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  "Okay, then! Quartermaster prepare the ship!" "Aye aye, sir!" Khalamari  There's probably a sea shanty for sailing knowingly into death out there.  Until then, have some nice shots of boats. I think it was them saying "Hey! We're in full 3D now!"  But it seems that something is lurking below the surface.   Giant squids do make some pretty intimidating sea monsters, yeah.   "I hates it too, Tickles! These nasty humans and their ships, always sailin' over poor Khalamari's head!" "Yeah, Tenta, yeah! Humans don't have no manners!" Oh so our sea monster is insane. That's probably not good. "That's why Khalamari's gonna stand up for all the poor creatures of the sea! Starting by eatin' these here humans!" "Yeah, Tickles! He'll eat 'em! Eat 'em right up!" Oh shi-   Defeat The Enemy I think I forgot to link this with Geyzer and it's a shame. Defeat The Enemy is pretty much everything you could ask for in boss battle music.  code: The big issue here is his flame breath attack.  It... loving hurts, to say the least.  Clean Sweep isn't too much nicer.  But it doesn't hit nearly as hard.  Yangus psyched up to 50. Eight's too busy casting Heal nearly every turn. If you aren't careful Khalamari can put you in a pickle where you aren't hitting him that often, and you don't have the resources for battles of attrition yet.  Of course, in this run I get absurdly lucky with evasion. I'm going to cite both party members having Bunny Tails equipped as though 2 agility matters. The previous two he moved before Eight and killed him right before Yangus dealt the finishing blow. Twice. I hate randomized turn orders.  Yangus deserves a gold medal or a blue ribbon or something his performance here. Couldn't have done it without him and those helm splitters.  Bosses falling over so dramatically is so rewarding, though I don't think any of them do it quite as elaborately as Khalamari.  Man, if only Jessica were here for this, but she seems to have evaporated right as cutscene ended and gameplay hit.  It's worth noting Khalamari speaks in three different voices through this scene. "It wasn't our fault, though! It was HIS! That's right, it was!" Oh great, Dhoulmagus may in fact be Jesus. That makes things complicated. "Pretty cheeky of a human to pull that little trick off, we thought, so we talked to him, we did!" So his powers include arsony, paralysis, smug teleporting, awkward hugs, stabbing, walking on water, and confusing squids.  "We found it in the ocean, we did. Go on, take it, mate! It's the least we can do, it is, it is." Sweet , it's four defence and it is used a hell of a lot more in alchemy than the slime earrings. Oh, right, we'll get alchemy next update. I'm glad I'll get to stop just hinting at it.  You aren't so bad of a squid, when you stop exhaling fire on us.   Only in Dragon Quest do you get a magic statue's flashback to her brother's murder and get to fight a fire-breathing squid for her before a girl tells you her name.  "Yangus and the guv, is it? Right. Thanks again for your help with the sea monster. Now, let's find Dhoulmagus! I'm sure you need to get ready first, so let's head back to Port Prospect. I'll tell the captain to weigh anchor."Yangus and the Guv would be a good name for a band.  "I called you two thieves back at the tower, and I never formally apologized. So..." Eh, we kind of are pillagers. You know, since we have an item of her clothing in our possession. "Anyway. I'll talk to the captain." Back at Port Prospect... "I figured you'd like to rest and buy provisions before we set sail again. I'll be waiting for you here. Don't take too long now! We've got work to do!" Yangus is impressed we managed to not die horribly to a giant squid. Khalamari is the last time for quite a while that a boss will be hard.  There's nothing to do here and so much we can do after the trip, so... Jessica  "You're after Dhoulmagus just like I am, right? We're fighting for the same reasons."  Finally. If Jessica isn't the best character in the game, she's in the top 3. "I've got a great feeling about this. Thanks, guys." This is also one of two times we'll here the little 'joins the party' tune, since DQ8 has a tight cast and half of it was already there when the game began. "Well, now that that's taken care of, let's go!" Oh, right, we left grandad outside.  Quay is pronounced "kee" by the way. Since Jessica finally officially joined the party and I can't stand to wait one more bit, let's get her skill voting out of the way. Don't worry, this one will be simple compared to the previous two, for a few reasons.  First, Knives is the worst skill in the game. You know the problems with Clubs? Knives doesn't even have its redeeming traits. Its focused on poison and instant death-inflicting attacks, when nearly everything you'd want to instantly kill nullifies it or is better dealt with through Whack spells, and poison is tiny, tiny damage. Second, it takes 66 points to get Toxic Sword, which is 5/4 regular damage, her first positive multiplier. Knives is bad. We're not going to use it.  Whips's marquee skill is Twin Dragon Lash, which hits two randomly selected targets for x1.5 damage each. When there's only one enemy, both hits land squarely to deal triple normal damage. It's such a ridiculous multiplier that Jessica is secretly the hardest hitting physical attacker in the entire game. This skill is learned at 23 points. You may notice that Jessica is getting 9 skill points here. Her skill point growth is ludicrously front-loaded. She'll have the most points of anyone in the party by level 40, so sneaking in Twin Dragon Lash into whatever else we're doing is easy as hell. Nothing else in whips is even remotely useful compared.  Staves aren't for attacking, but for holding while doing something else. Staves will increase Jessica's already impressive MP pool and even passively regenerate it, while affording her a wide variety of spells. The notable thing here is Caduceus, an ability that restores around 70 HP to a single target. It's the equivalent of Midheal, and it costs no MP. as you can imagine, having free healing is loving handy. The other item is Kazing at 100 points. Kazing is a fantastic revival spell so naturally giving our wizard so many options means whatever else we do Staves is getting maxed. Now on to the actual choice.  Jessica also gets Thin Air through Fisticuffs, and unlike Yangus and the guv her MP is somewhere between "insane" and "nigh infinite" allowing her to fling them constantly. While the SP cost is higher compared to Eight and Yangus, Jessica can still handle it relatively well while picking up a passive evasion increase. More importantly, Jessica has a reason to max Fisticuffs in the spell Magic Burst. It spends all her MP to deal a cosmic fuckton of damage. At level 38 she'll have 261 MP minimum, which would translate to 522 damage. Now throw in Staves increasing her max MP and it gets even more painful. Magic Boost also is boosted by tension, which just throws it over the top.  Or, we can go with Sex Appeal to have a more defensive-oriented Jessica. The main things here are Charm Attack, a passive way of making enemies randomly lose turns, and its 100-point skill Hustle Dance, which recovers around 80 HP to all party members. At no MP cost. For gently caress's sake it's goddamn Multiheal but free. It also has a move called Sexy Beam. At level 43 Jessica will have 227 skill points. Since Kazing would take 100 and Twin Dragon Lash takes 23 and Knives is poo poo, the question is where the other 100 goes. We've got two skills each with legitimate reasons to be maxed, and they point Jessica in opposite directions. Do we go with a Fisticuffs-based Offensive build or a Sex Appeal-based defensive build? Vote here to pick! Oh, uh, if you were wondering about the three points in Staves there, here's why.  Accelerattle is a fantastic spell and will see use in literally every boss battle from here on and there is no way I am living without it for any amount of time. Next time, alchemy begins. We're hosed.
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