Well, I've been plugging along through the month. On a good day I might get an hour a day to play on a home console, and many days I don't have time at all to play. So even though a month has passed, I am still not finished with my Dragon Quest II playthroughs.
I finished my typical ocean exploration and visiting the different towns, comparing the dialog and item names. Most of it was pretty straightforward, but I found one exciting and notable translation difference that I will talk about in a minute.
I created an outline of my progress before starting, which I've been keeping to more or less, but which I had to revise when it came to the tower where the Star Crest is. I couldn't remember for sure whether you needed a key to get through. I had created a pre-gold-key and post-gold-key section in my outline, and had initially placed this in the pre-gold-key section. But you do in fact need a key. Although the silver key works as well as the gold key, to keep the outline consistent among all of my playthroughs, I moved this down to the post-gold-key section.
The reason I made pre-gold-key and post-gold-key sections at all is because on my NES playthrough, I'm attempting to beat the game only using items that can't be avoided. As it turns out, this means I'm not using either the silver key or the gold key, or the jailer's key. Instead I am using the "Open" spell to open doors. So I set up my outline to do as much as possible without needing a key before working on getting that spell.
I've long thought about what the game might be like without getting any keys. In fact, long ago, I tried to do this when, as a child, I couldn't find the Watergate Key. Although I didn't succeed in even learning the spell Open before I finally learned the location of the key in Nintendo Power, that attempt was misguided, because the Open spell will not open the watergate in Tuhn. Nevertheless, I've wondered may a time about trying to beat it without the other keys.
I had finished my pre-gold-key outline on all my files two weekends ago, except for the Star Crest tower. I realized two things while trying to get through: first, that you do need a key to get through, and second, that I stood little chance of beating the gremlins without having four herbs, little chance of getting to the gremlins with four herbs, and actually, less-than-desirable odds of beating the gremlins even with four herbs. (I'm not using "backpacks," meaning the inventory spaces of my dead companions, so with a weapon, sword, shield, and helmet, I can only take four herbs.) These two realizations were enough to move the tower further down on my outline, so I could come back with upgraded equipment.
This left me with the daunting challenge of learning the spell Open on my NES game. After some online research, I learned that the spell is learned at level 23 by the Princess, which corresponded to 220,000 experience. I was at level 16, which corresponded to 50,000 experience. The best levelling spot I could find was outside Beran, where battles gave me between 50 and 400, but the average seemed to be around the upper 100's range. I quickly realized that this would be a daunting grind.
It wasn't long into my effort before the Prince of Cannock learned Firebane. This was a big boon as I could finish many of the battles in the area quicker. But the real game changer came nearer the end of the week, when the Princess learned Explodet.
Once she learned that, I changed my experience grinding area to outside of Osterfair castle. (Incidentally, I long erroneously thought you could not save at Osterfair. You obviously can't until you get the Moon Crest, but even then, you can't save on the NES until you leave the castle and return. But since there's not much to do there after getting the Moon Crest, I wasn't in the habit of returning.) The average experience per battle is higher there, but I judged that the duration and difficulty of the battles was proportionally higher than the experience yield, and so concluded Beran was better. However, with Explodet the duration and difficulty of the battles was severely reduced, so this became a prime place to level. Soon after the Prince of Cannock also learned Defeat, which also sped up many battles considerably.
The hardest thing in the area is the Gas enemies, which appear in large numbers and cast Stopspell and Sleep, disabling my magic users, and also cast Surround to slow down your non-magic attacks. They have high physical defense and it takes a while to kill them if you can't get Defeat or Explodet off before losing your chance.
The other difficult thing is the absence of a House of Healing. When one of my characters died, I would have to sail all the way to Leftwynn to revive them.
I had also considered levelling closer to Tuhn or Wellgarth. After a few trials I couldn't conclusively determine if the average experience yield was significantly higher, but the danger involved was definitely higher, so I decided it was better to stay clear. The enemies are more difficult and there is no save point or inn nearby.
