More Dragon Questing

I guess I've taken myself down the rabbit hole with Dragon Quest now. It's all I can think about in most of my free time.

I've chipped away a little bit at Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. But most of my free time has been spent with Dragon Quest III, both the Super Famicom and Game Boy versions.

I finally beat Shin-Ryu several days ago. Once my sage was levelled up to normal endgame levels I was able to do it with her and my hero, fighter, and soldier. My soldier spammed the sage's stone while my sage buffed and my other two attacked, with an occasional supplemental sage stone from my fighter. It went surprisingly well. However, when I finished the fight, somewhere over 40 turns, I was chided by the boss on how long it took me. I realized soon after that the boss sets a target turn time of 35 turns to beat.

I thought I could beat that with a refinement of my strategy and my existing characters, but I did a little more levelling anyway before coming back. Last night, it took me longer than I intended. I had a few bad luck runs against the boss and even more mishaps on the way to it. But I finally won again, this time in 25 turns.

Well, when you beat it, you can choose between 3 wishes. On of them, to my surprise, adds a brief new story element to the game, which is the one I picked. I have learned, however, that if you want to choose a second wish, you have to beat the fight even faster. Fortunately, the threshold for the second wish is 25 turns, which I already know I can hit (but even if you meet that threshold before making a wish, you only get one wish per fight). Apparently the third wish takes a higher threshold of 15 turns, which I really wasn't sure I could hit with my current party and strategy.

But I've been both analyzing and researching the fight this morning, and I think it's doable with my current party and a little luck, bolstered by some targeted seeding. I was originally just going to focus my efforts on grinding my party to level 99, but now I'm detoured from that while I try to beat Shin-Ryu in the target time, which I think I can do much sooner.

Meanwhile, while I'm out and about, I've been replaying the GBC version. When I was doing all three together some time back, my GBC cart basically died. Someone looked at it and said something was wrong with one of the chips and the repair would be more expensive than a replacement. So I wasn't able to finish that file. I decided to start over. Actually, it was starting the GBC one that inspired me to finish my SFC file, rather than the other way around.

After working to fill out the enemy list on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, I was thinking about the in-game bestiaries for the Dragon Quest games, which all remain unfinished on my game files. Dragon Quest III for the GBC, as near as I can tell, is the first Dragon Quest game that features any kind of bestiary. It doesn't technically have one by design, but the monster medal list still basically functions as one. So I thought I'd fill it out by collecting the monster medals.

My thought is to try and collect one of each non-boss before finishing the game normally. I've now made it up to Dharma and have all the medals up to there, excluding the ones in Kandar's cave. I managed to get a medal by chance for the first Kandar fight (I don't know if he has two medals or not) but not his henchmen. 

I decided to get myself the whistle ability before getting the monsters in the cave, since the encounter rate there is quite low. As it turns out, I had my thief and jester characters learn Whistle and MapMagic at about the same time, so I've taken a brief break to make sure I have all the treasures up to this point as well. I've been playing with a thief to that end, but now that she has the ability I'll take her out of the party for normal fights. I learned online that any successful steal from a thief negates the chance of getting a medal, so from here on out I'll keep her in Aliahan during medal hunting sessions.

Every day I'm thinking of the replays of Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI that are in my queue, but not quite there yet. I've also booted up Dragon Quest IX, where I finally got a Silver Orb from Baramos, and, consequently, a Sage's Stone. Progressing on the postgame on DQIII also makes me want to revisit VIII's postgame and try again to unlock VII's. It's too much. I'm on the verge of overwhelming myself with thoughts of these games, but I'm relishing my actual play time when it finally comes time every day.

I guess it means I have stuff to look forward to in the coming months.

And, Back to Dragon Quest

 I beat Dragon Quest V for my second time ever about a week ago.

Dragon Quest V is easily one of the best games I've played in the last decade. It left a bigger impression on me, for instance, than Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which I recently extolled in this blog. Besides that game, the only other games that I've played in the last ten years that have been remotely comparable have been other Dragon Quest games. Dragon Quest VII and XI have left comparable impressions on me.

I've wanted to replay Dragon Quest V for a long time. I wanted to give it a little breathing room after finishing it the first time, especially since I wanted to keep playing through the series. But I never could get in in my queue with the proper focus until I finished my 100% file on Dragon Quest IV. Before that I tried twice to restart it, but ended up both times not going past the first two towns.

