Part Five: Loto and His... err... Her? Merry Men
Started: October 20, 2010
Considered by many a fan to be the finest hour in the entire Dragon Warrior saga, the third game details the story of Loto, the first Dragon Warrior, as he conquered over the Demon Lord Baramos and started a lineage of heroes that would continue saving the world, as detailed in DWI and II. Of course, by now, I've heard quite a bit about this Loto. When I found out that Loto was the hero of III and would start the entire story that I'd been experiencing thus far in my Dragon Warrior venture, I was excited. Here I was going to meet the hero who started a great legacy...
Booting up my Visualboy Advance, the game presents a nice intro about the hero Ortega having to leave to defeat the Demon Lord right after the birth of his baby. Poor kid. Poor Mama, too. Anyway, Ortega is given a special horned helmet, then the King's men give him a great send off, and he ventures into a volcano where it seems he had cornered the Big Bad after all. In an over-the-top battle, Ortega manages to take him down - but falls into the mouth of the volcano with his nemesis.
On the eve of the hero's sixteenth birthday, he is treated to a strange dream where a voice is asking him a series of questions to figure out what kind of person he's talking to. Here is where the player takes over. You play as Loto him... or herself. Yep. You could come all this way and learn that Loto was a girl, should you decide to play as a girl. The way that I see it in my head, yeah, Loto could very well have been female, but legends of great warriors that pass down generations turned her male in the imaginations of all the descendants. And, as we all know, I'm female myself - so my experience is that way. Excuse me. But the mysterious voice asks you several questions to figure out who you are, and all of the questions lead to a different scenario, depending on how you answered. Once the man in the sky tells you what kind of personality you have, then you find yourself waking up to your sixteenth birthday.
For your awesome sweet sixteen, you get to go meet the king and tell him that you want to finish the job your father Ortega started. The King says that's an awesome idea, hands you some gold pieces (referred from now on as G), some weapons and some basic armor - telling you to go to Rudia's Tavern and find some companions. So just a hop, skip, and a jump away, the hero goes to the tavern and can make his own friends upstairs. I don't know if that guy up there is God himself, but if you give him specs on a party member you want, he'll just write them down for you, and then you can go to Rudia and have them summoned to join your party. Those are some cool scrolls! There are a nice number of classes you can make your members into, and you can choose male or female for any of the classes available. Once you distribute the stat seeds to a character, God will give them a personality also. I decided to go with a fun combination: myself, a warrior, a dealer, and a cleric. After creating friends out of nothing, the player can go out into the world!!
Dragon Warrior III doesn't seem very linear, as you can take the game at your pace, but things do have to be done in certain orders before other things open up. For example, your first task is to get the Thief's Key from Najimi Tower. Without it, you cannot get the Magic Bomb which will open the Traveler's Gate which will take you to Romaly. Why do you want to go there? That's the direction Ortega went, and our hero is trying to find Papa's nemesis, that's why.
After getting to Romaly, a whole new continent opens up to you, but you have to be wary of where you walk at all times. If you cross a bridge, the enemies will get significantly harder than on the side you were on before. That tends to be a Dragon Warrior staple as a warning for players to keep an eye on their levels. There's a host of problems over here to solve. The crown of the King was stolen by bandits, there's an entire town cursed to sleep forever, the elven princess seems to have vanished... and it's up to you to solve each of these smaller problems of the world to get experience in battle and artifacts which will further your main purpose.
Eventually, our hero and his... her party will find the Demon Lord Baramos and defeat him, but... wait a minute. There's more shit to do. Looks like Daddy wasn't after the true enemy. Zoma has stepped up to the plate causing a ruckus, and since you're still the appointed hero, guess what?
While the story may seem cliched and overdone, the GBC Dragon Warrior III is a joy to play if you don't mind it. The character creation system makes the game more than replayable, as every player gets to have their own experiences while playing it. When I talk to my friends who play this game about how the game went for them, they tell me of their unique cast of characters and their ways of having to defeat the enemies which differ from my own. Unlike a lot of other JRPGs out there, both good and bad, the only character set in stone for this game is your hero, and using the personality system, even that could be very different. Once I played where the hero was a better spellcaster than a swordswoman, and I've got a friend who's hero is the strongest person in their party overall. There are lot of games, such as Final Fantasy IV, where the party at any given time is always set in stone. At the end of FF4, you always have Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Edge, and Rydia. That's all. Cecil attacks, Rosa heals, Kain jumps, Edge throws crap, and Rydia summons. No matter what version of FF4 you play, Rydia will always learn Meteo at level 68. This isn't the case with DWIII, and I love it for that. My hero can be whatever I built her to be, my partners are what I made them. Yes, each class will learn spells at set levels, however, using them may be a different story based on the personality types that your characters will have throughout the game. Yeah, that Cleric has healing spells, but what if her INT isn't high enough to heal as well as the hero, for example? What if the Cleric has more Vitality than anyone else in the group, and can act as a tank better than a Warrior? It's achievable here! While your story is set, your characters are not, and this is more than wonderful.
What really gets me is how your created characters will also have a great impact on the story. Your dealer will leave to start his or her own town. A member of your group will willingly give up their life to help the hero's party when stuck in a trap. Who will it be? Who knows?
Sadly, Dragon Warrior III was the last chapter set in this world I'd grown to love. Loto's saga is now at rest. When we look at the many chapters of DW4 next time, the new Zenithian Saga will begin.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
RPGs - JRPGs, WRPGs, and tabletop: Thoughts to share.
So, hi there, kids! It's time for another edition of Suzuri's Inner Gamer's Thoughts! Today we have a question asked by someone on GaiaOnline.
"Can one call themselves an RPG fan if they have never played a Final Fantasy game?"
(excuse the grammar, folks, I'm just giving you the original question as it was posted)
After I read this question the first time, I was a little bewildered at the fact someone would ask something like this. Not only is FF not the only RPG out there, it's hardly the Ur Example of RPG or even the JRPG subgenre. I have friends who love RP to death, but they dislike FF with every inch of their gamer heart.
Let me put it to you straight, friends.
JRPGs are those video RPGs like Dragon Quest, Tales of, and Final Fantasy. Y'know, those types of games where the player isn't able to really control a lot of the story and most of the characters have a set personality and background all their own. This is even more true with modern gaming on newer consoles with titles like Final Fantasy XIII. You don't really roleplay in FFXIII - you just sit and watch a story, walk in a straight path upwards, and in this game you don't even control your characters in battle. Earlier FF games, especially the first game on the NES, was a game that had more roleplay in it than games after FFIV.
Personal Opinion: I have a taste for these games, as I see them as an interactive visual novel with more depth than most Choose-Your-Own-Adventure children's books. There are a lot of people who do not have a taste for them, as the name "Japanese RPG" is rather a misnomer. It would be more accurate to call them "Interactive Stories" (except in the case of FFXIII, to which I just call a movie with a controller) than actual "role-playing" games. I got into role-playing simply because I love reading. To be able to take part in a story with your own character has a lot of appeal to me as a person who enjoys reading. I believe this is also an aspect of appeal to countless other players as well, and why this genre has such a big corner of the RPG market in general.
WRPGs, aka Western RPGs, are things like Diablo, Knights of the Old Republic, and the classic Ultima. They're less about the overall narrative, more about the character themselves developing uniquely by the choices of the player. They tend to be more on the gritty story side, unlike the JRPG which always seems to have an element of cuteness which doesn't seem to be present in the Western genre. The combat in Western RPGs tends to be very detailed and has many minute nuances, conversely the JRPG has a very simple menu based combat system most of the time, and fans of the WRPG tend to be very critical of the simplicity.
Current and quite possibly sidetracking thought: Though generally the Western RPG doesn't tend to appeal to my taste of cuteness, my obsession with Etrian Odyssey and its sequels cannot be denied. One of the rare instances where the Japanese creators do not focus on an emotionally driven storyline but on the exploration of the Yggdrasill labyrinth and development of your custom created characters. The characters are drawn in Atlus' signature manga style which was popularized by cult-classic Disgaea, which has to be one of my favorite aspects, even though every character only gets a single picture to depict what they look like. They don't talk, and the story does not really reflect the characters themselves but refers to the player as the name of the guild established in the beginning of the game. Etrian Odyssey is a challenge and a half, which harkens back to the days of role-playing when it wasn't about some wussy spikey haired prick with personality disorders bitching about killing a man he used to admire to the point of obsession because that ex-hero of the land skewered this girlfriend (Yes, Cloud Strife, I mean you!). I don't mean to go on a diatribe about how much I adore the EO series, but as a breath of fresh air in the middle of the rampaging debate about whether JRPGs or WRPGs are really RPGs, I couldn't help but think of it.
Back on track~
Now, all video RPGs have something in common no matter what sub-genre they belong to. That is the simple fact that they were inspired by the tabletop RPG. A lot of newbies in gaming tend to forget that imagination was the main component of roleplaying. Be it the great D&D, the popular Warhammer, or the comic strip inspired Hackmaster - stats, dice, and imagination are the main ingredients to play. The essence of roleplaying is taking on the imaginary suit of a character in whatever world there is set up, and playing as that character.
