle section for a little while before going back to the right. After the goal items are gone from the right and center, clear out the column below the first skull on the middle left so only the patterned scales and skull are left, then build up to the patterned scales from the adjacent column before repeating this process with the last patterned scale on the far left.
5-10: no gravity. This is the first boss who has a minion going around the board. Use the iron arrows to shoot it out ASAP. To make sure you shoot the minion and not the boss, aim the iron arrow at the minion when it is not close to the circle where the boss is, because the arrow will hit the boss instead of the minion if you aim anywhere near the boss’ circle. Otherwise, no different than any other battles you’ve played already.
6-1: no gravity. Not having gravity makes this group scales board easier than when the scale sets can break apart, in my opinion. Just keep putting scales to match things up until you’re done.
6-2: no gravity. Get the star first, then focus your matches on getting the patterned scales going from the center out to the sides unless the board is getting too clogged, in which case you simply need to match some of the junk out to get more working room.
6-3: no gravity. Use “build in and clear out” strategy to keep getting working room in order to reach all the runes.
6-4: no gravity. Work fast if you want best time, otherwise this one’s super easy.
6-5: no gravity. Focus on the runes and patterned scales in the corners first, otherwise, you should be able to figure this one out.
6-6: no gravity. The hidden star is immediately above the blue patterned scale in the 2nd column from the right. Get it first, then focus on reaching the pink patterned scale at the top of the narrow center corridor, which will probably have you clearing all the rest of the patterned scales out before you get just the right groups to go into the top center. Getting best time on this one’s really tough!
6-7: no gravity. This one’s easy if you get your matching colors for the patterned scales onto some of the runes behind them.
6-8: no gravity. All you need to do is get the runes, so use the scales already on the board for making setups.
6-9: no gravity. Focus on the patterned scales in the 4 corners, starting with the 2 reds on the right because those will require “building in and clearing out” to reach.
6-10: no gravity. This boss has 2 minions, so shoot both of them out first with the iron arrows before aiming at the boss. If you don’t have any iron arrows at the moment, put the wood arrows into the board and match them out so they will still hit the boss as that’s better than plain matching alone, but you really want to use the first iron arrows you get on the minions.
Level 7: The first 9 boards in this level are a “pop” style M3 game where you click on a scale which is otherwise blocking a group of scales from falling together into a group of at least 3. The scales must drop straight down only and form a group of at least 3 before your click will work. Chain reaction cascades are possible and will count towards the goal of collecting enough scales in each board. When there are no more clicks which would let anything fall into a group, more scales will drop into the top part of the board. The Bonus Blade powerup meter on the right charges with each of these refillings and when fully charged, you get a free blade powerup to remove any scale of your choice in the playfield. Your Blade powerup cards on the bottom can still be used at any time, and the Clairvoyance card will spot you a click spot if you’re having trouble finding one. Gravity is always downwards in all of Level 7.
7-1, 7-2: Click away until you’ve gotten enough scales. Super easy.
7-3, 7-4, 7-5, 7-6, 7-7, 7-8, 7-9: If you can’t get a group match or cascade to pop out under the skulls, drop them until they’re 1 space away from the bottom and charge up the blade powerup meter on the right to remove the one pesky scale in the way. Try clicking on the singleton scale below a skull anyway, because if the click would remove the scale so that scales above the skull would fall into a group, the click will work! For some reason, 7-9 is really difficult to get best time upon unless you’re willing to trade a few powerup cards. Only the Clairvoyance and Blade cards work in the “pop” boards.
7-10: No gravity. Play this as you did 6-10. It may take a while before the game gives you any iron arrows, so be patient and keep using the wood arrows until you finally get the iron arrows. You should have a few add health point cards in your stash by this point if you’re running low on hit points from the minions bashing on you.
8-1: gravity is downwards. The “unplayable” spots are introduced here. The trick to getting the patterned scales on the bottom is to drop the scales in from above the “unplayable” spots and let gravity do the work. This requires you to pay attention to the order in which the colors will fall. Clear the patterned scales mostly from the bottom up. You can remove one of the higher patterned scales closer to the edges of the board for more working room, but don’t forget to use the pink patterned scale in the top center as an obstacle to help you build up to the star.
8-2: gravity is downwards. Get the coin bag, then start building your way up to the patterned scales in the center. The skulls will land atop the “stack”, so clear out the blocking scales to drop them. You should still have a few scales lying around after that, which will help you build up to the patterned scales on the edges.
8-3: gravity is downwards. Play this as you did 8-1; there are simply more patterned scales so you’ll want some cascades to help you out.
Mission “DragonPhant” unlocks at 8-4. Gravity is downwards. This one is sneaky because if you drop the skulls at the wrong time, the board is impossible! Powerup cards have no effect on patterned scales, so if all the skulls have fallen down atop the scales on the bottom you will have to restart. If you accidentally drop only one of the skulls down in the narrow corridors, you can still work around it by clearing out the patterned scale(s) in the adjacent column, then clearing the patterned scale the skull is sitting on. It’s also really easy to fence yourself in with all the tight corners, so you have to “build in, clear out” to get everything done. Use the upper right corner to discard scale sets you can’t use and match those out every so often to keep some working room for getting rid of other scales. Yikes! Don’t worry about trying for the best time on this mission because that default best time appears impossible to beat without going hog wild on your powerup cards, and it does not count towards the “best time” trophy anyway. The double arrow powerup card unlocking for completing this beast will really be worth it later.
8-4: gravity is downwards. Work generally from the bottom up, dropping the skulls in the lower center before working on the stuff higher up. Use the runes and patterned scales higher up as obstacles to prevent too much stuff from falling in and plugging up the playfield. The hidden star is on the top spot of the far left column, so leave at least one rune or patterned scale in place so you can build up to the star before clearing out the other items.
8-5: gravity is downwards. Clear out the stuff in the center so you’ve got working room working from the bottom up. To get the patterned scales on the right, first clear the red patterned scale and the rune below it from the 2nd column from the right – I placed a red scale onto the rune so both would match out with another red scale on the left. Do not put anything else into the 2 empty spaces which then appear in the 2nd column from the right except for red scales, which will fall down and match the red patterned scale in the bottom right corner. Once the red patterned scales are gone from the right side, build up to the rune from the top right corner. For the 2 columns on the left, clear out the 2nd column from the left, then get the green patterned scale off the bottom left corner before finally doing the pink patterned scale on the top left (make sure you don’t have a scale blocking the bottom left corner before clearing the pink scale up top).
8-6: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the 2nd spot from the top 6 columns in, counting from either side. Clear the runes in the bottom center before building your way up to it. Then clear the remaining runes from the bottom except the ones in the corners before working on the patterned scales and skulls. “Build in, clear out” to reach the last 2 runes in the corners.
