Yup, I'm still playing. This game was a bit too hard for me as a kid to truly enjoy, and my boxed copy always had compatability issues. I picked it up again, because I still have fond memories of it though, and because these days I practice Sengoku era Japanese martial arts.

I'll have a look at the other active forum you posted about in that other thread. If you want, you can also add me on GOG Galaxy.

Ah, martial arts :) It reminds me acrobatic trainings when I was younger. I always wanted to learn martial arts, but there was no such place close to my city.

It was hard for mee too when I was a kid. I was exping my characters in multiplayer because I couldn't beat the game. Now I killed Zanshin by using Wizard only from the beggining. It was pretty fun challenge. Really hard at the beggining, but after I got enough Yama-Inu Blood, it was just a walk :)

well the wizard then the ninja are the easiest to solo with due to their higher level spell choices, plus its easier to make top gear for 1 character than for all 7. Its much harder to solo with the "warrior" type characters since melee in the game is vastly harder than archery or magic due to freezing, knockbacks, poison, etc.

but I still play, just this year did a walkthrough, then soloed a wizard and ninja, WAY to easy once you get your AOE spells and mana regen gear and make up a hit life leech weapon. Way to easy I usually just run to the citadel and beat the game before the 3rd castle because I hit my max AOE spells and have my armor/weapons made up pretty early, so there isn't really any need to go to castle 3 and 4 if your already AOE spam blasting easy. Just head up and fight the final areas.

But its tougher with melee warrior solo builds because they don't get those easy AOE spells that the ninja and wizard have. A couple have good spells, but trying making a brick spellcaster.. pretty much a pain in the butt. And really you need to be a caster of some sort to win easy because melee at higher levels is just soooo difficult when your getting multi blasted with arrows/knockback spells. Heck some spells in the mountain areas will bounce you MULTIPLE screens away due to their power, its almost impossible to get into melee range. You need to be able to hit stuff at a distance and stay alive. Plus, no defense against poison, or knockback, or freeze, or such that the monsters get, but you don't.

My first solo char was Berserker from what I've remember. I've made all my chars to the point they're almost immortal and every of them can solo Zanshin as a bot. :D

Actually my the most powerful character isn't Wizard, but Archer. Try to get Ryushi bow with at least 30 slots and ugrade it with poison. Poison damage least for 10 sec ant it's stacking. Zanshin is dying in around 30 sec