The Ultimate Sugar Buzz
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The starting point for the power-up technique can be found on page 114 of the EarthBound Guide, under the heading "Winters High School Weekly Science Club News." The advice given there tells you that if you eat Rock Candy with a condiment during battle, you'll use only the condiment and keep the candy.
Unfortunately, the book leaves out one very important detail: The Rock Candy must be on the bottom row of the player's inventory for the trick to work. Otherwise, the Rock Candy will get eaten. So make sure the character with the Rock Candy has a full inventory, including some Sugar Packets.
Now for the really useful news, also not revealed in the book:
The chances of getting an awesome HP/PP gain will go way up! |
That's right, you can cheat a little and encourage the computer to give you a bonus by using the Rock Candy at the right time. Just check your "Status" often, so that you can tell when a character's about to go up a level. When you enter the battle that will raise someone's level, just feed the appropriate character some Rock Candy (automatically seasoned with a Sugar Packet).
For even better results, do it multiple times! If your fight takes more than one round, the character holding the Rock Candy can feed the level-up character twice before the Rock Candy leaves the bottom row. (If the enemy you're fighting is weak, just have the other characters select "Defend" to lengthen the battle.)
Better yet, have two characters hold Rock Candies. Then you can dump up to four servings of sugary candy into a character in one battle! That'll almost definitely give you a decent rise in stats. Just make sure that both characters with the Candy have full item lists that include two Sugar Packets, and have them both "Give" the Rock Candy to themselves, so that the Candy will be in the bottom right corner of each list. This'll ensure that you can use the Candies the maximum number of times without accidentally eating them for good.
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Now that you know the basic technique for HP harvesting, I'll give you a
more complicated game plan, just in case you're interested in knowing what I've been
doing with the trick.
From the start of a new game, play until the point you reach the fifth Shining Spot. Try not to spend more time than necessary building experience, because you want to save as many level-ups for the Candy trick as possible.
At the Fifth Shining Spot you'll get the Carrot Key. This'll open up the cave in Dalaam, where you'll find the first Rock Candy. Of course, you could stick around the cave for a while, building your levels with the Candy here, but a better idea would be to continue on with the game. Use the Candy in battle when a character's level is about to rise, naturally, but continue on with the game without stopping.
You want to get the second Rock Candy, hidden in the Deep Darkness. Once you have it, you can start harvesting HP and PP more effectively. After stopping briefly in Tenda Village (to get the call from Apple Kid) give the Rock Candies to Paula and Poo. Clean out the item lists of Ness and Jeff by giving most of their stuff to Paula and Poo. Excess junk should go to Tracy in Onett or Escargo Express. Leave only two empty spaces in Paula and Poo's lists for Sugar Packets.
The item lists of Poo and Paula should look something like this:
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And the item screens of Ness and Jeff should look something like this:
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Now use Ness or Jeff's Teleport power to warp to Fourside. On the second floor of the Department Store is the stand where you'll load up on Sugar Packets. Fill everyone's item lists to full. Now the lists for Ness and Jeff should look something like this:
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And Paula and Poo's lists will probably look something like this:
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To get the Rock Candy into the last position on the last row, simply use the "Give" command and "Give" the item to the same character. (When the window asks "Who?" to give the item two, select the same character's item list). Now the item screens of Paula and Poo should finally look like this:
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By the way, if the Sugar Packets aren't close to the Rock Candy in the list (as shown above), it doesn't matter. It only matters that you have two Sugar Packets somewhere in the list, and that you get the Rock Candy into the lower right position before each use of the trick.
Once everyone's loaded up on Sugar Packets, teleport to Winters. This is a good place to stick around and build experience for a couple of reasons. First, there are no hotels and several free recharge locations (tents, the Instant Revitalizing Machine, the Shining Spot). Second, the Stonehenge Base is a great place to build experience. The monsters give good experience points, and it's conveniently close to Andonut's Lab. And if you wander too far from the entrance and get low on HP or Sugar Packets, just continue on to the exit mouse room and escape.
So just use the Base to build experience with the help of the Rock Candy. Have Ness or Jeff give Paula and Poo Sugar Packets before each level-up battle, get the Rock Candies into the lower right position, and score some extra HP! Teleport back to Fourside whenever you need more Sugar. It takes patience, but it's worth it. So far, as of June 11th, here are my character levels from this technique:
| Character | Level | HP | PP |
| Ness | 69 | 1036 | 312 |
| Paula | 66 | 645 | 405 |
| Jeff | 63 | 810 | 0 |
| Poo | 61 | 885 | 315 |
One last idea: There is a third Rock Candy in the underground passage beneath Tenda Village. One could use it to have three characters use the Candy, and get up to six doses of Sugar per battle. But I can't guarantee that the results would be much better than with two Candies. It might not be worth the effort. But hey, if anyone has anything to report about this idea, mail me.
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