Adventure Book

The Adventure Book, a second booklet packed with the game.

In case you lose your way, I have put together some information. Look it over before you slip into the Kowloon Walled City.

SLPS 02975~8 (the product codes of the four discs)

Feng Shui Scope

Aiping (愛萍) gives you this item at the meeting of the Supreme Committee of Feng Shui. While you carry the Feng Shui Scope, the area that malice reaches is shown in purple. The scope is made to work from the moment you get it.

Seven Star Sword

A ritual tool that can draw in malice of the five elements and shoot it out again. A guilü (鬼律) with the Fire element can be defeated with Water malice. In the first quest, though, you get a stand-in, the Eight Star Sword, which cannot absorb malice.

Supreme Compass

Used to make feng shui in the Yin world. You track down the four Divine Beasts, called Xuanwu, Qinglong, Zhuque, and Baihu, and use the Supreme Compass to make the Divine Choice. Feng shui is only born once all four Divine Beasts have been chosen correctly. You have to find the Supreme Compass somewhere in the Yin world.

Kowloonfront, the largest town in the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world, is where the story takes place.

The Walled City has several towns, and all of them connect to Kowloonfront. This is also where you meet the main characters, such as Xiaohei (小黒) and Rich.

The Kowloon Cyber Centre, with its huge neon sign. The ground floor is an arcade called the Kowloon Arcade Centre.

The Twin Registry, a shady-looking place. Twins register here to receive their education.

The Twin Centre, with its strange atmosphere. A Twin Seminar seems to be held here. There is a Kowloonet terminal next to the reception desk.

Locals (路人). In the Walled City, people who have no shop of their own are called this. You may hear unexpected things from them.

The Seafood Centre, where shops dealing in seafood gather. It must still be early, because none of them are open yet.

The Dragon Hotel. The ground floor is a bar, and Rich keeps a sharp eye on things from the counter. Xiaohei's room is on the second floor.

The Pawn Shop, run by Li Hong (季弘). He tells you the almanac Xiaohei asked for has been found and gives you an Exchange Tag for it.

The Qigong School on the third floor of a building, run by Wei. He senses that the balance of Yin and Yang is starting to break down.

Kowloon's Gate uses many words coined for the game. They are a key part of its world, and once you understand these, nothing about the setting will confuse you.

Guilü (鬼律, guili)

What other games call monsters. A guilü is born when malice settles into something thrown away. If the malice itself disappears, the guilü disappears with it. They look grotesque, but if you look closely you can tell what object each one came from, and what that object is gives a rough idea of the guilü's element.

Shelao Association (蛇老講, jaroukou)

A secret society known as Old Snake. It runs places like the Twin Registry and the Twin Centre. Its goal is to gather as much mingli (鳴力), the power of twins, as it can and wake the Sleeping Dragon. Once the dragon wakes, they say, the miracle of eternal life will happen.

Hongtou (紅頭)

Members of a resistance group called Zecoo (是空). They oppose Old Snake, the secret society that controls the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world. Rumour in town says they are a stuck-up bunch, but the Hongtou mostly spend their time gathering information.

Wangren (妄人)

People who came to think of themselves as objects and then really turned into objects are called wangren. In the game's setting, the delusion of being an object grows stronger through contact with malice. Wangren look like guilü, but some part of their body always has human skin stuck to it. You could call them the mutants every parallel world has.

Mingli (鳴力)

The power by which twins far apart call out to each other. Identical twins are said to share experiences and feelings even when apart. In the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world, twins are being educated so that this power can be gathered to summon a great force.

Laoli (老力)

It is said that when the mingli of the twins is gathered, it eventually becomes a greater power called laoli, and that laoli can wake the Sleeping Dragon. So far, though, there is no sign that laoli is about to appear.

Hutong (胡同)

The name for the real-time dungeons. The word originally means alley, but the dungeons of Kowloon are made of tangled buildings. Several buildings join in warped ways and form shapeless spaces. In places like these the flow of qi goes wrong and draws in malice.

