After first playing, then months later replaying The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, I think I have decided that it is my new favorite handheld Zelda game. I don't even know if I can fully put my finger on why I enjoy this game so much, but it was definitely the one I looked most forward to replaying, and the one I had most fun replaying.
For one thing, I love the music in this game. It has one of the my favorite soundtracks of any Zelda, handheld or not. I could listen to the train-driving theme for hours, and I also love the background music in the regular areas. I like the new tools this game introduces. And even though its operation seems inconsistent at times, and doesn't work well at all on the trains I ride every day, I still love that you have to play a musical instrument by actually blowing into the system. Some day I want to master this instrument.
I also really love the story. In particular, this is one of the best and most engaging incarnations of the character Zelda in the entire series. This version of the princess is also easily one of the best companion/guide characters in the series, possibly even better than Midna, who was my previous favorite. This is actually the only handheld Zelda game with more than minimal involvement from the eponymous character. But her presence in this game rivals her roles in the best of the best console iterations.
Spirit Tracks didn't really have any particular collectibles whose acquisition stumped me overall. I do remember having a hard time with trying to deliver Dark Ore to Linebeck, before I realized I wasn't taking the correct path (and in fact hadn't even unlocked the correct path at that time). I really liked the variety of things to search for in this game, from Heart Containers to filling a stamp book to finding rabbits in the overworld, and ultimately finally finding the special scrolls. This game has a lot to offer for an intrepid treasure hunter.
I also liked the treasure and train upgrade system in this game much better than the one in Phantom Hourglass. It's a lot more fun to look for the treasures when they have more specific uses than just selling them. I also find it fascinating to see how the treasures from Phantom Hourglass evolved into this game's system, which was the clear predecessor to the crafting system in Skyward Sword, which preceded a much more massive and detailed crafting system in Breath of the Wild.
This game also has my favorite final boss sequence of any handheld Zelda.
Even though both DS games seem to get less love on the internet, I enjoyed think Spirit Tracks in particular is fantastic. On the other hand, A Link Between Worlds seems to have been much more popular in general, but my first impressions of the game were relatively underwhelming.
A Link Between Worlds is a good game, and I've had a great time with it. It is great for evoking nostalgia, which is probably a huge reason it was so well received. And it does wonders with the flattening-into-a-wall mechanic prominent throughout the game. I think the main problem with it is that it does very little to set itself apart from previous hits. In particular, when comparing it with its predecessor, A Link to the Past (and the game invites direct comparison on every level) it seems inferior at nearly every point of comparison. It's still a great game, and better than many of the other overhead 2-d entries. But it's not better than A Link to the Past, and I'm not sure it's definitively better than Minish Cap either.
There is one very important caveat to my impression of A Link Between Worlds, which I only discovered on my replay, which I'll discuss in a moment. This is the first game that I did not need to do a replay to find pieces of heart or anything else, because I found all of those with ease on my first playthrough. I actually found all the Pieces of Heart before I had even completed the game, making this the easiest game in the series to find all of the Pieces of Heart. And the Maimais aren't too hard to find with the Maimai map. In retrospect maybe I should have tried without using it, but it's so integrated into the map display that I didn't even really think about not using it.
But, aside from reliving the story and giving myself a chance at a second impression, there was still a very compelling reason to replay the game, which is the Hero Mode that unlocks upon finishing the game.
And, wow! It's amazing how much the Hero Mode impacted my overall impression of the game. This was my first time trying a Hero Mode in the Zelda series. The only other one I've played that has such a mode is Skyward Sword, but my replay of Skyward Sword didn't start until after my replay of this game. I found the Hero Mode to be one of the most refreshing things I've seen in this series for a long time.
I've loved the Zelda series since before it was a series, when I had Zelda for my NES as a child. Before I entered adulthood, I was a dedicated fan who had played every game in the series. Even though overall I have loved the direction the series has taken, there is one major complaint I have had about its direction, which has been a valid complaint at least since the series went to 3D in Ocarina of Time. My complaint has been that the games are too easy from a combat perspective. There's a great amount of challenge in solving the dungeons and finding pieces of heart and other collectibles. But when it comes to just staying alive, the games have been ridiculously easy for a long time.
For example, I always get frustrated with keeping space in my bottles. For, even in my first playthroughs of every game at least since Majora's Mask, every time I've obtained a potion, I've never found on occasion where I actually needed to use it. I usually have to end up drinking it at some point just to make room for something else in a bottle. But once you get one or two heart containers, there's just nothing there to put you in danger of dying.
I remember in the original Legend of Zelda that there were enemies that would do two entire hearts worth of damage to you if you just had your green clothes. At full health that would take eight hits to kill you. With the blue ring you could extend that to sixteen hits, but there were a lot of these enemies in the late stages of the game, so potions were a necessity unless you were particularly good at avoiding damage. Zelda 2 is notorious for its difficulty in keeping your character alive, and even though Link to the Past was easier than both of these games, it still kept more of the challenge than entries since then.
So when I first tried the Hero Mode here and the weakest enemy in the game did two hearts worth of damage to me, after I picked my jaw off of the ground I went through and found myself thoroughly enjoying the rest of the game. I died many times, and I actually found use for my potions. In fact, when I fought the final boss I had to use all of my potions to survive my first try.
This game offered a very refreshing challenge that I haven't seen in so long. Although, as I'll probably write in my next entry, the challenge is one of the things I loved about Skyward Sword as well, even not considering the Hero Mode. When I subsequently replayed Twilight Princess, I found myself being very careful to avoid damage and then a little disappointed when I would get hit and realize how unnecessary it was. At some point, I really want to play the Wii U versions of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, just because I know they added Hero Modes.
I'll finish this entry with a quick note that I just need one more Streetpass medal to get all fifty and really finish 100% completion. Unfortunately, as of this week, my 3DS doesn't seem to be working and is in need of repair. Hopefully that won't be too expensive, or else I may be 3DS-less for a little while.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Zelda Continued
Aaargh. I'm very eager to start blogging about recent experiences with Dragon Quest III, which I finally reached max levels on last night. I had meant to briefly summarize my last year, but writing brings back memories of things that belonged in this blog had I been writing, and I just can't leave them out. It might take me a few entries to catch myself up.
