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And we're back, two levels stronger. Level 9 gave us 8 Strength, 2 Agility, 4 HP, 6 MP, and a new spell. RADIANT is a Torch replacement! It costs 3 MP, and unlike Torches it has a set duration. It keeps its initial 3 tile radius for 80 steps, then shrinks to 2 tiles for 60 steps, and lasts for another 60 steps before it fades completely. We can refresh the duration anytime, though. Level 10 gave us 5 Strength, 9 Agility, 3 HP, 4 MP and... another spell!  STOPSPELL costs 2 MP, and rolls against your opponent's STOPSPELL resistance. If it succeeds, it permanently prevents them from casting spells. They'll even waste turns failing to cast, so against magic-inclined monsters with weak physical attacks, it's much better than SLEEP. Non-casters typically have a 15/16 resistance to it, but it has no effect on them so it doesn't matter. Some enemies also know STOPSPELL, including Wolflords for example. Fortunately, the player has a 50% resistance to it, and the effect does not persist after combat ends. Another mechanic that came up a few times during the grind is the critical hit chance, or "excellent blow" as the in-game text calls it. Every time we use the ATTACK command, we have a 1/32 chance of performing a special attack that ignores defense power. Monsters never roll for excellent blows, so you don't have to worry about random damage spikes if you have a basic idea of how hard a given critter generally hits. That's an extremely good design decision; getting caught with your pants down by a new enemy that you don't know much about is one thing, getting one-shot out of the blue by an old enemy because of a rare dice roll is another. Unfortunately, the enemy's dodge chance does apply to your excellent blows, so you can very much roll a crit that your opponent immediately dodges. This sometimes has dire consequences.  Anyway! The grind was slow going at first, with us barely making more money on each sortie than the cost of an inn stay. The 8 Strength increase from level 9 tipped the scales in our favor, and every subsequent upgrade allowed longer, more profitable hunting trips. By level 10, we could efficiently kill Metal Scorpions without HURT and Wolves without SLEEP, and our new STOPSPELL completely neuters Warlocks. And so...   Our next upgrade is going to be the Large Shield from Garinham, but I'm about at my limit for grinding right now. Let's explore the rest of this Southern Isle. If we can't find Princess Gwaelin in this eastern region, it means she must be in the tunnel from Kol, and we can check it out on our way back.   Up in the northwest, we find this peculiar terrain. Looks like it would be a nice place for a rainbow bridge! In fact, the landmass to the west is indeed the Isle of Dragons, where accursed Charlock stands; even if we could make it there right away, we'd probably catch a hell of a whupping.  This is the southern tip of the Southern Isle. We've been warned of tough monsters living even further to the south, but if we get in over our heads we can spare a Wing.  Wyverns are a bit stronger than Wolflords, with a 25% resistance to SLEEP and no other notable attributes. One might expect that they would drop Wings of the Wyvern, but there's no such thing as an item drop in this game. Anyway, let's... just take out this one and turn back, shall we?  93? Oh my! It... might be worth our while to go a little further.  At least to this point of interest, maybe.  Oof. Goldmen are highly resistant to everything but HURT; they don't hit as hard as Wyverns but are much more durable. Given their substance, they also have the highest possible gold drop in the game: 150 to 199. We're running away from this one though, we're hitting for 8 and it's hitting back for 11.      : Uh. Um. Okay? Wow. That's... okay then. Not gonna lie, weight off my shoulders. But... I don't have a plan B, man. Zero head for business. Do you have any advice? He unceremoniously teleports us outside. Welp. That's it for these islands, let's head back to Rimuldar. The Dragonlord's off the table but maybe we can still find the princess.  That was by far the furthest from Tantegel we've ever been.  : If you mean that rear end in a top hat's house down south, then yeah. : In this temple do the sun and rain meet.: They'll have to meet for somebody else, I guess.That's about it for this place. We've made enough money sneaking in lucky Wyvern and Wolflord kills on our way back north to upgrade our shield, so let's hoof it to Garinham right quick. Or heck, we have an extra pair of Wings, let's save some time. We level up off a Ghost on the way, earning a good amount of stats across the board, including an exceptional 9 MP.  Oooh, that Shield gets us a respectable 6 more Defense Power. I'll take it! Before we go on the last phase of our much-shorter-than-expected-dragon-quest-with-very-few-dragons-actually, let's open a couple doors in Brecconary.   Well, we had that one deduced, but it's good to have confirmation. Not that the harp will be any use to us now.   Fairy Water is a one-shot item that prevents random encounters with enemies whose defense is lower than our Strength, and it lasts 128 steps. It's a pleasant convenience, so we pick up a couple and use one right away for our trip back to the eastern tunnel.  : Actually I was going to drink it, but I fat-fingered the bottle and spilled it all over. I hope it still works. It does!  Okay, lessee...   Oh this is much better! If the Princess is here, we almost can't help but find her now. Let's get to exploring that eastern section.   !!! : Alright you overgrown corn snake, I may not be the descendant of Erdrick, but I've got a real-rear end sword, and I've got a real-rear end suit of armor, and I've got a real-rear end shield, and I know real-rear end magic, so BRING IT THE HELL ON. : Maybe that old fart had a point.The Green Dragon is much stronger than anything we've encountered so far. Mostly it just has high stats, but it also uses a fire breath attack 25% of the time, causing between 16 and 23 damage, bypassing both defense power and the Magic Armor's special resistance (not that we have it). I've tried putting it to sleep because it "only" has a 9 in 16 chance of resisting it, but to no avail. Our Broad Sword couldn't put a dent in its hide, and I doubt chipping away at its HP with the HURT spell (which it slightly resists) would have killed it faster than it could kill us. I think this is very effective, thematically. This is the first dragon we meet, in this game called Dragon Warrior. It does not screw around. Taking it down will be a Big Deal.  : It was an actual dragon this time, so you gotta agree I'm moving up in the world, right?Oh well. It doesn't look like the actual descendant of Erdrick has showed up yet, and we got a bunch of keys, so we might as well tie up some loose ends. Let's head for Kol.  What did that Howard guy say? Four steps south of the bath...?  Let's see if that menu option even does anything.   Video: Playing the Fairy FluteAh! Alright then. This must be what the fairies used to put Golem to sleep. Shame it probably doesn't work on dragons.  : Yeah. It sucked but I made mad bank, so it's okay. : I have heard that powerful enemies live there.: You heard right, broseph. The wizards there have sticks!  : Your... uh... Your precious, legendary village treasure? Nah.: Howard had it, but he went to Rimuldar and never returned.: Is there a reward for bringing it back? What should I do if I find it?: Go to the town of Cantlin.: I'll keep it in mind thanks goodbyeeeeee!Next on the list: that cave in the west that we were forced to leave half-unexplored due to completely unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control!  This is so much better, dang. We can one-shot basically everything on the first floor, so let's head to the second right away.  The Drakeema is the strongest Drakee variant, which... doesn't mean much. It's about equivalent to a Skeleton, but it has a 25% chance to cast HEAL if it's below 25% HP, otherwise it casts HURT half the time instead of attacking. We can one-shot it.  And this weird thing is also basically a Skeleton equivalent, maybe a bit weaker. Man, it's been like a quarter century and I still have no idea what it's supposed to be.  These two chests in the north side yield a Torch (ha. ha.) and...   The Fighter's Ring does nothing. Zero statistical effect, doesn't change your resistances, nothing. Maybe we can impress that one jerk back in Rimuldar with it, though.  And this one chest in the west... contains 117 gold. Ehh. That's it.  That's all she wrote. From a game design perspective, this cave is kinda weird. The enemies on the second floor are generally a bit stronger than around Kol, and weaker than around Rimuldar, but it's on the other side of the world so it's not an intuitive mid-point. It's also too far from an inn to be a convenient grinding location, and the contents of its chests are either garbage or not worth the effort. It does have three staircases you can use to go from floor to floor, so maybe this is to help new players realize that dungeons can have multiple ways to traverse layers. On the other hand, modern open-world games are often peppered with various dead-end caves containing dubious rewards, and Dragon Warrior has the courtesy to have only this one, so who's to say which way progress goes? Anyway. Let's head back to Rimuldar to fill up on keys and obtain some random adventurer's approval.  : What!? I'm not... This is not a... It's a... Bah, forget it. Alright, that's over with. What are our next objectives? -Killing a dragon that we have every reason to believe is guarding a princess. I hope she's alright in there, because this won't be within our reach for a while. -Exploring the southwestern regions, in Wolflord country. More plausible than dragonslaying, but I'm not too keen yet. -Grinding up a suit of Full Plate. Yikes, no. -Digging up a dead bard to reduce the workload of the actual descendant of Erdrick, whenever they show up. How hard can it really be? Welp, Garinham it is. Let's hope we don't have to buy a shovel. FrankZP fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 17, 2018 |
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May 17, 2018 04:40
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I thought the Fighter's Ring boosted your damage output?
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May 17, 2018 05:01
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I never completed this game because that crotchety old man stumped me on what to do next. I even had pet theories that you had to grind up all the way to learn all the spells and buy all the highest tier equipment for things to go right. Then again, given what he said and how rough an actual dragon is, maybe I wasn't so misguided after all. And I seriously don't think I've ever seen the Droll in other DQ games. The only equivalent I can think of are those weird recurring lip monsters.
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May 17, 2018 05:04
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Snorb posted:I thought the Fighter's Ring boosted your damage output? I'm pretty sure the guide or Nintendo Power or something says that it does, I've never suspected that it didn't.
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May 17, 2018 05:16
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Snorb posted:I thought the Fighter's Ring boosted your damage output? It does not. Someone looked at the code and found that it did absolutely nothing aside from changing one NPC's dialogue.
