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I can see the notion of keeping the sword in your most heavily-defended stronghold. But if I was the Dragonlord, and I had under my direct command various demons, dragons and magical constructs, I'd put together a squad of half a dozen Stonemen, tell one to carry the sword to the bottom of the lake southeast of the Isle and stay there, and then tell the others to trade places with him in turns every couple days. No human would know where it is, and even if they found out, there are no boats in Alefgard. If Stonemen need to breathe, well, the sword's in the grasp of a statue at the bottom of a lake. Problem solved!  EDIT: Whoops we haven't met Stonemen yet. Way to spoil your own LP, Frank. Gloomy Rube posted:Are you gonna post the music for the deeper levels? I wanna know -how- slow the music will get by the bottom if this keeps going. There are 8 variations on the dungeon theme, and I figured each one is so minutely different from the preceding and following ones that posting them all as we encountered them would be disrespectful of everyone's time. But I am definitely going to put up the one for the bottom floor once we get there. Come to think of it though, I might also put together an edited compilation to show the music's progression all in one place. Each loop is only about 13 seconds, after all. Pieuvre posted:Don't worry, Descendant of Erdrick, I too know the pain of a girlfriend not thinking my jokes are funny  : I'll count myself lucky I didn't actually wake her up.FELD1 posted:It makes sense that the same kind of person who would call themselves "Dragonlord" would love keeping rad poo poo at their house. Flavius Belisarius posted:Yeah OP, search the walls for klingon weapons and katanas. : It turns out the Dragonlord is more the type to have a big underground fortress for the sake of having a big underground fortress, only to realize he doesn't have nearly enough stuff to fill up the empty space. I saw like one poster on a corridor wall in the second basement, but it was a blurry watermarked picture of a tree with some lorem ipsum underneath.BrightWing posted:I don't know where else to share this but: I progressed enough in DQ 3 to find out one of my favorite songs from DQ 8 is a straight refrence and it made me super happy I ain't gonna lie, hearing that song in 8 made a small amount of water come out of my eyes for some reason. I guess someone in my house was slicing onions at the time. "Nostalgia critically hits for massive damage, as it often does." Bregor posted:Also like how you’ve outlined how Sleep and Stopspell can really help during the entire game. When I was an idiot kid I just mashed attack all the time and used MP to heal after fights. Yeah, mashing attack will work if you've got the levels for it, but despite how there may not be much tactical depth to the combat system, judicious use of disabling magic will absolutely save a heck of a lot of grinding. Hirayuki posted:There's a lovely song in DQ7 that references a tune in DQ, too! It drove me nuts until I made the connection. Oh dang, well spotted! I didn't even catch that one! FrankZP fucked around with this message at 08:11 on May 24, 2018 |
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May 23, 2018 22:15
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FrankZP posted:I can see the notion of keeping the sword in your most heavily-defended stronghold. But if I was the Dragonlord, and I had under my direct command various demons, dragons and magical constructs, I'd put together a squad of half a dozen Stonemen, tell one to carry the sword to the bottom of the lake southeast of the Isle and stay there, and then tell the others to trade places with him in turns every couple days. No human would know where it is, and even if they found out, there are no boats in Alefgard. If Stonemen need to breathe, well, the sword's in the grasp of a statue at the bottom of a lake. Problem solved! Until the lake gets a spirit that just hand the sword to the chosen one because of destiny. C'mon man, Arthurian legend is pretty popular. If I was the Dragonlord, I'd actually be the King of Tantagel with one of my lackies dressed up as the Dragonlord. So that every time people get uppity about the corruption in upper echelons and a hero appears, I'd be able to send them on a quest to solve the problem while still being alive. Or really, I'd just be the King of Tantagel sending heroes off to deal with neighbors that are dumber at their evil than I am.