After finishing Wind Waker, I had plenty of fun searching through other Zelda games for their respective collectibles. As a warning to the reader, certain treasure locations will be discussed below.
My next game to go through was Minish Cap. My initial playthrough and subsequent re-scouring had left me missing two pieces of heart. I also (mistakenly) thought I was missing an amulet that is mentioned in the Swordman newsletter. I had casually browsed some message board topics on this game and had read a post suggesting that the Light Arrows, which I had found, were permanently missable. Wondering if the same was true of this supposed amulet, and wanting a more focused re-scouring of the game, I decided, as with Wind Waker, to start the game over.
Some weeks later, I had completed and scoured the game over again, and had found one of the two pieces of heart I had been missing, in a hidden bomb cave on Mount Crenel. I hadn't the faintest idea where the last one could be, and was losing heart (no pun intended). But I came up with a plan that worked surprisingly well.
I had been playing the game on the Wii U Virtual Console, since it was cheaper than buying a used copy and money is always tight. But sometime around then I was visiting family out of state and asked my brother if I could borrow his Game Boy Advance copy of the game, on which copy I had played the game my first time years ago and on which copy my original file remained. I figured if I could take the game with me I could search the game again at leisure while on the bus or train, since my available handheld gaming time is many times larger than my available console gaming time. I also wanted to take a peek to see if I might have found it years before on my first playthrough.
The strategy brought results surprisingly quickly. As it turns out, I had not found the piece of heart on a previous playthrough. But after playing for a few hours here and there while out and about, on the way home one day, I passed a location that jogged a memory. Early in my replay, I had taken mental note of an NPC comment about the bell in the town square, telling myself to check on it later. When later came, I forgot about it. For some reason, on the umpteenth time I passed that bell, I remembered it. Sure enough, jumping into the bell with the Roc's Cape yielded my last piece of heart.
The amulet presents something of an interesting story. After I had helped a few nice ladies find a home in my replay and getting their reward, something about the item name and description jogged a memory from playing Dragon Quest games on the Famicom. The Japanese word 守り, or まもり, ("mamori" in roman characters), which appears a few times in the Dragon Quest games, effectively means "something that protects," and apparently can refer to any kind of charm or an amulet. For example, the Charm of Rubiss from Dragon Warrior II and the Sacred Amulet on Dragon Warrior III both translate from this word. With some creative Googling in Japanese, I was able to verify that this was also Japanese word used to translate the items "Din's Charm," "Nayru's Charm," and "Farore's Charm," whose descriptions perfectly match the description of the "Amulet" mentioned in the Swordsman newsletter. I am now certain that these are in fact the items referred to in the newsletter, but the clue is muddled due to a translation inconsistency. It wasn't too hard to confirm on gamefaqs.com that there is no amulet in this game.
I had intended from this point on to simultaneously work on completion of Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess, one for when I was out and about and one for when I was at home. I don't remember my exact timeline, but I don't think I really even got started in earnest on Twilight Princess until after I had replayed most of the other handhelds. This was due largely to having a lot more time to play the handhelds. I think I was also probably distracted for a bit with Breath of the Wild. At some point I was also working on my solo Dragon Quest II challenge, and that might have been in that time frame.
Phantom Hourglass was fun for me to play through. It gets some flack online for its non-traditional setup, but I found it very refreshing to have such a different take on a classic formula that had in some ways begun to feel stale to me. I think the controls, though non-traditional, were implemented very well and helped add a fresh a new dimension to classic Zelda items. The story was fun, and Linebeck has become one of my favorite supporting characters in the series. And the part where you're asked to make an impression on your map by pressing it against another was one of my single favorite moments in modern gaming history. I puzzled over it for maybe a good ten minutes before I finally realized the solution. I thought it was ingeniously creative and I loved it.
The only real complaint I have is that the environments, particularly in the dungeons, are overly simple for the most part, which unfortunately does make the game feel less deep than most other entries. But it's still plenty fun. And I, for one, really enjoyed the Ocean Temple with its intricacies. When I replayed the game, after enough practice, I ended up with a perfect time of 25 minutes left in my hourglass.
Yes, I replayed this game as well. After revisiting everything I was still missing around half a dozen Spirit Gems, and I knew a replay would force me to look closer in each area. And since this was the first game on this list that I had never completed, I felt a replay would help me better digest my impressions and keep my memory of the story from getting lost so quickly. But I didn't finish completion in my replay. When I found something I just went and picked it up on my other file. It's quite a chore to get all of the ship parts on one game file (I gather it's easier if you have a friend with the game, and was easier still before they discontinued the non-local wi-fi service) and I didn't want to waste the effort I'd already put in.
The Spirit Gems are hidden well. Most of the ones I was missing were in the western half of the world, so starting over served me well finding them. When I got to the end of the replay, I was still missing one Courage Gem. I was a bit discouraged, but while roaming back and forth in odd moments of the day I was passing through one area where I flash of inspiration that panned out. I think it was on Mercay Island, where you start, where I was passing through a cave I'd been through many times, and watching the water fall in the background somehow gave me the thought of wondering where it was flowing to. Knowing I could extend my view with my bow or my boomerang, I tried it, and found to my utter delight that there was a switch I could hit off screen. The switch activated a treasure chest that had my last gem, and I was quite thrilled to find it.
I ended up consulting a guide in that game to confirm I'd found all the treasure charts, since the game doesn't tell you how many there are. I had wrongly assumed when I collected forty that it would be a nice, even number, but it turned out I was missing one. I took a guess at a possible location for the missing one and did consult a guide to see if it was a reasonable guess, though I couldn't confirm it from the guide alone because I didn't remember where I had found all of the others. But it was one of four that are randomly available in the same minigame, and trying the minigame for about ten or fifteen more minutes confirmed that it was the one I was missing. This is one of the only times where I wasn't able to get full completion without a guide, though I never checked one until I believed I had full completion.
This seems like a good spot to cut this off for today. I'll see if I can fit the rest of my year into one more entry tomorrow.
After finishing Wind Waker, I had plenty of fun searching through other Zelda games for their respective collectibles. As a warning to the reader, certain treasure locations will be discussed below.