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May 17, 2018 05:34
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Did they ever change it so the ring had an actual benefit in later versions of this game, like DWI/II on the GBC, or did it stay worthless?
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May 17, 2018 07:11
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I think the re--releases make it give something like +2 attack power, so it's a counterpart to the Dragon's Scale. The mechanical numbers are low enough in this game (and in the series, mostly) that this would completely make it worth the inventory slot. But here, in this version? Yup, nothing.Shitenshi posted:I never completed this game because that crotchety old man stumped me on what to do next. I even had pet theories that you had to grind up all the way to learn all the spells and buy all the highest tier equipment for things to go right. Then again, given what he said and how rough an actual dragon is, maybe I wasn't so misguided after all. Ooof, yeah, I can see that situation happening. Some of the links in the chain of information that leads you to the endgame are really far apart. And if this is one's first game of this type, it'll be even easier to miss or overlook this or that clue. FrankZP fucked around with this message at 12:12 on May 17, 2018 |
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May 17, 2018 12:06
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Shitenshi posted:And I seriously don't think I've ever seen the Droll in other DQ games. The only equivalent I can think of are those weird recurring lip monsters. They're actually in Dragon Quest Builders.  Basically a big, googly-eyed acid-spitting snail.
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May 17, 2018 17:11
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Geomancing posted:They're actually in Dragon Quest Builders. That reminds me to start up DQB! I was so excited to find it--I don't have a PS4, but it came out on PS3 in Japan. Then I never played it.  I still have to finish DQ7 on my 3DS, too.
Hirayuki fucked around with this message at 20:22 on May 17, 2018 |
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May 17, 2018 20:20
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   Huh. It's like half the town lives in here, what's the deal?  : Would have been too much trouble to just leave it at the castle, eh? This gives us a goal in our later travels in that direction for sure.  : Sheesh, fine.Maybe that explains the lock.  We have a friend helping us out with cartography. His name is Marvin Simonson Paint. Very famous.  : So. Uh. I presume no one minds if I open these crummy old chests that someone carelessly left on the ground here, right? Anyone object? Anyone?No one. Sweet!    Well, we already had a Torch, and I presume the empty chest would have contained an Herb if we weren't already maxed out.   : Aight, gotcha. Hey, I- : ...wh... Err... Ooooh, I get it. Your secret's safe with me, boys. But I'm not spending another key to shut the door behind me. Hmm. It doesn't look like we're any closer to finding Garin's tomb. But it's got to be around here somewhere. Let's think about this for a moment... ...  A wall of darkness! Maybe this is... Let's see...   Score! The north wall here isn't visible, since it's cunningly made to be part of the "outside" section of town that we can't see from inside. Trying to leave that way usually results in a THUD sound since we're hitting our head on a stone wall, but the third brick tile from the west has an actual exit.   This is as much of a warning as we're likely to get.   Garin's grave is the first real dungeony-dungeon-with-a-plot-item-at-the-end we get, and it is not messing around. I'm not 100% convinced we even have any business in here with our current level and gear, but I guess we'll see. This is where the Dragon Warrior death penalty mechanic brings a bit of freedom, for two reasons. First off, no matter what happens, we'll get some experience out of this, so it doesn't feel like I'm entirely in danger of wasting time, or at least not quite as much as if I had to reload and just wipe out all our progress since the last save. And second, if we find what we're looking for, of course it's best if we can walk out with it under our own power, but if we get ganked on the way back we'll still get to keep it. Alright then, let's bring some peace to Garin's spirit, shall we? We run into Skeletons and Poltergeists on the first level. Taking HURT casts to the face worries me, but luckily they mostly hit for 1 damage or run away instead. Dang but I'm still really happy about this Half-Plate. Heck, we might even be close to a Full Plate once we get out of here.  Huh. I'm glad we stocked up on keys after all.   The grey square is the door. We're not done mapping out the first floor, but we can do a thorough clean-up later; for this first run I just want to see how far down we can make it. Since we've found this staircase behind a locked door, it's probably the right way down.  Ehhh, this one seems almost too convenient, but maybe that's what Garin's gravedigger wants us to think! Let's keep going down. We run into a Wolf just before we reach the stairs. It's easy pickings by now, but things are definitely escalating.  ...well we've been outfoxed. Back to the second floor then.  There's another staircase to the south, with a Metal Scorpion nearby. These are definitely Rimuldar-grade enemies, so we'll probably start meeting some new critters below.  Druinlords are about equivalent to Wolflords in stats, more robust but not as strong. They're highly resistant to SLEEP, but completely vulnerable to other spells. Considering they're 75% likely to cast HEAL when wounded, and 25% likely to cast HURT otherwise, they're worth spending a STOPSPELL on.  Specters are Wolf-equivalents, with very slight resistances to SLEEP and STOPSPELL. Seeing as they have a 25% chance to HEAL themselves and a 75% chance to cast HURT otherwise, they're also worth the slight MP expenditure to silence. We're starting to take some real damage from attacks, so I pop an Herb. MP is way too precious a commodity this deep in to spend it on healing if it can be helped.  Ooooh, a lone chest in the northwest corner.  : Yeah... Yeah, no. Maybe I'll just... not put that thing on right away.Definitely not what we came in here for. Let's keep going. The path we were on ends in an up staircase, taking us back to the second floor, and eventually to some place we already went through. It's becoming apparent that diffent staircases going between the same floors don't maintain exact distances from one another from floor to floor, so you can't use their positions on one level to map their exact positions on another; that's kind of a shame. That said, they've mostly been off by a few tiles so far, so it's not completely disorienting, just tricky to map. Finding an alternate way into the center of the second floor...  ... leads us to a previously unexplored region of the third floor. RADIANT helped us see a down staircase from our previous jaunt here, so I suspect there's at least one more floor underneath here.  Okay, that's a second inaccessible down staircase on the third floor. Our MP's still holding up so far, gotta keep going.  Aw man, that super-important-looking staircase in the center of four pillars just leads to a couple dead-ends. Back to the second floor then. There must be another stairway down from there that'll take us deeper; maybe in the southwest corner.  Yup, southwest. Fingers crossed.  There's still maybe a third of the third floor we haven't seen, but this is our first stairs down to the fourth. Whew.   Hmm. A way back up. We don't run into anything down here, but we've seen Wolflords on 3F and I'm not in a hurry to see what's worse than this right now.  Ah-ha! ...as if on cue, another Wolflord pops up exactly on the chest tile. We put the puppy to sleep, and then we put him to sleep.  NICE!   Yeah, yeah, I think so. We've just hit the inventory limit of 10 items. Herbs and Keys stack up to 6 in one slot, but everything else takes up one space each, even consumables like Fairy Water. For now we can just throw away the extra Torch we found topside.  Well would you look at that. It's about time we had a real win, isn't it? Our MP's still about half full, we've got a few Herbs left, and a few holes in our map. Maybe we can just clear the place out in one run! And at this rate we'll definitely be able to pick up that Full Plate. If not right as we leave, at least after a tolerably small amount of Wolf hunting. Ahhh, things are looking up!  We run into this bad customer on our way back through the third floor. Wraith Knights are a fair bit stronger than Wyverns in every way, with about a 1 in 3 chance of resisting SLEEP and a 75% chance to cast HEAL when wounded. They're making me a bit nervous, so I just cast SLEEP and run away. We definitely don't want King Lorik to find himself 790 gold richer if we can help it.  And here's what I suspect is the last new critter down here. Drollmagi are Wyvern-equivalent, with a 50% chance to cast STOPSPELL and insignificant resistances. Nothing much to worry about. Okay, the second and third floors are mapped, but there's still half the first one remaining, and our MP's dangerously low. I'm just going to leave, sleep in Garinham, then finish up and get back to you. ...  And that's the last room. If you come in here without a key to open the door in the south, these three chests are your only possible reward. They contain... 11 gold and a Herb. Wow.  (I didn't map the 4th floor, it's just two up staircases, you can't possibly get lost.) Welp, anyway, we're done here. Overall I'm quite pleased with the difficulty in this place, it felt pretty much just right for where we're at right now. The first two floors are kind of a cakewalk, but the bottom two are filled with critters that we'd best not underestimate even with our current gear. I could especially imagine runs cut short by just a couple Wraith Knight encounters going sour. If we had done just a little less grinding in Rimuldar I suspect it would still have been doable, just a lot more nerve-wracking. Okay then. We return to the surface, then restock on Herbs and rest at the Inn. The next region we'll explore is in the far southwest, but I want to go in Full Plate and with a full stock of keys. Besides, we've got a Harp to trade in, too. Speaking of the Silver Harp... Video: Playing the Silver HarpWhen the old man said the Harp attracts monsters, he wasn't kidding. Using the Harp anywhere on the overworld gets you in an instant random encounter. You'd think this would be useful for grinding, but unfortunately, it only ever summons Slimes, Red Slimes, Drakees, Ghosts, Magicians and Scorpions. It's absolutely not worth hanging on to. Oh, and, hmm. What the hey. Let's see... Video: Always accessorize!: Ugh. I don't know what I expected. At least I know my pants won't fall down.The Cursed Belt is all downsides. It'll randomly squeeze our body during combat, causing us to lose our turn. In addition...  The guards at the gates in Tantegel won't let us in anymore. We can't save. If you try to sell the Belt while wearing it...  (Don't mind the level discrepancy in that last image, I somehow lost the original pictures and had to retake a couple after the fact.) And this doesn't actually happen to us this time, but if you commit the unspeakable offense of dying while cursed...   : Leave at once!...the King teleports you out of the castle, alive but with 1 HP. Slight problem... but simple solution.    : I've never been so happy to get an old man to take off my belt.: Now, go. Aaaand it's gone, like it was never there. We can save again. The Cursed Belt is your basic piège-à-con booby-trap. Don't wear it, and if you wear it, don't forget about the old man in Brecconary who mentioned curses and will just take it from you for free. Otherwise, as long as it's not actually around your waist, you can sell it for 180 gold. That bit of foolishness done, let's head for the shrine west of Kol. We'll be using our last Fairy Water, there's not much to gain on the way but time.  : I robbed a dead guy for this, old man. You better deliver.  Aaand he just disappears. No stepping aside, no handing it to us, he's gone.   Just like the Stones of Sunlight, it does nothing. We'd need to take it to the "magic shrine" in the far south to combine their magic, but the guy running the place won't give us the time of day. It's a shame we're not the descendant of Erdrick, because we're doing a pretty decent job at it! We haven't gained a single level since we last fought the Green Dragon, so that's still off the table. But getting our Full Plate will be a trivial effort, and we're finally up to the task of seeing more of Alefgard, and maybe even find Hauksness, or Cantlin, where mighty weapons are made. You know the drill. See you on the other side of the grind, true believers! FrankZP fucked around with this message at 20:00 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 18, 2018 11:34
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If getting the full plate is trivial, you might as well grind up for the Magic Plate 
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May 18, 2018 12:04
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Saying "trivial" might be my way to paint a happy face on "tolerable". 