This time around, I was determined to push through to the end. I had a long lull after my basement flood and the subsequent, drawn-out repair process, but this was the first game I resumed. The amount of time needed for translation made it a slow process, which caused me to put the game on the back burner a few times, but I ultimately made it through some seven or eight months after starting.

Now, in the weeks before finishing, I had been thinking a lot about taking a break from Dragon Quest for a bit, and focusing on other games, some of which I had written about here. But I seem to have triggered something upon completing it that is affecting me quite the opposite.

Having finished it my second time, I allowed myself near full access to guides and other online resources. I've determined what is needed for a satisfactory 100% game file, and I've done research into missable items and such. I've started trying to find answers to questions I had after perusing message boards, and in doing so I found the answer to one question that has been asked several times on the message boards I've browsed. The answer hadn't been presented on those boards, and I couldn't find it in English resources. But I ultimately found it on a Japanese wiki and was able to document the answer myself on those boards.

Somewhere in this process, my zeal for the Dragon Quest games has been stirred up quite a bit. I'm torn between going for my 100% game file on V, finishing off my SNES Dragon Quest III, doing my Dragon Quest IV runs that I'd put off in favor of playing V, and moving on to VI. I can't seem to make myself stop thinking about it. I spent the weekend working on III, but I think I'm gonna start grinding on III in the mornings and working on V at other times.

Unfortunately, despite the care I thought I took, I ended up not having some of the missable items in my inventory on my last playthrough of V. It turns out there are about half a dozen ordinary items that you can't get back if you didn't hold on to them. I never threw any away or sold any items on this run, so I think I must have lost them in the transition between generations. I had meant to test if Bianca and Bolongo retain their inventories when you re-recruit them, but I didn't write down what they had and I forgot during the months I was waiting on flood repairs. But since I was missing items, I think that the items in their respective inventories must not have been retained. I also found a Japanese site discussing some of the missables that seemed to suggest as much.

Regardless of how I lost them, I'll have to play through from the beginning again to get full completion. I had originally thought to defer that for a time, but that thought was surprisingly short-lived. I guess I'm not done with this game, even for the time being. I plan to start my new game file tonight. I'm also going for all the monsters and leveling everyone up full, so it will be quite the endeavor. But I won't keep it as my main game. When my enthusiasm starts to wear, as it surely will, I'll keep it as a game to fill in between others that I'll invariably want to play. If I keep this blog going, I'll probably mention it here and there.

But regardless of my progress on V and other games, I'm hoping to beat Shin-Ryu on Dragon Quest III in the coming weeks. More on that to come, hopefully.

Final Fantasy, Four White Mages

I'm getting ready to start another challenge quest on an old RPG. It's possible the first challenge quest I ever really heard of for any RPG, and one I've been interested in trying for many years.

I first read this challenge on a collectible card that was distributed by Nintendo Power Magazine long ago. I don't remember the cards very well; I think they might have been called Power Challenge Cards (or not). But they had cards for a large variety of early NES games, and probably Game Boy and SNES games too. And the cards contained ideas for giving yourself an extra challenge on the games.

At the time, Final Fantasy was one of my favorite games of all time. The challenge given on the card was to beat the game with four white mages. I thought that would be quite the challenge indeed, and kind of wanted to try it. But it's something I never got to. It's partly because you can only have one game file per cartridge and I had two brothers to share with (and don't much like erasing old files anyway). And partly because my copy of the game got stolen after a bit. And at some point, my gaming queue just got so long that I kind of forgot about it.

But I've been trying to decide on a good starting point for getting back into the Final Fantasy games, and I think it's as good as any.

I spend the last couple of weeks revisiting my last NES game file, from around 2003. I brought my characters on that file from about level 39 to max level, 50. That way I can feel a sense of closure on the file and erase it easier. I had other options to choose from (Famicom and Wii Virtual Console) but it felt right to do it on the NES.

I learned a lot about the game the last time I played it on the Famicom. I looked at a lot of online resources at that time, too, just for the heck of it. I was surprised by a lot of what I read.

First off, a great many quirks of the localization process obscured a lot of things from this game that were passed on to later games, but localized differently in those games. For example, staple Final Fantasy spells like Protect, Flare, and Holy, as well as were there from the beginning but named differently for a variety of reasons.

