Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Dragon Warrior IV RAW IS WAR Episode 3

IT'S MY LIFE IN A BOX, AND IT'S HARD TO BEAT!

TAKING CHALK IN MY ARMS, IT'S THE SOUL OF ME!

YOU WANT FIRE, ASHES SEE ME LAYING FACE DOWN!

WHY AM I THE THORN! IN YOUR EYE!






It's time... for THE CHOSEN ONE JEFF JARRETT!

Chapter five brings us to the hero, finally. Said hero's job is to find the characters from the earlier chapters and assemble a party. It's the same thing that happens later on in Live-a-Live.

Behold! I made the legendary hero a girl again. She isn't Buffy this time, though.

Learning Zap would have helped a TON, but it was not to be. Luckily I'll learn it via normal leveling later.

Before long, Estea's peaceful hamlet gets attacked by the forces of Necrosaro. They're here to take out the hero before she can grow up to stop them, Terminator-style.

As if she isn't devastated enough by the imminent sacking of her village, her "parents" tell her she's adopted before she keels over.

The hero's best friend (and possibly lover; the game does not specify) temporarily morphs into a clone of her. Why? ...so that she can go upstairs and die to the monsters, prompting them to think their mission is accomplished and leave.

For an NES game, this is SO VERY DARK.

Necrosaro himself led the charge. Who is this guy, and how badly is his ass going to get kicked at the end of the game?

Searching the ground where Celia was... gets you her hat. Just...dark.

It's lonely here now. Again, this is impressive from an NES game. Just seriously emotive stuff from an 8-bit system.

The now-homeless Estea stumbles across a farm. This is sorta like the Chocobo Ranch after you escape Midgar.

Estea discovers that these merchants are GAY MARRIED.

The next day, I sell Celia's hat, which was unequippable and taking up inventory space. HAVE I NO SOUL?

Taloon's tunnel to Endor has been completed, which gives you a faster means of travel. That's the first mention of one of the other characters... Estea's primary goal now is finding all of them.

All of my coins from previous casino visits carried over to this chapter. Too bad all I really need is a Meteorite Armband. Don't think she can equip the shield.

Estea walks out of the audience like The Shield.

Looks like Reed and Mia are getting married. Glad those kids made it.

Whoa! An actual other character! It's Nara, the healer and less-breasted Bella Twin.

"You said something. What?" says Nara while listening to her watch.

It wasn't pretty having a one-person party, so this is very welcome.

Unfortunately, in this last chapter, the only character you can actually control is the hero. This is the one thing about DWIV that I don't like more than its predecessor. You can set tactics for the other characters to use, but that's about it. It's kinda like Final Fantasy XII. ...well, not really. The gambit system is vastly more involved than this.

Soon Mara joins as well, making them...a THREE-WOMAN BAND!

THREE-WOMAN BANNND! Wooooo-oooh ooh ooooh oooooh!

The mighty Hector is the next person to join Degeneration-X. He isn't a "real" character per-se, because he wasn't in any of the other chapters and he's only temporary. His main claim to fame is buffing his own attack power. A lot. Well, most guys would probably need to go buff themselves often if they were trapped in a wagon with three beautiful women all day.

Some stupid townsperson messes with Hector's heart.

Oh, you can start collecting these bad boys now. Here's my first one. And furthermore, I won this Small Medal with a broken freakin' neck.

Time for Hector to get benched already, as I just found my fourth real party member... though he won't join just yet. Taloon is a mustachioed fiend, as well as an accomplished poet.

Taloon: "WELL...WELL...WELLLL. It is I, the quintessential studmuffin. The peeled banana in your fruit bowl of love! Put away those floppy disks, because here comes the man with the biggest hard drive in professional wrestling: Taloon 'I've got more RAM than you can handle' ...Gertner."

Here's one of Necrosaro's most inept goons. He tells Taloon the entire Taloon-Ambushing Plan, not realizing that he is in fact Taloon. Surely the mustache and massive penis were a giveaway?

Stephanie McMahon's escaped implants attack EN MASSE here. They're very difficult to take down before they flee, as is tradition...

...but if you can take down some of them it's a boatload of exp.

Atop the lighthouse - which is the coolest-looking dungeon yet - our heroes must battle a group of imps with arson-fetishes.

This is one nasty fight, to say the least. I barely eked out a win.

Now that the lighthouse is saved, Taloon joins the party for real, and there is much celebration.

Most of Estea's lines in this game are "...." or "???" and occasionally "...!"

Brey now joins us, despite being kind of old for a hip, young, counterculture group like Degeneration-X. At least he has sweet theme music.

He's a combination of Merchant/Dealer and Goof-Off/Jester from the previous game. He does a lot of goofing off, but he also has some useful powers and can fight moderately well.

Another cool-looking dungeon. This one is full of these annoying conveyor belts.

...lots and lots of them. At this point my party consists of Estea, Taloon, Brey, and Mara. I'm going offense-heavy, with the two DPS casters in back.

Brey... is broken out in loooove.

By God, now Alena is Stone Cold Steve Austin!

Speaking of DPS, here's the perfect replacement for Taloon in my burn group.

Next up is Cristo, aka Captain Friendzone. Estea and Alena grind up this root and take turns feeding it to him by hand while Taloon looks on creepily.

We are no longer the Corporation and the Ministry. We are now... THE CORPORATE MINISTRY.

Hector, alas, must get back to his business, so he leaves Degeneration-X. Our heroes all stand there and crotch-chop in his direction as he wanders off. He then shows up on Monday Nitro in the same night with no facial hair.

Healie...who is now human for some reason...gives us the wherabouts of the final character. Figures that Ragnar would be the last one acquired.

And there he is... getting beaten down in a backstage assault! Will our heroes be able to save him? WE'RE OUT OF TIME, FANS! FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON RAW IS WAR!

4 comments:

  1. This was the best DQ4 and Raw mashup yet. Just a solid post all around.
    The hometown-destruction thing has been done..quite enough, I'd say..but at this time it was still new and this is superb.
    I'm really glad you get Taloon early so you have a chance to see what he can do.
    I wonder if this game does 2-party scenarios? Might be too advanced for this time but I can dream.

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  2. Laughing my ass off at the comments, the two gays merchant, Ragnar getting beaten backstage. Awesome site you got there and you seem to have really good taste in awesome games like Lennus 2 and 7th Saga. You should try Final Fantasy II and Phantasy Star II, they are other hard but underrated rpg. Ogre Battle is also another underrated but fantastic game. Or even the Brandish games might be up your alleys, they are really good.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment, glad to know these old DW4 posts are still getting read. I've played FFII, PSII, and Ogre Battle (but haven't covered them). Not too familiar with Brandish, but I may look into it yet. In 2015 I've been covering more modern games, but I might go back to doing retro stuff soon.

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