Table of
Contents

1. The World of Nuitai3
2. Basic Controls4
3. Getting Started6
4. Out in the World8
5. The Field Menu10
6. Battle Screen14
7. Elements and Stances18
8. Cast of Characters20
9. Creatures of the Islands24
10. Items26
11. Growing Stronger28
12. Adventure Guide30

The World
of Nuitai

Nuitai is a world of ocean, scattered with islands that circle a great whirlpool. Its people say that magic is motion: a dance, a kick, a breath can call on the elements.

Kulāiwi is a small island in the Māla Iki Islands, beside Māla Iki itself, the largest island of the chain. It has one village, also called Kulāiwi. This is the home of Kailo, the village cook, and Hina, a young priestess.

It is the last day of summer. The boars have come down from the woods again, and they are digging up the taro patch. Tonight the whole village gathers for Old Pono's wake. Before then, someone has to deal with the boars, and with the biggest of them all, the Great Boar, at the top of the woods.

Basic
Controls

Here is how the controller works in NUITAI.

Getting
Started

Insert the Game Pak and turn the power on. When the title screen appears, choose with the D-Pad and press A.

New Game

Begin a new adventure from the very start.

Continue

Pick one of your three saved games and start from wherever you last saved.

To erase a saved game, choose DELETE A SAVE under the three files, then the file, then YES. Once erased, it is gone for good.

Saving Progress

You can save only at an Akua totem, a carved post where the party kneels and tells the Akua all that has happened. Face one and press A, and you will be asked if you want to save. The field menu has no Save.

Praying at a totem also brings back anyone who has fallen. A nap in Kailo's bed or a drink at a healing pool heals the party, but it does not save, and the fallen stay down.

A small carved post with a cup of water beside it belongs to Lanu. Where you find one, a healing spring is close by.

Out in
the World

This is where most of your adventure takes place: in the village, on the beach and in the woods.

Walking

Walk with the D-Pad. Walk off the edge of the screen to go on to the next area. Walk up into a door to go inside.

Talking

Face someone and press A to talk with them. The people of the village know a great deal, and some have something to teach you.

Monsters

Monsters roam out in the open. When you touch one, a battle begins (page 14). Some will spot you and give chase! A boar seldom travels alone, so expect its friends to join in. Monsters you beat will leave, but they come back after you have walked 200 steps, or all at once when the party takes a nap or drinks at a healing pool.

A fight in the village is fought on the beach. Anywhere outside of town, it is fought in the jungle.

Some great beasts stand still and wait for you. When you walk up to one, you will be asked if you are ready. Say no to go back and prepare.

Shops

Talk to a seller and choose Buy to see what they have, or Sell to sell from the bag: pick each thing and how many, then say yes once to the total. Your pule is shown at the right.

Prices are in pule , the shell money of the islands. You will earn pule by winning battles, and sometimes by digging. The purse holds at most 999.

Each kind of seller has its own wares. A grocer sells food, seeds and everyday medicine. An angler sells bait. A hunters' lodge sells weapons, relics and moves. Some sellers turn up where you least expect them.

Some people are good at haggling. With the right friend along, every seller charges less.

Around Town

Every village has a loremaster, an old man who knows the stories of the islands. Ask him about the world as often as you like. What he tells you goes in your Lore pages.

Hunters gather at a hunters' lodge. Its keeper posts a bounty: beat the monster named, then come back to be paid. When one is done, the next goes up. The hunters there have tips on fighting for anyone who asks.

Some towns have an inn. A night's sleep costs a few pule and heals the whole party.

Kaigara

Kaigara is the shell game of the Kame, played with cowries on a chalk grid of 9 by 9 points. In some lodges a player sits at a low table, ready for anyone who wants a game, and some play for coins.

Take turns putting one shell on an open point. A group of shells with no open point beside it is taken off the board. You cannot put a shell where it would be taken at once, and you cannot make a move that puts the board back the way it was a moment ago. You may pass instead of playing. When both players pass, each counts the points their shells cover or surround, and the bigger count wins.

Gardens

Some plants can be picked. Face a ripe plant and press A to pick it. A ripe patch gives two.

Anyone can pick, but only Hina knows how to plant a patch again. Press A on a bare patch with Hina in the party and she will replant it, using one of what it grows. A patch picked without her stays bare until she comes by.

Press A on a bare patch with Hina along and she will ask whether to plant a crop from the bag or a seed. Some crops grow only from seeds.