My next game to go through was Minish Cap. My initial playthrough and subsequent re-scouring had left me missing two pieces of heart. I also (mistakenly) thought I was missing an amulet that is mentioned in the Swordman newsletter. I had casually browsed some message board topics on this game and had read a post suggesting that the Light Arrows, which I had found, were permanently missable. Wondering if the same was true of this supposed amulet, and wanting a more focused re-scouring of the game, I decided, as with Wind Waker, to start the game over.
Some weeks later, I had completed and scoured the game over again, and had found one of the two pieces of heart I had been missing, in a hidden bomb cave on Mount Crenel. I hadn't the faintest idea where the last one could be, and was losing heart (no pun intended). But I came up with a plan that worked surprisingly well.
I had been playing the game on the Wii U Virtual Console, since it was cheaper than buying a used copy and money is always tight. But sometime around then I was visiting family out of state and asked my brother if I could borrow his Game Boy Advance copy of the game, on which copy I had played the game my first time years ago and on which copy my original file remained. I figured if I could take the game with me I could search the game again at leisure while on the bus or train, since my available handheld gaming time is many times larger than my available console gaming time. I also wanted to take a peek to see if I might have found it years before on my first playthrough.
The strategy brought results surprisingly quickly. As it turns out, I had not found the piece of heart on a previous playthrough. But after playing for a few hours here and there while out and about, on the way home one day, I passed a location that jogged a memory. Early in my replay, I had taken mental note of an NPC comment about the bell in the town square, telling myself to check on it later. When later came, I forgot about it. For some reason, on the umpteenth time I passed that bell, I remembered it. Sure enough, jumping into the bell with the Roc's Cape yielded my last piece of heart.
The amulet presents something of an interesting story. After I had helped a few nice ladies find a home in my replay and getting their reward, something about the item name and description jogged a memory from playing Dragon Quest games on the Famicom. The Japanese word 守り, or まもり, ("mamori" in roman characters), which appears a few times in the Dragon Quest games, effectively means "something that protects," and apparently can refer to any kind of charm or an amulet. For example, the Charm of Rubiss from Dragon Warrior II and the Sacred Amulet on Dragon Warrior III both translate from this word. With some creative Googling in Japanese, I was able to verify that this was also Japanese word used to translate the items "Din's Charm," "Nayru's Charm," and "Farore's Charm," whose descriptions perfectly match the description of the "Amulet" mentioned in the Swordsman newsletter. I am now certain that these are in fact the items referred to in the newsletter, but the clue is muddled due to a translation inconsistency. It wasn't too hard to confirm on gamefaqs.com that there is no amulet in this game.
I had intended from this point on to simultaneously work on completion of Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess, one for when I was out and about and one for when I was at home. I don't remember my exact timeline, but I don't think I really even got started in earnest on Twilight Princess until after I had replayed most of the other handhelds. This was due largely to having a lot more time to play the handhelds. I think I was also probably distracted for a bit with Breath of the Wild. At some point I was also working on my solo Dragon Quest II challenge, and that might have been in that time frame.
Phantom Hourglass was fun for me to play through. It gets some flack online for its non-traditional setup, but I found it very refreshing to have such a different take on a classic formula that had in some ways begun to feel stale to me. I think the controls, though non-traditional, were implemented very well and helped add a fresh a new dimension to classic Zelda items. The story was fun, and Linebeck has become one of my favorite supporting characters in the series. And the part where you're asked to make an impression on your map by pressing it against another was one of my single favorite moments in modern gaming history. I puzzled over it for maybe a good ten minutes before I finally realized the solution. I thought it was ingeniously creative and I loved it.
The only real complaint I have is that the environments, particularly in the dungeons, are overly simple for the most part, which unfortunately does make the game feel less deep than most other entries. But it's still plenty fun. And I, for one, really enjoyed the Ocean Temple with its intricacies. When I replayed the game, after enough practice, I ended up with a perfect time of 25 minutes left in my hourglass.
Yes, I replayed this game as well. After revisiting everything I was still missing around half a dozen Spirit Gems, and I knew a replay would force me to look closer in each area. And since this was the first game on this list that I had never completed, I felt a replay would help me better digest my impressions and keep my memory of the story from getting lost so quickly. But I didn't finish completion in my replay. When I found something I just went and picked it up on my other file. It's quite a chore to get all of the ship parts on one game file (I gather it's easier if you have a friend with the game, and was easier still before they discontinued the non-local wi-fi service) and I didn't want to waste the effort I'd already put in.
The Spirit Gems are hidden well. Most of the ones I was missing were in the western half of the world, so starting over served me well finding them. When I got to the end of the replay, I was still missing one Courage Gem. I was a bit discouraged, but while roaming back and forth in odd moments of the day I was passing through one area where I flash of inspiration that panned out. I think it was on Mercay Island, where you start, where I was passing through a cave I'd been through many times, and watching the water fall in the background somehow gave me the thought of wondering where it was flowing to. Knowing I could extend my view with my bow or my boomerang, I tried it, and found to my utter delight that there was a switch I could hit off screen. The switch activated a treasure chest that had my last gem, and I was quite thrilled to find it.
I ended up consulting a guide in that game to confirm I'd found all the treasure charts, since the game doesn't tell you how many there are. I had wrongly assumed when I collected forty that it would be a nice, even number, but it turned out I was missing one. I took a guess at a possible location for the missing one and did consult a guide to see if it was a reasonable guess, though I couldn't confirm it from the guide alone because I didn't remember where I had found all of the others. But it was one of four that are randomly available in the same minigame, and trying the minigame for about ten or fifteen more minutes confirmed that it was the one I was missing. This is one of the only times where I wasn't able to get full completion without a guide, though I never checked one until I believed I had full completion.
This seems like a good spot to cut this off for today. I'll see if I can fit the rest of my year into one more entry tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Catching up on The Legend of Zelda
The year 2017 was actually a very difficult and challenging year for myself and my family for various reasons. It seemed one crisis after another was demanding our time and attention. I'm sure it's a primary reason why blog ended up dying. But it's not to say I wasn't still working on my video game projects. I just didn't have time or energy to write about it.