My point? YES, You can be a fan of RPGs and not like Final Fantasy. You can be a fan of the JRPG and not like FF. Hell, you can be a fan of the WRPG and not like Ultima. Guess what? I'm a fan of JRock, but Gackt is not the bestest one there. The only thing you can't be if you don't like Final Fantasy is a fan of Final Fantasy.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
((Will be cross posted to my gaming blog, "Into the Traveler's Gate"))
"Can one call themselves an RPG fan if they have never played a Final Fantasy game?"
(excuse the grammar, folks, I'm just giving you the original question as it was posted)
After I read this question the first time, I was a little bewildered at the fact someone would ask something like this. Not only is FF not the only RPG out there, it's hardly the Ur Example of RPG or even the JRPG subgenre. I have friends who love RP to death, but they dislike FF with every inch of their gamer heart.
Let me put it to you straight, friends.
JRPGs are those video RPGs like Dragon Quest, Tales of, and Final Fantasy. Y'know, those types of games where the player isn't able to really control a lot of the story and most of the characters have a set personality and background all their own. This is even more true with modern gaming on newer consoles with titles like Final Fantasy XIII. You don't really roleplay in FFXIII - you just sit and watch a story, walk in a straight path upwards, and in this game you don't even control your characters in battle. Earlier FF games, especially the first game on the NES, was a game that had more roleplay in it than games after FFIV.
Personal Opinion: I have a taste for these games, as I see them as an interactive visual novel with more depth than most Choose-Your-Own-Adventure children's books. There are a lot of people who do not have a taste for them, as the name "Japanese RPG" is rather a misnomer. It would be more accurate to call them "Interactive Stories" (except in the case of FFXIII, to which I just call a movie with a controller) than actual "role-playing" games. I got into role-playing simply because I love reading. To be able to take part in a story with your own character has a lot of appeal to me as a person who enjoys reading. I believe this is also an aspect of appeal to countless other players as well, and why this genre has such a big corner of the RPG market in general.
WRPGs, aka Western RPGs, are things like Diablo, Knights of the Old Republic, and the classic Ultima. They're less about the overall narrative, more about the character themselves developing uniquely by the choices of the player. They tend to be more on the gritty story side, unlike the JRPG which always seems to have an element of cuteness which doesn't seem to be present in the Western genre. The combat in Western RPGs tends to be very detailed and has many minute nuances, conversely the JRPG has a very simple menu based combat system most of the time, and fans of the WRPG tend to be very critical of the simplicity.
Current and quite possibly sidetracking thought: Though generally the Western RPG doesn't tend to appeal to my taste of cuteness, my obsession with Etrian Odyssey and its sequels cannot be denied. One of the rare instances where the Japanese creators do not focus on an emotionally driven storyline but on the exploration of the Yggdrasill labyrinth and development of your custom created characters. The characters are drawn in Atlus' signature manga style which was popularized by cult-classic Disgaea, which has to be one of my favorite aspects, even though every character only gets a single picture to depict what they look like. They don't talk, and the story does not really reflect the characters themselves but refers to the player as the name of the guild established in the beginning of the game. Etrian Odyssey is a challenge and a half, which harkens back to the days of role-playing when it wasn't about some wussy spikey haired prick with personality disorders bitching about killing a man he used to admire to the point of obsession because that ex-hero of the land skewered this girlfriend (Yes, Cloud Strife, I mean you!). I don't mean to go on a diatribe about how much I adore the EO series, but as a breath of fresh air in the middle of the rampaging debate about whether JRPGs or WRPGs are really RPGs, I couldn't help but think of it.
Back on track~
Now, all video RPGs have something in common no matter what sub-genre they belong to. That is the simple fact that they were inspired by the tabletop RPG. A lot of newbies in gaming tend to forget that imagination was the main component of roleplaying. Be it the great D&D, the popular Warhammer, or the comic strip inspired Hackmaster - stats, dice, and imagination are the main ingredients to play. The essence of roleplaying is taking on the imaginary suit of a character in whatever world there is set up, and playing as that character.
My point? YES, You can be a fan of RPGs and not like Final Fantasy. You can be a fan of the JRPG and not like FF. Hell, you can be a fan of the WRPG and not like Ultima. Guess what? I'm a fan of JRock, but Gackt is not the bestest one there. The only thing you can't be if you don't like Final Fantasy is a fan of Final Fantasy.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
((Will be cross posted to my gaming blog, "Into the Traveler's Gate"))
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Smile Slime PART FOUR
PART FOUR: A Sequel of no Equal
Started October 6th, 2010
Direct sequels never, ever seem to live up to the originals. I’m not just talking about the world of video games, either. Movies, books, manga, video games, everything we come to love about the originals just seems to go all wrong when companies try to rework it to sell it to you again. And you, as a fan, go out and buy it, even knowing how disappointed you will be when you get your hands on it. This happened to me very recently, actually, and it’s not just about Final Fantasy XIII, either. Everyone that knows me knows of my rabid fangirl love for possibly the only decent RPG in the entire Gamecube library, Tales of Symphonia. I adore that game with every inch of my gamer’s heart. Then, they decided that the Wii needed to see some more sales and my love was preyed upon when Namco released the travesty that is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Some new wussy emo kid named Emil is on a journey to kill Lloyd, the hero of the first game, because he’s got some summon spirit stuck in his head or some weird ass shit. Every time I think about the combination of monster collecting in my Symphonia world, I think some of my brain cells die on me. I know, I know, I love Dragon Quest Monsters - which is something very strange. Monster collecting was a part of the main series as a side quest, and when that was popular enough it became its own game series. Monster collecting has never been a part of Tales. And neither have wussy emo heroes that give Squall Leonhart a run for their money, more personality disorders than Cloud Strife, and more whiny than Tidus ever was. My point is that this sequel hurt that part of me that trusts gaming companies to never let me down. Every new Tales game that comes out, I feel the sting of Dawn of the New World’s butchering of one of my favorite games ever - and I haven’t bought a brand new game from Namco since. When my husband explained to me that Dragon Warrior II is a direct sequel to the first DW game, I groaned. Oh dear Lord. This was going to hurt, wasn’t it? I mean, even if you don’t play Tales, I’m sure you know about how different Final Fantasy II is from FFI, so much so that people actively avoid FFII for being so different. Or what about Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link? It’s considered the “black sheep” of the series. My gamer’s heart all ready worried that it would start to doubt Enix, too, I booted up my Visualboy Advance yet again to see what became of the world I’d grown to love.
The game starts out by explaining that once upon a time, a hero came along and saved the world from the Dragonlord. He took himself a bride, and roamed around the world over the rest of his lifetime. Each of his children founded new kingdoms, and he would leave for another land. Peace was abundant in the world for a while, until…
One nice, happy, sunny day, in the garden of Moonbrooke castle, the king was talking with his daughter. Then out of nowhere, monsters appeared! Guarding the exit with his body, the king told the princess that she had to inform the neighboring kingdom of Cannock and enlist help to stop the monsters from destroying more. When she reached the staircase, her father made a bold final move to buy her time to escape. Of course, this ended with the Princess being scarred forever after seeing her father die by being burned alive. Wow, game, that’s… pretty intense. One lone soldier from the castle was able to escape to the closest castle he could think of, where he climbed up the stairs to find our hero and the king. The wounded man told of Moonbrooke’s fate and how Princess Nina was missing due to a monster attack. The king, not being the type to overreact about emergencies, looks to our hero and says “You have the blood of Loto in you! You can defeat the evil starting to make its way through our world.” Not “I have an army and we will help you revenge Moonbrooke and save Nina” or anything like that. The hero goes downstairs where his father lets him have a Copper Sword, a shield, and an herb. Then he says “Go on your journey, my son! I have faith in you!” First thing I have to say is at least this king gives his son a sword. Thanks, Dad. But what I don’t get is why the man charges me 8 GP to sleep in the castle. Don’t I have a room somewhere? Did you rent out my room or something? Am I the prince or not? Ah, well.
Our first quest is to look for help. After talking to a few townsfolk and gaining a few levels, the hero decides that he’s going to search for the Prince of Cannock, who happens to be his friend anyway. It turns out to be a wild goose chase from town to town to town for a while, but when you get him, he’s a redheaded magic knight. Nice! I can live with that, hahaha! Hey, cool, the world map theme changes when you have friends. That’s awesome! With the aid of someone who can FINALLY cast spells, the two of you venture out to save Nina from the bad guys. This is another great improvement about DWII to I. Nina, once she’s saved, does not decide to hide in a corner somewhere and help rule the people. She joins up with her two prince cousins and decides that she’s going to help avenge her father. Good show! Thank you, Enix! Now, if she could actually take a hit at some point, it would be great, but her motivation to actually help out is what counts.
By now, I realized that I’ve seen some of this land before. That’s right! Half of the world of DW2 happens to be the world of DW1! Expanding the world was a nice touch. Battles are a bit more fun having characters to help each other. While there were many different kinds of spells in DW1, there’s many more in DW2. Since Nina’s the white mage of the group, she tends to be casting all sorts of spells. The redheaded one wields his swords and his attack spells, too. Then we have the hero, who just swings swords at whatever happens to be in the way. Yeah. I know, it’s weird having a hero who isn’t The Mario, huh? Especially when you look at other Dragon Warrior heroes later on.