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May 18, 2018 12:27
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People sure hate you for being cursed. How mean, I can't imagine this would be a nice world for the DQVIII protagonist.
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May 18, 2018 13:40
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The bit with the two guards behind the locked door was one of the funniest bits in the Game Center CX episode: "I got a bad feeling about this."  "Gimme my 53 gold back!"
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May 18, 2018 14:14
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Garin’s Grave is a nice little dungeon, I wish DW1 had a few more of these beginner/intermediate places to dive into. And a few advanced ones as well.
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May 18, 2018 20:51
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Does the Cursed Belt actually have any stat boosts to compensate? Because without anything to make it worthwhile, a name like that is just asking for trouble.
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May 18, 2018 21:05
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Shitenshi posted:Does the Cursed Belt actually have any stat boosts to compensate? Because without anything to make it worthwhile, a name like that is just asking for trouble. It's worth 180 gold? 
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May 18, 2018 21:59
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Shitenshi posted:Does the Cursed Belt actually have any stat boosts to compensate? Because without anything to make it worthwhile, a name like that is just asking for trouble. It teaches you the concept of "schmuck bait."
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May 18, 2018 22:19
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It's a game where equipment is immediately equipped without player input and it's literally called CURSED Belt. It's good foreshadowing that you maybe should not use it under any circumstances even if there's no real display of what it does.
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May 19, 2018 01:19
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Didn't I just say that? 
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May 19, 2018 03:19
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Blaze Dragon posted:It's a game where equipment is immediately equipped without player input and it's literally called CURSED Belt. Yeah, but I put it on anyway. Right outside the curse place so I could have it removed immediately. Didn't know about the King kicking you out for it or what it actually did in combat. Nice to see.
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May 19, 2018 05:28
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Thread got me to pick up my DQ3 file on my phone again. I like the way you've been showing the parts of the world map, helps follow along better.
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May 19, 2018 05:48
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There's another "perk" of being cursed that I learned about recently but I don't know if FrankZP is planning on showing it later.
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May 19, 2018 05:55
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Bregor posted:Garin’s Grave is a nice little dungeon, I wish DW1 had a few more of these beginner/intermediate places to dive into. And a few advanced ones as well. Oh dang yes. There are a few places in the game progression where near-obligatory grinding would be advantageously replaced by a moderately difficult dungeon with even a minor reward at the end. That would improve flow for sure. BrightWing posted:Thread got me to pick up my DQ3 file on my phone again. I like the way you've been showing the parts of the world map, helps follow along better. Ha, I figured that'd be worth the effort to put together. The overworld tileset looks great for the era but without context any given raw screenshot of travel is just decoration. With a game this minimalistic, it's crucial to convey a sense of scale and direction. Shitenshi posted:There's another "perk" of being cursed that I learned about recently but I don't know if FrankZP is planning on showing it later. Hmm! I've done all that came to mind with curses, so if there's stuff I didn't think of involving elements we've already seen, I'm keen on learnin'!