Looking back, it seems most of my gaming for the last year has been centered on The Legend of Zelda. I had been replaying the series up to Twilight Princess, with intent afterward to finish the games I hadn't yet played.. By around March of last year, I had completed my replays, and had also completed Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds, and Skyward Sword for the first time each. I enjoyed them all, and found myself particularly impressed by Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword, which I think may have become my new favorite handheld and console Zeldas, respectively.
I got Breath of the Wild for the Wii U and Four Swords Adventures for the Gamecube for my birthday. The latter I have been playing only intermittently when my brother comes to visit, since it's primarily a multiplayer game. The former I have played and enjoyed intermittently, but it does take a lot of time to do even small portions of it, and it's on the console that my daughter plays most, so it's not easy to find available time for it. Furthermore, when I got the camera rune on the game and started using it to fill my compendium, it reminded me so much of the figurine collecting in Wind Waker that I just had to go back and finish finding everything. Since then I've devoted the bulk of my video game time to finding the collectibles in the Zelda games, an effort I finished (excluding Breath of the Wild) about a month ago.
Finding things like pieces of heart and other collectibles is one of my favorite things in the Zelda series. I find it very rewarding to find things without use of a guide. Not wanting to rob anyone else of that, I considered formatting this with black background text to help anyone from spoiling treasure locations. But it looks ugly and is difficult to read and edit, so I am giving a disclaimer. Anyone who wants to find said treasures on their own can skip the rest of this entry and come back to it after they've found them on their own.
My time finding everything in these games has been immensely rewarding, starting with Wind Waker. After finding all of the figurines I could, and still being short a couple of figurines, pieces of heart, and treasure charts, I decided to start a new game file. I didn't want to do a second-playthrough file without finding everything on my original file, so I started a new original file. Playing through everything again forced me to take a closer look at everything than I might have if I'd just started revisiting locations, if only because it was less boring. It would give me a chance to document where I found everything, which I thought would be helpful. Also, I had reason to suspect that several figurines I was missing might not actually be available after a certain point in the game.
On my replay, I ended up finding several pieces of heart that I had previously missed, one of which was in a place I swore I had checked, but apparently hadn't. I also found my missing treasure chart (I think I had only been missing one when I started the replay). Interestingly enough, the chart I was missing was one I remembered finding on my other file. I must have quit without saving and forgotten to go back and get it. But this is where documenting the locations of things really helped me out, so I could check my other file to see what I was missing.
I nearly broke my own heart one day, when I was looking at a message board topic for the game online that I thought was innocuous, and read a sentence that I belatedly realized was revealing the general location of a piece of heart. However, when I looked there on my old file I didn't find it, and took heart that maybe I misunderstood it. When I got to the same point in my replay, I realized a much more comforting truth: it was actually one I had already found and then forgotten about.
I scoured the whole world again as soon as I had the second pearl, just to make sure there weren't any permanently miss-able things at an earlier stage. I made extensive use of my telescope just to make sure I didn't miss anything not shown on the map. (Incidentally, it turned out that the one chart I was missing was the Big Octo Chart. This strategy helped me find all of the Big Octos without it, which accounted for two of my missing pieces of heart.) Then, after going on to complete the rest of the game, I was still missing one piece of heart and six or seven figurines.
At game's end, there was nothing for it but to go through each map square again, racking my brain for anything I hadn't tried. The last piece I found was the one you get from sinking a cannon ship, I think near Rock Spire Island. I had occasionally considered maybe one might drop as treasure from such a ship, similar to one of the Triforce Charts, but since I never saw any other such ship drop anything important, I really didn't think this would pan out, and didn't put much effort into trying it. But try it I finally did. By this time I had probably spent over a month all told on my replay, looking for pieces of heart, and when I found this last one everyone in my house knew it for how loudly I yelled. I think it took me over an hour to calm down and focus on anything other than how ecstatic I was to finally find it.
After all this, I was still missing a handful of figurines which I had to assume were the members of Tetra's crew, only one of whom can be photographed after getting the pictobox (Niko can be photographed when you get bombs from him.) If I had counted more carefully I would have realized that her crew would have left me one short still, and I might have figured out who that one person was. As it was I guessed that you may need to do the second-playthrough mode to collect all of the figurines, similar to how you have to get all of the rings in the Oracle games. (It actually turns out that, unlike the Oracle games, you can only do a single second-playthrough--fortunately I didn't know that or I might not have tried to do it, and I wouldn't have inadvertently discovered the actual solution like I did).
When I actually got to Tetra's ship and realized I would still need one more, I made a guess that I hadn't previously considered, which turned out to be correct, that one of my missing figurines was Tetra herself. I had previously assumed that Tetra herself would not have a figurine, as she was already represented by a Zelda figurine. If I hadn't made that assumption, I might have realized that all figurines were in fact available without doing the second-playthrough mode, because as it turns out all of Tetras crew, including Tetra, get figurines with a single pictograph of Tetra. And Tetra is, however briefly, available for a pictograph when she follows you to Hyrule.
Ultimately, I finished the second-playthrough mode with all of the figurines, pieces of heart, and treasure charts. I would like to go back sometime and complete a first-playthrough file with all these including the figurines, but I have definitely had my fill of the game for the time being. With a large feeling of accomplishment to motivate me, I moved on to the rest of the series. I'll detail more about that in my next entry.
Looking back, it seems most of my gaming for the last year has been centered on The Legend of Zelda. I had been replaying the series up to Twilight Princess, with intent afterward to finish the games I hadn't yet played.. By around March of last year, I had completed my replays, and had also completed Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds, and Skyward Sword for the first time each. I enjoyed them all, and found myself particularly impressed by Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword, which I think may have become my new favorite handheld and console Zeldas, respectively.
I got Breath of the Wild for the Wii U and Four Swords Adventures for the Gamecube for my birthday. The latter I have been playing only intermittently when my brother comes to visit, since it's primarily a multiplayer game. The former I have played and enjoyed intermittently, but it does take a lot of time to do even small portions of it, and it's on the console that my daughter plays most, so it's not easy to find available time for it. Furthermore, when I got the camera rune on the game and started using it to fill my compendium, it reminded me so much of the figurine collecting in Wind Waker that I just had to go back and finish finding everything. Since then I've devoted the bulk of my video game time to finding the collectibles in the Zelda games, an effort I finished (excluding Breath of the Wild) about a month ago.
