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ricdesi
Mar 18, 2014

Does it really need saying?

Patter Song posted:

I played the GBC Dragon Warrior I and II game, and somehow managed to beat both, despite Dragon Quest II's insane difficulty. DQ1 is mercifully short, but DQ2...is ball-bustingly difficult and not terribly fun.

My favorite two are the DS remakes of DQ IV and V.

I don't know that I ever actually finished DQ II for the GBC... I remember it being asinine-hard at the very end (and generally throughout), though. III is just a trillion times better in every way.

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ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Rumor has it that the devs for DQ2 ran out of time to play test it at the very end, and what we got is something that should've been caught in QC.

FrankZP
Nov 11, 2015

AIGHT SHITBIRDS, IT'S EXPLOSION TIME!


Ah, that's better. We got two levels after all (no new spells, though), and enough dosh for a Small Shield, a Copper Sword, and even an Herb and replacement Torch! It didn't even take that much time. We couldn't stay for long in Skeletonland, and hunting Punch Wizards to extinction would have taken forever, but it turns out that the other side of the bridge south of Garinham has very beatable enemies for the time being, and it's not far to walk from our refill station.





Scorpions hit fairly hard and have high defense, but no HURT resistance; two casts and a club bonk sufficed to earn us about 12 gold apiece.



Magidrakees are slightly upgraded Magicians and worth only a bit more exp to kill.

In other good news, we have our final sprite!





We could keep exploring that region in the west, but I want to go back east and see if we can find a town of some sort. If the Princess is in the cave we saw, she's probably guarded by something a bit tougher than Slimes, and if we have to walk all the way from Tantegel every time we have a go at it, we'll be a quarter dead before we even set foot in the nearby swamp. And besides, we might just be up to fending off a few Skeletons by now.





Ah, here we go.








: Well, that's almost half a piece of actionable information.



The Full Plate is new but haha, nope. Depending on how the gold returns are in this area though, we might be in the market for an axe before long.


: Great strength and skill and wit only will bring thee back from that place.
: I don't even know how to get there, so I guess I'm safe.


: Eh, I'm not gonna make fun of him. Bagpipes make me sneeze.


: Look, I'm already looking for three magic widgets and a princess, I don't have time to go find Mister Cute Nod To Corporate Media.


: If Golem is afraid of falling asleep, you can make up your next legend about an extremely handsome clubsman who also knows how to put Golem to sleep.



Hmm, a bit cheaper than Garinham's inn! I didn't expect that. It might be worth our while to hunt the undead around here for a bit.



Good thing the rheumatism ailment only makes an appearance in Dragon Warrior 4.



: Uh... Old man? Can you... like... shout maybe?
: ...
: Aw cripes. FINE.


: Did I get poison goop in my boots just to hear you say my gear sucks?
: Thou shouldst come here again.
: Yeah, I'll... "think about it". Eugh.


: No. I do not. Leave me alone, alright? I don't see anyone else trying to sort this mess out. Do you?



We can bypass the door to the right by cutting through the baths, but this guy is beyond our reach.


: Nice racket they've got going there. "Yeah we're making keys that can open any door in the world." That'll endear you to people who like their privacy!


: Not yet. Hopefully not ever.
: To the south, I believe, is a town called Rimuldar.
: ...right. Okay then, hopes shattered. Thanks, buddy.



The item shop has Wings of the Wyvern, which are one-shot items that will fly us from any point on the overworld straight to Tantegel. It's as close to fast travel as this game ever gets, and it's one-way, so you usually just keep it in your back pocket as a panic button, or for when it's way past your bedtime and mom's already told you to turn off the Nintendo twice. 70 gold is still a lot of dosh for now though, and I suspect we all choose our own bedtime by now, so we skip it.

That's about it for Kol. I'll want to get that axe for sure, but first, just to the west of here there's a passage to the northern part of a previous region that was unreachable from the south due to a mountain range. It shouldn't be a very long trip, so let's check it out.









Ah, here we are.



