Mineshaft Maze

The Mineshaft Maze is an optional dungeon in Epic Battle Fantasy 5. It is accessed from the eastern side of No Man's Land after Lance joins the party.

Description

As its name suggests, the Mineshaft Maze is an enormous labyrinth of tunnels beneath No Man's Land and the Iron Fortress. It was created by Lance's forces, presumably for resources and insight into the threat of the monoliths on their world, but it was eventually abandoned after their attempt to make an autonomous heavy-duty digging machine (that conveniently doubles as a powerful weapons platform) went horribly wrong. Parts of the tunnels have collapsed as a result of powerful tremors, but the general structure of the mine remains remarkably intact, with many support beams and functional lights lining the shafts.

The greatest challenge of the Mineshaft Maze is arguably navigation; many of the corridors look very similar to each other, and going too far in one direction will wrap the party around to the opposite side. To reach the boss of the area, the player should look for and follow the track marks dotted around the maze; if done correctly, they will find a ladder at the southern edge of the mines that leads to the cavern where Lance's rogue superweapon lurks. On the other hand, there are also several treasure chests scattered through the mines which will require some thorough exploration to find; if the player gets stuck, they can reload the game to automatically return the party to the entrance of the maze.

There are two "walk-once" puzzles hidden in the Mineshaft Maze that provide treasure if the party can light up all of the tiles without passing over any of them more than once, presumably intended as stockpiles for Lance's army that were abandoned when they left the mines.

Foes

The Mineshaft Maze has a relatively sparse enemy population for its size, with most of them being mechanical, undead, or Earth and Thunder-based. It may actually be a good idea to leave the foes alone until the player has defeated the boss and found all of the treasure in the area; most of them will not impede progress and their presence can help players remember where they are in the maze. On the other hand, battling the foes provides opportunities for some early scans, particularly of the Neon Valhalla's helpers.

• Ancient Monolith
• Bats
  • Blood Bat
  • Bone Bat
  • Electric Bat
• Bombs
  • Acid Bomb
  • Earthquake Bomb
  • Shockwave Bomb
• Defender Mk III
• Dirt Boulder
• Earth Dragon
• Fallen
  • Beheaded Fallen
  • Burned Fallen
• Fuzzy Worm
• Giga Harpoon
• Seaweed Chomper
• Sprites
  • Rock Sprite
  • Thunder Sprite
• Steam Fish
• Yellow Flybot
• Zombie Hand
• Neon Valhalla (superboss)

Map

	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Trivia

• The Mineshaft Maze is easily the largest independent area in Epic Battle Fantasy 5; with a total of 69 screens (counting the boss room and the two puzzle rooms).
  • For comparison, the complete Epic Battle Fantasy 3 map is smaller (59 screens, including the medal rooms).
  • The rest of the superboss dungeons (Freezeflame Dungeon, Deathly Hollows, Crystal Caverns, and Temple of Trials) have a combined total of 25 screens, just over a third as many as the Mineshaft Maze alone.
  • The Mineshaft is also the largest area in all of the three Epic Battle Fantasy series (only being beaten by the complete Epic Battle Fantasy 4 map, sans Battle Mountain and the default overworld of Epic Battle Fantasy 5, which both have 81 screens).
• Assuming that the screens of the Mineshaft Maze have a 1:1 ratio with the screens of the EBF5 world map in-universe, it runs underneath approximately half of the explorable environment on the surface, including the entire Iron Fortress, most of Greenwood Village, the Mystic Woods, the Lava Lake, and The Rapture, and a few portions of the Rainbow River. Its easternmost section even goes off the map's edge (or, assuming that the map represents the entire world, loops back to parts of Hope Harbor, the Frozen Valley, and the Wild Tropics).