This brings me to my point. God, this game was like taking Dragon Warrior and leveling it up a few times before going back to it. There’s much more to do, more characters, more spells, weapons, and while Loto’s Sword was the strongest sword in DW1, now there’s even more powerful weapons to find. Enix did a great job creating an actual sequel that… holy crap, is better than the game before it. In fact, I venture to say that Dragon Quest Monsters also manages to do this, but I did play Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 before I played the original, so maybe I’m a bit biased.
The GBC remake of Dragon Warrior II was packaged together with the first one. Two RPGs in one cart was an awesome idea, but to have a good game and then put it together with a game that puts the first to shame? Oh, sign me up for that baby. I was so impressed with DWII’s improvements that eventually would lead to the greatness of later games in the series, that when I had saved the world again, I was ready to take a leap into the third game without even stopping. Hell, I was excited to play the third game.
My husband grew up on Dragon Warrior. He’s eight years older than me, so he got to really experience the NES and SNES at a more coherent age than I did. While I remember select NES titles that were particularly memorable, he remembers a large library’s worth. I wish I could say I knew more about the NES library than I do, but I really started upping my gaming ante with the SNES. Whenever I have a question about the history of Dragon Warrior, he’s always my go-to man, just like if he ever has a question about gaming in the handheld market, he comes to me. After finishing with DWII and being very impressed with it, I stopped to ask him a few questions about the third. He got that big smile on his face that just spoke of the nostalgia he was experiencing when he started to talk about it. A prequel to DWI where you make the cast of characters yourself. You name ‘em, you pick their class, everything that Final Fantasy I wanted to be, just more of it. You play as Loto?! Oh now I was really, really excited! I couldn’t help myself! I picked up that awesome GBC remake of Dragon Warrior III to continue my journey in a world that I was becoming very engrossed in…
Loto - the hero who saved the world, who had so many heroic descendants, who was the original Dragon Warrior - will be talking to the king for the first time in our next installment.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri
Started October 6th, 2010
Direct sequels never, ever seem to live up to the originals. I’m not just talking about the world of video games, either. Movies, books, manga, video games, everything we come to love about the originals just seems to go all wrong when companies try to rework it to sell it to you again. And you, as a fan, go out and buy it, even knowing how disappointed you will be when you get your hands on it. This happened to me very recently, actually, and it’s not just about Final Fantasy XIII, either. Everyone that knows me knows of my rabid fangirl love for possibly the only decent RPG in the entire Gamecube library, Tales of Symphonia. I adore that game with every inch of my gamer’s heart. Then, they decided that the Wii needed to see some more sales and my love was preyed upon when Namco released the travesty that is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Some new wussy emo kid named Emil is on a journey to kill Lloyd, the hero of the first game, because he’s got some summon spirit stuck in his head or some weird ass shit. Every time I think about the combination of monster collecting in my Symphonia world, I think some of my brain cells die on me. I know, I know, I love Dragon Quest Monsters - which is something very strange. Monster collecting was a part of the main series as a side quest, and when that was popular enough it became its own game series. Monster collecting has never been a part of Tales. And neither have wussy emo heroes that give Squall Leonhart a run for their money, more personality disorders than Cloud Strife, and more whiny than Tidus ever was. My point is that this sequel hurt that part of me that trusts gaming companies to never let me down. Every new Tales game that comes out, I feel the sting of Dawn of the New World’s butchering of one of my favorite games ever - and I haven’t bought a brand new game from Namco since. When my husband explained to me that Dragon Warrior II is a direct sequel to the first DW game, I groaned. Oh dear Lord. This was going to hurt, wasn’t it? I mean, even if you don’t play Tales, I’m sure you know about how different Final Fantasy II is from FFI, so much so that people actively avoid FFII for being so different. Or what about Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link? It’s considered the “black sheep” of the series. My gamer’s heart all ready worried that it would start to doubt Enix, too, I booted up my Visualboy Advance yet again to see what became of the world I’d grown to love.
The game starts out by explaining that once upon a time, a hero came along and saved the world from the Dragonlord. He took himself a bride, and roamed around the world over the rest of his lifetime. Each of his children founded new kingdoms, and he would leave for another land. Peace was abundant in the world for a while, until…
One nice, happy, sunny day, in the garden of Moonbrooke castle, the king was talking with his daughter. Then out of nowhere, monsters appeared! Guarding the exit with his body, the king told the princess that she had to inform the neighboring kingdom of Cannock and enlist help to stop the monsters from destroying more. When she reached the staircase, her father made a bold final move to buy her time to escape. Of course, this ended with the Princess being scarred forever after seeing her father die by being burned alive. Wow, game, that’s… pretty intense. One lone soldier from the castle was able to escape to the closest castle he could think of, where he climbed up the stairs to find our hero and the king. The wounded man told of Moonbrooke’s fate and how Princess Nina was missing due to a monster attack. The king, not being the type to overreact about emergencies, looks to our hero and says “You have the blood of Loto in you! You can defeat the evil starting to make its way through our world.” Not “I have an army and we will help you revenge Moonbrooke and save Nina” or anything like that. The hero goes downstairs where his father lets him have a Copper Sword, a shield, and an herb. Then he says “Go on your journey, my son! I have faith in you!” First thing I have to say is at least this king gives his son a sword. Thanks, Dad. But what I don’t get is why the man charges me 8 GP to sleep in the castle. Don’t I have a room somewhere? Did you rent out my room or something? Am I the prince or not? Ah, well.
Our first quest is to look for help. After talking to a few townsfolk and gaining a few levels, the hero decides that he’s going to search for the Prince of Cannock, who happens to be his friend anyway. It turns out to be a wild goose chase from town to town to town for a while, but when you get him, he’s a redheaded magic knight. Nice! I can live with that, hahaha! Hey, cool, the world map theme changes when you have friends. That’s awesome! With the aid of someone who can FINALLY cast spells, the two of you venture out to save Nina from the bad guys. This is another great improvement about DWII to I. Nina, once she’s saved, does not decide to hide in a corner somewhere and help rule the people. She joins up with her two prince cousins and decides that she’s going to help avenge her father. Good show! Thank you, Enix! Now, if she could actually take a hit at some point, it would be great, but her motivation to actually help out is what counts.
By now, I realized that I’ve seen some of this land before. That’s right! Half of the world of DW2 happens to be the world of DW1! Expanding the world was a nice touch. Battles are a bit more fun having characters to help each other. While there were many different kinds of spells in DW1, there’s many more in DW2. Since Nina’s the white mage of the group, she tends to be casting all sorts of spells. The redheaded one wields his swords and his attack spells, too. Then we have the hero, who just swings swords at whatever happens to be in the way. Yeah. I know, it’s weird having a hero who isn’t The Mario, huh? Especially when you look at other Dragon Warrior heroes later on.
This brings me to my point. God, this game was like taking Dragon Warrior and leveling it up a few times before going back to it. There’s much more to do, more characters, more spells, weapons, and while Loto’s Sword was the strongest sword in DW1, now there’s even more powerful weapons to find. Enix did a great job creating an actual sequel that… holy crap, is better than the game before it. In fact, I venture to say that Dragon Quest Monsters also manages to do this, but I did play Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 before I played the original, so maybe I’m a bit biased.
The GBC remake of Dragon Warrior II was packaged together with the first one. Two RPGs in one cart was an awesome idea, but to have a good game and then put it together with a game that puts the first to shame? Oh, sign me up for that baby. I was so impressed with DWII’s improvements that eventually would lead to the greatness of later games in the series, that when I had saved the world again, I was ready to take a leap into the third game without even stopping. Hell, I was excited to play the third game.
My husband grew up on Dragon Warrior. He’s eight years older than me, so he got to really experience the NES and SNES at a more coherent age than I did. While I remember select NES titles that were particularly memorable, he remembers a large library’s worth. I wish I could say I knew more about the NES library than I do, but I really started upping my gaming ante with the SNES. Whenever I have a question about the history of Dragon Warrior, he’s always my go-to man, just like if he ever has a question about gaming in the handheld market, he comes to me. After finishing with DWII and being very impressed with it, I stopped to ask him a few questions about the third. He got that big smile on his face that just spoke of the nostalgia he was experiencing when he started to talk about it. A prequel to DWI where you make the cast of characters yourself. You name ‘em, you pick their class, everything that Final Fantasy I wanted to be, just more of it. You play as Loto?! Oh now I was really, really excited! I couldn’t help myself! I picked up that awesome GBC remake of Dragon Warrior III to continue my journey in a world that I was becoming very engrossed in…
Loto - the hero who saved the world, who had so many heroic descendants, who was the original Dragon Warrior - will be talking to the king for the first time in our next installment.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri
Friday, October 15, 2010
Smile Slime: Part Three. Loto's Progeny
PART THREE: Loto’s Descendant
Started October 3rd, 2010
Dragon Warrior Monsters is much like Final Fantasy’s Crystal Chronicles series, as it has a unique feel all its own and sometimes doesn’t need the name of the main series to give it “oomph” enough to sell it. Sometimes, the spin-off games get me more than the real series. In my case, this is very true for Final Fantasy’s Ivalice Alliance. The world that FF Tactics established that is carried through in the other games in the Ivalice Alliance keep me coming back, hungry for the world and the characters in it. Dragon Warrior Monsters has done the same thing to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the main Dragon Quest series. The games are always well made, carry a wonderful story with memorable characters and the music is always extraordinarily beautiful. Here, I want to start my own personal journey, where I take a deep breath and dive again into the World of Dragon Warrior.