Music: Castle theme




: Well isn't that a new one. Do go on.
: Thus, I propose a test. There is a Silver Harp that beckons to the creatures of the Dragonlord. Bring this to me and I will reward thee with the Staff of Rain.

We know a minstrel of some repute built Garinham, so there's a nonzero chance we can learn about that harp there. We'll certainly need to access the rest of the town first, and for that, we'll need a key from Rimuldar. It all goes back to that "dreadful Southern Isle", then, and that probably means we could use another gear upgrade. So here's the plan: let's make enough money off killing a bunch of dead people to buy ourselves a Chain Mail and a Hand Axe.

Gimme just a moment, then...

...dang, change of plans. For some reasons Skeletons are now harder to find than one needle in two haystacks, and if we don't get their 25 gold a pop, the other enemies in the area give 3 to 10. We make enough to buy a Chain Mail, but I'm gonna go nuts fighting around here much longer. Let's shelve the Southern Isle for now, and see if we can find anything of interest west of Tantegel. I'm not sure what we're gonna fight on the way though, so we're splurging on a Wing, just in case.

Oooh, we level up on the way back from Kol, earning a whopping 7 Agility and a new spell.



SLEEP rolls against your opponent's sleep resistance stat; if it succeeds, they stop taking actions until they wake up, which has a 33% chance of happening every turn. High-tier enemies tend to be very resistant, but it always has at least a 1 in 16 chance to land, and it remains fairly effective for a fair chunk of the game. Just like HURT, it costs only 2 MP.

Some enemies have a SLEEP spell as well, but you always effectively have zero resistance to it. On the plus side, a quirk of the game's random number generator ensures that you never spend more than 6 turns asleep at once. Interestingly, enemies have a basic AI that keeps them from casting it if you're already sleeping.

Alright then. We pay a visit to the King, get two Herbs for luck, and head west.



A bit further south, we start running into Skeletons again. Just when we're trying to save resources, great.





We could see this cave from the Tantegel region, but couldn't reach it from there. That said, I want to see how far we can go outdoors, our Wing won't work underground, and I'm just not super feeling fumbling around in the dark right this moment, so let's keep going south.



: Come on! I haven't even touched a single regular wolf in my life! How about... how about you just forget you ever saw me and take a NAP.



Whuh-oh. Maybe we should have tried that cave after all. A second cast lands, and we beat feet. Wolflords only have a 25% resistance to sleep, and sleeping foes can't stop us from running away. These guys are way out of our league!



We spend our last MP on a Heal spell. There's a chance we might get back to Tantegel without blowing our Wing, and I'm gonna try it. Our armor makes us hardy enough that normal attacks don't hurt us too bad, and as long as we don't take too many spells to the face we should be all right.



... actually we run into a couple Magidrakees too many, but I remember the Herbs we took along, and we end up back at base with 24 gold's worth of consumables used up instead of 70. I'll count that as a win!

We're still about 200 gold short of a Hand Axe though, and any other equipment is barely even worth thinking about. Let's check out that western cave. We'll be bringing six Herbs along, but with any luck we'll make more than our money back in spoils.



Sigh... Here we go.



Druins are fairly basic critters, slightly tougher than Scorpions, and without noteworthy resistances. Other than that, we also fight Scorpions, as well as Ghosts and Magicians. Nothing too difficult by now. There's a chest on the first floor that would typically contain a Herb, but we already have six, and...



Oh well.

Reaching the second floor from a staircase in the center of the level, we find a chest with 10 gold, and...



Poltergeists are a bit tougher than Druins, and have a 75% chance to cast HURT. That said, they have 0 resistance to HURT and SLEEP. Bringing these Herbs was a pretty good idea, it turns out, as we'll need our MP for offense.



Yikes! These guys are as strong as Skeletons, but they cast HURT like Magicians, and also have a 25% chance to cast SLEEP. Their own resistances are low though, and they drop up to 34 gold.

This is getting tricky. Even if we land a good SLEEP, it takes us several turns to put them down anyway. I think we'll just return to the floor above and grind out the rest of that Axe; we're almost there.

Aaaand we finish mapping out the first floor just as we reach 568 gold. It's AXIN' TIME!