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May 19, 2018 18:34
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Before we start today, I'd like to go in detail on something that I haven't really mentioned yet: encounter rate and terrain types. Dragon Warrior rolls its encounter chance every step you take, depending on what kind of tile you're entering. This is very different than with certain other games, that set a random countdown (usually based on distance traveled) at the end of every battle and guarantee an encounter when that countdown reaches zero. As I mentioned a while back, the world map is divided into 64 square sections, and each section has a set of five enemy slots, each of which has a roughly equal chance of being picked when an encounter is triggered. (Many of these sections share sets.) These five slots aren't always filled with five different enemies, in order to weigh the odds; for example, the short dead end just southwest of Tantegel has two Slime slots, two Red Slime slots, and one Drakee slot. Individual dungeon floors also have a set of five enemies associated with them, just like overworld sections. In normal circumstances, every grassland or bridge tile has a 1 in 48 chance of triggering a random encounter. Swamps and forest have a 1 in 16 chance, while hills and deserts have a 1 in 8 chance. (Mountains and water are of course impassable.) In dungeons, standard brick tiles and 15HP trap tiles have a 1 in 16 chance, while stair and chest tiles have a 1 in 24 chance. The latter is really nice, as it reduces the chances that you'll reach the exit or goal of a dungeon and get ambushed for it before you can open your command menu. Overall I'm fairly happy with the encounter rate. Sometimes you get several in quick succession, sometimes you get to travel a surprisingly long distance between fights. It feels pretty good, and the difference between terrains is absolutely noticeable. It is worth taking detours through grasslands to travel far, and it is worth patrolling hills to grind. Speaking of grinding! The area far south of Rimuldar (but north of the magic temple island) has an enemy we hadn't met yet.  Wraiths are marginally stronger than Wolves. They have a 7/16 resistance to SLEEP, and a 25% chance to cast HEAL when below 25% of their Max HP. Level 12 earned us 8 Strength, 5 Agility, 1 HP, 7 MP, and a new spell.  OUTSIDE teleports you from the interior of a dungeon to its overworld entrance; it costs 6 MP. Fortunately Alefgard is entirely devoid of monsters that can drain your MP, so the only things that can keep you from being able to bail from a cave at any time are your own recklessness and inattention. (As long as you're not in the middle of a fight of course.) And finally...  The Full Plate increases our Defense Power by an additional 8 points! We now ought to be able to travel further southwest without having to turn back at the first hint of a wolf with delusions of lordship.  This is the area of the continent that we have yet to explore. We know of two towns in that region, with Cantlin being east of Hauksness. We've been outright told to go to Cantlin with the Fairy Flute, and we might want to pick up some dragonslaying gear there, but if it turns out that Hauksness is closer, it'll still be good to have a safe place to rest. Besides, Erdrick's tablet mentioned three special items, and we have only two. Maybe we can pick up some info that we could pass along to the descendant if we ever meet them. Aight then, time to get a move on. The trip to get back to where we left off is largely uneventful.   We get into fights with Wolflords, Wraiths, Wyverns, Wraith Knights and the occasional Goldman, all dispatched with relative ease. The latter now deal around 5 damage per hit, and we can take them out in 3 to 4 turns. And the rewards, oh my!   Can't complain! Going further south...  Rogue Scorpions are about as strong as Wyverns, but with much higher defense power. Their HP is relatively low though, which should make them vulnerable to HURT, but that spell does such low damage by now that it's hardly worth the expense. (Never mind the level in this screenshot, I forgot to take one the first time around.)    Knights also make their first appearance as we travel further southwest. They're a fair bit stronger than Wraith Knights, with middling resistance to SLEEP and STOPSPELL, and the ability to cast STOPSPELL themselves. They hit us for over 20 per turn, and we can only answer with 5.  Oh dear. We lose about 400 to the royal tax, and spend another 100 to replenish our Herbs. That said, we don't currently have a money-related goal, so it's not a great tragedy. It'd be nice to scrape 7700 together for the Magic Armor, but it has the same defense value as Full Plate and would not have saved us from that Knight. There's little to it right now but to restock and try to make it further this time.   In fact we do make it to sign of civilization! Before we can get any closer, though...  Ouch. Demon Knights are a bit less durable than Knights, but they're highly resistant to all magic and have a whopping 15 in 64 dodge chance. We go through half our stock of Herbs trying to take it down. We can't be in that town soon enough!  Whew. Maybe they still have tomatoes here.  Music: Dungeon (third floor) ...okay then, no tomatoes.  We're almost immediately greeted by a God-Damned Werewolf(tm). They are just a slight touch weaker than Green Dragons. Can't nope out of here fast enough! They only have a 7 in 16 resistance to SLEEP, let's see...   Yeah we don't need to turn this town inside out to figure out what happened here. We were told folk weren't sure Hauksness still existed or not. Now we know.  We've still got some resources left. Maybe we can go east and reach Cantlin. I guess it depends on whether the Demon Knights and such are here because we're so close to Hauksness, or if it just gets tougher all the way to the next town. We're about to find out.  