Conversations With and Without a Princess

It's becoming increasingly apparent that I won't be able to update this blog as regularly as I had originally envisioned. Life is just plain too busy. But as long as I have things to write about I'll surely keep returning to it.

I've been plugging away on my Dragon Quest II challenges. The Moonbrooke continent definitely showed a divergence in the difficulty of my play-throughs, as my solo game got dramatically more challenging and my no-equipment play-through actually got quite a bit easier, and surprisingly not far off from my remake playthroughs in difficulty. Although the no-equipment challenge was harder to start off, once you gain your allies and their magic spells, your characters begin to perform surprisingly well compared to fully equipped characters.

I quickly encountered an unfortunate problem with choosing the Famicom version for the solo challenge: in the original Famicom version, with no battery save, the password does not record the state of your party. That means that every time you start the game back up with a password, your party is at full health--including the party members that were deliberately killed off! So I had to come up with a system that would result in them dying without otherwise impacting the game or challenge.

The swamp kill wasn't an option because there are no swamps near Moonpita/Hamlin/Moonahan. I resolved to enter battles and have my hero defend while my unequipped, level-1 allies would attack until the enemies had killed them, then run away from the battle and return to the town, and stay at the inn. This brings the game to a state identical to if they had stayed dead and I stayed at an inn. In general, this is identical to what it otherwise would have been, although if I stay at an inn before getting my password it sometimes results in some wasted gold. It's an annoyance, particularly since I have to frequently reset to avoid losing half my gold, but it's one I'll have to deal with to preserve the integrity of the challenge.

I have learned some interesting things along the way. Some of the English town names have been changed for the Android version. Hamlin is now Moonahan, which seems appropriate, because Moon was clearly a part of the Japanese town name, which is in the vicinity of and associated with Moonbrooke. Lianport is now Rippleport. The Japanese romanji for that is Rupagana, so it seems to reference the consonant sounds in Japanese a bit.

I also discovered something that floored me. There's some dialog in the game that I have never seen before, despite numerous playthroughs, and I strongly suspect its existence is not widely known. I found it as a direct result of the solo challenge; there are two NPC's in Rupagana/Lianport/Rippleport whose dialog in the Famicom version changes if you don't have the princess with you (i.e. if she's dead). I confirmed that this is true in both the Famicom and NES versions, although in both cases the NES dialog has been censored to something completely different.

First off is a man in the middle of town. In the NES he says "I have nothing to say to thee. That's right, nothing at all." In the Japanese version, he actually is drunkenly hitting on the princess, inviting her to have a drink. I think that xloto's translation on Gamefaqs.com is slightly off (though I'm not an expert in this and I could be wrong). He rendered it as starting out "nice behind" or something like that, but I think in this case "behind" was actually referring to the girl behind you. In either case, His dialog is truncated to only the first line if the princess is dead. And this is also true on the NES! He just says, "I have nothing to say to thee."

Of perhaps greater note to Dragon Quest fans is the woman in the lower left corner of town. In the Japanese, she pays a compliment to the princess, while on the NES, she says something bizarre about someone who can turn princes to tadpoles (although it's not entirely clear who she's referring to--no one in the town is otherwise implied to have any supernatural powers). What caught me off guard is what she said when the princess was not there. She asks you if you want a puff-puff.

When I saw that it took me off guard. Xloto's guide on gamefaqs.com mentions that this appears to be the only Dragon Quest game that doesn't have a puff-puff reference, which he found remarkable, and I certainly hadn't seen one on my first playthrough. It turns out the reference is there, in the exact same place you see it in the remakes, but you only see it in the Famicom version if the princess is dead.

Now, what was even more fascinating to me was to see this character's dialog in the NES version when the princess was dead, because she does in fact say something completely different: "Dost thou think I am pretty enough to be a queen?" If you answer yes, she says "Perhaps the great Prince of Cannock thinks so too." If you say no, she says "What's wrong!"

I'm sure there is many a Dragon Warrior II fan out there that has never seen this line of dialog, and it floored me to discover it.

That's my main story for this entry. I've progressed all my files to having explored Alefgard and met the Dragonlord's great grandson. I've had a few setbacks. My Super Famicom file got erased just before getting the Cloak of Wind, and I had to replay it up to that point. More recently, my daughter was playing with my camera and erased some of my recent passwords for my Famicom game, so I have to redo some of it. But overall, I'm still moving forward where and when I can, and enjoying it.

I've also been playing a bit of Dragon Quest VII, VIII, and IX on the side, advancing my characters on my existing files to learn what skills are available in the games. Particularly I've played IX, because it's available to play on the bus, on lunch at work, etc. I'm learning more about which spells and abilities persist through the series. It's all good.

Anyone who hasn't seen it needs to Google Nintendo Switch (formerly known as the NX). Dragon Quest XI is in development for that system, and the system looks very interesting.