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May 23, 2018 23:35
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I still say the best way to handle it is to pull a Frodo Baggins and lose the thing in a lava pit.EponymousMrYar posted:Or really, I'd just be the King of Tantagel sending heroes off to deal with neighbors that are dumber at their evil than I am. I like this, but I think the point is that the Dragonlord is the "dumber at their evil" type. But now that I think about it, your idea could explain a lot about the actual King's behavior... DGM_2 fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 23, 2018 |
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May 23, 2018 23:47
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I dimly recall a DW1 LP where the LPer never returned Gwaelin to the king, and completed the game while carrying her. I did that as a kid, one time killing the dragon and rescuing Gwaelin on my way to the Dragonlord, and one time on my way back and the green dragon was gone.
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May 24, 2018 00:00
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Now that we're in the final strech, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy the small amounts of characterization you add. It really adds more life to a relatively dry game.
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May 24, 2018 03:47
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DGM_2 posted:But now that I think about it, your idea could explain a lot about the actual King's behavior... Oh, th'art the descendant of Erdrick, the young man destined to slay the Dragonlord! Go walk around in the wilderness with our blessings. No, we shan't give thee a sword: you're a hero! Provide for thyself! Cross many a bridge and fight many a vicious monster!
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May 24, 2018 05:25
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Patter Song posted:Oh, th'art the descendant of Erdrick, the young man destined to slay the Dragonlord! Go walk around in the wilderness with our blessings. No, we shan't give thee a sword: you're a hero! Provide for thyself! Cross many a bridge and fight many a vicious monster! If you die I will bring you back to life, steal half your money, and send you out to fight again........forever and ever. You will not be allowed to die until you succeed.
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May 24, 2018 06:07
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Patter Song posted:Oh, th'art the descendant of Erdrick, the young man destined to slay the Dragonlord! Go walk around in the wilderness with our blessings. No, we shan't give thee a sword: you're a hero! Provide for thyself! Cross many a bridge and fight many a vicious monster! Bingo. I wonder if we're even the first "descendant of Erdrick" he's pulled this crap on. He's probably used similar stories on other suckers.
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May 24, 2018 06:12
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DGM_2 posted:Bingo. How do you think the shop keepers stay in business? Certainly not by supplying a strictly once in a lifetime hero.
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May 24, 2018 06:22
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Xenocides posted:If you die I will bring you back to life, steal half your money, "Nay, I take no offense at thy looting of my treasury. 'Twas thine own money anyway."
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May 24, 2018 06:41
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Reading another FrankZP letsplay is like drinking a cool glass of water on a cool day. Man, that's refreshing!
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May 24, 2018 06:43
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Squibbles posted:How do you think the shop keepers stay in business? Certainly not by supplying a strictly once in a lifetime hero. Oh, God, it just hit me. Charging us for the gear we save them with, cryptic clues we have walk through trap squares to hear, the refusal to help us unless we crawl through a poisonous swamp to retrieve a filthy old token... They're all in on it, aren't they? This quest is all one giant "Candid Camera" style hose job.
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May 24, 2018 06:52
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DGM_2 posted:"Nay, I take no offense at thy looting of my treasury. 'Twas thine own money anyway." The King controls the monopoly on keys, so looting the treasury is just good business--he still made a net profit on the key that opened it.
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May 24, 2018 14:32
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Straight White Shark posted:The King controls the monopoly on keys, so looting the treasury is just good business--he still made a net profit on the key that opened it. Good point! I figured he was just trolling us. Although I'm sure he considered that a nice bonus.
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May 24, 2018 14:38
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Oh, and let's not forget that his majesty is the only one who can save our game, so even if we do figure him out and kill him for being evil we can't make it stick. drat, that bastard is good at this.
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May 24, 2018 14:42
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He also has a steep tax on the Puff Puff trade in Kol, which must bring in lots of business, as there is only one designated House of Puff Puff in all of Alefgard.
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May 24, 2018 18:02
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Patter Song posted:He also has a steep tax on the Puff Puff trade in Kol, which must bring in lots of business, as there is only one designated House of Puff Puff in all of Alefgard. The real crime, right here.