Plants grow as you walk, one step at a time, and each kind takes its own number of steps to ripen. A patch that is still growing will say so. Keep exploring and come back later.

Tools

Press Y to use the tool Kailo has set. Hold Y to open the tool wheel, press the D-Pad toward a tool, and let go to make it the one Y uses. The wheel shows only the tools he has found, each in its own place.

There are three: the Ko'i to chop, the Old Rod to fish and the 'O'o to dig.

The Ko'i, a stone adze, chops trees. Stand in front of a tree and press Y. Each chop takes a moment, and monsters do not wait for you to finish! Ten chops fell a tree, and five more clear its stump. The wood goes in the bag. The trees stand again when you leave the area. Chopped trees sometimes drop food, too.

The Old Rod is for fishing. Face the water and tap Y to cast. Wait, and when a ! pops up over Kailo's head, tap Y again to land the fish. Be too slow and it gets away. Walk off and the line is reeled in. A fish needs cooking before it makes a good meal.

The 'O'o is a digging stick. Face soft ground, sand or dirt but never grass, and tap Y to dig. A dig may turn up nothing, an item or a few pule, and some spots hold something worth finding. The holes fill in when you leave the area. Not everyone in the village will be glad to see Kailo digging!

Fresh Water

Face a river or a pond and press A to scoop up fresh water for cooking. Seawater is no good. After five scoops in a row the canteens get heavy, and Kailo has to catch his breath before he scoops any more.

Cooking

Face the big cooking pot in Kailo's house and press A to cook. His boat, the Meialana, has a kitchen too: face it and choose Cook to use its kitchen, or Nap to rest as in his bed.

Put one, two or three ingredients in, and see what you get. A dish you have made goes on the list, so next time just pick it. If they don't go together, you get a dish of ???, and whoever eats it gets sick.

Only Kailo cooks, so the pot is his.

Cooking for Hire

Villagers sometimes ask for help, and some of them are hungry. Kailo cooks! Listen to what they hint at, make it in the pot, and bring it to them.

The Field
Menu

Press the X Button while walking around to open the field menu.

1 2 3 4 5 6

1. 1Face
   The three who fight. Move the cursor left onto the faces to change their order, or press Y on a face to switch the stance they start in.
2. 2Hit Points
   HP. When a member's HP reaches 0, they fall.
3. 3Elements
   The member's two elements. The boxed one is the stance they start a battle in.
4. 4Commands
   Choose one with the D-Pad and press A.
5. 5Time and Steps
   How long you have played and how far you have walked.
6. 6Money
   Kupang , the coins, and pule , the shells.

There is no Save on the field menu. Save at an Akua totem (page 6).

On the Element, Equip and Status screens, press L or R to turn to the next member without going back.

Element

Every element move sits in a numbered row, from 1 to 7. The row is what the move costs in Mana. Each row holds three moves.

Move a move up to a higher row and it grows stronger, but it costs more.

The window at the bottom tells you what the move under the cursor does.

Equip

First choose the member. The bar along the top holds three commands: Equip, Remove and Mastery.

Equip: choose the Weapon or the Relic, then what to wear. Before you take it, the stats show how it would change them, a gain in yellow and a loss in red, and a line says what it raises and what it lowers.

Remove: take the weapon or relic off and put it back in the bag.

Mastery shows how well a member knows each of their three kinds of weapon. Fight with a kind and its bar fills. When the bar is full the member's level with that kind goes up, and every level makes their strokes with it a little likelier to land and a little stronger. It is the weapon that has a level, not the member.

Status

Each member has a page: HP, the eight stats (page 28), their Skill and their two stances.

The stance on top, in color, is the one they start every battle in. Press A to switch it, and watch the stats change with it.

Party

Only three fight at a time. The three on top fight; everyone else waits below.

Choose one, then another, and they trade places. Choose two from the same row to change their order. You can also change the order of the three by moving the cursor left onto the faces on the field menu.

Info

Lore holds pages about the people and places of the islands, sorted by kind: People, Places, Food, Gods, Faiths, Arts and Words. New pages appear as your journey goes on, so look in now and then. A Food page appears the first time you have that food in the bag.

Bestiary has a page for every creature you have beaten.

Battle
Screen

A battle starts when you touch a monster. Beat every monster to win!