Rhizome

A rhizome is an underground stem that spreads with no pattern. The name belongs to a real-time chat on the Kowloonet, where members chat through their terminals. The members in this chat are said to all be twins working on their mingli.

In Hong Kong, hotels are written 酒店. In Kowloon's Gate they are 飯店, the way it is written on the mainland. The Yin world seems to mix cultures from beyond Hong Kong. Character names are no exception and mix Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and other languages.

Character names that are a little hard to read. Xiaohei (小黒) is really a childhood name for a boy.

愛萍: Aiping

張陵: Zhang Ling

張魯: Zhang Lu

小黒: Xiaohei

季弘: Li Hong

夏先生: Mr. Xia

玄太: Xuantai

梁艾円: Liang Aidan

コニー楊: Connie Yang

媽妃: Mafei

Photo captions: Mafei, Mr. Xia, and Zhang Ling

The Kowloon Navi crew, who look after you in the real-time dungeons. In dungeons tainted by malice, their accurate directions are your lifeline.

Four navis who do their job without fear of malice. Behind their courage, though, you can sense a faint trauma, and that makes them all the more memorable.

Honey Lady

Honey Lady is sexy through and through, and her costume is pure dominatrix. She moves quickly and with great energy. Her bee-like dance is a must-see.

Little Fly

His flying vehicle recalls the machine age, and it is a partner he cannot do without. He shows up flying it with obvious skill, as if to show off.

Bamboomer

Bamboomer used to be a craftsman who built bamboo scaffolding, so heights are his speciality. Despite his aggressive, soldier-like looks, he has a gentle nature.

Mr. Dopeman

Muscle from head to toe. Inside that mass of muscle you can glimpse a personality so delicate it hurts, as if he were ashamed of his great strength. That strength came from doping, of course.

To hire a navi, go to the Kowloon Navi Office on a Kowloonet terminal and press the HIRE button. Navis are free.

They look like they are just sitting there in a daze, but they watch everything closely. The locals are part of the scenery in Kowloon. How do the characters look through their eyes?

Local (right)

Hey, you know that girl Xiaohei at the Dragon Hotel? They say she keeps dreaming about her big sister.

Local (left)

Cut it out. If Rich hears we were talking about that, he'll chew us out again.

Local (right)

Yeah, he gets touchy fast when it comes to Xiaohei... But she's in and out of Wei's place a lot, isn't she?

Local (left)

Maybe she's talking to him about that dream business. Rich doesn't seem to believe a word of Xiaohei's dreams.

Local (right)

Wei would listen to her... Could be. But Wei's one of the stiffest guys in Kowloon. He's probably lecturing Xiaohei not to talk nonsense.

Local (left)

That's it! Kidz! Yeah, I heard her telling Kidz about it. About the dream... over by the Cyber Centre. She said something about him having the same symptoms as Zhang Ling.

Local (right)

Who? Zhang Ling... who's that?

Local (left)

No idea. Some dreamer, I bet. Isn't he one of the guys playing games at the Cyber Centre?

Local (right)

Speaking of which, is Kidz a member of that net thing too? You know... what's it called... Rhizome... the place where people chat on terminals.

Local (left)

You interested? It's dangerous, forget it. And this is a weird one, but they say the Onmyoji shows up when you use Hyper-Comm.

Local (right)

The Onmyoji, that's the guy on Men's Street, right? I've seen him before. Some say he's a sorcerer, some say a scientist... Nobody can figure him out.

Local (left)

Speaking of things nobody can figure out, the other day she was having some secret talk with Li Hong at the Pawn Shop. Xiaohei, I mean. What would she want with Li Hong?

Local (right)

Beats me... I can't figure it out at all.