8-7: gravity is downwards. Get the coin bag first, then work downwards through the center. Cascades are extremely useful here especially in the beginning, but once you get the center opened up, clearing the runes and patterned scales on the edges isn’t too terrible.
8-8: gravity is downwards. Put the scale sets where the colors will match the patterned scales the best. It doesn’t matter where you place them so long as you are creating setups at least and match regularly to prevent the board locking up. Use the patterned scales and runes as obstacles to keep stuff from falling down too far. When you have opened up a little gap on the right (it will be where the “unplayable” spots are near the bottom), clear out the patterned scales holding up some of the skulls by dropping in only pink or red scales to the “unplayable” spaces. Once all the skulls are gone from the right side of the board, it’ll get a lot easier.
8-9: gravity is downwards. I work my way through the stuff on the right and go leftwards from there.
8-10: no gravity. This boss is pretty much impossible to beat if you don’t use those 4 shielding spell cards because she does a super attack which takes off 250 hit points at a time. So activate a shielding spell card to start with and play with the usual battle tactics otherwise. When the boss does the super attack, the shield will go away, so use another shielding spell card and keep on doing this until you’ve won the battle. As long as you fire arrows regularly, it shouldn’t take more than the 4 shielding spell cards you were given, but be warned, she’s still going to wail on you so you need to be efficient with your turns. I have found you don’t need this card for the rest of the game anyway if you have mastered the basic battle strategy with using the arrows and getting setups for multiple or larger matches.
Level 9 note: In all of level 9, the groups won’t break apart with gravity! This makes locking the board easier. Gravity still works once you get a match somewhere within placed groups of scales. If you get into serious trouble, use a Berserk card to remove all the regular scales from the board, but I find that strategically using the runes in this level is enough to prevent trouble so long as you use the runes to make setups for the patterned scales and/or as parking spots to prevent plugging up your working room.
9-1: gravity is downwards. Try to get the patterned scales from the bottom corners first and then build your way up to the others, but don’t forget you can also stack a matching color atop a patterned scale to save you from having to “build up” so much.
9-2: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the 3rd spot from the top of the 3rd column from the right. Use the runes above the patterned scales to help you make setups to get multiple items with one match. Getting best time is tricky and will likely require you to replay after collecting the star. Any stars you obtained will not be there again when you replay a board, so you can go for it with fast clicking in replays to get that best time.
9-3: gravity is downwards. Work from the bottom up.
9-4: gravity is downwards. Play this like 9-3, except for the top right where you use the runes in the center to hold up scales to make getting the top right corner patterned scale a lot easier and use green on the rune in the top right, so are working from top down in that section.
9-5: gravity is downwards. You should be able to figure this one out since the boards you played earlier aren’t really any different than this one. About the only challenging things here are getting surprised with how the cascades may mess up your setups and how hard it is to get best time as you need a little luck and fast clicking to do it.
9-6: gravity is downwards. As with 9-5, this one’s not that hard to do, but getting best time is a challenge.
9-7: gravity is downwards. Use the runes above to hold up scales while you’re working on the bottom. Getting best time is hard on this one too.
9-8: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the bottom space of the 2nd column from the right. Otherwise, you should be able to figure this one out. There’s a hole in the board on the right side which I find a bit hard to see against the background, so if your move doesn’t seem to be working, it’s likely because you were trying to fit the scales over the hole.
9-9: gravity is downwards. Focus on getting that tight bottom left corner cleared ASAP, which will require some “building in, clearing out” with the 2 narrow vertical sections and using the runes efficiently to match out multiple things together.
9-10: no gravity. The boss’ minions are getting tougher, so will require more iron arrows to take out. This boss is also the first who can clear all your scales off the playfield, but any arrows you put on the board will remain, so put scales back on top of them. The minions are the guys who will take most of your hit points; once you get rid of them, the boss is pretty easy.
10-1: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the bottom spot of the far right column. Get the star and then work from the bottom up going from right to left. Because the right side is so narrow, you have to be careful to drop only the matching colors down so as to clear the blocking scales (put only the matching color in one column to match whatever is below in the other column). On the left, clear the pink patterned scale and the 2 closest runes to it before trying to drop the skull in the top left.
Mission “Coin Catch” unlocks at 10-2. Unlike earlier DragonScales games, there are now so many coins in this minigame that you can’t catch them all, so just grab whatever you can by moving the cursor over the coins. Try to catch that green joker guy since he’s worth a lot of bonus coins.
10-2: gravity is downwards. You have played several boards like this before, so should be able to figure this one out (pick a side and go across, working from the bottom up).
10-3: gravity is downwards. Get the coin bag first and you can do the rest.
10-4: gravity is downwards. Get the star first, then work from bottom to top going from left to right. Avoid putting things underneath the skulls while matching the patterned scales on the right side so dropping the skulls is easier. Getting best time requires quick matching and some luck.
10-5: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 6th column from the left. Don’t forget that coin bag either. I don’t go for the star right away, but the coin bag instead and work my way across and up to everything else since there is a lot of building in and clearing out you have to do in order to reach everything anyway.
10-6: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 3rd column from the left. After getting the star by using the runes to hold up the scale sets, start from the left and work across, clearing the runes at the bottom before going for the ones higher up. This will require you to build stacks up to the top runes and then clearing them out again to drop the skulls (cascades are extremely useful).
10-7: gravity is downwards. Work from the bottom up. Getting best time requires fast clicking and luck.
10-8: gravity is downwards. It’s a lot of stuff to clear, but I start somewhere on the left and keep with the generally working from the bottom up and it’ll gradually get easier once the left side is cleared. Try to get more than one item out with a match. Cascades are extremely useful.
10-9: gravity is downwards. Pick somewhere on the bottom to start with and work your way outwards from there.
10-10: no gravity. The one minion here is the toughest one yet because it not only takes 2 iron arrows to kill it, but moves rapidly. The boss periodically puts holes into the playfield to make things more interesting, but I prefer that to being directly hit.
11-1: gravity is downwards. Start at the bottom middle and work clearing out whatever you get matches for. Go for the star once you get the area around it opened up, then work upwards after all the items on the bottom are cleared.
11-2: gravity is downwards. Start on the larger right side first, working from the bottom up. Then open up the area by the pink patterned scale which is next to that singleton space and clear the pink scale by putting the matching scales to its right. This will give you a narrow area to work into the left side going in from the right. Getting best time is hard because you’ll need some cascades and very efficient matching.