One bright, happy, sunny day, a young man stands in a castle before a king, who explains that an evil Dragonlord has stolen the Orb of Light from Tantagel Castle along with his daughter, Princess Lora. He tells the young man to go forth and fight against this evil, then gives him a torch, a key, and 120 gold pieces. That’s right. The King of this place wants you to rescue his daughter and some precious artifact, but only hands you 120 GP, a key which you have to use to unlock the throne room to get out of it, and a torch which you probably won’t use for a few hours lest you want Spooky and Dracky to eat you alive out there. Well, that was a rude awakening, huh? Yeah, well, let’s get our heroic butts in gear and get the F out of here. Outside the castle, there’s the little Tantagel Town, where supplies are ready for a price. Y’know, I get the feeling that our hero is Lawful Good, what with going out to kill monsters to make money unarmed just to afford to buy a sword, so he can go kill better monsters so he can level up enough to defeat the Dragon at the bottom of a labyrinth to save their Princess. Sheesh.
Well, anyway, Dragon Warrior on the GBC is a nice remake of the original NES game. I have never played the original NES version, but in high school, I enjoyed the GBC game with my little brother not knowing about the older version. I remember Ralph complaining about it, “There’s not five letters! What are we gonna name the hero?” And we decided on “Ralf”. I know, I know. He was ten and… oh, whatever. Anyway, now that I’m playing on my emulator, I’ve named all my files where I play as a boy “Gaby” or “Gabriel” if it fits, and as a girl, my name is Suzuri. Either way, I’ve always enjoyed this game be it a remake or not, because I just like RPGs. Games where saving the princess is part of it, I’m usually on the uptake. I suppose that’s why when a game like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure comes along, I love it - as the prince is the one being rescued for a change, hahaha! I think I’m missing the point, though.
As always, a friendly familiar face is always there to welcome you to the game, in the form of a blue tear shaped slime. I’ve always found those happy little things so friendly, and wondered why they look so cute if they’re fighting against you. Of course, our friend is only worth 2 experience points and 1 GP. I hope you went to the Item Shop in Tantagel to take a peek at their wares, because if you bought nothing yet in the way of armor or herbs, you still have a ways to go before you can afford the Copper Sword. That thing carries the hefty price tag of 180 GP. Your first real weapon upgrade, and you’ll have to level a few times without being armed with anything to be able to afford it. Ah, well.
After hitting about level five, which might take you about two hours or so, you can brave the cave up north where you’ll find out a bit more of the story. Are you ready? Well, take your one torch the king oh-so-graciously gave you, and hike it, buddy. I certainly hope you bought a Copper Sword before you attempt this… either way, it’s okay. Located in a small circle of desert, there’s a cave. Go in, and it’s pitch dark. This is why you need a torch, see? Light that baby up, and it looks just like it would if we were in a cave with a torch. For a game so light on the graphics, it does a good job of conveying atmosphere. Surprisingly enough, we don’t find enemy encounters in here. The mysterious music accompanies you down to a huge gravestone where the hero Loto leaves a message to his descendant, aka you. He explains that there are three treasures he used to defeat evil, and that he gave them to three wise sages, oh, and that it’s your job to go find these sages, wherever the hell they might be, and go get those treasures. Yep, that sounds like something I’ve seen in every single JRPG I’ve ever played. Ah, Yuji Horii, why’d you do it like this?!
Well, my only complaint about the game is that you are your only party member. That’s right. You have the hero and his pointy horned helmet. It’s okay, though, since you do get to learn some spells of all kinds, but it’s sad that you only have yourself to rely on. I realize that as the first game in the series that it gets some leeway, but one of my favorite aspect of other Dragon Warrior games is always the other party members. To date, my favorite characters are the Prince Princeton of Cannock in II, Torneko Taloon from IV, Gabo and Keifer from VII, and the loveable plump cockney speaking Yangus from VIII. My other favorite characters in the series come from the games where you create your party members, specifically III’s Goof-off turned Sage and everyone in IX.
So, I don’t mind playin’ alone for this romp, it just makes level grinding more of a grind than it usually is. Don’t forget that Dragon Warrior games are most definitely the kings of level grinding, and the standard was set from the get-go. If you aren’t level 20, do not attempt the Dragon Lord. To reiterate here, let me tell you what a friend of mine did once. He used a Game Genie to make it where his hero would always get a critical hit, every single time. Then, he went to face the Big Bad at level 19 because the grind from 19 to 20 was just getting on his nerves. Every single hit that landed was a critical hit, but it only did 1 point of damage. Everything else in the dungeon before that purple fat-ass Dragon Lord fell to Loto’s Sword with ease. But not the Dragon Lord.
I might seem like I’m complaining or even nitpicking about the Father of all JRPGs, but I don’t mean to. As the game is difficult and can get a bit repetitive due to level grinding, it’s still a classic and should be played by anyone who calls themselves a fan of the JRPG genre. Dragon Warrior caught the hearts of Japanese gamers and inspired so many games since its debut in 1985. Enix accomplished quite a bit with their feat, inspiring games like Final Fantasy to find their way in 1986. The Americans were indeed late to the party, but the Europeans didn’t see a single Dragon Warrior game until after the games started to be called Dragon Quest! The first game in the series which was able to even hop across the Atlantic was Dragon Quest VIII, and they didn’t even give it a number. That happens to be the case with all the Dragon Quest games I’ve found in Germany thus far, be they for the DS or the PS2’s Journey of the Cursed King. In the US, Chapters of the Chosen was labeled as Dragon Quest IV, with the subtitle. In Germany, it’s just subtitle. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
There’s a part of my heart which will always wish that Enix and Square had kept separate, because now that I’m older I’ve been able to see that Enix makes wonderful games which puts a lot of what Square does to shame. The spin-offs for Dragon Quest tend to be just as well thought out and well loved by fans as the main series, unlike the spin-offs for series like Final Fantasy. Hey, I loved Crystal Chronicles, but most of the world doesn’t see them as well as I do. Enix made games like Robotrek and Evo: Search for Eden, which are both very unique and beautiful. Square put out games like Mystic Quest and Bahumut Lagoon. My husband, a true gamer at his very core, stated that when he was younger, he always hoped that Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy would be the two biggest rivals in the entire video RPG market, and that this would motivate them to keep making better and better games. Now that Square and Enix merged, it seems like all the money goes to games with the prettiest graphics in all of Gamerland, with maps in straight lines, with bad voice acting at a $60 price tag. Yeah, that’s right, I hated FFXIII with a passion and if it weren’t for Dragon Quest, I’d have dropped following Square altogether because of that over hyped piece of shit.
But as for Loto’s Descendant, he saved the princess Lora and made lots of babies who founded new kingdoms all over the world - and it’s the great-grandchildren of Loto’s Descendant that happen to star in the sequel, Dragon Warrior II. We’ll start on the adventure to defeat Hargon next time.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
PS: Please note that I played the GBC remake for Dragon Warrior. In the original game, the princess' name was Gwaelin (yes, the same name as my Umbreon, that's where I got it from!)
Started October 3rd, 2010
Dragon Warrior Monsters is much like Final Fantasy’s Crystal Chronicles series, as it has a unique feel all its own and sometimes doesn’t need the name of the main series to give it “oomph” enough to sell it. Sometimes, the spin-off games get me more than the real series. In my case, this is very true for Final Fantasy’s Ivalice Alliance. The world that FF Tactics established that is carried through in the other games in the Ivalice Alliance keep me coming back, hungry for the world and the characters in it. Dragon Warrior Monsters has done the same thing to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the main Dragon Quest series. The games are always well made, carry a wonderful story with memorable characters and the music is always extraordinarily beautiful. Here, I want to start my own personal journey, where I take a deep breath and dive again into the World of Dragon Warrior.
One bright, happy, sunny day, a young man stands in a castle before a king, who explains that an evil Dragonlord has stolen the Orb of Light from Tantagel Castle along with his daughter, Princess Lora. He tells the young man to go forth and fight against this evil, then gives him a torch, a key, and 120 gold pieces. That’s right. The King of this place wants you to rescue his daughter and some precious artifact, but only hands you 120 GP, a key which you have to use to unlock the throne room to get out of it, and a torch which you probably won’t use for a few hours lest you want Spooky and Dracky to eat you alive out there. Well, that was a rude awakening, huh? Yeah, well, let’s get our heroic butts in gear and get the F out of here. Outside the castle, there’s the little Tantagel Town, where supplies are ready for a price. Y’know, I get the feeling that our hero is Lawful Good, what with going out to kill monsters to make money unarmed just to afford to buy a sword, so he can go kill better monsters so he can level up enough to defeat the Dragon at the bottom of a labyrinth to save their Princess. Sheesh.
Well, anyway, Dragon Warrior on the GBC is a nice remake of the original NES game. I have never played the original NES version, but in high school, I enjoyed the GBC game with my little brother not knowing about the older version. I remember Ralph complaining about it, “There’s not five letters! What are we gonna name the hero?” And we decided on “Ralf”. I know, I know. He was ten and… oh, whatever. Anyway, now that I’m playing on my emulator, I’ve named all my files where I play as a boy “Gaby” or “Gabriel” if it fits, and as a girl, my name is Suzuri. Either way, I’ve always enjoyed this game be it a remake or not, because I just like RPGs. Games where saving the princess is part of it, I’m usually on the uptake. I suppose that’s why when a game like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure comes along, I love it - as the prince is the one being rescued for a change, hahaha! I think I’m missing the point, though.