...in the time it took me to type that, I lost track of where I am on my map.





Welp, there aren't that many west-east-south T intersections, I'm sure I can find my way back out anyway.



Whew.

We level up on the way to Garinham! No spells, but decent stat increases across the board.



Aw yeah. That's... five more Attack Power. Welp, it'll still get our work done faster, and we haven't even seen a more expensive weapon than this yet.

On that note, we go back to Tantegel to refill, get more Herbs, and then return to that nefarious cave's second floor. Magicians are starting to run away from us at this point, and we don't need to spend MP to fight Skeletons anymore!

Alright, let's see...



Ah, sure. I'll just...



: ...




: *seething intensifies*
: Rest then for awhile.


FrankZP fucked around with this message at 06:29 on May 13, 2018

Gloomy Rube
Mar 4, 2008



I'm already loving this LP, I'm learning a lot already!

Like how I'm NOT the luckiest person in the world for never getting attacked in that first cave. I just assumed I was always super lucky!

Adamant
Jan 30, 2013

Considering there are three stairways down on the first floor of that cave, you should probably start color-coding them on the map instead of marking them as just up and down, or you're going to very rapidly forget which staircases lead where.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.



Why is it needed to hold reset when powering off the NES?

quote:

I don't own a NES or know the reason for this message for certain, but from an electronics perspective the reason is fairly obvious.

Yes, the reason is to prevent corruption of game saves but no, it is not because of "power spikes" or switch bouncing as mentioned in the other answer and comments.

The first thing to know is that there is no such thing as an infinitely fast power supply. The power supply stabilizes and buffers its output (and the circuit itself does more buffering) and that means the output voltage will ramp up within a certain time on powering up. For the same reason, the voltage will not immediately go to zero on powering down.

The second thing to know is that electronic devices such as the CPU have a specified voltage range within which they work. They can't do anything when the voltage is lower than certain threshold voltages for the transistors. That means there is still a voltage range between "doing nothing" and "working properly" where it will work unreliably.

Now on power-up, there are trivial circuits that will hold the reset line for a little while so that the CPU comes out of reset only after power is good. There are a little more involved circuits (brown-out detectors) that can generate a reset anytime the supply voltage drops below a threshold, not just on powering up. Obviously that wasn't built into the NES because it costs money and isn't really needed. Sure, the NES may glitch and crash on powering down, but so what? The user probably won't notice and certainly won't care because it has no lasting effect.

That changes when non-volatile memories are involved. The CPU may continue to execute code in brown-out conditions but errors may creep in. For example, when it writes to memory it might write to the wrong location and that location might just be within your precious save game, corrupting it.

Since the NES lacks one, the game manufacturers could have included a brown-out detector on their own module that write protects their memory. The obvious cheaper solution is to just tell the gamer to hold the reset button while powering down. That prevents the CPU from doing anything at all, brown-out or not, and so also prevents it from drunkenly walking all over your saves.

Shitenshi
Mar 12, 2013
I remember the reset button, power off or your saves will be deleted thing used to scare the poo poo out of me. I'd always be worried that I'd do it wrong and my saves would be gone. Combine that with how sometimes Nintendo cartridges back then would randomly require the blowing trick without warning and that alone could jeopardize all your saves, yeah, not a pleasant experience. Especially for games that were as comprehensive as DQIV. Funny thing, I don't think I ever had this problem with Sega cartridges.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe
As a kid I hardly ever bothered with the reset thing. The only game that seemed prone to savefile corruption was Ultima 3, which was fine, because hoping the save glitched and dumped stuff into my inventory was my primary means of progression in that game.

DeathChicken
Jul 9, 2012

Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

And of course the "blowing trick" just caused corrosion in the cheap copper pins, necessitating more blowing as the system slowly died

Kemix
Dec 1, 2013

Because change
Oh sweet, a ZP LP, gonna just watch thiiiiissss...also, for the record, your Nocturne LP never got archived for some ungodly reason.

savixeon
Oct 22, 2016

Kemix posted:

Oh sweet, a ZP LP, gonna just watch thiiiiissss...also, for the record, your Nocturne LP never got archived for some ungodly reason.