Dragon Quest II

I have begun an undertaking to accomplish several objectives at once regarding Dragon Quest II. I want to compile item, spell, and monster data in this game and others in order to track recurring elements of the series. I hope to eventually create a website devoted to documenting the evolution of the series. But due to differences in the localization of separate entries in the series, and their remakes, it's difficult to accurately track recurring elements just by looking at English resources. And my proficiency at Japanese is still small enough that it is very slow and difficult to look things up on Japanese websites.

Coupling this with a desire to play through the remake versions, and a desire also to try the game with the challenge quests I conceived while playing through challenge quests on Dragon Quest I, I decided that the time was ripe for an interesting undertaking. I committed to it last week, and have already made some headway. I am replaying, effectively all at once, all five versions of the game that I own, comparing items, monsters, etc. in each as I go. These are the original Famicom version, the NES version which I grew up on (these first two are essentially the same version in a different language, though the NES has a battery save), the Super Famicom version, the Game Boy Color version, and the Android version (these last two are based on the Super Famicom version and are very similar in content).

The remakes are more similar to the original than the remakes of Dragon Quest I were to it, as far as I've seen. But some of the mechanics are still different, such as different character stats, and the dialog has been changed in some cases (mostly added to, it seems--unlike Dragon Quest I most of the original version dialog still seems to be there, delivered by the same characters, but it has been expanded upon in many cases). I had played through half of the Game Boy Color version about 4 years ago while Savannah was a newborn in the hospital, but I lost my game file before I could complete it. Since then I have acquired both the Super Famicom and Android versions.

On the Famicom and NES versions I am doing my two challenge quests. On the Famicom, I'm doing a solo challenge. The idea here is to complete the game without the help of any allies. Although you can't get through the game without recruiting your two allies, I will let them die and not revive them and play through with just the Prince of Lorasia/Midenhall. I know the game can be complete this way because I read the account of someone on Gamefaqs.com who did it.

On the NES I'm going to try a minimalist challenge, where I attempt to complete the game without the use of equipment or items, beyond what is necessary for completing the game. This encompasses what they sometimes call a "naked" challenge, but it a little more involved. I did this on Dragon Quest I and want to try it here. I don't know if this challenge is possible, but I'm resolved to try. My gut feel is that it can be done,but it's possible it may require a good bit of luck.

The remake playthroughs will all be normal playthroughs. Since the three versions are very similar to each other, it will be a bit repetitive, but it will be interesting to compare the localization to each other.

I created an outline on my Google Drive of the game, dividing it up into each of the major events and sub-tasks required to complete it. For each "chapter", I am playing each of the five versions in turn.

I've already made some progress. On each of the versions, I have completed the Hero's Spring/Spring of Bravery and (excepting the Famicom) have recruited the Prince of Samarutoria/Cannock.

By far the most time consuming of these has been the minimal challenge. Without equipment it took some time to grind to a level high enough to feel confident in making it to the Spring and back. I was at either level 8 or 9, whichever one is just after 1000 experience. Even so, I ran from nearly every battle I could and still didn't make it on the first try due to getting poisoned. But with the new prince's help, I should be able to keep up better in the future on that one.

I just obtained the silver key on the solo challenge. I decided to hold off recruiting the other prince on that file until after getting the key, so that I can enjoy non-red dialog boxes for just a bit longer. My plan is to use some holy water and walk to the swamp to drain his HP, so as not to claim that killing him in battle protected my other character for that battle. Up till just before going for the silver key, the solo challenge has not been different from a normal playthrough. But I'll surely start to see the difference from here on out. It should be interesting.

Here's an interesting note on the journey to find the Prince of Samarutoria/Cannock. The NES version actually wrote out two different clues for finding him, and then appears to have mistranslated some dialog in a way that completely misleads the player. After visiting the Spring, the king of Midenhall tells the hero, paradoxically, that the other prince just left for Midenhall, leaving the player to wonder how he could leave Midenhall in order to go to Midenhall. The Japanese dialog says that when the other prince heard you had already departed for Samurutoria (Cannock) he left to follow you, implying that he was heading back to his home. 

If you go to Samurutoria/Cannock in the Japanese version, the king there tells you that his son has not arrived there yet. This line of dialog is completely written out of the NES version, but it implies that you passed the other prince somewhere on the way between castles. The other line of dialog that was changed for the NES version is from the other prince's sister. In Japanese she says that he is someone who is prone to stopping along the wayside on long journeys--in the NES it was changed to say he'd gone to the Spring of Bravery.

It's not exactly difficult to find the other Prince regardless of these changes, but it's still very interesting to note. All three of these exchanges are preserved almost exactly in the Super Famicom remake, and they appear in the American Game Boy Color and Android versions. The remake versions also add a hint in Lorasia/Midenhall, where the person who offers directions to Ririza/Leftwynn mentions that it is a place where people stop to rest while travelling between the two castles--this part of the dialog is not in the original Famicom or NES versions.

Anyways, I plan to write about my progress here in this blog. I'm sure somewhere there's some old-school Dragon Quest fan that will be interested in reading it.