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  Intermezzo This is the closest to an official name DQ8's hero has. The game's voice acting will brush right past it.  Your quest has begun!  The game proper opens with this mouse witnessing a plume of smoke from the town in the distance.  He decides it is high time to go back. Go Topo Go!!  Once in the clearing, he encounters this... strange troll... thing?  Regardless, it regards the mouse with annoyance.  And he snuggles right into the hero's pocket, right as one of our travelling companions speaks up.   "Let's 'ead inta town. There's better places than this to spend an evenin'! Shake a leg, guv!" Meet Yangus, the most obvious evidence this game was localized in England.  The only real kink with the controls is that triangle is cancel and circle is the menu, which is the reverse of a lot of other playstation JRPGs.  X is still the general "do thing" button, though.  Such as pointlessly smashing barrels. 83% of this LP by volume will be smashing barrels. The remaining is split between smashing pots and the rest of the video game.  Video covered in screenshots!    "What would you know? A lowlife like you wouldn't recognize nobility if it came up and bit you on the... arrrgh!"  Trode and Yangus stare angrily until...    The search turns up nothing until...  Suddenly, slimes!  War Cry Slimes are Enix's mascot, and serve as early-game fodder in every Dragon Quest game. VIII is no different. They possess a weak 10 attack and no spells or special abilities to help. 0 evasion, drop Medicinal Herb at 1/32 rates and Amor Seco Essence at 1/64 rates.  In short they're no match and usually die in one hit.  Enemies seem to have slightly fluctuating HP, which doesn't usually matter. Slimes having 6-7 HP when you're hitting for 6-7 is one of three places you'll really ever see it.  Attacking is our only option, since we lack spells or abilities and every other option would just prolong the fight.  When attacking a target with just too much defense, the attack deals 0 or 1. You can theoretically chip away or get chipped.  1 experience point and 1 gold each.  How fortunate! Medicinal Herbs recover 30 HP to one character.  Back to business, looking for the princess.  Suddenly, a horse with a beautiful white coat walks in.   So uh apparently this horse is the princess.  "I say we make a move now, before it gets dark." Video ends here. Opening credits. Video covered in screenshots.  We're treated to the opening credits during the trip to town. You may know Akira Toriyama from Dragonball Z, and you can tell there seems to be only so many hairstyles the guy knows. Well, once we see characters who aren't wearing hats, are bald, or are horses.  The group enters the town of Farebury.  Two guys and a goblin thing come riding in this small town?  You know that's going to cause quite the stir. Video ends here.  "This is the town where Master Rylus lives." "Hold your 'orses, grandad! I thought it was Dhoulmagus we was after."  "But that dastardly magician can't hide from us forever! We must track him down, and lift this confounded curse! Oh, just look at my poor Medea! And we'd only just settled on her engagement to the prince of Argonia... Oh, that dispicable Dhoulmagus!"  Nah.  "There's every chance Rylus will be able to give us a clue as to Dhoulmagus's whereabouts. That's why you must find him. I'll be waiting for you here." A Peaceful Town  DQ8 is stuck in having very limited save options, but the only penalty for a game over is losing half of your money, so it's a wash.  Farebury has two points of interest- lens flares everywhere as it's evening, and this burnt-down building. This is where that plume of smoke the mouse saw came from.  Let's go shopping! Armor shops are denoted by this red-and-white shield icon.  It seems our budget is nothing at all.  And none of the stuff we have on us except for weapons sells for much.  The answer, then, is ransacking. You find so many useful items by pilfering in every corner of every town.  The inn's gotta have a lot of stuff to plunder!  Well that's disappointing. Usually any time there's a group of breakable things like this at least one has an item.  Upstairs, a man complains about a local fortune-teller being really bad at his job.  Hey maybe you should just accept it and stop blaming him for telling the truth. I think.  Bookcases don't have swag in them, but they sometimes have information. Sometimes.  Holy Water decreases the random encounter rate temporarily when used. Useful if you need to make a hasty getaway when low on resources, or just when you get tired of random encounters.  Not exactly useful since it's what Eight has equipped already and Yangus's starting armor is 1 point better, but it still sells for 15 gold.  Chimera Wings, when used, transport the party to any previously-visited town. They can only be used outside, and right now the only place we have is Farebury.  Eight always picks out the green leaning book on the second row and flips a few pages. He's good at picking out the juicy stuff.   I think I'll make it a point to get these chests, especially since guides on the internet exist for finding them.  It ain't Dragon Quest without finding a stick, though Eight's default sword is slightly stronger.  Even sacks on the wall aren't safe from our rummaging.  B-but Yangus is missing a hit point! Oh well, we'll have to see about that missing HP later.  Item shops have this feather icon. They're worth seeing just to make sure you have adequate restoratives.  In this case, yeah, yeah we do. Antidotal Herbs restore Poison. We'll find a few from plundering.  We can sell the spare set of clothes to bolster the war chest, though.  Apparently a jester came and went before we got here. The townspeople were more creeped out by him than amused.  Churches are the aforementioned save points. Healing Power of the Psalms The music is great too.  Confesssion labels itself as the save option. Divination tells you how much EXP until the next level, which isn't a very handy feature that often. It does tell us that Yangus requires a bit less experience than Eight to level up, though.  The priest is in back. We ask him about our man.  Apparently, something's happened with Rylus, though it's put everyone on edge.  'The great wizard finally reached Farebury after a long and arduous journey. Welcoming such a great sage into our town is a truly unparalleled honour. Long may the sage and his descendants stay in the town of Farebury! Huzzah!'  One item in the church is rummage-proof. I only feel mildly bad about taking everything not nailed down from a church.  For example, this pot lid. It may not seem like it's much, because it isn't. But it's a shield for Yangus where he has none so it'll do. This update is long enough, so that's it for now. Next time is more Farebury. Orange Fluffy Sheep fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Oct 31, 2014 |
| ← # ? Oct 31, 2014 03:27 |
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