EDITOR'S NOTE:
If you're unfamiliar with Cleopatra Fortune, I'm not sure what you're really doing on this page. You really should read our review first.

If you're lucky enough to have sourced the Saturn version of Cleopatra Fortune (or slightly-less-lucky enough to have the not-as-good Playstation or Dreamcast ports) you'll know there's a Mystery Mode- Patroaco must solve the 50 (?) fiendish riddles of the Sphynx. And by Patoraco, I mean you, the player. Although you might think to compare this to the Checkmate Mode Pop n' Pop, another Taito game from the same era, it's probably closer to the Quest / Nazo mode in certain versions of Puyo Puyo, where rather than just clear the board, you have to follow the instructions on each stage- they could be getting a required number of chain reactions, clearing all the Mummies, etc. Each stage also has a par time- clear it under the time and you'll get a picture and VERY NICE!! text (the first nine pictures will be of various Gods you need to rescue, which ties in to something at the end...), don't and you just get Patoraco in sprite form jumping up and down instead. The levels here are a bit odd, in a way- they're mostly fairly easy, but sandwiched in-between the nice and breezy ones are some super-nasty puzzles that, if you're anything like me, you'll get stuck on for a while. So, let's fight these puzzles together!



Before we go in, though, a little housekeeping. For a start, the screenshots you're going to see are all taken from the Saturn version, seeing as that was the first home version of the game, but while some puzzles were changed slightly (I'm talking a block switched out with absolutely no consequence on the actual game), these solutions should still work for the Playstation and Dreamcast versions too. As pictured above. Isn't that handy?



Secondly, the little menu you see above is only in the Saturn version, opened by pressing X, and if you need help reading the options... The first option lets you save your progress, and there is no auto-save! You get three save slots which can either go to the internal save battery or external RAM cartridge, so bear that in mind. The second option lets you load one of the three save slots, so don't pick this if you haven't saved in a while! The third option goes back to the title screen, and the fourth option takes you back to the Stage Select screen. Also of note for the Saturn port, you can only switch between stages by pressing the shoulder buttons, not the directional pad.

Finally, I've tried to do my best with the guide itself, but Cleopatra Fortune doesn't lend itself too well to explanations like those in my Pop n' Pop Checkmate Mode guide. So, I've arranged the game board into sections- A-G along the X-axis, 1-13 along the Y-axis- and the instructions for each piece tell you where to place it and in what arrangement, with as much detail as possible. As you'll have to drop pieces off edges a lot, when I'm talking about where to place an item, I'll focus on where the part that's not falling has to go first, then describe where the falling piece has to go. I hope it's clear enough, but if not, I'll just get my editor to fix it in post. [Is anyone going to tell them this isn't like video editing? Because I'm bloody well not. - Ed]

Wait, there's one last thing... This guide's not quite finished. You'll see, don't worry.

So let's get this over with. Let's play Mystery Mode and finish all of it 50% of it!











That's enough for me, I'm going back to the main Cleopatra Fortune page.