1 2 3 4 5

1. 1Turn Order
   Who acts next, from the top down. The party is marked in blue, monsters in red.
2. 2Enemies
   Know your foe!
3. 3Commands
   What the member whose turn it is can do. Press left or right on the D-Pad for more.
4. 4Elements
   The member's two elements. The stance they fight in is boxed in yellow.
5. 5Hit Points
   HP left. The small blue marks under the bar are Mana.

Attack

An Attack is made of strokes. Each turn you have 7 points to spend: LIGHT costs 1, MEDIUM 2 and STRONG 3.

Each stroke shows its chance to hit. A light stroke almost always lands. A strong one hits much harder, but misses more. Every stroke that lands makes the next one more likely to land, and builds Mana.

You can stop any time and finish your turn with Defend, an element move or an item. To strike a different enemy, back out of the strokes, choose Attack again and pick another; the points you have left go with you.

Parrying

When a monster strikes with its plain blows, the parry meter takes the place of your commands. Red arrows slide toward a gold zone, one pair for each blow. Press A as a pair crosses the zone.

A catch takes half the damage, and Glancing rises over the one it hit. Catch it dead center for a PARRY, and the blow does no harm at all. Miss, and the blow lands in full. If you were defending, a catch takes only a quarter.

Only plain blows can be parried, never a monster's elements or Skills, so a Skill arrives with no meter at all. A good Perception widens the zone, and a quick monster sends its arrows faster.

Choosing a Target

Every item and every element move can be aimed at either side: a heal at an enemy, a blow at a friend. The pointer starts on the side the move is meant for, then moves on to the other side.

Healing hurts the undead. A heal, from an item or an element, lands on an undead monster as damage instead. Revive does the same: used on an undead monster, it destroys it.

Team Up

A Team Up is ready when the member whose turn comes right after yours, with no one in between, fights in a stance whose element pairs with yours. Each pair of elements makes its own Team Up: Kailo in Lelua and Hina in Māla Hula make one, Kailo in Lelua and Hina in Shakan Mudras another. Not every pair has one yet. It takes all 7 Mana from both of you and tires you both, and it stays grayed out until you both have 7.

Weapons and Skills

Every fighter can hold three kinds of weapon, and each kind has its own Skill. The weapon in hand decides which one the Skill command is.

Friends who join later bring their own three kinds of weapon and their own Skills, each a new little game.

Mana

Mana is the energy a fighter builds by moving. Everyone starts a battle with 0 Mana and can hold up to 7. Attack, Defend or use an item to build it, then spend it on element moves. A move in row 3 costs 3 Mana.

Status Trouble

Your own fighters show no picture change. The trouble is named in the party window beside their HP, and floats up the moment it lands.

Victory and Defeat

Monsters you beat drop pule, and sometimes an item. A friend's help after a fight works only while that friend is still standing. If your whole party falls, the game is over, and you must start again from your last save.

Elements
and Stances

There are six elements. Every fighter has two, and every monster has at least one.

Fire beats Nature
Nature beats Water
Water beats Fire

Light beats Shadow
Shadow beats Spirit
Spirit beats Light

A hit from the element that beats yours does double damage. A hit from the element yours beats does half.

Kailo is Fire and Water. Hina is Nature and Light. While Hina fights as Nature, a fire attack hurts her twice as much, so watch for monsters that turn to fire.

What Each Element Does

Element	Its work
Fire	Gives a punch or a kick its force.
Nature	Heals. Against an undead monster, a heal hurts instead.
Water	Guards, taking blows for a friend.
Light	Protects and strengthens with a spell.
Shadow	Curses: blind, sleep, poison.
Spirit	Gives magic its force.

Stances

Each fighter has two stances, one for each of their elements. The stance decides which element the fighter is right now: which moves they can use, which stats are higher, and which element hurts them. Kailo in Lelua kicks with fire. In Wai'Kenpō he stands firm like the tide, and fire hurts him less, but nature hurts him more. Hina in Māla Hula heals; in Shakan Mudras she wards off harm. Every friend who joins you later works the same way, with two elements of their own.

To change stance in battle, choose Element. The switch is at the top, named after the stance you are in. Choose it and it offers the other stance; switching uses your turn and gives you 1 Mana. Some moves use both elements and work in either stance.

Every battle begins in the stance boxed on the field menu: the one you last chose, in a battle, on the field menu or on the Status screen.

Cast of
Characters

Along the way, Kailo will be joined by friends, each with two elements, three kinds of weapon and Skills of their own. Everything Kailo and Hina teach you works for them too.

Kailo

The Cook

The village cook, about nineteen, who looks after a house full of younger brothers, sisters and cousins. He has never left the islands and dreams of seeing the world. Wasting food upsets him.