The desert is swarming with Knights and more Demon Knights, but we manage to escape from them all mostly unscathed to the relative safety of the forest. Good grief!  Magiwyverns are about as strong as Demon Knights, with a nasty habit of casting SLEEP, but without the ludicrous dodge stat. They have only weak resistance to SLEEP and no resistance to STOPSPELL whatsoever, so we can make good use of our disabling abilities.  Or... bad use of our disabling abilities, as the case may be. I landed a STOPSPELL, but it refused to waste any of its subsequent turns on magic. Cash-wise we end up about the same as last time, and I'm certainly glad we get to keep our experience. The next trip should turn out a least a little better, as we can avoid Hauksness and the thick of the desert. Once more, then.     This does not bode well.  Yeah, no. This time we end up upside down on the trip's expense. If we keep going at it like this, before long we won't even be able to afford Herbs. We can't buy combat stats anymore, so we have to gain a level or two. It's actually a new position we're put in. Money for equipment used to be the limiting factor, but now the only piece of kit we could upgrade to wouldn't help us survive the fights we need to win. Experience points are very dear in Dragon Warrior. Beating one Knight gives us up to 129 gold, but only 33 EXP. The King helpfully informs us that we need 978 more to level up once. I need to figure a good grinding spot that will get us there in a sensible amount of time, and ideally without leaving us destitute. Gimme a sec... Alright, let's try this.  To the southwest of the ruins of Hauksness, in the far, untamed reaches of Alefgard, dwells an elusive legend...  Metal Slimes are strange creatures. They have 4 HP, a 1 in 64 dodge chance, and 15 in 16 resistance to all magic. They have a 75% chance to cast HURT on their turn, and otherwise attack with their Strength of 10. They also have an Agility of 255, guaranteeing that your Attack Power is lower than their Defense Power, which means that your attacks either do 0 or 1 damage. (A successful HURT cast will one-shot them, but as it only works 1 in 16 times, that's a serious MP expense in the long run.) Their low Strength also gives them the typical 25% chance to run each turn.  We get to see a lot of that. Metal Slimes sound like a whole lot of trouble, and they are. But the suckers are worth 115 EXP apiece. Yeah. Only a handful of endgame monsters get close to that. That said, the other four slots in their encounter set are Wraith Knights, Knights, Magiwyverns and Demon Knights. We'll spend a bit of time trying our luck down here, but if we really can't hack it, I guess the next best spot would be either the lower floors of Garin's tomb, or the magic temple island south of Rimuldar. Or... hmm...  There's another bridge to the east of this area. Maybe another mad attempt to find Cantlin might work. Yeah, I'm giving it a shot.   OH poo poo OH poo poo OH poo poo NOPE NOPE NOPE RUN RUN RUN   Oi. Starwyverns are statistically as tough as Green Dragons, though they have much worse magic resistances. They have a 75% chance to cast HEALMORE when critically wounded, and will otherwise breathe fire or attack. Enemies casting HEALMORE recover 85-100 HP. (Most fire breath attacks in the game are functionally identical, I'll only detail the exception when we get to it.) Cantlin might just be beyond our reach for now. Seeing as the locals don't take our Metal Slime hunt very well, I'll be spending some more time in Garin's tomb after all. ...  ... Yeah, the Drollmagi, Druinlords, Specters and Wolflords are trivial by now, and we're making both cash and experience faster than were were around Hauksness, considering the time walking back to that remote area from Tantegel. Only the Wraith Knights are at all a threa- ...  ...right. Maybe the Goldmen, Wraiths, Wolflords and Wyverns south of Rimuldar will find me less susceptible to occasional miscalculation. ... I think I'll be queuing up a couple podcasts. Alright, whew, level 13. 4 Strength, 8 Agility, 7 HP, 5 MP, and a new spell.  RETURN duplicates the effect of Wings of the Wyvern, and costs an entire 8 MP to cast. Keeping 14 MP in your pocket so you can both bail out of a dungeon with OUTSIDE and then teleport to safety with RETURN is going to remain a good idea throughout the series, if maybe a good idea too often giving way to overconfidence. Just these extra stats won't be enough to take us to Cantlin. Gotta keep going. ... ... You know, I'm kidding, this is nuts, but... at some point, and this is funny, I think to myself, "at this rate I'll have enough money to buy the Magic Armor and I'll still be level 13". Haha, let's share a sensible chuckle together. ... ... ... I'm watching a LP while making a LP, this is neat. LPception! ... ... ... ... Welp.  Again, the Magic Armor offers zero Defense Power improvement over the Full Plate. It does offer two special benefits, though whether those are worth the cost is questionable. It reduces received HURT spell damage by one third, and regenerates 1 HP every four steps we take. The latter effect does increase long-term survivability by a small measure, but it does nothing to help us beat new tiers of enemies. It's also the best piece of body armor money can buy, so that's settled. Anyway, levels are still what we're most after, so I'll get right back to it. ... ... ... ... ... ...! Whew, level 14! 8 Strength, 7 Agility, 7 HP, and 6 MP. That's pretty substantial! Maybe we can viably grind in the far southwest by now. That's the life. I'm grinding so I can go to a better grinding spot. ... No. Wait. No. No. We're a Dragon Warrior. We War Dragons. This is the only thing that matters right now. If I have to kill another critter so I can kill a bigger critter that'll make me able to kill an even bigger critter, my skull will detonate. We're going to materially improve someone life's Right The Hell Now. Let's go. We doin' this. Video: Get pumped!