Portrait captions: Li Hong, Onmyoji, Rich, Game Kidz, Wei, and Xiaohei

Xiaohei (小黒), voiced by Nonaka Nozomi

Lately she keeps dreaming about her sister, who told her in a dream that she would meet someone. She seems to link that dream to the arrival of the hero. Rich and others will not listen to her dreams at all, but she still tries to pour out her feelings to the hero. What her dream points to is something the hero uncovers over the course of the story.

Onmyoji (陰陽師), voiced by Aono Takeshi

A mysterious scientist who lives half as a recluse. He is said to have some strange, magical powers as well. He rarely shows himself, but he has a careless side and is hard to dislike.

Game Kidz, voiced by Sasaki Run

A game kid who claims to be the best player in the Walled City. He seems to be one of the Kidz who hang out at the arcade in the Kowloon Cyber Centre. He knows a lot about computers and networks too.

Wei, voiced by Kosugi Jurota

Head of the Qigong School. From the way he talks and acts, he seems to know a great deal about what is happening in the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world. Perhaps because he is so cautious, he is slow to tell the truth.

Li Hong (季弘), voiced by Matsuo Ginzo

He runs a pawn shop, though he does not seem to make his living taking pledges. His speciality is collecting old antiques from who knows where. He seems hard to please, but he is in fact a man of strong loyalty.

Rich, voiced by Suzuki Eiichiro

The bartender on the ground floor of a hotel called the Dragon Hotel. He dotes on Xiaohei like a little sister. He looks tough at first, but as you get to know him he shows a very innocent side.

When all four Divine Beasts have been chosen, feng shui is born. The Divine Choice is made with the Supreme Compass. But where do you go to meet the Divine Beasts?

The four orbs: Xuanwu, Qinglong, Zhuque, and Baihu

The story takes place in a parallel world, the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world.

Another world, the Yin world. This Yin world, which should stand as the pair to the world of Yang, has suddenly appeared. The natural order is being lost. This careless meeting of Yin and Yang means nothing less than the collapse of the world.

The Kowloon Walled City, which should have been gone, has appeared out of the Yin world. The cause seems to be that feng shui does not exist in the Yin world. Having grown with no feng shui, the Yin world lost its balance and showed itself in the world of Yang.

Feng shui is the art of gaining the protection of the four Divine Beasts.

By treating the land to the east, west, south, and north as Divine Beasts, you guide its dragon veins and pray for peace in the capital. That is the largest-scale form of feng shui, called geomantic feng shui (地理風水).

In the Yin world, what can be treated as a Divine Beast? And where does a Divine Beast's power appear?

The player has only one quest: to make the Divine Choice for each of the four Divine Beasts in the Kowloon Walled City of the Yin world. Feng shui only appears once all four have been chosen. The Divine Choice is made with the Supreme Compass, which is said to be somewhere in the Walled City...

There might be an unexpected email waiting for you, so the Kowloonet is not something to overlook. Hints are hidden in the members' chats too.

To use the Kowloonet main menu, you need an Access Card. They are not sold, but people seem to leave them behind a lot, so you may come across one by chance.

The top menu shows the ID of the card you are holding. The ID of the card the hero gets is 辰387-壬. When you have two cards, you choose which one to log in with. Access rights differ a little from card to card, and so do the emails that arrive. You can also get hints by sneaking a look at mail meant for someone else.

When the ID you logged in with has mail, 「収至電子郵件」 (mail received) is shown. When the net members start chatting, the characters 「好好」 appear on the Rhizome menu.

Reading mail and chats can sometimes let you move forward.

The Database is full of useful information.

The Mailbox (信箱) is something like the card holder's diary.

The Supreme Committee of Feng Shui has a database open too.

The Database is sometimes updated as the story goes on, so check it often.

They say some Access Cards are fakes...

Email

Read email sent to the ID you hold.

Database

Learn about the world and setting in detail.

Kowloon Navi Office

Hire a navi here before you enter a real-time dungeon.

Rhizome

The chat icon. Lets you join the members' conversations.

Happy Hour

An advertising channel, more or less. It has a lot of strange products.