As always, a friendly familiar face is always there to welcome you to the game, in the form of a blue tear shaped slime. I’ve always found those happy little things so friendly, and wondered why they look so cute if they’re fighting against you. Of course, our friend is only worth 2 experience points and 1 GP. I hope you went to the Item Shop in Tantagel to take a peek at their wares, because if you bought nothing yet in the way of armor or herbs, you still have a ways to go before you can afford the Copper Sword. That thing carries the hefty price tag of 180 GP. Your first real weapon upgrade, and you’ll have to level a few times without being armed with anything to be able to afford it. Ah, well.
After hitting about level five, which might take you about two hours or so, you can brave the cave up north where you’ll find out a bit more of the story. Are you ready? Well, take your one torch the king oh-so-graciously gave you, and hike it, buddy. I certainly hope you bought a Copper Sword before you attempt this… either way, it’s okay. Located in a small circle of desert, there’s a cave. Go in, and it’s pitch dark. This is why you need a torch, see? Light that baby up, and it looks just like it would if we were in a cave with a torch. For a game so light on the graphics, it does a good job of conveying atmosphere. Surprisingly enough, we don’t find enemy encounters in here. The mysterious music accompanies you down to a huge gravestone where the hero Loto leaves a message to his descendant, aka you. He explains that there are three treasures he used to defeat evil, and that he gave them to three wise sages, oh, and that it’s your job to go find these sages, wherever the hell they might be, and go get those treasures. Yep, that sounds like something I’ve seen in every single JRPG I’ve ever played. Ah, Yuji Horii, why’d you do it like this?!
Well, my only complaint about the game is that you are your only party member. That’s right. You have the hero and his pointy horned helmet. It’s okay, though, since you do get to learn some spells of all kinds, but it’s sad that you only have yourself to rely on. I realize that as the first game in the series that it gets some leeway, but one of my favorite aspect of other Dragon Warrior games is always the other party members. To date, my favorite characters are the Prince Princeton of Cannock in II, Torneko Taloon from IV, Gabo and Keifer from VII, and the loveable plump cockney speaking Yangus from VIII. My other favorite characters in the series come from the games where you create your party members, specifically III’s Goof-off turned Sage and everyone in IX.
So, I don’t mind playin’ alone for this romp, it just makes level grinding more of a grind than it usually is. Don’t forget that Dragon Warrior games are most definitely the kings of level grinding, and the standard was set from the get-go. If you aren’t level 20, do not attempt the Dragon Lord. To reiterate here, let me tell you what a friend of mine did once. He used a Game Genie to make it where his hero would always get a critical hit, every single time. Then, he went to face the Big Bad at level 19 because the grind from 19 to 20 was just getting on his nerves. Every single hit that landed was a critical hit, but it only did 1 point of damage. Everything else in the dungeon before that purple fat-ass Dragon Lord fell to Loto’s Sword with ease. But not the Dragon Lord.
I might seem like I’m complaining or even nitpicking about the Father of all JRPGs, but I don’t mean to. As the game is difficult and can get a bit repetitive due to level grinding, it’s still a classic and should be played by anyone who calls themselves a fan of the JRPG genre. Dragon Warrior caught the hearts of Japanese gamers and inspired so many games since its debut in 1985. Enix accomplished quite a bit with their feat, inspiring games like Final Fantasy to find their way in 1986. The Americans were indeed late to the party, but the Europeans didn’t see a single Dragon Warrior game until after the games started to be called Dragon Quest! The first game in the series which was able to even hop across the Atlantic was Dragon Quest VIII, and they didn’t even give it a number. That happens to be the case with all the Dragon Quest games I’ve found in Germany thus far, be they for the DS or the PS2’s Journey of the Cursed King. In the US, Chapters of the Chosen was labeled as Dragon Quest IV, with the subtitle. In Germany, it’s just subtitle. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
There’s a part of my heart which will always wish that Enix and Square had kept separate, because now that I’m older I’ve been able to see that Enix makes wonderful games which puts a lot of what Square does to shame. The spin-offs for Dragon Quest tend to be just as well thought out and well loved by fans as the main series, unlike the spin-offs for series like Final Fantasy. Hey, I loved Crystal Chronicles, but most of the world doesn’t see them as well as I do. Enix made games like Robotrek and Evo: Search for Eden, which are both very unique and beautiful. Square put out games like Mystic Quest and Bahumut Lagoon. My husband, a true gamer at his very core, stated that when he was younger, he always hoped that Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy would be the two biggest rivals in the entire video RPG market, and that this would motivate them to keep making better and better games. Now that Square and Enix merged, it seems like all the money goes to games with the prettiest graphics in all of Gamerland, with maps in straight lines, with bad voice acting at a $60 price tag. Yeah, that’s right, I hated FFXIII with a passion and if it weren’t for Dragon Quest, I’d have dropped following Square altogether because of that over hyped piece of shit.
But as for Loto’s Descendant, he saved the princess Lora and made lots of babies who founded new kingdoms all over the world - and it’s the great-grandchildren of Loto’s Descendant that happen to star in the sequel, Dragon Warrior II. We’ll start on the adventure to defeat Hargon next time.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
PS: Please note that I played the GBC remake for Dragon Warrior. In the original game, the princess' name was Gwaelin (yes, the same name as my Umbreon, that's where I got it from!)
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Slime Smile - PART 2
PART 2: The Starry Night Tournament
Started October 1, 2010
You guys may have noticed while reading my inner thoughts here that I have said both “Dragon Quest” and “Dragon Warrior” in passing. Most video game fans know about how the original Japanese name is Dragon Quest, but due to name issues in the United States release the first game was called Dragon Warrior and it stuck for a while. Now that the name for Dragon Quest also belongs to Square Enix, all of the games now released are called Dragon Quest. Japanese purists and those who got into the series in the later days call the series Dragon Quest. Those of us who have been into it since before the change still call it Dragon Warrior with fondness. It’s hard to refuse those nostalgic feelings, y’know. Anyway, my venture into the Traveler’s Gate has yet to end. Not by far.
After spending a long while with Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara’s Adventure, I became curious - a friend of mine on Facebook kept mentioning his love for the first Dragon Quest Monsters game so much that to this day, he still owns his old Gameboy and DWM even after the rest of the world has surpassed the GBA and moved straight on to the awesomeness that is the DS. I had to see exactly what it was that kept fans coming back, even with newer monster games running rampant these days.
I once again booted up my Visualboy Advance to find out.
In Dragon Warrior Monsters, you play as a little boy who lives with his big sister, Maya Lou. One night after Maya Lou falls asleep, you sneak out of bed and go to the living room, when all of a sudden, monsters pop out of the drawers in the corner! One comes up to you and asks if you're Maya Lou, and they figure out that you aren't, then dash to the bedroom to kidnap your sister into the drawers! In a moment of shock, another monster comes up to you asking who you are and when it finds out that it's too late to save Maya Lou, it asks you to follow it. The drawers take you to a place in the Starry Night Temple, where
the Master Monster Tamer tells you that if you compete in the Starry Night Tournament held here in GreatTree, then you'll be granted a wish. Thus begins your quest to climb the ranks of the Battle Arena to qualify to compete in the Tournament. The king gives you a single slime named Slib and sends you into a
randomly generated dungeon through a Traveler's Gate, where your first quest is to find his pet Healer and take it home.
Of course, going against a Healer with just a level 1 old ass slime by himself really isn’t going to cut it. I mean, the thing’s got HP and healing spells (considering the name) up the ass for its level, so the player has to find himself a few new friends on the way. Using the treasures picked up as the journey goes along, you can try to get some monsters to join you by offering them food, like in the sequel game. Monsters sure do like their meats, and they tend to be picky about them. Don’t expect for every monster in the game to go gaga over a single piece of Beef Jerky, my friends. Sometimes, a monster will come up to you after battle to ask if it can join your team without being bribed. It’s a low chance, but if you’re so broke you can’t afford some treats, which you will be when the story first gets started, then you can’t really refuse. When on the way to find the Healer, personally I got myself a Dracky and a Slug to accompany my slime, and we were about level 5 when we got to him. Afterward, Hale the Healer joined my team instead of going back to the King, and I booted the Slug out of my party, as he was doing nothing but soaking up hits anyway.
That party lasted me a long time. I didn’t breed them until they were at least in their upper 30s because I liked them. Slib, Flap (my Dracky), and Ring (what I named the Healer). I saw so many monsters that reminded me of my quests in the normal Dragon Warrior games. The plot didn’t feel so forced once I really picked up the dungeon exploring pace. Eventually, I had recruited so many monsters that I was running out of places to put them, and I would go back to breed at random to save space and keep the eggs tucked away so I could get more. As much as I liked my team, Slib, Flap, and Ring were starting to get obsolete after the first five boss battles - as I had never made any compound monsters with them. They are very common monsters that are well known mascots of the entire Dragon Warrior franchise. Who can say no to a team of smiling cuties like them? People who want to move on to new dungeons, that’s who.