Elements

Fire and Water

Stances

Lelua, a fire dance of spins, flips and flying kicks. Wai'Kenpō, a rooted water fist that steps in to take the hits meant for friends.

Weapon

Frying Pan

Skill

Cook. He cooks a meal right in the battle. Only meals you have already made at the pot are on his list, and he takes what he needs from the bag. One meal feeds the whole party, for the ingredients of one, and does for each of them what it would do from the bag. Stir steadily for the best meal. On his next turn he serves it, and a meal can fill them past their full HP for the rest of the fight. A hit before then ruins it. The better he gets with tools, the more his cooking heals, up to double. Later he learns to swap one ingredient for another of its kind (a vegetable can even stand in for meat, for friends who eat none), then to cook without using his ingredients up, and at last to cook with no ingredients at all.

Moves

Flame Kick, a fiery kick. Wave Guard, he takes his friends' blows, at half. Counter: he guards his friends and kicks back at whoever strikes them.

On the Road

After every battle you win, Kailo feeds everyone still standing, and they get back a little HP. Only Kailo can cook in the pot.

Hina

The Māla Priestess

A young priestess of Māla and the party's healer. Sharp tongued, and usually right. One day she hopes to become the high priestess of her village.

Elements

Nature and Light

Stances

Māla Hula, a slow dance that heals and cures. Shakan Mudras, hand seals that ward off harm.

Weapon

Gohei

Skill

Scold. She tells one enemy exactly what is wrong with it. If it takes it to heart, it sulks and loses a few turns.

Moves

Heal, mends one ally. Shaka's Light, softens the next shadow attack on one ally.

On the Road

After a battle you win, anyone who fell gets back up with 1 HP. Only Hina can replant a garden.

Creatures of
the Islands

The woods and the jungle are not empty. Here are a few of the creatures you may meet.

Items

When your HP is low, during or after a battle, you will need these items.

The party shares one bag, sorted by kind: Medicine, Ingredients, Meals, Weapons, Relics, Key Items and more. Use items with Items on the field menu, or Item in battle. On the field menu, Items asks which kind first; in a list, press left or right on the D-Pad to turn to the next kind, and each press of B goes back one step. The window at the top tells you what the item under the cursor does. When an item has an island name, the window says what it is in plain English first, such as "Noni poultice" or "Taro paste".

Island Medicine

The islanders heal with the plants that grow around them: fruit, roots, leaves and oil.

Name	Price	Description
Noni Pulu	10	Noni poultice. Restores 30 HP. It stinks.
'Awa Tonic	40	Kava tonic. Restores 80 HP. A calming root drink.
Life Totem	100	A carved totem. Brings a fallen friend back with half their HP. Used on an undead monster, it destroys it outright, even a boss. On any other enemy it does nothing.
Kukui	15	Candlenut oil. In battle, cures a burn.
Ti Leaf	20	A cool leaf. In battle, cures sleep and confusion.
'Ōlena	15	Turmeric. In battle, cures poison.

Food

Most things that go in the pot can also be eaten as they are, for a little HP, but some raw food can make you sick. Cooked, it is worth much more: a meal heals more than medicine. Kailo cooks at the pot (page 8), or with Cook in battle, where one meal feeds everyone. There is no recipe book: put one, two or three things in the pot and find out! Each item's window says what it is in plain English.

Special Items

Growing
Stronger

Your party never gains levels. They grow stronger by doing.

Stats grow by use. Each time you use a stat, it fills a little, and when it is full, it goes up. Land strong blows and Strength grows. Land light strokes one after another and Agility grows. Take blows and Endurance grows. Heal a friend or strike with magic and Intelligence grows, faster for greater magic. A weaker foe teaches less than one your equal. When a stat goes up, a message along the top of the screen tells you, and a stat can go up more than once in a battle.

Weapons grow too. Each kind of weapon a member can hold has its own Mastery level, earned by landing strokes with it. Look under Equip on the field menu (page 10).

New moves come from what you find: items named for a move, and people who teach you.

Seeds raise a stat for good.

The Eight Stats

Adventure
Guide

Prepare to set out on your journey. Use this guide to help you in the beginning.

Visit Your Neighbors

Walk around the village and talk with everyone. They will have information you may need.

Pray Before You Go

Before a big fight, pray at an Akua totem and save your game.

Watch and Learn

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Stop and watch the world for a while.