Finding things like pieces of heart and other collectibles is one of my favorite things in the Zelda series. I find it very rewarding to find things without use of a guide. Not wanting to rob anyone else of that, I considered formatting this with black background text to help anyone from spoiling treasure locations. But it looks ugly and is difficult to read and edit, so I am giving a disclaimer. Anyone who wants to find said treasures on their own can skip the rest of this entry and come back to it after they've found them on their own.
My time finding everything in these games has been immensely rewarding, starting with Wind Waker. After finding all of the figurines I could, and still being short a couple of figurines, pieces of heart, and treasure charts, I decided to start a new game file. I didn't want to do a second-playthrough file without finding everything on my original file, so I started a new original file. Playing through everything again forced me to take a closer look at everything than I might have if I'd just started revisiting locations, if only because it was less boring. It would give me a chance to document where I found everything, which I thought would be helpful. Also, I had reason to suspect that several figurines I was missing might not actually be available after a certain point in the game.
On my replay, I ended up finding several pieces of heart that I had previously missed, one of which was in a place I swore I had checked, but apparently hadn't. I also found my missing treasure chart (I think I had only been missing one when I started the replay). Interestingly enough, the chart I was missing was one I remembered finding on my other file. I must have quit without saving and forgotten to go back and get it. But this is where documenting the locations of things really helped me out, so I could check my other file to see what I was missing.
I nearly broke my own heart one day, when I was looking at a message board topic for the game online that I thought was innocuous, and read a sentence that I belatedly realized was revealing the general location of a piece of heart. However, when I looked there on my old file I didn't find it, and took heart that maybe I misunderstood it. When I got to the same point in my replay, I realized a much more comforting truth: it was actually one I had already found and then forgotten about.
I scoured the whole world again as soon as I had the second pearl, just to make sure there weren't any permanently miss-able things at an earlier stage. I made extensive use of my telescope just to make sure I didn't miss anything not shown on the map. (Incidentally, it turned out that the one chart I was missing was the Big Octo Chart. This strategy helped me find all of the Big Octos without it, which accounted for two of my missing pieces of heart.) Then, after going on to complete the rest of the game, I was still missing one piece of heart and six or seven figurines.
At game's end, there was nothing for it but to go through each map square again, racking my brain for anything I hadn't tried. The last piece I found was the one you get from sinking a cannon ship, I think near Rock Spire Island. I had occasionally considered maybe one might drop as treasure from such a ship, similar to one of the Triforce Charts, but since I never saw any other such ship drop anything important, I really didn't think this would pan out, and didn't put much effort into trying it. But try it I finally did. By this time I had probably spent over a month all told on my replay, looking for pieces of heart, and when I found this last one everyone in my house knew it for how loudly I yelled. I think it took me over an hour to calm down and focus on anything other than how ecstatic I was to finally find it.
After all this, I was still missing a handful of figurines which I had to assume were the members of Tetra's crew, only one of whom can be photographed after getting the pictobox (Niko can be photographed when you get bombs from him.) If I had counted more carefully I would have realized that her crew would have left me one short still, and I might have figured out who that one person was. As it was I guessed that you may need to do the second-playthrough mode to collect all of the figurines, similar to how you have to get all of the rings in the Oracle games. (It actually turns out that, unlike the Oracle games, you can only do a single second-playthrough--fortunately I didn't know that or I might not have tried to do it, and I wouldn't have inadvertently discovered the actual solution like I did).
When I actually got to Tetra's ship and realized I would still need one more, I made a guess that I hadn't previously considered, which turned out to be correct, that one of my missing figurines was Tetra herself. I had previously assumed that Tetra herself would not have a figurine, as she was already represented by a Zelda figurine. If I hadn't made that assumption, I might have realized that all figurines were in fact available without doing the second-playthrough mode, because as it turns out all of Tetras crew, including Tetra, get figurines with a single pictograph of Tetra. And Tetra is, however briefly, available for a pictograph when she follows you to Hyrule.
Ultimately, I finished the second-playthrough mode with all of the figurines, pieces of heart, and treasure charts. I would like to go back sometime and complete a first-playthrough file with all these including the figurines, but I have definitely had my fill of the game for the time being. With a large feeling of accomplishment to motivate me, I moved on to the rest of the series. I'll detail more about that in my next entry.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Defeating the God of Destruction with My Bare Hands
I really tried to keep this blog from dying, but it happened nevertheless. I want to try and revive it.
My biggest problem was that anytime I had the choice in front of me whether to blog or to play, I chose to play. Playing time is precious these days, and I've taken as much as I can. Also, I have not been so involved in special challenges for a year, so perhaps haven't felt blogging my play would be as interesting.
But before I get into it in earnest, I need to finish the draft I had begun nearly a year ago. I found the following written here as a draft:
"As I mentioned in my last post, I have completed my challenge quest of completing the game with no equipment, while only using items absolutely required to beat the game.
It wasn't too hard, at least comparatively, to get through Rhone. The main difficulty was getting through Hargon's temple.
The second floor is short and the enemy set includes enemies from the road to Rhone as well as Rhone itself. It's nothing to worry about in any playthrough, as the enemies are generally less dangerous than they are outside the temple.
The third floor is brutal with no armor."
That's all I wrote. Unfortunately, a year later, I found that I cannot remember my final battle. It seems I remember it being epic, and I know I had really wanted to relate it, but any specifics are long since gone. This is another reason that I have delayed reviving my blog, unsatisfied with my last partial entry.
But a flash of inspiration hit me as I realized the solution was terribly simple. I simply loaded up my previous game file and did it again. It took an hour or so. Here it is.
The first order of business in the final approach is to get to the final boss set with as much HP and MP as possible. Of course, anyone who has played this knows there is a lot that can go wrong here. Any encounter where you fail to run can weaken you, and a few encounters can hurt you bad or kill you outright if you fail to run more than once. And there's always the Defeat and Sacrifice spells that can make you hate your day. Fortunately, on this effort, I didn't die from anyone that wasn't a boss, though I did come scarily close on a pair of Mace Mashers on the third floor of the temple when it took four rounds to run away (fortunately the third and fourth rounds they cast Defeat and Defense exclusively; my Prince of Cannock survived with less than 10 HP and was able to Revive my dead princess to bring everyone back.