I'm pretty sure its on the lp archive. I remember reading it there.

Bregor
May 31, 2013

People are idiots, Leslie.
Ah yes, the “I can’t believe I forgot a drat torch” rage-Wings. I remember it well.

I also remember this game being much more grindy (but I guess you’re cutting out a lot of that). There were two enemies in particular we’ll get to later that I remember fighting a lot.

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012
wow this game actually looks kinda good for being 30 years old o_0

Adamant
Jan 30, 2013

Bregor posted:

I also remember this game being much more grindy (but I guess you’re cutting out a lot of that).

At the start of the game, you basically have the option of slooooowly grinding up exp and gold from the weak enemies around the starting area, or making short trips into places with tougher enemies you can't really handle yet and using Hurt/Gira to overpower them and get their substantially higher exp/gold rewards. ZP chose the latter.

Kemix
Dec 1, 2013

Because change

savixeon posted:

I'm pretty sure its on the lp archive. I remember reading it there.

Huh. So it is. That'll teach me for being loving blind as a bat.

FrankZP
Nov 11, 2015

AIGHT SHITBIRDS, IT'S EXPLOSION TIME!

Gloomy Rube posted:

I'm already loving this LP, I'm learning a lot already!

Like how I'm NOT the luckiest person in the world for never getting attacked in that first cave. I just assumed I was always super lucky!

I can't fault you for assuming that; even without enemies, the dungeons manage have this very oppressive, menacing feel to them and it's almost a given that you expect to be ambushed at any moment.

Adamant posted:

Considering there are three stairways down on the first floor of that cave, you should probably start color-coding them on the map instead of marking them as just up and down, or you're going to very rapidly forget which staircases lead where.

Yeah, good point, I'm gonna need to rejigger my map stuff before long. I use the pen tool to color individual pixels on a zoomed-the-heck-in MSPaint file with the grid turned on, and I enlarge it all when I'm done to make it readable at a more reasonable size, but it's getting obvious it's not gonna cut it forever. I'll work something out.


Huh, I always thought it was the power spike nonsense. Good to have that old wives' tale sorted out at last.

Shitenshi posted:

I remember the reset button, power off or your saves will be deleted thing used to scare the poo poo out of me. I'd always be worried that I'd do it wrong and my saves would be gone. Combine that with how sometimes Nintendo cartridges back then would randomly require the blowing trick without warning and that alone could jeopardize all your saves, yeah, not a pleasant experience. Especially for games that were as comprehensive as DQIV. Funny thing, I don't think I ever had this problem with Sega cartridges.

I can't seem to find pictures or video of this, and I don't know if this is the same for all NES DW games... But I had a friend back then with a DW3 cartridge with corrupted saves, and when you start up that game, right after the main title, it plays the "you got cursed" jingle while warning you that your saves are gone and man that was weirdly scary to hear.

Bregor posted:

Ah yes, the “I can’t believe I forgot a drat torch” rage-Wings. I remember it well.

I also remember this game being much more grindy (but I guess you’re cutting out a lot of that). There were two enemies in particular we’ll get to later that I remember fighting a lot.

Adamant posted:

At the start of the game, you basically have the option of slooooowly grinding up exp and gold from the weak enemies around the starting area, or making short trips into places with tougher enemies you can't really handle yet and using Hurt/Gira to overpower them and get their substantially higher exp/gold rewards. ZP chose the latter.

When I was a kid I was the type to grind around a town until I could afford all its gear, then just blast through the countryside with impunity until the next town. That'd be intolerable for me today, so yeah there's the more interesting notion of finding out what's the most efficient grinding spot for where you're at, and there are quite a few factors to balance. For example, going after the strongest enemy you can kill isn't always the best, since inn costs may be eating most of your profits if the wins are too narrow, especially when fighting requires MP expenditure. Even then the EXP rewards may be worth it anyway, but if you make a wrong move and die, maybe the gold loss won't be worth the EXP gain in terms of time spent. So it's a balancing act.

mandatory lesbian posted:

wow this game actually looks kinda good for being 30 years old o_0

Dang, yes. Compared to its contemporaries, it's in a league of its own.

