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