Road to Rhone

The mere mention of the Road to Rhone may well send a shiver down the spine of many an old-time RPG player like myself. It's easily one of the most challenging dungeons I can think of from its time (or from any time since, for that matter). Its labyrinthine structure, combined with many perilous enemy encounters, will test the patience and mettle of anyone who attempts it, particularly if they are daring enough to try it without the aid of a previously-made map.

When I was young, I had a map for it that either came with the game or was included in Nintendo Power magazine. I can't remember for sure, but the internet leads me to believe it was the former. I used it when I was young and played this game for the first time. But when I first replayed the game years later (and beat it for the first time) I think I had long since lost the map. I can't remember if I had access to or used the Internet then for a map, but most of the times that I have replayed this I have attempted it without using any other resources.

The hardest thing about not using a map is navigating the many hidden pitfalls on the first and fifth floors of the dungeon, and then re-navigating those same pitfalls each time you fall. It is very difficult to keep track of them all mentally, which is how I, a glutton for punishment, went about it this last time around. Anyone in possession of graph paper and a writing instrument would save themselves a considerable amount of time if they put those to use in marking the pitfalls. Otherwise you'll almost certainly get beyond tired of fighting endless amounts of Horks in the basement floor, where they occur with a much-higher-than-normal encounter rate, or else longing for a view of the dungeon wall on the fourth floor, where powerful Hargon's Knights can seriously test your party's endurance while seeking the correct path.

The deepest feelings of fear and helplessness are evoked on the fifth or sixth floors when one encounters a group of four Dragons who happen to attack before the party is ready. Such an encounter is rather likely to end in your party's demise, even if you are lucky enough to survive the first round. If all four dragons breathe fire, they can deal around 100 points of damage to every member of your party, which is likely more than your characters' max at the point you first encounter them. This amount will be mitigated for anyone wearing a Water Flying Cloth or Erdrick's Armor, but even the reduced amount is devastating to most parties.

If you can successfully navigate the sixth floor maze, where the wrong passage will take you backwards to the starting staircase or to the half-way room, then you still have to hold your breath for that last strip of land in Rhone before the shrine where you can save your game. Some of the physically strongest enemies in the game inhabit this stretch, but they are perhaps not as fearsome as the Blizzards, who frequently cast the instant-death spell Defeat that has a chance of killing all of your party members with each casting. In the last few steps before the shrine, you may well meet one or more Gold Batboons, perhaps the most hated enemy in the game because of their ability to cast Sacrifice, which kills your entire party with a 100% success rate.

But if you can navigate all this successfully, you can go on through Rhone and Hargon's temple to finish the game. I usually find that the last section in Rhone is not as difficult as the dungeon leading to it, although there is certainly a random chance element to the final chapters that can make it seem more difficult sometimes.

I fully expected this to be an ordeal on my Solo Challenge. But despite all prior experience I've had with the game, I somehow managed still to underestimate the difficulty. Perhaps it was because the previous three dungeons had all been so much easier than I expected, once I obtained the Shield of Strength. Indeed, using the Shield of Strength, the first three floors of the Road to Rhone were not terribly difficult, if a little tedious. But the upper floors were downright brutal, taking hours of playtime longer than I had planned on.

Although I didn't start the challenge with this in mind, I ended up having my character explore the whole game world. Part of the reasoning in my mind was that it would offer a chance to gain extra experience without the monotony of a targeted grind. Having done so for the whole game, some mildly OCD tendencies in my head wouldn't let me break the pattern, which made this process more tedious than it otherwise might have been. Basically, instead of doing a targeted grind, I would go up to floor five or six as far as I dared, then turn around and take the Thunder Sword route back to the bottom to get a new password. I made very incremental progress in exploration while still gaining experience this way. However, given the number of times I died trying this, it would have been faster to do a targeted grind and gain three levels before starting the upper floors.

Most of the battles in the upper levels are not consistently fightable solo. I could challenge two Berserkers with ease, and I could reliably beat Magic Vampirii if they were the only ones in the fight. I could also pretty reliably beat one Magic Vampirus with two Berserkers if I started the fight at full strength. I could also beat encounters of just one or two Dragons, but those seem to be much rarer than the deadly three- and four-dragon encounters. I tried a few times to fight groups with just one or two dragons mixed with Magic Vampirii, successfully a few times even, but found that the risk of being put to sleep by the Magic Vampirii was just too great. Since I am playing the challenge with no backpacks, I had to get rid of my Dragon's Bane for this dungeon, and the spell of Sleep was one of my biggest killers (although groups of only Magic Vampirii won't damage you significantly if you fall asleep).