Besides the street terminals, which look like post boxes, there are said to be indoor terminals. The rumoured Hyper-Comm seems to be possible on an indoor terminal.

Hyper-Comm

Said to be a magical means of communication that works on the subconscious.

"I don't recommend Hyper-Comm, I'll tell you that. Lots of people break from it. In the head." (Rich)

Space warped in purple. Feng shui battles are fought deep in real-time dungeons full of malice.

In Kowloon's Gate, the real-time dungeons are called hutongs (胡同). Guilü lurk deep in the tangled hutongs, and the malice that spreads through them keeps people away. But to complete the quest you have no choice except to steel yourself and plunge into the heart of the malice. Only where the malice is strongest does the guilü finally show itself.

Lung Shing Road is said to have four hutongs:

Chungking Garden (重慶花園)

Fu Shin Court (富善苑)

Bailey Street (庇利路)

Sha Kok (沙角)

The entrance to a hutong. Who could that be on the other side...

On Lung Shing Road, the four hutongs connect on the inside, so each time you enter a hutong the area you can walk through grows. Stray from the route your navi leads you along and you will surely get lost.

The Feng Shui Scope lets you see malice. The stronger the warping, the more damage it does.

Malice spreads out from the guilü. The guilü lurks at the very centre, where the warping is strongest.

Mokka dogonsui. The conflicting relationships of the five elements decide who wins.

Tree, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water (木火土金水, read mokka dogonsui). Malice has these five elements. Each one conflicts with another, so you work out the element of the guilü you run into and shoot the malice that beats it.

The Supreme Committee of Feng Shui database on the Kowloonet has the details on the five elements. Here is part of it.

"Water malice beats Fire malice. In the same way, Fire melts Metal and wipes out Metal malice, and Metal becomes an axe that cuts down Tree. Tree draws nourishment from Earth, and Earth fills in Water. This relationship, in which the five elements each beat another, is called the conflicting relationship."

You can also win a battle by absorbing the guilü's malice. You cannot absorb malice of an element you are already carrying, though.

Each of the five elements conflicts with another.

The Seven Star Sword can hold up to four kinds of malice. But your Qi P drops according to how much malice you carry around.

Every guilü carries malice of Tree, Fire, Earth, Metal, or Water. Some guilü seem to have more than one element.

Choose how to restore Qi P to suit the situation.

1. Drink Men's Extract.

Men's Extract (男油) holds concentrated male energy. Drinking it restores about a quarter of the Qi P gauge.

2. Walk.

Walking also restores it, but you have to pick an area with no malice. Walking backwards and sideways works as well as walking forwards.

3. Defeat guilü.

Winning a battle restores some Qi P. Battles with guilü that keep spawning endlessly are a good way to restore it.

4. Save and load.

When the Qi P gauge gets close to zero, save quickly. Load the data you just saved and you start again fully restored.

Three items can be used in feng shui battles.

Guilü Orb (鬼律玉, guili-dama)

Defeats a guilü whatever its element.

Shellfish Powder (貝粉, boifun)

Changes a guilü's element.

Men's Extract (男油, otoko-abura)

Restores lost Qi P.

The spinning square pyramid is an object called a Promolith (コノリス). Stand right on top of it and press ○ to get an item. You might get something valuable, like a Guilü Orb.

Once you have taken its item, a Promolith stops spinning.

Item battles are won with an item that has a particular effect.

The enemies you face in item battles are, in most cases, important enemies tied to the main quest.

A single hit does heavy damage. Only one item works.

Green malice means guilü that spawn endlessly. They drain little Qi P, so you can use them to your advantage.

If your Qi P runs out, or you build up malice of all five elements...

Quest 1: Rescue the Mirror Merchant!