On the western side, the latest Ultima that was out when Dragon Quest came out in Japan was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. It got a decent-looking NES port in 1990, but it looked like this in 1985 on the Commodore 64.



In Japan, we can take a look at The Black Onyx's 1987 SG-1000 port here.

There is zero doubt that Dragon Quest being smooth, attractive and colorful had a major impact on it success. And many of its monster designs are still used in the series today, almost unchanged.

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 05:29 on May 14, 2018

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Seyser Koze posted:

Better still, Squenix liked the '80s translation enough to use a similar style when the mobile version of the game was released (despite the GBC version having released with a "normal" script in the interim), including the changed names.

In Dragon Quest Builders, which is set in the distant future of an alternate universe version of DQ1, while everyone in the current era speaks in modern colloquial english, everyone in from the distant past (like ghosts or dream visions of the era) speaks in lovely DQ1 Ye Olde Time English. It's a nice touch.

Hirayuki
Mar 28, 2010


FrankZP posted:

I can't seem to find pictures or video of this, and I don't know if this is the same for all NES DW games... But I had a friend back then with a DW3 cartridge with corrupted saves, and when you start up that game, right after the main title, it plays the "you got cursed" jingle while warning you that your saves are gone and man that was weirdly scary to hear.
I know this happens at least as recently as DQIX, when something messes up your saves. (Gotta love that dedication to consistency!) That jingle always did send a chill down my spine.

Shitenshi
Mar 12, 2013

FrankZP posted:

I can't seem to find pictures or video of this, and I don't know if this is the same for all NES DW games... But I had a friend back then with a DW3 cartridge with corrupted saves, and when you start up that game, right after the main title, it plays the "you got cursed" jingle while warning you that your saves are gone and man that was weirdly scary to hear.

Hirayuki posted:

I know this happens at least as recently as DQIX, when something messes up your saves. (Gotta love that dedication to consistency!) That jingle always did send a chill down my spine.

I thought I was the only one. I even felt bad deciding to finally use a cursed weapon to take down a tough boss in DQIV.

ricdesi
Mar 18, 2014

Does it really need saying?

Shitenshi posted:

I thought I was the only one. I even felt bad deciding to finally use a cursed weapon to take down a tough boss in DQIV.

Never happened to me with Dragon Quest, but it DID happen to my copy of Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya and nine-year old me freaked, dropped the Game Gear on my bed and ran out of the room. Not my proudest moment.

Xenocides
Jan 14, 2008

This world looks very scary....


I think I am the only Dragon Warrior player to buy a bamboo pole, a set of clothes, and the shield as my first purchases. Even as a little kid I wanted one of everything.

FrankZP
Nov 11, 2015

AIGHT SHITBIRDS, IT'S EXPLOSION TIME!

Xenocides posted:

I think I am the only Dragon Warrior player to buy a bamboo pole, a set of clothes, and the shield as my first purchases. Even as a little kid I wanted one of everything.

That's actually not a bad choice, it gives you more defense than just Leather Armor, and the Small Shield is typically the piece of Brecconary gear that gets obsoleted the least quickly. I think it just never occurred to me to buy three pieces of kit at the start for some reason. (Well, apart from the Dragon's Scale of course.)

FrankZP
Nov 11, 2015

AIGHT SHITBIRDS, IT'S EXPLOSION TIME!





: Yeah, yeah.

It's okay. I'm okay. We're okay. I'm mad, but mostly at myself. It's fine. It'll be fine.

It'll be fine soon.

Let's try the cave south of Kol instead of returning to that nameless western hole in the ground, shall we?

On our way, we do stop in Kol for another set of Wings and a... a Torch. Yes. Ahem. It does help that anything weaker than a Scorpion often tries to run away from us by now, or usually dies in one hit if they stand their ground.



Alright then, it's nose-holding time.