11-3: gravity is downwards. Get at least the right side of the large area of the playfield cleared out so you can do the tricky business of working your way into the pink patterned scale on the bottom right corner and the rune a little ways above it; to clear that tight corner, you’ll have to “build in, clear out” until you can get the pink patterned scale to match first, then place some color onto the rune. Clear out the 2 blocking scales which you had to place to reach the rune. Then put the matching color into the bottom right corner spot so the space in the middle is empty. You will now have to clear out at least the blocking scale next to the bottom right corner spot so you can put the matching color into the open middle spot. On the left, work from the bottom up. This is another toughie to get best time upon.
11-4: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the topmost space of the rightmost column. Use the skulls as obstacles to help you build up to the star. You should be able to figure the rest out. If you are having trouble getting best time, focus on obtaining the star first, then replay it focusing only on the patterned scales and runes since you’ve got to work extremely fast to beat the default best time!
Mission “Puzzle C” unlocks at 11-5. The dragon in the middle isn’t too hard to figure out, but if you’re having trouble figuring out where the foliage goes from looking at the little bits of background showing at the edges of the squares, the fern is on the bottom left corner. The pine tree needles go on the top left corner followed by the big greenish trunk section on the top row immediately to the right of the pine needles. On the right side, the bottom right corner has a spot of light in it which you’ll want to use to find the 2 leaves pieces which match it. The other 3 pieces are a trial and error thing where you’ll have to swap them around and rotate them until they match the background leaves.
11-5: gravity is downwards. Start with the right side, working from the bottom up. To be the most efficient, avoid putting extra scales underneath the skulls so when the patterned scales or runes go away the skulls will drop out immediately. The left is where it’s tricky. You need to get rid of the skull in the middle and the skull on the bottom left, leaving the 4 skulls up top. Wait for a scale set with both red and pink in it to make a setup around the pink and red patterned scales. Discard any other sets which don’t have these 2 colors on the right where you have room. Then wait for another scale set with either red or pink (it really helps if you have green in it so you can make a setup with the blocking green scale) and match out either the red or pink patterned scale, whichever is easiest to reach. Clear out at the column below the pink patterned scale (4th column from left) and then match out the pink patterned scale by working from the right side. Finish the top left corner area by continuing to work into the items from the right, making sure that you clear out any blocking scales on the bottom before the patterned scales are matched. I use red on the runes to clear out the red patterned scales with them.
11-6: gravity is downwards. Get the coin bag from the top right corner using the items nearby to hold the scales up and also to match one or more of those things out along with the coin bag. The rest isn’t too terrible, although you will probably have to do some clearing out of blocking scales. You need some super combos and cascades to get best time.
11-7: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the 2nd spot from the top of the rightmost column. You’ll have to clear out some of the other stuff on the right before you will get the working room to reach the star. The rest is also a matter of building in and clearing out.
11-8: gravity is downwards. Clear the runes from the bottom right corner, then work your way up and to the left, getting the lower stuff from the left before finally doing the top left.
11-9: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 2nd column from the left – note that the leftmost “column” is actually 3 singleton spaces with runes in them, so this 2nd column can also be described as the first full column of regular spaces on the left. Match out the 3 singleton runes going from the bottom up; when you get to the top one, use the color you put on the rune to also match the star. The clearing out of blocking scales while working on those singleton runes will have you clearing out stuff in the middle while you’re at it. You should be able to figure out the right side.
11-10: no gravity. Despite this battle taking longer than any others you’ve done so far, the boss is actually a cakewalk compared to some of the earlier ones! Just keep matching and shooting arrows.
12-1: gravity is downwards. You’ve played quite a lot of boards like this before, but the twist now is all the scale sets in level 12 are 4 scales long, which makes locking the board a lot easier to do. The upside is that you can also get more big matches or multiple matches set up with the longer sets.
12-2: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the topmost spot of the 5th column from the right. Use one of the patterned scales to make a setup while working on the star, then clear out some working room and you can do the rest.
12-3: gravity is downwards. Clear out the 2nd column from the right first so you can reach the coin bag on the top right corner.
12-4: gravity is downwards. Get everything except the star, the pink patterned scale below the star, the 3 runes underneath the blue patterned scale in the top right corner, and the blue patterned scale in the top right corner. Then use the pink patterned scale to set up a match for the star. Use the 3 runes as a catching spot to make your setup for the blue patterned scale before finally clearing the runes.
12-5: gravity is downwards. I like to start with the 3 runes and skull near the bottom right corner, but this is really just a matter of regularly clearing out blocking scales, so you could start from anywhere near the bottom.
12-6: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the topmost spot of the far left column. Use the rune below it to hold up a scale set there and put pink into the star’s spot so you can get the star along with the pink patterned scale. You can do the rest.
Mission “Snow Lady” unlocks at 12-7. No gravity. It takes a while to beat this boss, and this battle is the first one where you might be in danger of running out of hit points even if you have good battle tactics. You should have a stash of hit point cards by this point of the game as DragonPhant offers them to you every so often, as well as some multi-arrow cards. Try to shoot 2 iron arrows at one minion instead of an arrow at each minion at the beginning f you can, so you aren’t getting beat up quite as much. The rewards for winning this battle are worth the trouble it takes!
12-7: gravity is downwards. Focus on the star, then work your way into everything else.
12-8: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the top space of the 3rd column from the left. Put red onto the star’s spot so you can later match out the red patterned scale and the star together. For the pink patterned scale in the bottom left corner, you have to drop pink scales into the column immediately to the right but not let anything else fall onto the pink scale(s) you placed there until the skull has fallen out. You can figure out the rest.
12-9: gravity is downwards. This board looks easy, but solving it is not. Work your way into the yellow patterned scale near the bottom right. If your experience is like mine, you’ll end up clearing out everything else except the circle of runes and patterned scale at the far left. If you’re impatient, you can use a Berserk card to speed up the “clearing”, but it is not that tough to clear the working room back out to reach the yellow patterned scale. When you can finally reach that scale, put yellow onto the rune below it and then wait for another scale set with yellow in it to drop the skull. You’ll probably end up clearing a good deal of the stuff on the far left in the process, if not all of it. For that one last rune in the bottom right, check what color is in the bottom space of the 3rd column from the right. Put that same color onto the rune, then clear out the blocking scales so you can get the match in. If you accidentally clear the scale off the bottom space of that 3rd column, you’ll have to spend the time building back your setup because Berserk will ruin your setup and the Slayer card removes random scales, so could also do the same.
12-10: no gravity. There’s one blue-eyed minion and one red-eyed minion; try to shoot out the blue-eyed one first with a silver arrow so there are less chances for you to get hit. The red-eyed minion still takes 2 arrows. The boss randomly puts holes into the board and the holes change position every so often, but otherwise isn’t that tough.