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May 24, 2018 18:08
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loving love Fiona Apple posted:Now that we're in the final strech, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy the small amounts of characterization you add. It really adds more life to a relatively dry game. FisheyStix posted:Reading another FrankZP letsplay is like drinking a cool glass of water on a cool day. Man, that's refreshing! I genuinely appreciate the kind words many of you had for the way I do things. I'm always a bit nervous injecting some juice in there, but really, as far as I'm concerned, that's part of the experience, especially for these older games. There is the story that the game tells you, and there is the space that the game reserves for you to tell your own. And I feel I would be remiss in not showcasing both sides of that coin. Also, even as a kid, the whole "Gwaelin immediately falls in love with you at full throttle" seemed kinda weird, heh. DGM_2 posted:I wonder if we're even the first "descendant of Erdrick" he's pulled this crap on. He's probably used similar stories on other suckers.   : But for thee I wish success, ZedPower.This guy knows the score, but he also knows it's not healthy to say too much!
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May 24, 2018 20:13
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I was real into the Nocturne LP and I'm really liking this here LP too. I've never played Dragon Warrior, and as for the rest of the series, I've only played a bit of 9, but it's cool getting to see one of the OG games. I can see how this would've been huge when it came out. It's got a lot of style, even if some things are jank.
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May 24, 2018 20:20
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FrankZP posted:
The king must have stopped resurrecting each of the others when they learned too much. We're just the latest in a long line of patsies, and all that's keeping us alive is our ability to keep our mouth shut and play the fool. We can't finish this job and book it with the princess soon enough. Unless she's in on it too, that is... DGM_2 fucked around with this message at 22:28 on May 24, 2018 |
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May 24, 2018 22:14
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DGM_2 posted:The king must have stopped resurrecting each of the others when they learned too much. We're just the latest in a long line of patsies, and all that's keeping us alive is our ability to keep our mouth shut and play the fool. We can't finish this job and book it with the princess soon enough. Probably a Get Out scenario in terms of the daughter. Also there is one way out and that is joining the dragon lord like I did the first time I played.
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May 24, 2018 22:30
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 Erdrick's Sword is worth a whopping 40 Attack Power, which is 12 more than the Flame Sword. Considering that the strongest enemies we've seen so far, Blue Dragons, have 53 to 70 HP, this is huge. Other than that, the Sword has no special powers, it's just Really Freaking Strong. It's not even actually required to hurt the Dragonlord, despite how we've been led to believe it would be. At any rate, let's see if it'll allow us to claw our way back out of Charlock in one piece.  We run into our first Stoneman on the way back. They're a slight bit stronger than Blue Dragons and have half their Agility, but over twice the HP. Their SLEEP resistance is very low, but without MP this doesn't exactly help us right now.  Our light completely runs out on the first basement. Fortunately we manage to keep going thanks to our map and, indeed, the THUD sound we make when we hit a wall. Hardly ideal, but workable.   Whew, this sword is something else! We can end fights against Werewolves and Green Dragons in 2 to 3 turns now. We reach Rimuldar without further difficulty, and spend the night there. Gwaelin informs us that we have less than 500 experience to go for level 18 though, so we go back to the Isle of Dragons for a bit of grinding before returning to Tantegel to restock and save.  Holy crap, we're getting 13 Strength and 6 Agility. That's an even bigger increase in Attack Power than the one Erdrick's Sword gave us! We also earn ourselves a respectable 13 HP and 7 MP. Wow. Levels are real slow to come but this one packs a punch; none of that dinky "+0.7% damage" MMORPG nonsense for sure. Reaching level 19 will takes another 3000 experience. Back in Brecconary, we purchase a load of Herbs, and just in case, a Torch. We're ready for another delve, but we'll be taking a detour through Kol first.   : Hey, old man! Get a load of these beauties! If we needed any more confirmation, this means we're all set with our endgame gear. We stay one more night in Rimuldar to restore the juice we spent on REPEL, then head back into the darkness.  Oh, REPEL even keeps us from harm on the surface of the Isle of Dragons by now! Talk about 2 MP well spent.  Alright, once more from the top. Staircase A leads to behind the throne, and E is the start of the path back up towards the vault that used to contain Erdrick's Sword.  We make our way down to the 4th basement again with 75 MP left. It's looking good! Let's try this staircase here, marked F.  We start our first visit to the fifth basement.  It's another very small floor, but we can only access the inner portion from here.  Onward to floor 6!  Well this looks important.  Red Dragons are the second strongest monsters in the entire game, and, discounting Metal Slimes, also the second most agile. They're about 50% resistant to STOPSPELL, and practically immune to other magic. If that wasn't spooky enough, they have a 25% chance to cast SLEEP! If they don't do so, they get another 25% chance to breathe fire instead of attacking. As we currently are, it's very much a good idea to stop them from casting as soon as possible. If one of them takes us by surprise and gets the first move, it can put us to sleep immediately and then chunk us down to 0 before we get a move. On the plus side, Red Dragons are worth a whopping 100 experience points! That's only 15 less than Metal Slimes. If we can regularly survive these fights without too much expense, Charlock's lower levels become a much better grinding spot than the hills southwest of Hauksness. We're not exactly there yet though, we've had to blow a HEALMORE cast to beat this one.  Hmm, this was just a straight line east, easy enough.   Armored Knights are a bit weaker than Red Dragons, but still not to be underestimated. They're also highly resistant to SLEEP and somewhat vulnerable to STOPSPELL, but very weak to HURT. They have a 75% chance to cast HEALMORE when under a quarter of their max HP, making STOPSPELL mandatory at the moment, but they also otherwise have a 25% chance to cast HURTMORE as Wizards do. And with that, we've seen every standard monster in the game. Armored Knights, Stonemen and Red Dragons are as hard as they get!  Wait a minute.  This floor seems to keep repeating. In fact, it's a subtle tell, but the dungeon theme does not get slower and lower as we take these staircases, as it did every time we reached a new floor. The eastern staircase doesn't actually take us down, it just returns us to the western staircase. This branch of the dungeon is effectively an infinite loop. : Man, and I thought this place didn't make sense before. Going back up even once brings us back to the real floor above regardless of how "deep" we may have reached. We retrace our steps and take the G stairs.  This leads us to the eastern side of the outer portion of floor 5, which is a straight shot to the staircase on the west side.    Pretty straightforward, but given the last branch we explored, that's a little worrying. And doubly so considering that if this one doesn't pan out, we're out of options.   Music: Dungeon theme (final floor) Oh. Oooooooh. I think we found the right path.    Hmm! We have 17 MP left so we're sadly just about ready to bail out, but at least we can rob the Dragonlord blind before we go.   Maybe an Herb? Our stock is full.  Oh, come on. If you put that thing on down here, you deserve whatever you get.  Eh, we can spend our RETURN MP before we leave, I guess.  That'd be pretty nice if money still had any value.  ...  Wow. Okay then. Well, it may not be important that we got our hands on this stuff, but the Dragonlord doesn't have it anymore, and that's what really matters. To time to hit the escape button and try again, but without the detours. Or... hmm. We're halfway through our next level; I'll take a bit of time to grind and get back to you. Just for reference though, right now we're at 18, and the maximum level is 30. Yeah. Ouch. That's a lot of grinding. Fortunately I don't think we'll need to get anywhere close to that. Anyway, gimme a moment then. ...  Aw man what.  Welp, that's kind of a crummy set of stat increases, but our final spell is here.  