Sadly, Dragon Warrior Monsters forces one to make new monsters if the player wants to keep up at the game’s pace. This is not the case with just the first game, but all of the Dragon Warrior Monsters games out there from the first to Joker. Depending on the monster’s parents, the new babies can level up more and learn more skills than a monster you just catch in the wild. I suppose you could say that their skills are in their DNA or something like that, but whatever the case is, it’s possible for my favorite monster in all of the entire series of Dragon Warrior called the HaloSlime (later renamed as the Angel Slime) who’s description explains that only the slimes with the purest of hearts can become one - can learn a very powerful dark based Evil Slash - because one of the possible ways to get one is by marrying a Slime of high intellect with a zombie that learns Evil Slash naturally. HaloSlimes are supposed to be the epitome of purity. This doesn’t make much sense. It’s like you had to kill a slime to get a slime’s soul… Creepy.
Well, there’s not much else to talk about the first DWM game. The huge amount of monsters, the creative if somewhat nonsensical style of breeding, the randomly generated treasures and dungeons, and the excuse plot are all nice things. For a Gameboy game, the graphics are very nice. The best part of the graphics are the monster images themselves - for your status menu and in battle. They are nicely detailed. My favorite thing, besides the wonderful game play and potential for multiplayer action, about all of the DWM series is the music. This stands for all Dragon Warrior games from the classic start on the NES to the recent ninth installment for the DS and all of those in-between. Koichi Sugiyama is considered the Grandfather of Video Game Music, and that title is well deserved. The music doesn’t sound like a sloppy last-minute phoned-in soundtrack provided for a spin-off. (I’m looking at you, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology!) The unique pieces are great, but there are also lovely remixes of old themes from the main series, too.
It didn’t take long for me to want to jump games again before completing one. I’ll admit, I haven’t really beaten many of the Dragon Warrior series myself. I didn’t have the NES games. My first DW title was Dragon Warrior VII on the PSX, which was given to me by my father when I was around 16 or so. Later, about a month or two after that, I picked up DW 1 and 2 together for Gameboy Color. It’s not a series I grew up with, like Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. However, at this point in my life, I find myself closer to Dragon Warrior than I do with either Zelda or FF. Am I missing something here?
I felt my heart opening more and more to this world, with much more to be discovered. In fact, it was in a dungeon in DWM that I started to think about all of my DW experiences thus far. What tipped me off was getting to the end of one of the dungeons to find a princess standing next to a sleeping Dragon. Not just any Dragon, but that green, kneeling, wingless Dragon that served as a boss in the original Dragon Warrior guarding Princess Lora. I talked to the Princess, who asked if I would carry her home. Of course, the boy that serves as the player avatar for this game is about eleven years old, and wasn’t able to pick her up. So she just said she’d wait for a stronger man. Oh, come on, lady, Princess Zelda didn’t demand that I CARRY her when I saved her, y’know, she actually walked on her own two feet behind me, but whatever. Just then, the dragon stirred in his slumber and my monsters had to step in and save my little hind end. After beating the dragon to a pulp, when I talked to the Princess again, she said she liked me because I was strong, but that I wasn’t the youth she’s waiting for. I wish I could have told her, “Hey, I killed the Dragon. You don’t have to stay here in this dungeon anymore.” After going back while leveling up, she’s still there, waiting for a particular youth. Yep, same princess. Hell, even the dungeon room was shaped the same as the original’s. It was a great way to have an allusion to the Ur Example of the JRPG.
Which brings me to my next point. Dragon Warrior Monsters would not be without Dragon Warrior. Just for fun, I think I’ll hop a traveler’s gate and see what I can find around the town of Tantagel.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
Started October 1, 2010
You guys may have noticed while reading my inner thoughts here that I have said both “Dragon Quest” and “Dragon Warrior” in passing. Most video game fans know about how the original Japanese name is Dragon Quest, but due to name issues in the United States release the first game was called Dragon Warrior and it stuck for a while. Now that the name for Dragon Quest also belongs to Square Enix, all of the games now released are called Dragon Quest. Japanese purists and those who got into the series in the later days call the series Dragon Quest. Those of us who have been into it since before the change still call it Dragon Warrior with fondness. It’s hard to refuse those nostalgic feelings, y’know. Anyway, my venture into the Traveler’s Gate has yet to end. Not by far.
After spending a long while with Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara’s Adventure, I became curious - a friend of mine on Facebook kept mentioning his love for the first Dragon Quest Monsters game so much that to this day, he still owns his old Gameboy and DWM even after the rest of the world has surpassed the GBA and moved straight on to the awesomeness that is the DS. I had to see exactly what it was that kept fans coming back, even with newer monster games running rampant these days.
I once again booted up my Visualboy Advance to find out.
In Dragon Warrior Monsters, you play as a little boy who lives with his big sister, Maya Lou. One night after Maya Lou falls asleep, you sneak out of bed and go to the living room, when all of a sudden, monsters pop out of the drawers in the corner! One comes up to you and asks if you're Maya Lou, and they figure out that you aren't, then dash to the bedroom to kidnap your sister into the drawers! In a moment of shock, another monster comes up to you asking who you are and when it finds out that it's too late to save Maya Lou, it asks you to follow it. The drawers take you to a place in the Starry Night Temple, where
the Master Monster Tamer tells you that if you compete in the Starry Night Tournament held here in GreatTree, then you'll be granted a wish. Thus begins your quest to climb the ranks of the Battle Arena to qualify to compete in the Tournament. The king gives you a single slime named Slib and sends you into a
randomly generated dungeon through a Traveler's Gate, where your first quest is to find his pet Healer and take it home.
Of course, going against a Healer with just a level 1 old ass slime by himself really isn’t going to cut it. I mean, the thing’s got HP and healing spells (considering the name) up the ass for its level, so the player has to find himself a few new friends on the way. Using the treasures picked up as the journey goes along, you can try to get some monsters to join you by offering them food, like in the sequel game. Monsters sure do like their meats, and they tend to be picky about them. Don’t expect for every monster in the game to go gaga over a single piece of Beef Jerky, my friends. Sometimes, a monster will come up to you after battle to ask if it can join your team without being bribed. It’s a low chance, but if you’re so broke you can’t afford some treats, which you will be when the story first gets started, then you can’t really refuse. When on the way to find the Healer, personally I got myself a Dracky and a Slug to accompany my slime, and we were about level 5 when we got to him. Afterward, Hale the Healer joined my team instead of going back to the King, and I booted the Slug out of my party, as he was doing nothing but soaking up hits anyway.
That party lasted me a long time. I didn’t breed them until they were at least in their upper 30s because I liked them. Slib, Flap (my Dracky), and Ring (what I named the Healer). I saw so many monsters that reminded me of my quests in the normal Dragon Warrior games. The plot didn’t feel so forced once I really picked up the dungeon exploring pace. Eventually, I had recruited so many monsters that I was running out of places to put them, and I would go back to breed at random to save space and keep the eggs tucked away so I could get more. As much as I liked my team, Slib, Flap, and Ring were starting to get obsolete after the first five boss battles - as I had never made any compound monsters with them. They are very common monsters that are well known mascots of the entire Dragon Warrior franchise. Who can say no to a team of smiling cuties like them? People who want to move on to new dungeons, that’s who.
Sadly, Dragon Warrior Monsters forces one to make new monsters if the player wants to keep up at the game’s pace. This is not the case with just the first game, but all of the Dragon Warrior Monsters games out there from the first to Joker. Depending on the monster’s parents, the new babies can level up more and learn more skills than a monster you just catch in the wild. I suppose you could say that their skills are in their DNA or something like that, but whatever the case is, it’s possible for my favorite monster in all of the entire series of Dragon Warrior called the HaloSlime (later renamed as the Angel Slime) who’s description explains that only the slimes with the purest of hearts can become one - can learn a very powerful dark based Evil Slash - because one of the possible ways to get one is by marrying a Slime of high intellect with a zombie that learns Evil Slash naturally. HaloSlimes are supposed to be the epitome of purity. This doesn’t make much sense. It’s like you had to kill a slime to get a slime’s soul… Creepy.
Well, there’s not much else to talk about the first DWM game. The huge amount of monsters, the creative if somewhat nonsensical style of breeding, the randomly generated treasures and dungeons, and the excuse plot are all nice things. For a Gameboy game, the graphics are very nice. The best part of the graphics are the monster images themselves - for your status menu and in battle. They are nicely detailed. My favorite thing, besides the wonderful game play and potential for multiplayer action, about all of the DWM series is the music. This stands for all Dragon Warrior games from the classic start on the NES to the recent ninth installment for the DS and all of those in-between. Koichi Sugiyama is considered the Grandfather of Video Game Music, and that title is well deserved. The music doesn’t sound like a sloppy last-minute phoned-in soundtrack provided for a spin-off. (I’m looking at you, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology!) The unique pieces are great, but there are also lovely remixes of old themes from the main series, too.
It didn’t take long for me to want to jump games again before completing one. I’ll admit, I haven’t really beaten many of the Dragon Warrior series myself. I didn’t have the NES games. My first DW title was Dragon Warrior VII on the PSX, which was given to me by my father when I was around 16 or so. Later, about a month or two after that, I picked up DW 1 and 2 together for Gameboy Color. It’s not a series I grew up with, like Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. However, at this point in my life, I find myself closer to Dragon Warrior than I do with either Zelda or FF. Am I missing something here?