13-1: no gravity. The color specific spots are introduced in level 13. The hidden star is on the 2nd spot from the top of the 2nd column from the left. You don’t have to put the blue only in the color specific spots – I just match wherever matches are available. Getting best time requires some very fast clicking and lots of combos.
13-2: no gravity. Use one or both red specific spots to help get the red patterned scale in the top left, and carefully work into the other patterned scales there by putting only the matching colors into the spaces closest to the nearest patterned scale. The 2 red patterned scales on the top right have only one “access” space next to them where you can put a red scale, so put red into those spots and then clear out any blocking scales in order to make the matches.
13-3: no gravity. Work your way into clearing either the green or red patterned scale on the bottom right but not both. Then put the matching color (red or green) of whichever patterned scale color is remaining onto the star so you can match the star and patterned scale together. This is harder than it looks since there’s no gravity and the scale sets are 4 long. Spend some time clearing out working room regularly because locking the board is a real issue.
13-4: no gravity. In order to get the 3 patterned scales below the color specific spots, wait for a scale set with both green and blue, or red and blue, at the beginning and put that set by the patterned scales at the bottom to get a double match setup made. Then match the blue using the blue specific spot. You will now have the room to get the green and red patterned scales below.
13-5: no gravity. It’s an easy level, unless you’re trying for best time of which the default one is just 33 seconds. Don’t overthink it, click away!
13-6: no gravity. Use the color specific spots to make setups for the patterned scale of the same color next to them.
13-7: no gravity. Use the runes to help you reach the star; I used red on the star so as to get the red patterned scale in the top left corner at the same time. For the top right corner, clear either the red or blue patterned scale to get yourself the working room for the others. While the default best time is a bit short, it’s not that bad if you set up longer matches or super combos using the runes.
Mission “Twin Tails” unlocks at 13-8. Gravity is downwards, and the scale sets are 4 long with a lot of tight spots in the playfield. Clear out at least some of the patterned scales in the middle to get the room to reach the ones on the edges. It can be done without using any powerup cards, but you’ll have to spend a fair bit of time clearing out the blocking scales in the middle and getting some cascades set up to prevent locking the board. The rewards for solving this one are awesome as you get the Silence card unlocked, which you’ll need for the extremely difficult battles, as well as the ability to place 4 arrows onto the playfield instead of 3 during battles.
13-8: no gravity. You can do this one. Don’t dawdle if you want best time since you have to finish in under 1:05 to do it. You’ll want to clear multiple items with a match if at all possible, but there’s an element of luck involved.
13-9: no gravity. Start in the center and work towards the edges. The way the runes and color specific spots are placed on the sides means you have to wait for the right colors in the right positions on the scale sets to put the matching color(s) by the runes or patterned scales to keep from being hopelessly fenced in. The right side is trickier because you first want to work your way into the green patterned scale by clearing the pink pattered scale above it, then clearing the green one. Next, pick whichever is the easiest to clear of the 2 red patterned scales or the rune in between them and get rid of it before picking another of the 2 remaining items, then the last one. Work on clearing out the singleton access point to the right while you’re building in and clearing out scales on the right. For the last rune in the top right corner, put blue onto it and clear out the blocking scales so you can put blue onto the blue specific spot and into the space between.
13-10: no gravity. Use 2 silver or iron arrows on the minion and the boss is pretty easy after that because he doesn’t attack you directly all that much.
Level 14 has boards which all play with a traditional swap match 3 mechanic…very traditional, as the typical dragging on a piece to swap it doesn’t work, which means you have to click on 2 adjacent scales to swap them! Simply swap away until enough scales have been removed to fulfill the board goal. Gravity is downwards in all of these boards except 14-10 which is a boss battle. As in level 7, the board will refill periodically when you’ve run out of available moves and the Bonus Blade powerup meter on the bottom right charges with every refilling until you get a free Blade powerup from it to remove any scale of your choice. Cascades count towards the scales collected goal, so go for the collapses. The Clairvoyance card will provide you a match hint and you can still use your Blade cards from your card stash below, but I found all of level 14 a super easy rest break. But no, you can’t use the empty spaces here either.
14-1, 14-2, 14-4, 14-5: swap away until you’ve gotten enough scales. All the scales in matches will count towards the goal (matches bigger than 3 will count for more scales collected), as do cascades.
14-3, 14-6, 14-7, 14-8, 14-9: get the skulls down to the bottom of the board, or one space away, then if you can’t swap the scale below a skull, charge up the Bonus Blade meter and use the Blade to get rid of the blocking scale. You can’t swap the skulls with another playing piece on the board.
14-10: no gravity. Try to hit one of the minions with 2 arrows instead of 1 arrow on each minion so as to kill off one of the minions ASAP and keep yourself from being hit as much. The boss only messes with the spaces on the playfield, so it’s easy once the minions are gone.
15-1: no gravity. If you haven’t played earlier games in the DragonScales series, the rocks are introduced here from earlier games. Match next to all the rocks to remove them. Focus only on matching by the rocks as the rocks are the only goal; it’s easy to clear multiple rocks with one match using a little planning with setups. The hidden star is on the bottom spot of the 5th column from the left.
15-2: no gravity. This time, it’s the patterned scales you have to clear, but it’s not hard to get past the rocks.
15-3: no gravity. Set up a match with one of the patterned scales in the middle such that you get the star at the same time. You have to clear all the rocks and the patterned scales this time, and work fast if you want best time.
15-4: no gravity. Get that star, then start rock busting fast for best time.
15-5: no gravity. The hidden star is on the 3rd spot from the top of the 4th column from the right. Clear all the rocks and patterned scales. Work fast if you want best time.
15-6: no gravity. The hidden star is on the lowest spot of the far right column. You’ll have to clear the rocks in the way first. Don’t forget the coin bag while busting the rocks and getting the patterned scales.
Mission “Despair” unlocks at 15-7. Aptly named because of how the color specific spots are placed, yikes! It is a matter of waiting for just the right scale sets to come in… You don’t have to do it in the order that I listed below, this is just how you’d clear the patterned scales from each of those difficult corners, so do those as the appropriate scale sets appear. It CAN be done sans powerup cards although Ultimate Prescience really comes in handy if you’re in a bind, but takes a LOT of focus. Good luck! The Ralentize card you get for solving this I find rather useless, but the gold arrows are worth it.
Upper red patterned scale and green patterned scale in top left corner: Wait for a scale set which is red, green, something. Put red above the red patterned scale, the green into the green specific spot, and the something else into the top left corner for a double match setup. Then use the red specific spot to match out the red patterned scale. Wait for a scale set which is green, something, red, pink, or blue (a color which matches one of the color specific spots below) and use it to match out the green patterned scale in the top left.