Our version of HURTMORE causes 58 to 65 points of defense-ignoring damage, at the low low price of 5 MP. It's resisted by the exact same enemy stat as the regular HURT. We usually hit endgame monsters for between 20 to 30 damage with our standard attacks, so it can be worth it to nuke down our tougher foes. It gets expensive in the long run but the idea is to see if sometimes a 5 MP HURTMORE is going to save us a 10 MP HEALMORE. Still, given the resistances of the creatures we're up against now, the increase in efficiency is fairly minor. Armored Knights are probably the only monsters it's truly worth using it on, but if you don't have Erdrick's Sword by the time you reach this level, it can be helpful against the likes of Werewolves, Starwyverns, Axe Knights and Green Dragons. I want to try and push this sortie all the way through and see what happens, especially since every subsequent level from now on requires 4000 experience. Let's head back in.  ...whoops. Here's to STOPSPELL failing to land three times in a row and King Lorik having to build an extension to the royal treasury. Let's try again.   Whew, we do better on the way this time, with 72 MP left for the last floor.    Oof. I think I'll go for another level. We need about 1800 EXP, so I'll see you in a bit. ... Actually, while the grind happens, let's take a moment to talk about the endgame. Dragon Warrior doesn't have a lot of typical dungeons, and even fewer mandatory ones. In terms of difficulty, Garin's Grave is midgame material, but the next one is Charlock. That's quite the step up, isn't it? If you're strong enough to find the Silver Harp, but not so strong that it's absurdly easy to do so, it'll be a long, long time before you get to delve beneath the surface again. That said, I think that the march to Cantlin is effectively equivalent to a dungeon, and the discovery of Hauksness on the way mechanically and thematically signals the beginning of the end. By the time you can explore the southwest of Alefgard, and can take out Wolflords and Wyverns, you know you should expect two more towns. That means two more inns, two more areas with reliable grinding spots and gear upgrades. Except that you find Hauksness surrounded by extremely difficult Knights, Demon Knights and Rogue Scorpions, and town is effing gone. Heck, it's worse than gone, it's filled with monsters that we now know also show up in Charlock, and it is completely a mess. This is the first time that the game shows us the threat and power of the Dragonlord, instead of just having some villager tell us about it. The place isn't just deserted, it has been destroyed and tainted, its dwellings shattered and its ground poisoned. You were expecting succor, you were expecting an inn and a couple stores and maybe some clues, but find no help whatsoever. The true scope of what you're up against has materialized, and it literally makes the game flow skip a beat. Your next goal is then immediately Cantlin. Except that there are three ways to the east, and two of them loop into each other through hills and deserts. The region isn't strictly a dungeon of course, but it plays the same resource-attrition game as one. I think that in a perhaps primitive fashion, the game is brilliant in its use of the overworld as much more than a way to go from one place to another, especially here. Your travels culminate in a boss battle, and the city that is your reward is packed with essential information and great equipment. And once you're done with following the leads you get in Cantlin? You're moments away from the final dungeon, with (almost) no new overworld region to cover, and chances are you've earned your final set of buyable gear by beating the same monsters that populate the first few floors there and you can immediately dive right in. Of course, the trade-off for this structure is that between the Grave and Cantlin, the difficulty regularly increases much faster than your statistical ability to deal with it. That means grinding, and a lot of it. Speaking of which: level 20! 5 Strength, 2 Agility, 7 HP, 12 MP. Could be gimpier, but still pretty gimpy. Let's see where it takes us.         We've got 61 MP left. That ought to be enough, right? There's only one more thing to do before we step forward.   : Hello sweetikin pumpkin mumpkin!: Hi love. Aren't you laying it on a bit thick?: We're having dinner, he's right here.: Say hi for me.: Perhaps later. What's going on? I can't tell where thou art at all.: I think I'm at the bottom of Charlock and there's a weird guy with a dorky haircut in here. Do you think that's the Dragonlord?: I wouldn't know... I've never met him. It certainly doesn't sound like him. Would dragons really bow to one not of their kind?: Yeah, I kinda thought he would be a dragon too.: Doth he look like a villain?: A fashion villain maybe. But there's a bunch of dragons running around in here and clearly they haven't torn him to pieces. Maybe he's the real deal.: He must be some sort of magic-user! Doth he look like one?: I'm a magic-user and we look nothing alike. I guess he's sort of wizardy. Eh, I'm out of options anyway, I'm going to talk to him.: Please, be careful. I'm not saying this just for me, either. Everyone is counting on you.: I know. Don't worry, I won't forget it. Just... Whatever it is you're eating, make sure your dad doesn't get the last piece, alright?: That's a promise. Come back safe, my love.: Doing my best to, darling. : Tempt not the Faaaaaaaaates!: Father! Please get thineself off the li-Welp. Here we go.   : Ah, alright then. I was wondering. Thanks for clearing that up. : I have been waiting long for one such as thee. I give thee now a chance to share this world and to rule half of it if thou will now stand beside me. : Wait, what? Half the world? That would instantly solve most of my problems! Can we get that in writing? Come on man, get a quill, I can't agree to this fast enough. Do I have to sign in blood? : Did I stutter? Hop to it, I don't have all day!   As the screen turns black and red, we lose all of our money, all of our experience, and our sprite reverts to the unarmed version, implying that our equipment is also gone. I'm not sure what the significance of the "If thou dies..." line is. In the Japanese version, the Dragonlord actually gives you your password (that version had passwords instead of a battery-backed save), but here he definitely doesn't save for you so I don't know what the deal is. Anyway, just like that, the descendant of Erdrick succumbs to the temptation of darkness, and we get the only true "game over" Dragon Warrior has to offer. The game remains frozen on this screen, looping the deepest dungeon theme over and over again, until you turn the console off. Good grief, even today this still creeps me out. ...but we all know this isn't actually what happens to our hero, right? Let's take it again from the top.  Video: The DragonlordYikes. The Dragonlord's human form has a Strength of 90 and an Agility of 75, putting him about on par with a Green Dragon. He is highly resistant, but not completely immune, to all magic. He'll cast STOPSPELL 25% of the time, and otherwise will cast HURTMORE 75% of the time or attack. The STOPSPELL cast is basically there to make sure you have immunity to it from Erdrick's Armor, because there's no going through this entire fight without HEALMORE unless you're grossly overleveled. All in all, he's not too scary. Until you give him enough damage, that is; 76 to 100 points' worth. The Dragonlord's true form does not mess around. He gets a Strength of 140 and an Agility of 200, the latter of which is second only to Metal Slimes. He also keeps his resistances. His dodge stat is a big zero, but you never get to roll excellent blows against him, so you have to chip away at his 130 HP the old fashioned way. Every turn he either attacks or uses a unique improved fire breath that does a base 65 to 72 damage, reduced to 42 to 48 by our armor. Unfortunately, the Dragonlord is a stat check. There's no strategy to him, and random chance barely even has an effect (no crits, no dodge). You hit him as long as your HP is high enough not to get one-shot on the next turn, and then you cast HEALMORE for as long as your MP holds up. You can technically two- or three-shot him with HURTMORE, but that 15/16 resistance is no joke. Well... I say random chance barely has an effect... In a way, Charlock itself is as much the final boss as the Dragonlord is. The outcome of the battle is very much influenced by how many HEALMORE casts we have in our pocket when we reach the end, and the more efficiently we can fight our way down, the better our chances are. Even then though, gaining levels is the largest part of the solution.  : Did I not tell you to avoid tempting the Fates?: He was right there! What was I supposed to do, Your Royal Dadness? Turn around and walk back out because he looked spooky?: I... Ah... Point conceded.: Besides, I knew you had my back. We're all working hard together on this, aren't we?: That we are! I am working very hard indeed!: Bravo, my lord. : Anyway, we were right, honey. The Dragonlord actually is a giant dragon.: What of the strange man?: He's... the Dragonlord's chump costume, I suppose. I don't get it either. Anyway, I better give it another shot. All my love, sweetheart.: See thee in better spirits then, bravy-wavy-baby!: *approval intensifies*So. Here's the plan. I'm gonna farm up another level, and try again. If I can't beat him then, I'll get another one, and so on and so forth. Oooo-wheee. See ya in a bit! ... Oh hey, while we got a minute or forty, I put together a compilation of the dungeon music variations, all eight of them, each more terrifying than the last. In case you're interested! Aaaaaaand level 21, let's see... 3 Strength, 2 Agility, 10 HP, 6 MP. Ick. Well, I meant what I said, let's make an attempt.  