Well that was extraordinarily unpleasant; it's a 20 HP toll at best. Getting this close to the cave entrance does reveal that there's an exit on the other side of the river, so it must be the way to the Southern Isle. Hopefully Rimuldar isn't too far inland.

We use an Herb to ensure we don't get ganked by the first twerp we run into, and head inside.



A single Scorpion fight later...





...huh.

I'm not one to look a gift staircase in the mouth, but I can't help but suspect there might be more to this tunnel than meets the eye.

Hmm.

Hmmmmmm.

Ah, to hell with it, let's get outta here.



From a design point of view, the simple straight path through this cave makes a lot of sense, seeing as it's not a one-and-done dungeon, but a path we'll have to take several times. It's even easy to navigate without a Torch if you're just passing through.







Wolves are easily the toughest enemies we've met so far, barring the one Wolflord, but they have no HURT resistance and only the faintest chance to resist SLEEP.



They also drop up to 49 gold! If we can find an inn close by, we'll have decent upgrades before long.





Metal Scorpions don't hit as hard as Wolves, but they have much higher defense power and lower hit points, so it's best to use HURT if you can spare the juice. They have zero resistance to SLEEP but at this point they'd probably wake up before our axe would finish them off.



Oh-ho!





Dreadful Southern Isle my rear end, this was practically trivial! Man, it's been a hike and a half, though. We could really go for some pizza, or spaghetti, or... or even just a refreshing tankard of the purest, coolest tomato juice.



: Madam! Please! I must know! Do you have... Perchance, might you possibly have some tomatoes for sale?

: AUGH! NOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOO!

Behold the tragedy of a world in thrall to the Dragonlord.


: My heart is dust and my mouth ashen at the news of your tomato situation, but I must persevere, and I shall. Let us carry on bravely, brother.



That's expensive for an inn without tomatoes, but we can actually make that amount back pretty quick around here, so we spend the night right away.


: It... has been indeed! I'd stay and chat, but, you know, busy, and all. Safe travels!

Presumably we met this dude in Brecconary, but I don't think any of the NPCs would be missing from there if we visited again. Or maybe this is the one portion of the dialog that implies in any way that the character we're playing was existing in the world before the game started.



The contents of that chest had better be rad as hell to justify two locks.



It's probably behind that locked door in the northeast tower we saw back then.


: Nah dude, I'm a true warrior and I don't have a ring. Wait a minute. Are you running a jewelry store? Are you trying to make rings cool? Get outta here.





Man that Broad Sword is tempting, but I suspect the Half-Plate would more efficiently improve our staying power, especially since we have to rely on HURT spells to take out Metal Scorpions. The Full Plate would be nice of course but I don't know if I want to grind up 3k right now. (Actually, that's a lie. I apologize. I know very well I don't want to grind up 3k.)

The Magic Armor has the exact same defense power as Full Plate, but it reduces received HURT spell damage by a third, and causes you to regenerate 1 HP every four steps you take. That's a hell of a lot of money for these little perks, though.




: Whoops, my bad, sorry, I'll let myself out.

Man, it's good to see RPGs kill that whole "going in people's houses and taking their stuff" thing in the egg so early, and we never have to witness this sociopathic nonsense from so-called heroes again.



There's a stream going all the way around this town, so we can't quite reach that building from here. Hmm.


: 'Tis also said that he entered the darkness from a hidden entrance in the room of the Dragonlord.

Well that sounds like important information right there.








: No pressure, huh?


: Maybe... Maybe a sword made of a high-pressure jet of water mixed in with abrasives. Let me know when you guys work that out.


: Nnnnnnno?
: Go to the south.
: Ah. The south. Where the fierce and terrible monsters live. I love you too, man.



It's not, like, super immediately obvious, but we can walk around the outside of the stream from here. Let's try south first.




: Maybe don't wait for him to bring you tomatoes.

Retracing our steps back east, then north...



Try as we might, there is nothing we can do to reunite these star-crossed lovers. They insist on waiting for each other at opposite ends of town. It shows the importance of compromise in a relationship, doesn't it? If you retain only one lesson from this adventure, dear viewers, let it be that one.