Green patterned scale bottom left corner: The best scale set to place has both pink and green so you get a double match setup. Then you have to wait for a scale set with green on the end to match the green (clear out any blocking scales first before placing green by the other 2 green scales). Match the pink out of the bottom left next.
Top right corner: There are slight variations you can use which all involve placing the correct color into the corner and using the color specific spots strategically, but you should get the general idea from below.
Pink patterned scale top right: Wait for pink, green, something and put pink below the red patterned scale, green in the green specific spot and the something outside of the color specific spot (the bigger area of the playfield). Now wait for pink, blue, something to go into the remaining spots by the pink patterned scale to match it out. Clear out the color specific spots if you haven’t gotten the red patterned scale yet.
Red patterned scale top right: Wait for red, blue, something and put red into the space above the blue specific spot, blue into the blue specific spot and the something outside in the bigger area of the playfield. Then wait for red, green, something to match the red. Clear out the color specific spots if you haven’t gotten the pink patterned scale yet.
15-7: no gravity. If you just finished the “Despair” mission before doing this one, this board is a walk in the park compared to that mission, even with having to match furiously to get best time! Don’t forget the star while you’re at it.
15-8: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top space of the rightmost column. Scales must be dropped from above the “unplayable” spots to reach the patterned scales and rocks. If you’re an efficient player, you’ll still have to keep matching for a little while longer to get enough scales for the scales gathered goal.
15-9: gravity is downwards. As in 15-8, drop scales from above the “unplayable” spots so they fall down to the rocks below and then match out the scales to clear the rocks. Get the rocks out of the top center and the 2-space wide corridors in the middle before working on the outside columns. Stack unwanted scales atop the rocks in the top center to make it easier to reach the rocks in the 2-space wide corridors. On the edges, drop only 1 color down the column since it’s only 1 space wide until you get a match. Clear out the blocking scales in the adjacent column as needed before setting up more matches in the narrow columns.
15-10: no gravity. 3 minions to deal with here, but so long as you use the battle strategies already discussed, doable. You can only use the iron and silver arrows on the minions as the gold arrows automatically shoot at the boss like the wood arrows. If you’re getting seriously pounded upon, use some of your health point cards or a double arrow card if you have a silver or iron arrow ready to shoot to help get rid of the minions faster since the boss doesn’t actually attack you, only the minions. Once the minions are gone, dealing with the boss’ attacks of dropping green potion bottles and messing with the playfield spaces is rather simple.
Level 16: These are all “flood” boards where you have a certain number of turns before more scales automatically appear at the bottom. Remaining turns are displayed on the top right. You have to drop the skulls out to win. Get those cascades! Unfortunately, all powerup cards are disabled in level 16 so you have to do this with matches only. If the board is getting overly full, match out some of the scales for more working room. Don’t let the stack go past the top or you’ll have to restart. The stack can touch the top spot of the board somewhere, but you’ll have to lower it down before the next flood to avoid a forfeit.
16-1: gravity is downwards. Get rid of something by the skull so you can make the match below.
16-2: gravity is downwards. Get a blue/green super combo for the left skull, then work on clearing out the stuff by the right skull which will take a bit longer and a little luck.
16-3: gravity is downwards. Drop the center skull first, then pick a skull to focus on getting out before working on the other one, unless the board is getting too full, in which case you should lower the stack by the skull which is highest.
16-4: gravity is downwards. Drop the matching colors above the “unplayable” spaces. There is a definite element of luck involved with getting cascades, so if it looks like you’re going nowhere, hit the reset button on the lower left to restart.
16-5: gravity is downwards. Play as you did 16-4.
16-6: gravity is downwards. When placing the scales, be careful not to block off pairs you’ve created.
16-7: gravity is downwards. Start with lowering the left and center skulls and you may be able to drop them out together, but the skull on the right is the hassle which will take some work and lucky cascades.
16-8: gravity is downwards. Get the skulls out one at a time, even though it looks like you could stack the skulls together beforehand. Otherwise, you’re just going to get buried. And yes, I hate it when the colors on the scale sets don’t match what I want to lower the skulls.
16-9: gravity is downwards. Pick a skull which is easiest to get a setup with your first scale set, and take it from there. If you’re lucky, you can drop 2 skulls out at the start with your first few scale sets. If you get really lucky, you can drop all 4 skulls in an amazingly short period of time if you get 2 super combos made before the board adds scales!
16-10: no gravity. This is the hardest boss yet, not just because he’s got 4 minions, but he’ll wail on you too with the super attack taking off 250 hit points. Use some of your double arrow cards to get rid of the minions faster in the beginning and some health point cards later if you’re about to lose. Fortunately, the boss does a multitude of attacks, many which affect only the playfield, so you’re not constantly getting beat up, but kill those minions ASAP.
Level 17: If you’ve been following my tip of picking Berserk cards, health point cards, Silence, or multi-arrow cards from DragonPhant when he offers them to you and wondering why I never suggested using the Berserk cards, it’s because level 17 is where you want to use your stash of Berserk cards for getting skulls out easy. You probably don’t have enough free cards to do the trick more than once per board though, so use them wisely!
17-1: gravity is downwards. The grouped scales are now 4 scales instead of 3, but gravity at least breaks them apart.
17-2: gravity is downwards. Put something on the star, then remove as many patterned scales as you can by building up to them, using the star as a match setup or obstacle to get to one or more patterned scales. The board will be really full, so use Berserk to clear all the scales and drop most of the skulls if not all of them, then you should be able to do the rest.
17-3: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the top spot of that center column which has the huge stack of patterned scales and the skull. It’s better to work on getting rid of most of the patterned scales before trying for the star since the playfield gets plugged up so easily. Leave at least one patterned scale in place though and get the star before using a Berserk card to drop the majority of the skulls, then finish up. Best time is tough to achieve; you definitely need more than a little luck but it may be easier to do if you get the star in one attempt and then you can focus on clearing the patterned scales only in replays, which can keep you from having to use more Berserk cards.
17-4: gravity is downwards. Get the patterned scales from the bottom, then work your way up to the others. Use Berserk to drop the skulls after all the patterned scales are gone.
17-5: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the 3rd spot down from the top of the 6th column from the right. Get it first, then clear out all the patterned scales. This will take some time because you’re going to have trouble finding places to fit everything and have to clear out some blockages before you can reach all the patterned scales. Use Berserk to drop the skulls.
17-6: gravity is downwards. Get the lower patterned scales before the upper ones. You don’t need a Berserk card if you’re careful about not plugging up the column below a skull when clearing the patterned scales.
17-7: gravity is downwards. Get the patterned scales off the bottom and clear out the outside columns so the skulls can drop on their own later. Build up to the star and the patterned scales in the top corners.