After the Supreme Committee of Feng Shui explains the situation, you are sent straight into the Kowloon Walled City of Yin. You arrive in a district called Lung Shing Road. People on the street tell you the Mirror Merchant went into the hutong and never came back. He seems to have gone to fix the angle of a bagua mirror, which keeps the qi flow straight. Get the items you need and head into the first hutong, Chungking Garden. Rescuing the Mirror Merchant is your first quest.

Quest 2: Get an Access Card

After you rescue the Mirror Merchant and return to Lung Shing Road, the way to Kowloonfront opens. For now, gather information in Kowloonfront. The first thing you want is an Access Card. In the basement of the Hair Centre building, you hear about an old fortune-teller. Go to the old man standing in front of the Seafood Centre and have your fortune told, and he gives you an Access Card for 5000z. That is an expensive card.

Quest 3: Wei, Rich, and Xiaohei

When you try to enter the Dragon Hotel, Li Hong is waiting at the entrance. He says he found the old almanac Xiaohei asked for and hands you an Exchange Tag. He seems to think Xiaohei sent you to look for it. You still cannot get into the Dragon Hotel, though. The Pyrotechnician and people on the street say Wei has come back to the Qigong School. Go and see Wei right away. With Wei introducing you to Rich, you finally get into the Dragon Hotel, where Rich stands at the counter, still on her guard. Show Rich the tag from Li Hong, and you get to meet Xiaohei.

Q: I used an item and nothing happened.

A: Most items only take effect when they are needed. There is no option to throw items away, so using one carelessly will not make you lose it.

Simply carrying the Seven Star Sword counts as having it equipped. The feng shui ring that appears in battle is the sword's power.

The Supreme Compass is used for the Divine Choice of the Divine Beasts. Choose Use on it in the item menu to see which Divine Beasts you have already placed.

Choose Use on the Feng Shui Scope in a real-time dungeon to bring up the map.

Q: I don't know how to spend money.

A: Money is carried as an item. When you buy something, choose Use and the price is taken off. As a rule you cannot earn money. Some events give you money, but only as part of the event. At some point you may even run out of money altogether.

Q: I can't hire a navi!

A: You are sent to Lung Shing Road without warning. When you enter the real-time dungeon there, you do not have an Access Card yet, so you cannot hire a navi... A navi is waiting for you somewhere in Chungking Garden. Someone probably hired one for you.

By the way, you can sign up a navi for free in any dungeon. They are volunteers with a cause.

Q: I can't talk to people I pass while moving.

A: In JPEG dungeons you cannot stop between one point and the next. The people you pass on the way are like part of the background. Still, they may be keeping a close eye on what you do.

Q: I meant to turn sideways, but I ended up facing backwards.

A: Turns at a point are not always 90 degrees. Some points hide another route at a slight angle. The trick to not getting lost is to remember the scenery.

Q: I entered a new district and now I can't go back!

A: Don't worry. If you were able to move on, you don't need to go back. You will return to Kowloonfront a few times, and from real-time dungeons your navi should take you back. Don't look back; get on with the next quest.

Q: How do I make good use of marking?

A: After you place a mark, you can pick one of four mark colors with the L and R buttons. Decide on your own meaning for each color, such as red in front of guilü doors, blue for locked doors, and green where terminals are. Picking up marks you no longer need keeps things from getting confusing.

You have 13 marks. Once you have fully cleared a dungeon they are collected automatically, and you start the next dungeon with 13 again.

Q: I can't beat the guilü with the malice I'm carrying!

A: In that case, use guilü that spawn endlessly to line up the malice you hold in your favor. If you have Shellfish Powder, you can use it to change the enemy's element. A Guilü Orb defeats a guilü whatever its element.

Q: I can hardly ever run into guilü!

A: Malice comes in three strengths, and there is always a guilü at its center. Be bold and charge in. Malice passes through walls, so the guilü may be on the other side of one.

Q: My Kowloonet mail is garbled!

A: That seems to happen sometimes.

Q: The Kowloonet terminal won't start! The power is off!

A: That can happen too...

Q: Who is Gatari, the one who sends me mail?

A: ...