This time we ran away from anything tougher than a Wizard and only used Herbs to heal, so we're starting the fight with 120 MP! Whew. Okay. Get pumped. Video: The Dragonlord (redux)!!! Well that was some decent Dragon Warriorin'!   I know I said there were no item drops from combat in this game, but... gotta keep some suprises for the end!   We are immediately teleported outside, with all our HP and MP restored.  The Ball of Light isn't in our inventory, for some reason.  : By the light, you did it!: Well hey, news travel fast.: We could see the radiance from here, it was wonderful!: The deed is done, then. Sit tight, sweetheart. I'm coming home, and I got your ticket out right here. Just a matter of time now.: It can't possibly be soon enough. I'll be waiting!   It is no longer possible to get into a random encounter. Every monster in Alefgard was instantly vaporized the moment we got our hands on the Ball.  Let's see what the good folk of Rimuldar have to say about this, shall we?     As far as I know, everyone in the world says one of these two lines at random.  Even this old fart is coming around!  Oh dang, the wounded guard in Brecconary still isn't doing any better.   The guards will actually let you in even if you're wearing the Cursed Belt. It's only polite, really.  Everyone else in the castle also only says that King Lorik awaits.  Whew. We're almost done here. One more rescue.  Video: Rescuing Princess GwaelinIf you refuse to take Gwaelin along... well, you guessed it: "But thou must!" But it's not like we'd do to that to her, right? If you haven't actually rescued Gwaelin, the ending proceeds the same way, but she just doesn't show up and nobody makes any mention of her. Harsh! If you've brought Gwaelin to the Dragonlord fight, most easily accomplished by only rescuing her once you're ready to beat the game, the ending also largely proceeds the same way, with the same dialog from all parties. The only difference is of course that she doesn't come down from the throne room, since she's already in your arms. With that, history is made. Dragon Warrior is not a perfect game by any means, but its ideas and the execution of these ideas set the foundation for an entire genre, its myriad successors either iterating and building on its systems and adding notions of their own, or sometimes merely being cargo-cult imitators with only the most superficial understanding of its strengths. And it all started with a king, a hero with a stick, a villain in a castle, a quest, and a continent. Before I sign off, I have to give props to Toshiko Watson and the rest of the translation team. There is a hell of a lot of text in this game for its era, and they managed to make it elegant and flavorful in a way to puts to shame decades' worth of subsequent gaming history. Alright then. Thanks for following along, dear readers. Good grief, did I miss this nonsense or what? It's been a pleasure. Of course, as the ending credits say, there are many roads yet to travel, and I look forward to traveling them in your company. Erdrick's bloodline still has a lot of work to do, after all. But for the moment...  : I'd say that went alright.: I can hardly believe I'm finally free!: So, where to next? Was there ever a shipyard in Alefgard?: Not exactly, no. But Kol has good lumber for sure, and it's close to the sea.: Kol, eh? I'm sure I can afford to pay someone there to lash a few planks together.: I am still the Princess, and thou art a hero. It would not be unreasonable to set thine expectations a touch higher.: Ha, whatever you say, Your Highness. Anyway, we're out of sight of Tantegel by now. Do you want to use your own feet for a spell?: Oh! I... In fact, I... would not mind being carried a bit further. If that is fine by thee.: Well, you've been through enough, I don't mind spoiling you some more.
FrankZP fucked around with this message at 12:14 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 24, 2018 22:36
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Thank you for the nostalgia trip, and The Very Good, Entertaining, Informative LP!
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May 25, 2018 00:04
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Great read. Too bad the game is so short, because I wanted more. Are you planning to go further into the series? 2, while agonizing at the end, could certainly use the same treatment!
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May 25, 2018 00:10
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Don't ever make a deal with the devil. The Dragonlord promised you half of the world's darkness while keeping all the good stuff to himself.
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May 25, 2018 00:17
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His intent was to do I and II as a precursor to an lp of 3, so he should be hitting 2 next.