17-8: gravity is downwards. It’s easier to plug up the board than it looks, so if you don’t want to use a Berserk card for the skulls at the end, focus on getting one patterned scale at a time and then clear out the column below the closest skull before getting the patterned scale out of that skull’s way.
17-9: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the topmost spot of the leftmost column. You’ll have to lower the skulls before you can even reach the star, so clear most of the patterned scales – I leave the green patterned scale in the top right corner for last – which will at least lower the skulls if not drop them. Use Berserk to drop the skulls, then build back up to the star and then get the green patterned scale in the top right. This is a lot harder than it looks, so if your board is getting too filled up before you can get to all the other patterned scales, it’s better to restart than blowing a lot of Berserk cards.
17-10: no gravity. Jagos actually isn’t that tough to beat as he never directly attacks you, just puts stuff onto the playfield. It’ll take a while since he’s got a lot of hit points, but play this like any other battle level you’ve played before. And yes, the game isn’t kidding when it told you there weren’t any more bosses until the very end of the game after this!
The storyline here says Jagos and DragonPhant are leaving Zarya to go on to the Frozen Tomb by herself, but don’t worry, the DragonPhant meter will still work for the rest of the game.
18-1: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the bottom spot of the 4th column from the left. Here’s the secret to getting that red pattered scale out of the bottom middle column easily…clear the 3 runes in a row which are above it, but don’t put anything onto the single rune in that column so that rune can be a block to prevent other stuff from falling down the column accidentally. Then drop only red scales with the gravity down the column underneath the single rune until the red matches out. You can do the rest.
18-2: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the 3rd spot down from the top of the 6th column from the left (the blank space in the center of the “rune circle”). Clear at least some of that “circle” while getting the star, then you should be able to figure the rest out since you’ve played a lot of boards like this already, because even though the scale sets are 4 long, it’s really not that hard as long as you regularly clear out some working room. The Berserk card trick you used in level 17 can still be done to get rid of the skulls if you’re having trouble getting rid of the “stack”.
18-3: gravity is downwards. Build up to the pink patterned scale on the top right corner from below it such that you put pink scales in the 2 spots immediately below the pink patterned scale. Use the runes on the bottom to help hold up the scales so you can get this setup made faster. When the skull from the top right lowers, clear the blocking scales and the rune below it. Get rid of the green patterned scale holding up the skull on the left and then clear the runes below. Put something onto the rune in the top left corner and then build up to it where you put 2 matching scales in the playable spots below that rune. You can do the rest.
If DragonPhant offers you the choices of both Berserk cards and health point cards or other useful cards like multi-arrows or Silence at this late point of the game, pick the other card instead of Berserk as you probably won’t need Berserk cards for the rest of the game. The exception is if you aren’t ever going to play Coliseum mode, in which case Berserk is still better for getting you out of trouble in case you’re about to lock a board.
18-4: gravity is downwards. Start on the bottom right in the open spaces and work from there. It’s tricky at the very start because the playfield is so full, but once you get a match or 2, it’ll gradually get easier. Clear out all the runes, patterned scales and skulls from the right side. To do the left side, keep that singleton space open in the left center and work your way in from the right reaching the closest patterned scale or rune until you’re done. Use the right side for discarding scale sets that don’t match on the left until you’ve opened up more room on the left.
18-5: gravity is downwards. Work generally from the bottom up, but if the scale sets you get don’t match the stuff on the bottom, put them onto the runes higher up to keep them there and/or use them on whatever you can set up higher. Take advantage of the gravity to get you the setups needed and to work around the “unplayable” spots on the bottom left. Don’t drop anything down in the column on the far right; get the pink patterned scale by working in the adjacent column.
18-6: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the top spot of the rightmost column. Get rid of the runes and pink patterned scale on the bottom right, then the green patterned scale holding up the skull and drop the skull before going for the star. You should be able to figure out how to work the gravity to get the rest of the items on the left. Getting best time is tough if you’re going for the star, so replay afterwards if you’re going for best time and work fast.
Mission “Juanjo” unlocks at 18-7. If you thought some of the earlier mission boards were hard, you haven’t seen anything yet! This and the final mission are the hardest boards in the game. The general trick to reaching all those “islands” is to pay attention to where the arrows are pointing and put the matching color for the closest patterned scale(s) into the highest spots you can reach before tripping the arrows by matching over the arrows. You don’t have to do the board in the order I list below, but here’s how you get to all the patterned scales. Work on only 1 section at a time; it doesn’t matter which one you start with, so pick the section based upon what scale colors you get at the start and go from there. This level takes a lot of careful clearing out of the spaces for working room to get everything set up. Trade some of your amassed gold for Blade cards if needed. Don’t trip the arrows for the associated patterned scales prematurely or you will have to restart. There is no gravity.
1) Pink patterned scale in bottom left corner: Put 2 pink scales into the 2 lowest spots of the 2nd column from the left which you can reach. Trip the arrow above in the same column to match the pink patterned scale. This will require some careful clearing out of the blocking scales near the arrow to even reach it. Do not trip any of the other arrows.
2) Blue patterned scale top right corner: Put 2 blue scales into the 2 highest spots you can reach in the 2nd column from the right. This will require you to carefully clear out the blocking scales after you put the 1st blue scale in. Then trip only the arrow in the 2nd column from the right to match the blue scales.
3) 3 red patterned scales at top: You must place red into the 2 spots aligned with the arrows in the 4th and 6th columns from the right. As with everything else in the board, you will have to clear out working room to even get the red scales placed in there. The other tricky part is that you must then place green onto both the arrows in the 4th and 6th columns from the right, but do not trip either arrow singly! You have to put green into the green specific spot in between both arrows so the match trips both arrows simultaneously in order for all the red scales on top to clear.
4) Green patterned scale bottom center: Put 2 greens into the 2 lowest spots of the 6th column from the left which you can reach. Again, you’re going to have to carefully work your way into clearing out the room to even get there. Trip the arrow in the 6th column from the left to match the green.
After all of that, you get a seriously awesome reward of ether arrows, which are the ultimate minion killer. Ether arrows will remove any minion with one hit, and come with their own aim assist to make missing a lot less common. You also unlock the quadruple arrow card for serious damage to minions when there’s a lot of them.
18-7: gravity is downwards. Start with the 2 skulls on the top left. Clear the runes below them to drop the skulls, then use the gravity to drop only red scales down the 2nd column from the left (you will have to do some clearing out of blocking scales to get 2 reds dropped down) until the red patterned scale matches out. Then repeat this process with 2 green scales to get the skull out of the bottom left. You should be able to figure out the rest.
18-8: gravity is downwards. While it’s cluttered, you’ve played quite a few boards like this before, so should be able to figure it out if you work from the bottom up.