Secondly, a great amount of information I had taken for granted from the old Nintendo Power Strategy Guide is actually incorrect, and much of the game is bugged to not work as intended. For example, none of the weapon elemental or creature type bonuses actually work in the game. Some spells like LOCK and TMPR don't work at all, and apparently LOK2 actually helps the enemy rather than hurting it.

A lot of that was fixed in the Final Fantasy Origins port for Playstation, which I once started but never finished. I think I'll try playing that version alongside my NES one.

It's hard to add RPG's into my queue, but where this is an old one that I've played several times, and a relatively shorter one, I think I can manage it without disrupting the rest of my queue too much. I'll probably start one of the other more recent FF games as well before too long, but that will probably wait (at least) until I can finish Dragon Quest V. 

Thoughts on Metroidvania, Part II

Incidentally, while building up to SotN I decided it was a good idea to revisit the Metroid Series. I replayed Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission. I couldn't find my copy of Metroid II, even though I had it specifically set out not many months ago, but I finally played through Samus Returns, which I had got a couple of years ago for the 3DS. I also replayed Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. I got all the endings on the two GBA games for the first time, and did bare minimum percent runs for both of those games, which I ended up enjoying.

Besides revisiting a favorite series and finally playing the latest entry, I wanted to replay them as a preliminary step to learning more about Metroidvania in general, and to see how Symphony of the Night compared and contrasted to its counterpart series in the genre moniker. I've also read quite a few articles on a variety of popular indie games that have adopted the Metroidvania term to describe themselves, and downloaded a demo for Ori and the Blind forest (which I've since learned a few relatives have played and liked). I've been looking for a fresh gaming experience, and these games seem to fit the bill.

I've started playing one of the early indie games called Cave Story. The freeware version comes in Japanese only, and although there are unofficial translation patches, I decided to try my hand at translating the language myself. Because of that, it's artificially slow going, and I haven't really made it past the first town, but the game looks promising.

Aside from the Castlevania games, I have a host of other Metroidvanias now that I've had recommended to me which I'm eager to play through as quickly as I have capacity to. I am finding it to be a great complimentary style of game to play alongside the more intensive RPG's I've been playing, to keep me from getting burned out on any one game. I probably can (and I guess really already have) finish two or three of these in the time it takes me to get through one big console RPG, and they seem to be very engaging in their own way.

Thoughts on Metroidvania, Part I

 I have to start this article off by saying I'm not a particular fan of arbitrary portmanteaus, and the name "Metroidvania" fits the bill. However, it seems to have become the standard gaming term for a subgenre of games I've long been interested in learning more about, and have finally started getting into more.

The type of game is an offshoot of 2-D side-scrolling adventure games, which I was rather fond of back in the day. By "adventure" I mean games that were more focused on exploration than on a stage or level based design. In particular, it's usually meant to refer to games similar to the iconic games Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphonia of the Night, which games form the basis for the portmanteau.

I was a fan of certain 2-D side-scrolling games like Faxanadu, Rygar, and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest back on the NES, and I've always been a fan of the Metroid game series. Simon's Quest seems to be considered a progenitor of the Metroidvania style, but not an actual Metroidvania. It has some clear influences on Symphony of the Night, but it's still very different in a lot of ways.

I've long wanted to try SotN, but I like to play game series mostly in release date order, so it seemed far out of reach. I had never played beyond the NES games, with a brief trial of Super Castlevania IV. But when Simon and Richter Belmont were announced for Super Smash Bros, and the Netflix anime based on Castlevania III were released, I decided I was interested in revisiting the series. When I was part way through replaying the NES games, they announced the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, which I got for my birthday the following year. Even so it took a while to start working the games into my queue.

I really enjoyed revisiting the classic Castlevanias, and playing many for the first time. I also purchased Castlevania Chronicles digitally, as well as Castlevania: Requiem which contains Rondo of Blood. I had a great time with all of these games, which evoked a certain degree of nostalgia for game types I haven't played a lot of since the NES days.

I was excited to finally work my way to Symphony of the Night. I purchased this digitally as well (it's included with Rondo of Blood, but I wanted to play the original Playstation version, and it wasn't very expensive). I've always heard a lot of praise for the game, and always thought it would be up my alley. It turns out, not only was it up my alley, it's one of my new favorite games.

The game well deserves its reputation. It has a compelling mix of Metroid-like level design and RPG game mechanics that I just loved. It has excellent music and some compelling, unexpected, and memorable plot turns. It's not really a plot heavy game, but one particular turn was so cleverly implemented that it still blew my mind, in such a way that I was surprised I had never had it spoiled.