Atlas didn't prove too difficult. My normal strategy worked just fine, just taking a little longer. Fortunately I actually got a pre-emptive strike, which allowed one successful cast of Defense before he started unloading on my Princess. But with her defending I was able to keep her healed while my hero attacked. I even managed to get a second Defense spell off midway through the fight, though I'm not sure how much that influenced things.
Bazuzu kindly didn't cast Sacrifice, though my Prince of Cannock succumbed to his Defeat spell before the fight was done. Other than that, Bazuzu didn't put up much of a fight.
Down a man, I lost to Zarlox, but worked my way back up to him with all my party. I successfully beat him and Hargon, with a critical hit from Cannock, before losing to Malroth just a few rounds. I realized belatedly that I forgot to heal after Hargon, and two breath attacks killed my hero.
It took me two more tries to beat Malroth. His breath attack is disasterous with no armor to defend against it. It does around 70 damage to each party member, forcing me to take a round and a half to heal. I had the princess cast Defense every time she could spare a round not healing. After three or four successful tries the two princes can deal enough damage to give you a real chance. However, between the breath attacks and Healall, it still comes down to a certain amount of luck. On my second try, I couldn't even get Defense to work until a few castings. I think at one point I was close to beating him, but my princess ran out of MP and it went south quickly from there.
But on my third attempt, I finished him off. I actually ended that with 110 MP for my princess, showing just how much chance can influence the battle.
This was an exciting accomplishment for me a year ago, and it was fun to recreate it now. I learned a lot about this game doing these playthroughs. I really enjoyed it.
I ended up finally finishing the solo challenge also, but it took much longer. I finished it just a few months ago, after a few times on and off. Assuming I can keep my revival going, I'll write more about that in my next entry.
I think I'm getting ready to begin a similar set of challenge efforts for Dragon Quest III. I've been putting a lot of thought into it lately. I think it's part of the reason I wanted to revive my old blog. It definitely adds a motivation. So here's hoping I'll be here again soon.
My biggest problem was that anytime I had the choice in front of me whether to blog or to play, I chose to play. Playing time is precious these days, and I've taken as much as I can. Also, I have not been so involved in special challenges for a year, so perhaps haven't felt blogging my play would be as interesting.
But before I get into it in earnest, I need to finish the draft I had begun nearly a year ago. I found the following written here as a draft:
"As I mentioned in my last post, I have completed my challenge quest of completing the game with no equipment, while only using items absolutely required to beat the game.
It wasn't too hard, at least comparatively, to get through Rhone. The main difficulty was getting through Hargon's temple.
The second floor is short and the enemy set includes enemies from the road to Rhone as well as Rhone itself. It's nothing to worry about in any playthrough, as the enemies are generally less dangerous than they are outside the temple.
The third floor is brutal with no armor."
That's all I wrote. Unfortunately, a year later, I found that I cannot remember my final battle. It seems I remember it being epic, and I know I had really wanted to relate it, but any specifics are long since gone. This is another reason that I have delayed reviving my blog, unsatisfied with my last partial entry.
But a flash of inspiration hit me as I realized the solution was terribly simple. I simply loaded up my previous game file and did it again. It took an hour or so. Here it is.
The first order of business in the final approach is to get to the final boss set with as much HP and MP as possible. Of course, anyone who has played this knows there is a lot that can go wrong here. Any encounter where you fail to run can weaken you, and a few encounters can hurt you bad or kill you outright if you fail to run more than once. And there's always the Defeat and Sacrifice spells that can make you hate your day. Fortunately, on this effort, I didn't die from anyone that wasn't a boss, though I did come scarily close on a pair of Mace Mashers on the third floor of the temple when it took four rounds to run away (fortunately the third and fourth rounds they cast Defeat and Defense exclusively; my Prince of Cannock survived with less than 10 HP and was able to Revive my dead princess to bring everyone back.
Atlas didn't prove too difficult. My normal strategy worked just fine, just taking a little longer. Fortunately I actually got a pre-emptive strike, which allowed one successful cast of Defense before he started unloading on my Princess. But with her defending I was able to keep her healed while my hero attacked. I even managed to get a second Defense spell off midway through the fight, though I'm not sure how much that influenced things.
Bazuzu kindly didn't cast Sacrifice, though my Prince of Cannock succumbed to his Defeat spell before the fight was done. Other than that, Bazuzu didn't put up much of a fight.
Down a man, I lost to Zarlox, but worked my way back up to him with all my party. I successfully beat him and Hargon, with a critical hit from Cannock, before losing to Malroth just a few rounds. I realized belatedly that I forgot to heal after Hargon, and two breath attacks killed my hero.
It took me two more tries to beat Malroth. His breath attack is disasterous with no armor to defend against it. It does around 70 damage to each party member, forcing me to take a round and a half to heal. I had the princess cast Defense every time she could spare a round not healing. After three or four successful tries the two princes can deal enough damage to give you a real chance. However, between the breath attacks and Healall, it still comes down to a certain amount of luck. On my second try, I couldn't even get Defense to work until a few castings. I think at one point I was close to beating him, but my princess ran out of MP and it went south quickly from there.
But on my third attempt, I finished him off. I actually ended that with 110 MP for my princess, showing just how much chance can influence the battle.
This was an exciting accomplishment for me a year ago, and it was fun to recreate it now. I learned a lot about this game doing these playthroughs. I really enjoyed it.
I ended up finally finishing the solo challenge also, but it took much longer. I finished it just a few months ago, after a few times on and off. Assuming I can keep my revival going, I'll write more about that in my next entry.
I think I'm getting ready to begin a similar set of challenge efforts for Dragon Quest III. I've been putting a lot of thought into it lately. I think it's part of the reason I wanted to revive my old blog. It definitely adds a motivation. So here's hoping I'll be here again soon.