FrankZP fucked around with this message at 01:03 on May 20, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 18:57
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This LP is great. I admire your willingness to play the original when all the later versions tone down the tedium of levelling up significantly. This game, like the first Final Fantasy, is a classic for a reason. It did a lot of things right. Both serieses would basically be at the cutting edge of what the Famicom/NES could do through that whole era. This game came out in 1986, a year after Super Mario Bros 1, and FF1 came out the following year. The series both developed to the point where running at all on the NES is insane. FF3 and DQ/DW4 (especially) are jaw-dropping accomplishments on 1983 hardware.
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May 19, 2018 19:45
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FrankZP posted:
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May 19, 2018 20:29
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Yikes, I forgot how hard this game can be. I can't believe I managed to beat the Green Dragon and still was unable to get all the plot coupons to finish this game. And holy poo poo at Gwaelin's sprite. After the screenshots that were posted earlier from the JP version, you know that was an unchanged holdover.FrankZP posted:Hmm! I've done all that came to mind with curses, so if there's stuff I didn't think of involving elements we've already seen, I'm keen on learnin'! If you save with a cursed item on and quit, no matter what good shape you're in, when you reload, your HP will be dropped down to 1. Shitenshi fucked around with this message at 21:15 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 21:11
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Shitenshi posted:Yikes, I forgot how hard this game can be. I can't believe I managed to beat the Green Dragon and still was unable to get all the plot coupons to finish this game. And holy poo poo at Gwaelin's sprite. After the screenshots that were posted earlier from the JP version, you know that was an unchanged holdover. Wait, how do you save with a cursed item on?
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May 19, 2018 21:37
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BenRGamer posted:Wait, how do you save with a cursed item on? Put on a cursed item while you're with the king. After you pass the guards in the castle.
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May 19, 2018 21:47
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Does the kind have any special dialogue in that case? Or did they just not think of that one?
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May 19, 2018 21:52
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Patter Song posted:This LP is great. I admire your willingness to play the original when all the later versions tone down the tedium of levelling up significantly. Oh yeah absolutely. I'm still somehow enjoying this first one, the nostalgia tank isn't empty yet, even with all the grinding. But I'm also sustained by how I'll get to examine the subsequent evolution and be able to point at how legitimately impressive and ahead-of-its-time the series get. frankenfreak posted:That sprite is amazing! For my money, it's easily among the finest pieces of spritework of the era, and even for some fairly technical reasons that I'll get into next update. Shitenshi posted:Yikes, I forgot how hard this game can be. I can't believe I managed to beat the Green Dragon and still was unable to get all the plot coupons to finish this game. And holy poo poo at Gwaelin's sprite. After the screenshots that were posted earlier from the JP version, you know that was an unchanged holdover. The state of Gwaelin's in-dungeon sprite is due to a technical limitation brought on by the lighting system. I'll get into that too, but to give a short explanation, what we see before we pick her up isn't actually on the NES sprite layer, it's a background dungeon tile like brick floors, stairs and chests. Shitenshi posted:Put on a cursed item while you're with the king. After you pass the guards in the castle. ...! Man I should have thought of that, thanks for pointing it out. FrankZP fucked around with this message at 21:58 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 21:55
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ultrafilter posted:Does the kind have any special dialogue in that case? Or did they just not think of that one? Definitely the latter. The game acts like normal when you save and reload, until you leave the castle. You can also go on the outskirts of the walls, and still be chastised by the guards since you're on the same horizontal alignment as the spot where they bar you from entering.
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May 19, 2018 22:07
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I feel like you're lucky to be in the RPG era where physically attacking a SLEEPing enemy doesn't immediately wake it up. Sure, that might be more realistic, but it's also a pain in the rear end. DW is hard enough without having to screw with the player in even sneakier ways.
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May 20, 2018 00:37
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frankenfreak posted:That sprite is amazing! The sprite is indeed awesome. Compared to the Cecil and Rosa kissing sprite in FFIV (which I could never discern when I played it as a kid) this is head and shoulders better.
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May 20, 2018 01:08
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Shitenshi posted:Yikes, I forgot how hard this game can be. I can't believe I managed to beat the Green Dragon and still was unable to get all the plot coupons to finish this game. And holy poo poo at Gwaelin's sprite. After the screenshots that were posted earlier from the JP version, you know that was an unchanged holdover. For reference:  
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May 20, 2018 02:37
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Oh, that was a kiss. And here I was thinking we'd have to carry her across the
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May 20, 2018 02:52
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FoolyCharged posted:Oh, that was a kiss. And here I was thinking we'd have to carry her across the I dimly recall a DW1 LP where the LPer never returned Gwaelin to the king, and completed the game while carrying her.
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May 20, 2018 03:08
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FoolyCharged posted:Oh, that was a kiss. And here I was thinking we'd have to carry her across the
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May 20, 2018 04:01
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I'm pretty sure the dialog accounts for stuff like never putting Gwaelin down. Or just never rescuing her, you don't *have* to (it just makes one bit much easier).
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May 20, 2018 13:28
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