I felt my heart opening more and more to this world, with much more to be discovered. In fact, it was in a dungeon in DWM that I started to think about all of my DW experiences thus far. What tipped me off was getting to the end of one of the dungeons to find a princess standing next to a sleeping Dragon. Not just any Dragon, but that green, kneeling, wingless Dragon that served as a boss in the original Dragon Warrior guarding Princess Lora. I talked to the Princess, who asked if I would carry her home. Of course, the boy that serves as the player avatar for this game is about eleven years old, and wasn’t able to pick her up. So she just said she’d wait for a stronger man. Oh, come on, lady, Princess Zelda didn’t demand that I CARRY her when I saved her, y’know, she actually walked on her own two feet behind me, but whatever. Just then, the dragon stirred in his slumber and my monsters had to step in and save my little hind end. After beating the dragon to a pulp, when I talked to the Princess again, she said she liked me because I was strong, but that I wasn’t the youth she’s waiting for. I wish I could have told her, “Hey, I killed the Dragon. You don’t have to stay here in this dungeon anymore.” After going back while leveling up, she’s still there, waiting for a particular youth. Yep, same princess. Hell, even the dungeon room was shaped the same as the original’s. It was a great way to have an allusion to the Ur Example of the JRPG.
Which brings me to my next point. Dragon Warrior Monsters would not be without Dragon Warrior. Just for fun, I think I’ll hop a traveler’s gate and see what I can find around the town of Tantagel.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
Smile Slime - PART 1
Smile Slime: My Days in the World of Dragon Warrior
By Suzuri Heinze, aka KawaiiRanChan.
Gabys.girl@yahoo.com
PART ONE: Rediscovering a Lost Love
Started September 28, 2010
With my situation in life as it is right now, I've had a bit of trouble getting a hold of money. Not just for buying new games, but for, y'know, living expenses. Thus, my hobby of gaming has made a new home on my personal laptop computer named Chime - with the internet as a partner in crime, I overloaded myself with emulators and countless ROMs. Why? Even as a broke mother of two, denying myself my hobby when my girls are in bed would be rather stupid. After all, what is a gamer without a game, right? With so many "new" games to play, at first, I found myself digging into my GBA stuff and pulling out Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. I had a fling with that for about three days, until I went online to look up other good monster raising games. I picked up a Digimon World game, and I enjoyed that. When I didn't want to raise my Patamon, I would just turn off my PSXfin and load up my Visualboy Advance to rescue lost Pokemon as Eevee and vice versa. Neither game was bad, but neither held my attention for long periods of time. Neither game made me want to stay up way after my usual bedtime, causing me to lose vast hours of sleep just because I was compelled to play. I thought that maybe I was losing my gamer's touch.
There's a special feeling you get as a gamer when you have that one game you're into at that moment. The one game that almost drives your entire existence while you play it. You can't help but think about it, it drives you insane as you don't have the time to play it. That one game which cements your soul into the gaming world, the bond that makes you a gamer. Until I realized that it wasn't Patamon or Eevee that really needed my love, I kept with them. They get a lot of love from fans of both of those franchises, myself included - but my monster raising heart felt like something was missing here.
Going over to Zophar's Domain's ROMs, I found myself looking at the Gameboy section. I looked at a few of the Dragon Warrior games there. I had the GBC remake of Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 in high school. It was a fun game, so I got it to add to my pile of GBA stuff. Then I was like, ah, what the hell. I like all the Dragon Warrior/Quest stuff that I've ever played thus far, I'll just get the whole damn stack. I went on GameFAQs to look up some information about the games I hadn't played yet. I was really feeling like diving into the World of Dragon Warrior, but Torneko The Last Hope wasn't really calling out to me. I then found the box covers for both versions of Dragon Warrior Monsters 2.
There's Cobi's Journey and Tara's Adventure versions of DWM2, akin to Pokemon's colored sets Gold and Silver which were released around the same time. Ah. I played some Dragon Quest Monsters before on the DS. DQM: Joker was astonishingly beautiful, had great music, and a nice setting - but it suffered in length and variety of monsters you could have. I thought about playing DWM2, but what I remembered of Joker didn't stick with me. I wanted something I could really sink my teeth into. Joker lasted me at maximum 20 hours, and most of the length was in just level grinding. But I had invested so much time in monster games thus far, and I can't turn down that little slime smile once he's got me.
Here I go. I was booting up my Visualboy Advance with Tara's Adventure, getting introduced to the Island of GreatLog, which is just across the ocean from GreatTree, the country where the first Dragon Warrior Monsters is set... and the first thing I thought was "wow, this town sure is small". Then I found the adventure's hook where the Kingdom's Prince and his partner get into mischief and drag me into it with them. The first little quest that I got from my mama was to go to the Vault and get a package from my grandma. Well, Prince Kameha and his little Watabou decided that they wanted to eat it because it smelled good, and stole it out of my hands! I go chasing' them down a well to watch them fight over the package, when Prince Kameha falls over and knocks the seal off of the GreatLog tree! See, GreatLog is a town built into a huge tree in the middle of a vast ocean, and that seal kept in all the life-force. As the seal came off of it, the life force started pouring out and the land begins to sink. The Prince, scared of being punished for his screw up, runs out - but his partner jumps in the whole and clogs it, proving he's not just a little purple bat shaped prick. Then he comes and asks me to find something, anything, out in the world that can act as the GreatLog's seal again. Me? But I'm just a little bitty girl. I can't go out by myself... well, since my parents run a monster farm and I have the ability to talk to them, I guess I should go and take my monster friends out there. Woot. Thus begins a very interesting adventure.
The plot seems a little juvenile, and it is, starring a barely ten year old girl (or eleven year old boy - Cobi does appear to be older than Tara) that gets to go world hopping with a team of monsters she either convinces to join her by bribing them with food or breeding on her family's farm. Typically, unless you're really into monster raising games, the plot probably wouldn't hook you. But you forget, I am a monster raising game fan, and I don't need much more than an excuse plot to find ultra powerful pets. I downloaded and started my Adventure on a Thursday night. I couldn't put it down. The next day, all I wanted to do was keep playing...
I was hooked from the get-go, and the more keys I found to more worlds, the more I was loving it. The random treasure system found in the other worlds was a nice addition. I realize that all of the maps in the first DWM game were random, as well as the treasures, and there are plenty of random maps to work on in the second games. You will receive keys for doing various things like clearing a dungeon or completing a quest and these keys will react with the Great Door in each world's Door Shrine. The ones that are all ready named will take you to worlds where the story will continue. The Desert, the Pirate, the Ice, and the Sky worlds are the first examples. Unnamed magic keys, once taken to an appraiser, will take you to random worlds based on the name that he assigns it. The names will always give you a hint at where the keys will take you, but those worlds are randomly generated. Trust me, after going through about ten different worlds, you'll notice that the NPCs in those worlds start saying the same things like "You're a little kid that trains monsters! Interesting!" The randomly generated towns there always have a normal item shop and a priest to revive, uncurse, or cure your poison as usual...
But you don't go to the randomly generated worlds to converse with the townsfolk. In fact, one doesn't play a monster raising game to converse with the townsfolk. You go for the monsters! Every Dragon Warrior Monster I've ever known is in this title, from the happy Slime to the elusive Metaly to that very dodgy Dracky and even bosses of previous Dragon Warrior games like Estark, Pizzaro, and Dragonlord. Dragonlord? That name used to make us RPG fans piss our pants, and we get to tame one? Where do I sign up?! Oh, yes. You can sign up, but it'll take a bit of tweaking with the breeding system before you'll be able to find Dragonlord. Boss monsters, of course, are very hard to get a hold of, but as you can expect from a monster game, those bosses are very powerful. I'd venture to say that they are akin to the Legendary Pokemon ala Mewtwo. I'm sure that anyone could beat the game easily with an Estark named Bob on their
team. Just as much as I don't like Legendary Pokemon, I don't like to use the Boss Monsters of Dragon Warrior on my team either. People have asked me time and time again, "Why don't you use the powerful guys? I mean, I beat that creepy ass Demon Lord with my Estark, LOL" and my response is simple. It takes
no skill to win with super-special-awesome critters that have more stats than God himself. I mean, yeah, it takes skill to GET one. And I suppose having it around is nice to show everyone what an awesome breeder you are, but I don't like that. I'd rather beat the final boss with a tricked out WalrusMan, HaloSlime, and a SkyDragon because I like them and I spent hours with the breeding tree to get the exact skills and stats I want on them. To me, the ones you work the hardest with and spend the most time with raising are worth more than random boss monsters that can kill anything without any effort. Oh, wait, I forgot to add something. I like playing with monsters that I like - regardless of how useful or powerful they are or aren't. This is something people have forgotten how to do. I'm looking at you, SMOGON. I don't care if
Dragonlord has great stats. I think he's ugly when compared with a SkyDragon, who looks like an Imperial Chinese Dragon with that cool long mustache and the shaggy mane, you know what I'm talking about. Then I spent upwards of thirty hours of real time playing with him in my team and he saves my team's ass
during hard battles of course I get attached to him! That might make me crazy, not wanting to get rid of a monster that I hand raised and had with me so long, but I don't think it does.