18-9: gravity is downwards. Start with the pink patterned scale on the bottom left and then do the remaining patterned scales by working from left to right. The first few you will have to work from below and only lower the associated skulls at first before clearing out the blocking scales to drop the skulls. After a few of the patterned scales up top and skulls are gone, you can then do the easier thing with the rest by working only from the adjacent columns to the left so as not to block the skulls.
18-10: gravity is downwards. Eek, this one might make you wish for a battle board instead. Get rid of the patterned scales on the bottom left corner without removing the green patterned scale up top; you need to place a scale set with blue and red next to each other at the bottom left corner for a double match setup and then match out one of those patterned scales in the corner without accidentally clearing the green. Then match out the other patterned scale in the corner also without clearing the green. One of the patterned scales will have a blocking scale atop it while you’re working on them. If that blocking scale happens to be in the far left column, you’ll have to clear it out before you can get the skull. There’s only that one singleton spot to access the bottom left corner due to the hole in the board, so keep working to clear that singleton space out and don’t put any other colors down the gap except for whatever matches the blocking scale in the bottom left corner. Place green over the 2 runes in the top left to drop the skull. The other tricky part is the narrow corridor on the right with the red patterned scale at the bottom. Do not clear the top rune, but get rid of the lower rune in that column without putting anything down the corridor. Keep at least one of the spaces by the remaining rune clear so you can drop red scales only down the corridor until the red matches out. Now you can finally clear the rune holding up the skull to drop the skull out of the corridor. You should be able to figure out the rest.
19-1: gravity is upwards! At least the grouped scales are small sets of 3, so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue once you get used to everything going up. Gravity will not break the scale sets this time, similar to level 9.
19-2: gravity is upwards. Use the star to help you get a patterned scale out of the center area, then work from the top down.
19-3: gravity is upwards. Put setups around the patterned scales on the top center to help you reach out to the blue patterned scales in the top corners. You can do the rest.
19-4: gravity is upwards. The hidden star is on the bottom spot of the 7th column from the left (column with the blue patterned scale 3 spaces higher). I think I uncovered a bug with this one where if you don’t get the star within a few matches, it never appears, so work on getting that star before anything else. Clear out the center and keep your working room clear while waiting for the right scale sets to come in for the tight top right corner. You should be able to figure the rest out as long as you work from the top down.
19-5: gravity is upwards. The hidden star is in the 3rd spot from the top of the rightmost column. Use the runes to help you reach it, then play from the top down.
19-6: gravity is upwards. The only thing hard about this one is playing fast enough to get the best time!
19-7: gravity is upwards. The hidden star is on the 2nd spot from the top of the 2nd column from the left. Use the pink patterned scale as a place for making a setup over the star so you can get both together. Otherwise, like 19-5, the only hard thing about this one is how fast you’ve got to play to get best time.
19-8: gravity is upwards. You can do this one.
19-9: gravity is upwards. This time, start with the pink patterned scale on the bottom and “build in clear out” a little using the runes in the center as obstacles to help you get to that pink scale. Do a little more building in and clearing out with the green patterned scale at the top. Otherwise it still isn’t that hard except if you’re trying to get best time.
19-10: gravity is upwards. Once again, it’s really only getting the best time that’s tough as you should be able to figure this one out otherwise. Use the runes in the lower center to hold scales in place so you can get the patterned scales on the bottom faster and don’t let the holes in the playfield mess you up.
20-1: gravity is downwards. While it’s a crowded board, just work mostly from the top down wherever you’ve got a match setup and once some of the stuff clears out, it’ll get easier. Take a break from the patterned scales and runes every so often when you see a skull lowering and clear the scales under it if the cascades don’t drop the skulls for you.
20-2: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the 3rd spot up from the bottom of the 3rd column from the left. Use the runes nearby to get your setup over the star and clear out some of the stuff to reach it. You can do the rest.
20-3: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 2nd column from the left. Use the runes below to help you get the stack up to that star easier and the rest is pretty easy.
20-4: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 5th column from the left. I use green on it so as to match out the patterned scale nearby and maybe a rune with the star too. It’s a tight board overall with all the other stuff there, so make all your scale placements count until you’ve gotten more working room.
20-5: gravity is downwards. Clear out the large area first, then work your way into the runes and patterned scales on the bottom left corner, which will take a fair bit of “building in, clearing out” to remove and keeping the singleton space access to the bottom left corner clear. Clear everything out of the bottom left corner before going for the last rune up top. Work in from the upper singleton space near it, not from the bottom.
20-6: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is in the top spot of the 5th column from the left. Use the rune below to hold the scales up making your building up to the star easier. Clear the blocking scales so you can get to the runes on the bottom. The skull in the top right corner is a pain because you’ll most likely have to plug up the columns around the patterned scale to reach that scale, then do a fair bit of clearing out of the blocking scales working from the singleton access point near the bottom right corner.
DragonPhant offered me a choice of 2 different multi-arrow cards or the Silence card here. If you’re going to play coliseum mode later, pick Silence over the multi-arrow cards, otherwise if you have several Silence cards already and aren’t planning to play coliseum mode, pick the best multi-arrow card.
20-7: gravity is downwards. The hidden star is on the top spot of the 6th column from the left. Use the runes to hold a scale set up there and use blue on the star’s spot so it can be collected together with the blue patterned scale. The skull on the top right is hard because you have to build up to the rune from underneath of it, which plugs up that column, so then you have to clear all the junk from the bottom right corner to drop the skull. You can do the rest.
20-8: gravity is downwards. The final star is hidden in the top spot of the 4th column from the right, next to the 3 skulls. Use the patterned scales below to make a setup for the star. After you get the star, work from the bottom right going up and towards the left, clearing columns below skulls as you go along.
The last mission, “Le Fou” unlocks at 20-9. This one is just as beastly as the Juanjo mission preceding it, sorry. Again, the arrows point to the “trick” spots to place the matching color scales to get those patterned scales in the “islands”, but now you’ve got to blast the brick walls at just the right moment too. There is no gravity. The rewards for completing this freakishly difficult board are fantastic: your arrow attack strength goes up, you get a 1.5x increase to your hit points, and the Fury Storm card unlocks, which allows you to super attack your opponents like the bosses in level 8 and 16 were doing to you. If you’re going to play coliseum mode and DragonPhant offers you the Fury Storm card, take it over all others.
1) Bottom left part 1: Match out the 3 bombs stacked in the 6th column from the left by putting a scale onto a bomb and then matching that color to explode one bomb at a time. Don’t trip any of the arrows in the left until you’ve finished exploding the bombs. There is one arrow atop a brick wall at the bottom. Put 2 green scales in the 2 highest spots you can reach in that same column, then trip the arrow below them with a different color match so the greens move up to the green patterned scale and match out. Don’t trip the other 2 arrows near the red patterned scale yet.