I also found one alluring aspect of the area around Osterfair was the occasional appearance of eight Metal Slimes. Right after my Princess learned Explodet, my Prince of Midenhall was able to regularly do 4 or 5 points of damage to a Metal Slime, which was frequently enough to kill it when coupled with a hit from one of my other characters. Once my Prince of Midenhall gained another level, he could sometimes beat one on one hit, and after one more level still, he could usually beat them in one hit. I find killing metal enemies in Dragon Quest games to be unusually fun, so I got a morale boost every time I was able to kill a few. I could usually get two or three, and occasionally four for over 900 experience. Once or twice I almost got five, but could never quite finish the fifth one.
It took the bulk of the week, but I finally made it last Saturday after several hours of on and off play. I must say, after all the effort I put into it, I got a little bit of a thrill as I went to each of the major towns and cast the spell Open to get in, laughing at how they couldn't keep me out even when I had no key. Even though the nature of the challenge made most of the gold doors unnecessary, I still went to all of them so I could compare the dialog with the other versions.
Once I finished opening doors in all my files, it was time to attack the Star Crest tower again on my Famicom file. I had planned on getting the Staff of Thunder and selling it to fund myself a Shield of Strength. Those familiar with the game know that you can get multiple Staffs of Thunder and sell them repeatedly to generate large amounts of gold. I fall into the camp of people that are squeamish about using this trick, which feels like an unintended exploit to me. I also don't know for sure if the trick works on the Famicom version. But regardless of any of that, there's no reason to have any qualms about getting the Staff just once and selling it. However, after thinking about it I decided that the Staff would be useful against certain enemies such as Goopies, and I decided not to sell it, or even get it just yet.
Grinding at Beran, It took less time than I thought earn gold to buy it, especially after using the Gold Key to upgrade my shield and armor at no cost and selling the old equipment. Before actually doing the grind, I went a little bit out of my way to gather up the ingredients to make a Water Flying Cloth, which appears to have the same defense rating as the Gaia armor but added defense against breath (and, I believe, magic) attacks. This was useful grinding at Beran, where the most lucrative experience comes from fighting groups of Dragon Flies. Even groups of five are quite beatable solo if you have the Water Flying Cloth.
As it turns out, with the Water Flying Cloth, the Shield of Strength a Dragon's Bane, and the extra experience I had gained getting them, the gremlins in the Star Crest tower were pitifully easy, even without taking any medical herbs with me. I also finished the gremlins easily on my highly levelled NES file. I will finish that segment on my other game files when I return home from Thanksgiving break.
My last note, which I mentioned above I would comment on, is a revelation I had about Dragon Quest IX, after viewing the new translation for this game on the smartphone version. A minor spoiler follows:
After beating Dragon Quest IX, you can obtain and complete a quest in Port Llaffan to gain access to the Starflight Express and fly around the map. The quest involves collecting a Watermaul Wand, a Silver Shield, and a Flowing Dress and wearing them to summon and fight Leviathan.
Now, without having seen the Japanese dialog for this game, it appears from playing the Android remake of the first game that the Silver Shield is the same as the Silver Shield from Dragon Warrior I, which I think has been in every, or nearly every, Dragon Quest game (I can't remember for sure if it was in IV). It's one of the strongest shields in each game, and it's not easy to come by in IX. I believe you can buy it for a large sum, but I made mine with alchemy.
I also made a Flowing Dress with alchemy. One of the ingredients is an item called the Celestial Skein (I actually didn't know this, but Skein is a work meaning thread or yarn). It took me a little bit of time first to alchemize a Celestial Skein, and then to alchemize the dress.
The dress, aside from being an important quest item, was also the best armor at the time I could equip on my wizard, so I got some good use out of it. But I now appreciate the item even more for its value to the series as a whole, after seeing its name in the smartphone version of Dragon Quest II.
For those who have been long time fans of the series but have had to deal with multiple translations versions, you may find this as interesting as I did. The Flowing Dress is none other than the Water Flying Cloth! This item, I believe has been in every game since II, and one of the best armors of its class in each game. Furthermore, the Celestial Skein used to alchemize it in IX is none other than the Dew's Yarn, of the ingredients used to make it in II, the game that introduced it. I was shocked that I had obtained and used both of these items for an important portion of Dragon Quest IX without ever knowing that they were these familiar items.