Monday, January 30, 2017
DQII Late Game Version Comparisons
I am nearing the end of my massive Dragon Quest II project. Last night I completed my no-equipment-and-only-necessary-items challenge (more on that in the next entry, as I ran out of time and room on this one), leaving me with just the solo challenge to complete. That one will take a while, but everything else is done.
As I had planned, shortly before Christmas I was ready to finish my dialog comparison and remake playthroughs. I finished the Famicom version using an old password, and copied my NES game file and purchased equipment on the copy to see the ending on each of them. Then I proceeded to finish the game on each of the remake versions.
There's some differences between versions that I wanted to take note of.
There's some differences between versions that I wanted to take note of.
The remakes have changed up Hargon's temple a bit, at least while it appears as Midenhall/Lorasia castle. In the original versions, it was identical to the original castle except you couldn't go through the travel door or up or down stairs. The denizens of the castle would speak to you as though you were just starting your journey. In the remake versions, the dialog of each citizen has changed. The people of the castle have apparently learned the error of their ways and have discovered that Hargon is a benevolent ruler, and that the quest to defeat him was a mistake. You can now go into the dungeon or the king's chamber, where the king himself, surrounded by bunny girls, will attempt to dissuade you from your quest. (Of course, you still can't go into the travel door).
After using the Charm/Eye of Rubiss, it's mostly the same from there on out. The floor where Belial/Zarlox dwells has changed slightly, to remove anything not directly between the two staircases, but things are mostly the same. I have a bit of an inkling that they increased the encounter rate for the Metal Babbles, or Liquid Metal Slimes, but it could be in my imagination.
One thing about the NES version really gets under my skin, ever since I played the original Japanese and saw the contrast. In the original Japanese, the entrance to the higher floors was marked by a large cross shape on the floor. This suggests to the player that the location has religious significance to Hargon's cult, which in turn suggests that you use an item in your inventory that also has religious significance to said cult--known as the Evil Statue on the Game Boy Color version or the False Idol on the smartphone version. As a form of censorship, the cross was modified in the NES version to something meaningless, and the name of the item was also changed to something religiously insignificant: the Eye of Malroth. This censorship effectively eliminates any hint at all for how the player is supposed to get to the higher floors.
While I'm sure most players were still able to figure this out without too much trouble, since it makes sense to use an item and there aren't too many to choose from, it bothers me that in this case, it is clear that to the localizers censorship was more important than the player's ability to figure out how to complete the game. Now that I know how it appeared in the original version, as well as each of the remakes, the NES version is a bit jarring to me right here. It's also worth noting that the change in the floor pattern adds an extra damaging floor tile out of sequence with the others, meaning you have to cast Stepguard one extra time, or else take extra damage on the NES version.
While I'm sure most players were still able to figure this out without too much trouble, since it makes sense to use an item and there aren't too many to choose from, it bothers me that in this case, it is clear that to the localizers censorship was more important than the player's ability to figure out how to complete the game. Now that I know how it appeared in the original version, as well as each of the remakes, the NES version is a bit jarring to me right here. It's also worth noting that the change in the floor pattern adds an extra damaging floor tile out of sequence with the others, meaning you have to cast Stepguard one extra time, or else take extra damage on the NES version.
Incidentally, in the remakes, Stepguard or Safe Passage will not cancel as long as one character is still on a damaging tile, even if your lead character has stepped off of one. This means one casting will get you through all of the barrier tiles on this floor in the remakes. But in the original versions, you had to keep casting it each time you went through a door or stepped between sections.
They made some significant changes in regards to the spell Revive/Kazing that make the final areas much less aggravating in the remakes. The first and maybe most significant is that they added it to the Princess's spell list. In the remakes, she learns this instead of Stepguard/Safe Passage, which is now a Prince only spell. In the originals, it was very inconvenient that the person with the Revive/Kazing spell was the same person who had the Return/Zoom spell. If he died, it was a long and dangerous trek back to the shrine to revive him. (This was further complicated by the fact that he usually died the most; since I never used the trick for two Water Flying Cloths and always gave mine to the Princess, he had the worst armor with no breath protection.)
The other changes to the spell bring it in line with its use in the rest of the series: it can be used in battle, and it restores the user to full health (as opposed to 1 HP in the originals). It's a little unfair that you couldn't cast it in battle in the originals, even though enemies who had it could do so.
They also clearly tweaked the levels at which you learn spells; Open/Click is the last spell you learn in the remakes for the Princess.
The ending to the games is similar, but in the remakes you see a nice firework display over Lorasia/Midenhall castle playing to the Dragon Quest March. There is also a brief recap of major portions of the game during the end credits, which is animated in the Super Famicom version, shows stills in the Game Boy Color version, and is absent in the smartphone version.
This is not an exhaustive list of differences, but they are the ones that remain closest to the surface of my brain after finishing the remake versions.
They made some significant changes in regards to the spell Revive/Kazing that make the final areas much less aggravating in the remakes. The first and maybe most significant is that they added it to the Princess's spell list. In the remakes, she learns this instead of Stepguard/Safe Passage, which is now a Prince only spell. In the originals, it was very inconvenient that the person with the Revive/Kazing spell was the same person who had the Return/Zoom spell. If he died, it was a long and dangerous trek back to the shrine to revive him. (This was further complicated by the fact that he usually died the most; since I never used the trick for two Water Flying Cloths and always gave mine to the Princess, he had the worst armor with no breath protection.)
The other changes to the spell bring it in line with its use in the rest of the series: it can be used in battle, and it restores the user to full health (as opposed to 1 HP in the originals). It's a little unfair that you couldn't cast it in battle in the originals, even though enemies who had it could do so.
They also clearly tweaked the levels at which you learn spells; Open/Click is the last spell you learn in the remakes for the Princess.
The ending to the games is similar, but in the remakes you see a nice firework display over Lorasia/Midenhall castle playing to the Dragon Quest March. There is also a brief recap of major portions of the game during the end credits, which is animated in the Super Famicom version, shows stills in the Game Boy Color version, and is absent in the smartphone version.
This is not an exhaustive list of differences, but they are the ones that remain closest to the surface of my brain after finishing the remake versions.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
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.
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.