Or the one about bringing torches in dark places. Either or.











So here's a kick in the pants. Each key can only be used once, and you gotta buy them for 53 gold each. And most doors don't have the courtesy to stay open when you leave the area. I'm buying four right now. We were one fifth of the way to getting an armor upgrade, and now we're destitute.

Welp, let's start using them up right away and check out that chest at the inn.


: You wouldn't know that Nester guy, would you? Ah, never mind.



...

Eh, okay, Wings cost 70, and the extra key we used to get them was 53. Fine.

That's all Rimuldar had to offer us. We could go open a few doors right away, but right this moment we're just going to explore the island and make a bit of money off the local wildlife. Let's see...



Oof, we burn through MP fast, and we use up our stock of Herbs on our first trip of any distance. In addition to Wolves and Metal Scorpions, there are also Warlocks and Skeletons wandering around. It's rough going! Unfortunately there is no item shop in Rimuldar, so we can't even completely restock. Guess we'll be grinding nearby for a while until we can afford at least a Half-Plate, and maybe a Broad Sword. Alright then, see you in a bit.

...

......



SON OF A-


: I... I fell asleep.
: ...
: That's not what it sounds like! Just take my money and let me go, will you? Cripes.

Welp. At least we can open a couple doors in here, and restock on Herbs.




: ...Well then they'll call me the coward who defeated the Dragonlord. Out of my way!









So that's... 36 gold. We're upside down 17 gold on that key.






: It's a legend.
: Oh! Right! Stones of Sunlight, Staff of Rain, Erdrick made a rainbow. I get it.



So here's another kick in the pants. You can buy keys in Tantegel. They cost 32 more gold than in Rimuldar, and you need to blow a key just to get in every time you want to buy a set. Le sigh. We pass this time.




: At the World-famous Warrior Wishing Well!
: May the light be thy strength!





These horrible trap tiles each cost 15 health to step on. This dude better be worth it.



That... actually sounds like useful information. Alright then.

Finally, going around the east side of the castle...



I suspect the whole deal with Orwick and his paramour is there to teach us we can do this.






: Take the Treasure Chest.
: Are you sure? No proof needed, no bullshit? I can just take it?



We can just take it!



Well that's one widget down.


: Gosh, sorry for showing a little happiness then. I'll show myself out!





The Stones do nothing on their own, they're a plot coupon. Still, one fewer to go after.

Alright then, time to head back to Rimuldar, grind up at least one gear upgrade and as many keys as we can carry. I'll let you know if anything interesting happens.

Achievement unlocked! The real Dragon Warrior starts here.

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 17:37 on May 15, 2018

DeathChicken
Jul 9, 2012

Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

I question the business method of the key salesman who has his shop behind a door only his keys open

Shitenshi
Mar 12, 2013
Some of those equipment prices are ridiculous. I know I'm typically rolling around in the dough at the end of every JRPG, but I absolutely cannot see how anyone could muster up enough cash to afford that stuff on the regular.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Shitenshi posted:

Some of those equipment prices are ridiculous. I know I'm typically rolling around in the dough at the end of every JRPG, but I absolutely cannot see how anyone could muster up enough cash to afford that stuff on the regular.

The highest tier of storebought equipment alone costs over 30000 gold. Endgame monsters might drop ~125 gold on average and will very easily wreck your poo poo if you're trying to grind them using lower tier equipment.

It's worth remembering that Dragon Quest was very heavily inspired by Wizardry, which was 99% grinding (many walkthroughs consist of "head to a specific highly farmable encounter and fight it over and over again until you're strong enough to teleport to the final level"; even if you're trying to play the game as intended, fully half the floors are just empty rooms to wander around grinding random encounters.)

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Shitenshi posted:

Some of those equipment prices are ridiculous. I know I'm typically rolling around in the dough at the end of every JRPG, but I absolutely cannot see how anyone could muster up enough cash to afford that stuff on the regular.

The gold rewards scale dramatically with each bridge you cross, and I seem to recall a specific "fight this monster for mad gold" monster eventually.