With a great set of monsters and a vast set of worlds, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure had me playing so much. The first weekend I had it, I spent 70 hours on it. I didn't even notice when I was hungry or that I needed to sleep at some point. It's longer than Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts II
combined. And this comes from an image of a Gameboy Color cart! You want to know the best part of this whole thing? I'm not even finished with the game yet! I haven't done side quests yet! This game has more playtime and flexibility in it than over 75% of games made today for bigger and more powerful console
games.
I finally had a game that was compelling me to play during my free time. But after finishing Sky World, I got kinda curious. The second game in the Dragon Warrior Monsters spin-off set the bar way higher than Joker ever did. My venture into Yuji Horii's wonderful world of Dragon Warrior had not come to a close. I
wanted to see how the series all began! What monsters were there at the start, and what was it like? Where did it all happen, and how did the story unfold?
Well, I’ll get to that next time.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
By Suzuri Heinze, aka KawaiiRanChan.
Gabys.girl@yahoo.com
PART ONE: Rediscovering a Lost Love
Started September 28, 2010
With my situation in life as it is right now, I've had a bit of trouble getting a hold of money. Not just for buying new games, but for, y'know, living expenses. Thus, my hobby of gaming has made a new home on my personal laptop computer named Chime - with the internet as a partner in crime, I overloaded myself with emulators and countless ROMs. Why? Even as a broke mother of two, denying myself my hobby when my girls are in bed would be rather stupid. After all, what is a gamer without a game, right? With so many "new" games to play, at first, I found myself digging into my GBA stuff and pulling out Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. I had a fling with that for about three days, until I went online to look up other good monster raising games. I picked up a Digimon World game, and I enjoyed that. When I didn't want to raise my Patamon, I would just turn off my PSXfin and load up my Visualboy Advance to rescue lost Pokemon as Eevee and vice versa. Neither game was bad, but neither held my attention for long periods of time. Neither game made me want to stay up way after my usual bedtime, causing me to lose vast hours of sleep just because I was compelled to play. I thought that maybe I was losing my gamer's touch.
There's a special feeling you get as a gamer when you have that one game you're into at that moment. The one game that almost drives your entire existence while you play it. You can't help but think about it, it drives you insane as you don't have the time to play it. That one game which cements your soul into the gaming world, the bond that makes you a gamer. Until I realized that it wasn't Patamon or Eevee that really needed my love, I kept with them. They get a lot of love from fans of both of those franchises, myself included - but my monster raising heart felt like something was missing here.
Going over to Zophar's Domain's ROMs, I found myself looking at the Gameboy section. I looked at a few of the Dragon Warrior games there. I had the GBC remake of Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 in high school. It was a fun game, so I got it to add to my pile of GBA stuff. Then I was like, ah, what the hell. I like all the Dragon Warrior/Quest stuff that I've ever played thus far, I'll just get the whole damn stack. I went on GameFAQs to look up some information about the games I hadn't played yet. I was really feeling like diving into the World of Dragon Warrior, but Torneko The Last Hope wasn't really calling out to me. I then found the box covers for both versions of Dragon Warrior Monsters 2.
There's Cobi's Journey and Tara's Adventure versions of DWM2, akin to Pokemon's colored sets Gold and Silver which were released around the same time. Ah. I played some Dragon Quest Monsters before on the DS. DQM: Joker was astonishingly beautiful, had great music, and a nice setting - but it suffered in length and variety of monsters you could have. I thought about playing DWM2, but what I remembered of Joker didn't stick with me. I wanted something I could really sink my teeth into. Joker lasted me at maximum 20 hours, and most of the length was in just level grinding. But I had invested so much time in monster games thus far, and I can't turn down that little slime smile once he's got me.
Here I go. I was booting up my Visualboy Advance with Tara's Adventure, getting introduced to the Island of GreatLog, which is just across the ocean from GreatTree, the country where the first Dragon Warrior Monsters is set... and the first thing I thought was "wow, this town sure is small". Then I found the adventure's hook where the Kingdom's Prince and his partner get into mischief and drag me into it with them. The first little quest that I got from my mama was to go to the Vault and get a package from my grandma. Well, Prince Kameha and his little Watabou decided that they wanted to eat it because it smelled good, and stole it out of my hands! I go chasing' them down a well to watch them fight over the package, when Prince Kameha falls over and knocks the seal off of the GreatLog tree! See, GreatLog is a town built into a huge tree in the middle of a vast ocean, and that seal kept in all the life-force. As the seal came off of it, the life force started pouring out and the land begins to sink. The Prince, scared of being punished for his screw up, runs out - but his partner jumps in the whole and clogs it, proving he's not just a little purple bat shaped prick. Then he comes and asks me to find something, anything, out in the world that can act as the GreatLog's seal again. Me? But I'm just a little bitty girl. I can't go out by myself... well, since my parents run a monster farm and I have the ability to talk to them, I guess I should go and take my monster friends out there. Woot. Thus begins a very interesting adventure.
The plot seems a little juvenile, and it is, starring a barely ten year old girl (or eleven year old boy - Cobi does appear to be older than Tara) that gets to go world hopping with a team of monsters she either convinces to join her by bribing them with food or breeding on her family's farm. Typically, unless you're really into monster raising games, the plot probably wouldn't hook you. But you forget, I am a monster raising game fan, and I don't need much more than an excuse plot to find ultra powerful pets. I downloaded and started my Adventure on a Thursday night. I couldn't put it down. The next day, all I wanted to do was keep playing...
I was hooked from the get-go, and the more keys I found to more worlds, the more I was loving it. The random treasure system found in the other worlds was a nice addition. I realize that all of the maps in the first DWM game were random, as well as the treasures, and there are plenty of random maps to work on in the second games. You will receive keys for doing various things like clearing a dungeon or completing a quest and these keys will react with the Great Door in each world's Door Shrine. The ones that are all ready named will take you to worlds where the story will continue. The Desert, the Pirate, the Ice, and the Sky worlds are the first examples. Unnamed magic keys, once taken to an appraiser, will take you to random worlds based on the name that he assigns it. The names will always give you a hint at where the keys will take you, but those worlds are randomly generated. Trust me, after going through about ten different worlds, you'll notice that the NPCs in those worlds start saying the same things like "You're a little kid that trains monsters! Interesting!" The randomly generated towns there always have a normal item shop and a priest to revive, uncurse, or cure your poison as usual...
But you don't go to the randomly generated worlds to converse with the townsfolk. In fact, one doesn't play a monster raising game to converse with the townsfolk. You go for the monsters! Every Dragon Warrior Monster I've ever known is in this title, from the happy Slime to the elusive Metaly to that very dodgy Dracky and even bosses of previous Dragon Warrior games like Estark, Pizzaro, and Dragonlord. Dragonlord? That name used to make us RPG fans piss our pants, and we get to tame one? Where do I sign up?! Oh, yes. You can sign up, but it'll take a bit of tweaking with the breeding system before you'll be able to find Dragonlord. Boss monsters, of course, are very hard to get a hold of, but as you can expect from a monster game, those bosses are very powerful. I'd venture to say that they are akin to the Legendary Pokemon ala Mewtwo. I'm sure that anyone could beat the game easily with an Estark named Bob on their
team. Just as much as I don't like Legendary Pokemon, I don't like to use the Boss Monsters of Dragon Warrior on my team either. People have asked me time and time again, "Why don't you use the powerful guys? I mean, I beat that creepy ass Demon Lord with my Estark, LOL" and my response is simple. It takes
no skill to win with super-special-awesome critters that have more stats than God himself. I mean, yeah, it takes skill to GET one. And I suppose having it around is nice to show everyone what an awesome breeder you are, but I don't like that. I'd rather beat the final boss with a tricked out WalrusMan, HaloSlime, and a SkyDragon because I like them and I spent hours with the breeding tree to get the exact skills and stats I want on them. To me, the ones you work the hardest with and spend the most time with raising are worth more than random boss monsters that can kill anything without any effort. Oh, wait, I forgot to add something. I like playing with monsters that I like - regardless of how useful or powerful they are or aren't. This is something people have forgotten how to do. I'm looking at you, SMOGON. I don't care if
Dragonlord has great stats. I think he's ugly when compared with a SkyDragon, who looks like an Imperial Chinese Dragon with that cool long mustache and the shaggy mane, you know what I'm talking about. Then I spent upwards of thirty hours of real time playing with him in my team and he saves my team's ass
during hard battles of course I get attached to him! That might make me crazy, not wanting to get rid of a monster that I hand raised and had with me so long, but I don't think it does.
With a great set of monsters and a vast set of worlds, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure had me playing so much. The first weekend I had it, I spent 70 hours on it. I didn't even notice when I was hungry or that I needed to sleep at some point. It's longer than Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts II
combined. And this comes from an image of a Gameboy Color cart! You want to know the best part of this whole thing? I'm not even finished with the game yet! I haven't done side quests yet! This game has more playtime and flexibility in it than over 75% of games made today for bigger and more powerful console
games.
I finally had a game that was compelling me to play during my free time. But after finishing Sky World, I got kinda curious. The second game in the Dragon Warrior Monsters spin-off set the bar way higher than Joker ever did. My venture into Yuji Horii's wonderful world of Dragon Warrior had not come to a close. I
wanted to see how the series all began! What monsters were there at the start, and what was it like? Where did it all happen, and how did the story unfold?
Well, I’ll get to that next time.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
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