Monday, December 5, 2016
Getting Closer
I've been pressing forward in my Dragon Quest II play-throughs. I believe I will finish my project in time for the holidays. I'm taking a vacation starting the 23rd and I want to finish before then so I can take my Game Boy with me.
I don't remember if I mentioned that my Dragon Warrior I/II cartridge won't hold a save file, so my Game Boy (Advance SP) has has been on with the game running the entire time I've been doing this challenge. It stays on the charger in a corner of my bedroom where it won't get bumped. I carefully take it off the charger for only a few hours at a time when I play to make sure the battery doesn't die on me. (I recently realized that I don't think I can get the Water Robe (Water Flying Cloth), as it involves a game reset that I can't do without starting all the way over.)
I'm anxious to finish the challenge so I can play Dragon Warrior Monsters on my system, and, if I can find my copy, Dragon Warrior III.
On my Famicom and NES challenges, I have finished the sea cave and am ready to begin the road to Rhone/Rendarek. I am over half-way through said cave on my Super Famicom file and expect to finish it on that system and possibly also on my Game Boy tonight. If I can finish it on my Game Boy by the time I leave for work tomorrow morning, then I can do the smartphone version during my commute and/or my lunch tomorrow, and proceed tomorrow evening to the dreaded labyrinth that leads to the game's final areas.
The Full Moon Tower and the Sea Cave were not as difficult as I expected on my two challenge play-throughs. I had read a rather old post on the game's message boards on Gamefaqs.com from someone who tried this challenge where they said they abandoned the challenge in this zone of the game due to its difficulty. However, although I did die a few times, I was able to get through both areas on my solo challenge with no more difficulty than I have had in previous areas. And unlike most of the dungeons, I could actually fight a majority of the battles instead of running all the time, since I had the Shield of Strength to heal my health. Of course, there were still numerous encounters where discretion was still the better part of valor, but more often than not the risk of fighting the battle is actually less than the risk of trying to run and failing. The Sea Cave takes a little more endurance as the dungeon is longer and you cannot walk off the edge to get out quickly. Fun fact: the Water Flying Cloth negates damage from the fire tiles in this dungeon. (I think it also negates damage from swamp tiles, but I'm pretty sure it does NOT negate damage from the barrier tiles such as those found in the final dungeon, though Erdrick's Armor will protect against those.)
Of course, on my NES no-equipment challenge, my characters were already highly leveled from getting the "Open" spell, so the battles weren't to big of a challenge spamming Defeat, Firebane, and Explodet in each battle. At that level, I had plenty of MP to finish the dungeons with liberal spellcasting, although I did have to make a few trips into and out of the Sea Cave due to the monsters that dance their strange jigs in there. The dungeons have also posed no particular challenge on any of my remake play-throughs. Another fun fact: in the remake versions of the game, Firebane's power is greatly increased to almost rival Explodet in the original game, making battles in this stage ridiculously easy. I do not yet know if they tweaked Explodet to be more powerful still. Interestingly, in the smartphone version only, Firebane (or Sizzle as it's called there) has been changed to be a one-group spell rather than all enemies, one of the few changes I've seen that actually makes things slightly more challenging than the previous remakes.
That's all for now. Maybe by the time I post next I'll be finished with Dragon Quest II, or nearly so.
I don't remember if I mentioned that my Dragon Warrior I/II cartridge won't hold a save file, so my Game Boy (Advance SP) has has been on with the game running the entire time I've been doing this challenge. It stays on the charger in a corner of my bedroom where it won't get bumped. I carefully take it off the charger for only a few hours at a time when I play to make sure the battery doesn't die on me. (I recently realized that I don't think I can get the Water Robe (Water Flying Cloth), as it involves a game reset that I can't do without starting all the way over.)
I'm anxious to finish the challenge so I can play Dragon Warrior Monsters on my system, and, if I can find my copy, Dragon Warrior III.
On my Famicom and NES challenges, I have finished the sea cave and am ready to begin the road to Rhone/Rendarek. I am over half-way through said cave on my Super Famicom file and expect to finish it on that system and possibly also on my Game Boy tonight. If I can finish it on my Game Boy by the time I leave for work tomorrow morning, then I can do the smartphone version during my commute and/or my lunch tomorrow, and proceed tomorrow evening to the dreaded labyrinth that leads to the game's final areas.
The Full Moon Tower and the Sea Cave were not as difficult as I expected on my two challenge play-throughs. I had read a rather old post on the game's message boards on Gamefaqs.com from someone who tried this challenge where they said they abandoned the challenge in this zone of the game due to its difficulty. However, although I did die a few times, I was able to get through both areas on my solo challenge with no more difficulty than I have had in previous areas. And unlike most of the dungeons, I could actually fight a majority of the battles instead of running all the time, since I had the Shield of Strength to heal my health. Of course, there were still numerous encounters where discretion was still the better part of valor, but more often than not the risk of fighting the battle is actually less than the risk of trying to run and failing. The Sea Cave takes a little more endurance as the dungeon is longer and you cannot walk off the edge to get out quickly. Fun fact: the Water Flying Cloth negates damage from the fire tiles in this dungeon. (I think it also negates damage from swamp tiles, but I'm pretty sure it does NOT negate damage from the barrier tiles such as those found in the final dungeon, though Erdrick's Armor will protect against those.)
Of course, on my NES no-equipment challenge, my characters were already highly leveled from getting the "Open" spell, so the battles weren't to big of a challenge spamming Defeat, Firebane, and Explodet in each battle. At that level, I had plenty of MP to finish the dungeons with liberal spellcasting, although I did have to make a few trips into and out of the Sea Cave due to the monsters that dance their strange jigs in there. The dungeons have also posed no particular challenge on any of my remake play-throughs. Another fun fact: in the remake versions of the game, Firebane's power is greatly increased to almost rival Explodet in the original game, making battles in this stage ridiculously easy. I do not yet know if they tweaked Explodet to be more powerful still. Interestingly, in the smartphone version only, Firebane (or Sizzle as it's called there) has been changed to be a one-group spell rather than all enemies, one of the few changes I've seen that actually makes things slightly more challenging than the previous remakes.
That's all for now. Maybe by the time I post next I'll be finished with Dragon Quest II, or nearly so.
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