I have also since completed Legends, which is the last classic Castlevania, and Circle of the Moon, this game's first real follow-up. Circle of the Moon is nice, but not really on the same level. It's a solid game, and a great game for Game Boy Advance. In some ways it feels a little more like Super Metroid than SotN did, as far as level design, and the game is probably on a similar level to GBA Metroid games. But it's not as impressive as its progenitor.

I'm holding off on moving further because I'm still fleshing out my game files on both of those games, but I think I'll be ready to move to the next game soon. I've momentarily skipped the first 3-D Castlevanias for the Nintendo 64. But I'll get to them as soon as I decide I'm ready to pay for both of them. The GBA ones are available digitally, but neither of the N64 games are. And at least one of those is fairly pricy for a used copy.

Thoughts on Final Fantasy

 I've really been wanting to get back into the Final Fantasy series for a long time now. I claimed it as my favorite game series growing up, and still think of it as one of my three favorite. But I don't have a lot to add to conversations about the modern series, and I'm not sure I really stack up well as a true Final Fantasy fan. I realized recently that I've only played 4 of the 15 mainline games more than once (the ones that existed when I was growing up). And I haven't played hardly any of the spinoffs or side games that have come out in the last decade and a half. Even though I got a copy of Final Fantasy XV many months ago, I've yet to play it past the tutorial.

Five years ago, I made a five-year goal for myself to catch myself up on my three favorite game series: The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy (in no particular order). I wanted to not only have played the main games, but to have really fleshed out my game files and make sure I'd done the bulk of what each game had to offer.

I had started with the Zelda series, knowing they were less time intensive and I could get through it better. I finished my goal more or less with that one. (I still have a lot unfinished on Breath of the Wild, but that's fine with me since the game is still a current generation game and I have plenty of time to revisit it before whatever next Zelda game comes out.)

The Dragon Quest series is still in progress. It's taken my longer than I thought because I got sidetracked some with doing a variety of challenge quests on the early games that weren't part of my original goal; some of which were fairly time-intensive. I've had a few burnout periods, too, where I had to take a break from large scale RPGs.

Since I was doing Dragon Quest before Final Fantasy, this means I've left my Final Fantasy goal largely unaddressed. But every few months I go through a stronger desire to come revisit it.

I booted up my NES game file, which is about 19 years old now. I want to replay the original, but I don't want to erase my current game file yet. I've decided to bring my characters up to max level on that file before restarting it, to give me stronger closure on my old file. I've gone from about level 39 to level 43 after a few nights at it this week.

I don't think I'm going to go strictly sequentially on this series, as it will take far to long to get to newer entries I still want to try. But I haven't decided just how I'll go about it. It's hard to think about starting a big name RPG I haven't played until I finish my Dragon Quest V playthrough, but I can redo some of the earlier games I've played during that time.

I'm also wanting to reboot my Theatrythym and try to ace the last handful of songs and series that I don't have SSS rank on. I think its just about half a dozen battle scores and their respective series modes I need to finish off.

Blog Reboot?

 It's been a long several months. I was debating myself on whether to stop keeping this blog altogether given how infrequently I post on it. But maybe I just need a format change.

I don't have time to record all my thoughts on every game I play. So I think I need to abbreviate my format here in general. I would find it easier to post more often if I posted less, anyway.

Some games I've played since last September: every game on the Castlevania collection (except Kid Dracula; I'll play it some day probably, but I see it as more of a side game and less an actual Castlvania game). Also the Castlevania games Rondo of Blood (now my favorite "Classicvania"), Symphony of the Night (at long last), Legends, and Circle of the Moon.

I did challenge runs on Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion, and replayed Super Metroid.

I played through indie games Fairune and Fairune 2. I also replayed Braid on my XBox 360.

I'm nearing the end of Pokemon Picross.

I'm also finally playing Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, I'm near the end of Dragon Quest V, and I've started the game Cave Story.

It's probably not an exhaustive list, but I'll start from there.

Best game on all this list that I hadn't played before is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which was every bit as good as I always heard it was, and better in some ways.

Although most of my gaming (and my blog name) is somewhat old school, I've been feeling a lot lately like I want to try some newer games. Both new-to-me games and newer games in general, so I can follow conversations with my friends a bit better. But I haven't decided yet what games those will be. More on that to come, I suppose.