Erdrick's Armor and the Thunder Sword were both large helps when I acquired them, as usual. One of my most heartbreaking moments, which happened twice, was watching a Dragon's Potion (or the Japanese equivalent) drop from a Metal Babble and having to toss it to keep room in my inventory. It's one of my favorite items in the game, but there's literally no room for it in the challenge as I structured it.

I was very fortunate in that, when I finally did finish getting through the dungeon, I was able to successfully run from every encounter in Rhone before the shrine.

My No-Equipment Challenge was definitely much easier, though it still took me longer than I planned. And even though I have been over-leveled for three dungeons after getting Open, I did not feel over-leveled on the top two floors of this dungeon. Dragons are somewhat resistant to magic, and they killed me at least once or twice. I nearly died several times in several other ways. But as long as one of my magic users survived with sufficient MP, I could cast Revive and/or escape the dungeon with Outside and hobble back to Beran with Stepguard.

I sadly discarded a Dragon's Potion drop in this file as well. I was also somewhat shocked to see a Thunder Sword drop from a Hargon's Knight (which I also discarded). I was aware that this was a possible drop, but I believe it's quite rare. I'm going from memory and so may be wrong, but I thought it was a 1/128 drop rate, the same as a Mysterious Hat from a Magic Vampirus. Funny thing is, I got it about six steps away from the pitfall that leads to the treasure chest containing the Thunder Sword.

And that brings me current. I haven't finished the dungeon yet on my other files, though I'm most of the way through on the Super Famicom. Despite my lower levels, that version has been much, much easier. In this version, they have lowered the encounter rate in the basement floor to a normal encounter rate, so you don't get so tired of facing Horks while getting the Life Crest. They also added an NPC hiding in some graves there. One immensely convenient change is that once you fall down a pitfall, the pitfall remains visible on the map ever after, so you don't have to remember where they were or map them out. This makes navigation so much easier in the dungeon. The increased power of Firebane makes encounters much easier here. I think they may even have lowered the Dragons' resistance to the spell (or else I just got lucky in the encounters I've made).

They also have stuffed two previously unimportant chests here with the Mysterious Hat and the Evil Shield, items that are only available from rare enemy drops in the NES/Famicom versions. Incidentally, the Mysterious Hat is also available as an item drop from the Metal Babble. The Dragon's Potion has seemingly been removed from the remake versions of the game. (**EDIT** I was somewhat mistaken when I posted this; it true for the Game Boy and smartphone versions, but I've learned that the Super Famicom version retains the item that was called Dragon's Potion on the NES, as a drop from the Metal Babble. Edit over) Metal Babbles seem to have a pretty decent drop rate, provided you can actually kill the enemy, so all in all this item is much easier to get in the remakes. Note that this item is called the Magic Helmet in the Game Boy Advance version, and the Mad Cap in the smartphone version.

Incidentally, Metal Babbles have been changed to a 4 Hit-Point enemy, and you apparently can't do more than 1 point of damage without a critical hit. This makes them easier to kill at earlier levels, but harder to kill at higher levels, than the original versions. But they also adjusted the experience to match other games in the series, so you get ten times the experience killing them in the remakes. (They made similar changes to the Metal Slime; I can't remember if I mentioned that in a previous entry).

This week I hope to finish the Road to Rhone on all game files. I plan to change my game order slightly after that. I want to finish my dialog comparison, but I also want to finish my remake play-throughs. As previously mentioned, my Game Boy Advance (SP) has been powered on the entire time I've been doing this, and I want to be able to turn it off and play a different game without losing my file. I also have not dared switching games on my Super Famicom after losing my file twice during this challenge, and would like to finish so I can risk changing the cartridge to V or VI. So, to preserve my dialog comparison, I will use an old password on my Famicom to finish the game at max levels, and I will copy my NES file and equip myself on that file--at that level I should easily be able to beat it with equipment. I might try seeing if I can do it without equipment first, though I suspect I will need to level up to beat the bosses.

Then I will complete the remake files, and progress in my challenge quests after that. I suspect I will need to do a significant amount of grinding in order to finish those. The solo account challenge I read on Gamefaqs said that at level 50, he could not defeat Atlas without a critical hit. It's likely I will need to max out my level on that challenge. I also don't know how high a level I will need to be to survive two hits from Atlas without armor on the other challenge. In any case, I don't want that to hold up my completion of the other game files. I'm hoping to finish those by the end of the week, and still hoping to finish the whole thing before Christmas. We'll see.