The Little Mermaid (GB)(1993)

All Pearls Guide

Updated 2 years ago by Laika_the_Spacedog

#Introduction

Hello and welcome to this guide for the All Pearls category. I made this guide to show how many pearls there are in each level and which chests to avoid because they're empty. Feel free to leave feedback in the forum or via direct message.

Overview

In total there are 31 chests: 10 with power pearls, 13 with range pearls (23 pearls in total) and 8 empty chests.

The power pearls enable you to catch fish in a bubble with less shots and to move objects. You need one power pearl to move barrels, two power pearls to move small rocks and three power pearls to move large rocks. The range pearls increase the range of your shot which is especially useful in the boss fight of Stage 2.

When you move objects they can sometimes go off screen. You have to swim with the object to keep it on screen, otherwise it will disappear and you have to swim back to make it respawn. If an object hits a chest it will open it and disappear and won't respawn.

If you die you lose your upgrades and you will most likely have to reset the run since many pearls can not be aquired without upgrades.

Stage 1: Sea of Coral

Number of chests: 3 Empty chests: 0

Number of pearls: 3 Power pearls: 1 Range pearls: 2

Open chest 1 with a shell.
Open chest 2 with a shell.
Open chest 3 with a shell.

Stage 2: Sunken Ship

Number of chests: 5 Empty chests: 0

Number of pearls: 5 Power pearls: 2 Range pearls: 3

Push the barrel down the stairs to open chest 1. Alternatively, you can take the hidden shell in the sand.
Push the barrel down the stairs to open chest 2. This requires some precision in your positioning and you need to avoid the projectiles of the squid.
Open chest 3 with a shell.
Jump on the platform to the left, turn around and press attack to push the shell into the water to open chest 4 with it.
Push the small rock to make it fall down and open chest 5. Swim down with the rock to prevent it from falling off screen and disappearing.

Stage 3: Sea of Ice

Number of chests: 9 Empty chests: 3

Number of pearls: 6 Power pearls: 3 Range pearls: 3

Push the shell from the ice into the water.
Chest 1 is empty, ignore it.
Open chest 2 with the shell you took from the ice.
Swim down into the hidden room and open chest 3 with the large rock.
Swim up, then to the right, take the shell, swim back and open chest 4.
Chest 5 is empty, ignore it.
Push the shell from the ice into the water and use it to open chest 6.
Chest 7 is empty, ignore it.
Take a shell, throw it over the barrier and use it to open chest 8.
Open chest 9 with a shell.

Stage 4: Undersea Volcano

Number of chests: 6 Empty chests: 2

Number of pearls: 4 Power pearls: 2 Range pearls: 2

Open chest 1 on the left with a shell.
Chest 2 on the right is empty, ignore it.
Open chest 3 with a shell.
Swim up into the hidden room and open Chest 4 with the shell.
Chest 5 is empty, ignore it.
Open Chest 6 with a small rock.

Stage 5: Ursula's Castle

Number of chests: 8 Empty chests: 3

Number of pearls: 5 Power pearls: 2 Range pearls: 3

Swim past the portal and push the barrel to the left to open chest 1. Alternatively, you can take the hidden shell in the sand.
Chest 2 on the right is empty, ignore it.
Swim back and go through the portal and continue like you would in Any%.
Chest 3 is empty, ignore it.
Throw the shell over the barrier and use it to open chest 4.
Push the small rock to the right to open chest 5.
Push the large rock to the left to open chest 6.
Open chest 7 on the left with the shell from above.
Chest 8 on the right is empty, ignore it.

Hidden Shells

There are shells hidden in the sand which you can dig up with the attack move. In some levels taking the hidden shells can save time compared to taking the other shells. Shoutout to Nydanii for discovering this. You can see the locations of the hidden shells in Nydanii's run:

https://www.speedrun.com/mermaidgb/run/z0r1j49z

Why is there a misc. category for 22 Pearls?

Until May 2021 we did not realise there were actually 23 pearls to collect instead of 22 because we did not know about the pearl in the hidden room in Stage 4.

For the sake of preserving the history of the leaderboard all runs with 22 pearls have been moved to a separate category.

Runs with 22 pearls will no longer be accepted.