2) Bottom left part 2: Use red to match out the red patterned scale and the arrow immediately above it. You will probably have to clear out blocking scales next to reach the last arrow, so do so and trip that last arrow from the bottom left. The bomb will move up to the top left corner.
3) Top left corner: Build in and clear out a match setup to the bomb in the top left corner and explode the bomb. This removes a brick wall in the top right corner close to the pink patterned scale.
4) Bottom center bomb part 1: Carefully work your way around the 3 arrows in the top center and trip only the arrow pointing up! If you accidentally set off any of the down arrows the board is impossible and you’ll have to restart. The brick wall above the bomb moves up, giving you a narrow 2 space high access point to the bomb. Pick a color and put 2 of that into those 2 spaces (one atop the bomb and the other one above the bomb), but make sure you don’t match them out or the board is once again impossible to finish! This will take some building in and clearing out to get the 2nd scale placed above the bomb.
5) Bottom center bomb, part 2: After you have your matched pair of scales set up on the bomb, trip the arrow in the same column above (6th column from the right) to lower the brick wall back down. Do NOT trip the other arrow in the 7th column from the right yet, or the board is impossible! You now have a singleton spot a little ways below the remaining arrow to the left of the brick wall. If there’s a scale here, clear it out and put the same color there as whatever you have on the bomb below. Now trip that last arrow in the top center to move the scale down, which will explode the bomb and clear out a brick wall by the blue patterned scale.
6) Blue patterned scale bottom right: Clear your way into the singleton spot on the far right below the arrow and put a blue scale in that spot so it is aligned with the arrow above. Put another blue scale into the spot immediately above the blue patterned scale in the “island”. Now work your way into the last arrow in the top right corner and trip it to finish. Whew!
20-9: gravity is downwards. Clear the bottom row and you should be able to figure out the rest.
20-10: no gravity. You thought Archmage Cedric was bad when you last fought him in level 16? His beast version is even worse! Here’s where doing those last few super hard missions really pays off. If you get an ether arrow, activate the quadruple arrow card and blast all the minions with it. It’s even better if the card is used on a match with multiple arrows in it, because all the arrows will be multiplied, so then you can pound on Cedric afterwards too. I always have quite a stash of health point cards by this point of the game, so use the lower health point cards in multiples to get some hit points back. As long as you keep more than 250 hit points, Cedric can’t kill you with an attack. Use a Silence or Fury Storm card if you’ve been hit a lot to also save your hit points. If you get lucky, Cedric will do some other attack where he messes with the board spaces instead of super attacking you, but if he’s just wailing on you, use your Fury Storm cards.
Coliseum Mode:
You can play coliseum mode at any time, but I find it is much better if you play through the entire adventure mode first as well as completing all the missions so as to have a huge stash of gold for buying powerup cards if you need to, plus getting all the upgrades from the missions is a must for the harder bosses in coliseum. You get to meet the dragon Ribeus for the final battle in coliseum, and this is where the background for the storyline in DragonScales 6 comes in. Ribeus wasn’t your friend at the end of the story in adventure mode, but beating him in the last battle of coliseum tames him so he becomes your loyal companion in the next DragonScales game.
I play the vast majority of DragonScales 5 without powerup cards, except as noted for certain boards in the walkthrough. So the one trophy I’m always missing at the end of the game is the 50 cards used one. Coliseum is a good place to start using those cards, especially on Siniestra and Archmage Cedric, who is the toughest boss in coliseum. DragonPhant will still gift you with free cards whenever his meter is full.
The bosses have more hit points in coliseum than when you first encountered them in adventure mode, but otherwise use the same attacks as they did in adventure mode. Don’t worry about getting best time in coliseum as it doesn’t count towards the best time trophy. There is no gravity at all in coliseum mode.
Before picking an arrow to use when it’s your turn, wait a tiny bit to see if a better arrow will appear in the circles before making your choice. You will always have just 2 wood arrows for your first turn, but the other arrows will appear randomly.
Bosses 1-6 are actually pretty easy. Just use the standard battle tactics and if you get better arrows, use them as soon as you get them, because they don’t carry over from one battle to another. You don’t need your powerup cards for the first 6 or 7 bosses.
Boss 7: This is an endurance contest between you and the minions. With 1500 hit points, as long as you’re a good shot, you should be able to outlast the minions without having to use your health point or other cards, as the boss doesn’t directly attack you otherwise.
Boss 8: can be beaten with standard battle tactics and isn’t all that tough.
Boss 9: Get that minion ASAP. If you’re lucky, Siniestra doesn’t super attack you all that much and instead will spend time removing your scales from the board, which I much prefer over losing 250 hit points. Just keep putting arrows onto the playfield and re-cover them with scales if she removes the scales. If you’re getting super attacked a lot instead, use your health point cards.
Boss 10: If the boss is constantly removing all your scales from the board in the beginning, you should just press the reset button because this is a contest of outlasting the minions, so you’ve got to get your iron, silver, or ether arrows going on them. As long as you can take out the minions relatively quickly, you shouldn’t need your powerup cards.
Bosses 11-16: Kill any of the minions first by focusing your arrow shots on whichever one has the lowest energy bar, unless you get an ether arrow, in which case shoot out a minion with the largest energy bar since ether arrows will kill any minion with one shot. This keeps you from being pounded on as much, since it’s the minions which are doing the most damage. Keep on doing this until all the minions are gone and then it’s pretty easy.
Boss 17: Archmage Cedric is just as horrible, if not a bit worse, in coliseum mode than he was at the very end of level 20. Sometimes you do get lucky and he only does little attacks or messes with the board spaces instead of the super attack, and you can hit him for a while. If you get an ether arrow, use a multi-arrow card so you can wail on him. If you’ve been super attacked a few times, use Silence one or two times and some health point cards if necessary. You’ll probably need a Fury Storm card or 2 to finish him off since he’s got a lot of hit points.
Bosses 18-19 are actually a lot easier than Boss 17 was since they don’t super attack you. Focus on killing the minions and then simply play long enough until you win.
Boss 20: This one’s a great place to go for the 50 cards used trophy, if you haven’t gotten it yet. The minions all seem to want to float on top of each other so it’s hard to focus on one minion to kill at a time, so you get pounded upon by them for a long time while Ribeus is also throwing small attacks at you. Go for broke with using all your health point cards here and buy more if you don’t have enough. If that’s still not sufficient, buy some multi-arrow cards from the shop as you’re likely to be out of them, and use Fury Storm to knock off a chunk of Ribeus’ hit points.