Straight White Shark posted:

Endgame monsters might drop ~125 gold on average

The one I'm thinking of is 200 or 650 depending on version.

DMW45
Oct 29, 2011

Come into my parlor~
Said the spider to the fly~

ulmont posted:

The gold rewards scale dramatically with each bridge you cross, and I seem to recall a specific "fight this monster for mad gold" monster eventually.


The one I'm thinking of is 200 or 650 depending on version.

Yes, there is one that I was crazy enough to try to farm when I was younger and somehow got that Magic Armor...

Shiki Dan
Oct 27, 2010

If ya can move ya toes ya back's fine
For what it's worth, the woman talking about 'tomatoes' was originally offering to sell you a "Puff-Puff" for 50 gold in the original DQ.

Chronische
Aug 7, 2012

Shiki Dan posted:

For what it's worth, the woman talking about 'tomatoes' was originally offering to sell you a "Puff-Puff" for 50 gold in the original DQ.

Isn't that woman in a northern village, instead? The one that you get the flute from, I think.

Adamant
Jan 30, 2013

Chronische posted:

Isn't that woman in a northern village, instead? The one that you get the flute from, I think.

No, it's her.


Yeah, I watched the Game Center CX Dragon Quest episode recently.

FrankZP
Nov 11, 2015

AIGHT SHITBIRDS, IT'S EXPLOSION TIME!

DeathChicken posted:

I question the business method of the key salesman who has his shop behind a door only his keys open

He's probably subsidized by the Crown, but that's still many years of showing up to work every day, looking wistfully at the dusty crate behind the counter, and whispering "soon, soon". Besides, there's the dude stuck behind 15HP death-traps just across his shop, so he figures things could be worse.

Shiki Dan posted:

For what it's worth, the woman talking about 'tomatoes' was originally offering to sell you a "Puff-Puff" for 50 gold in the original DQ.

: Wh... What!? No tomatoes, and no Puff-Puff? This is truly the darkest timeline. :negative:

FrankZP fucked around with this message at 17:55 on May 16, 2018

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!
I liked how inventive the dragon warrior games were. The first one was innovative of course but the sequels always went to some interesting extra effort to keep things fresh, like having to jump off towers to float over an obstacle or hiding something in the middle of the ocean and on the map the game came with, covering up that spot with a slime pirate ship iirc. They really went out of their way to make you think you had solved a big puzzle.

Was it the second one that had the secret item you could buy from the shop keeper?

BrightWing
Apr 27, 2012

Yes, he is quite mad.

FrankZP posted:

: Wh... What!? No tomatoes, and no Puff-Puff? This is truly the darkest timeline. :negative:

Darkest Slimeline.

Snorb
Nov 19, 2010

Squibbles posted:

Was it the second one that had the secret item you could buy from the shop keeper?

It was the third one.

Also, I'm one of the lucky many who got a copy of this for subscribing to Nintendo Power and I have still never beaten it. (I did beat the GBC version, though.) I still have the Explorer's Handbook for the game which had some nifty art of the equipment and consumables, but the poster map/bestiary is sadly long gone.

Shitenshi
Mar 12, 2013
This is the first time I've seen a screenshot of the original JP DQ, and man. What a difference. I don't think it's just down to screenshot quality either.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Shitenshi posted:

This is the first time I've seen a screenshot of the original JP DQ, and man. What a difference. I don't think it's just down to screenshot quality either.

Am I reading it correctly that the player's sprite is just a recolor of the generic guard sprite?

Adamant
Jan 30, 2013

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Am I reading it correctly that the player's sprite is just a recolor of the generic guard sprite?

That's the case in both versions, it's just that the sprite they share got redrawn.

CKyle
Jan 15, 2008
The NES version at least looks like they redrew a few pixels. The Famicon version looks like a straightforward pallet swap.

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Adamant
Jan 30, 2013

CKyle posted:

The NES version at least looks like they redrew a few pixels. The Famicon version looks like a straightforward pallet swap.

...yeah, you're right. It's a palette swap of the sword-but-not-shield version of the hero sprite in the original. The NES one is slightly redrawn (and even has a shield now).

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