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May 25, 2018 00:18
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I am absolutely champing at the bit to get started on DW2 and it takes all I got not to fire it up right away, but I'll be having a short break because I know I have to pace myself at least a little if I want to make it as far as I'd like into the series. I'm thinking probably a week, mmmmmaybe two at most, just enough for a breather and a fresh start with a rested mind.Shitenshi posted:Don't ever make a deal with the devil. The Dragonlord promised you half of the world's darkness while keeping all the good stuff to himself. If he'd have done to his share what he did to Hauksness, by comparison we might have ended up with the better half!
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May 25, 2018 00:33
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Thanks for the LP!
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May 25, 2018 00:36
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Congratulations! Dragon Quest I is a very short game, especially if you play one of the remakes that takes a lot of the...um...pain of the game out, but even in the original version. That said, even a short LP is a huge undertaking, and you did a very good job with very slim material. I liked to see that the credits of this game went Horii, then Toriyama, then Sugiyama, then all the people no one's ever heard of (excepting NOA's beloved Howard Philips), because to this day, the Dragon Quest team is Horii, Toriyama, Sugiyama, and a bunch of people no one's ever heard of but who do all the actual grunt work. Dragon Quest/Warrior II is...a much harder undertaking. There's a lot of value in that game and I look forward to commenting on your playthrough of it, but I vowed long ago to never, ever, ever actually play it again (even though I'm regularly tempted to go through the old Dragon Quests). Dragon Quest II might be the worst game in the series, but it was gloriously innovative and a massive step forward technically and in terms of the plot and structure. I admire a lot about it...but better you than me. EDIT: Fun thing about this series is the rapid turnaround they were able to do in the Famicom days. Final Fantasy, the series meant to compete with Dragon Quest, released FFI at about the same time as DQII, so DQII is the one I always compare to the first Final Fantasy. And FFI is a fantastic video game while DQII is a...um...bold experiment.
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May 25, 2018 00:41
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Hurrah! Hurrah! Long live ZedPower!
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May 25, 2018 00:43
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Having never played any DQ game other than this one (which I only beat as a child thanks to Game Genie letting me buy equipment), I thoroughly enjoyed this.
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May 25, 2018 00:45
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If you are Thanks for the great LP!
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May 25, 2018 00:47
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That was fun. Thanks.
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May 25, 2018 00:48
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Will you be making a sperate thread for DW2 or will you keep it all here?
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May 25, 2018 00:54
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Great work on DW I! The extra dialogue was great, looking forward to seeing your take on DW II, if you do go ahead and do it. I've never actually played DW II, all I recall of the last LP I tried to read was the protagonist naming his new staff St Pimp-Stick III. So... nowhere to go but up! Also this LP got me to download an emulator for my phone, so I've been playing the SNES version of DW III. So that's been fun.
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May 25, 2018 00:57
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I love the victory lap at the end of these games 
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May 25, 2018 01:02
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Great job on this LP! It was a great read, and your narrative never got in the way of the informative stuff, which is always nice to see. It had a great balance. Also, looking forward to DW2 because while I owned the game, I've only ever played the opening of the game and then stopped, so I have basically no idea what the rest of the game is like 
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May 25, 2018 02:21
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Fantastic LP! I recently beat the android version of Dragon Quest 1 myself, so it was interesting to see the nes version. The NPCs in the android version actually have updated text and different sayings for your victory lap, and the translation is even more Shakespearean than the nes version. Normally this would annoy me, but they actually did a pretty good job, and it works quite well
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May 25, 2018 02:21
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I really enjoyed this LP--thank you! I can't wait till you get into the next game, then maybe the next, then maybe...
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May 25, 2018 02:27
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| # ? May 16, 2024 07:20 |
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So in Dragon Quest Builders, you take the role of the Builder, a person chosen by the goddess to rebuild the world of DQ1 after the previous Descendent of Erdrick said 'yes' to the Dragonlord. Everything's in ruins, humanity is on their last ropes, and it's your job to basically set up the cities and towns again, clear out enough of the big monsters, and basically set the world back up for the next Descendant to show up and save the day. The towns are named the same as the ones in DQ1 with some of the same layout you can piece together, particularly the King's castle.
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May 25, 2018 02:39
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