Things get serious on the latest episode of DQIV, as Psaro reveals to his girlfriend that he is school shooter.
Psaro: "I was the ultimate gentleman, and STILL women didn't throw their undergarments at me at stop lights."
Rose: "I'm throwing my undergarments at you RIGHT NOW! Does this mean nothing to you??"
Alright buddy, you're laying it on a bit thick here.
The next step involves throwing the Gaia Sword (not a weapon) into the fires of Mount Doom.
This leads to the Castle of Women, which satellite footage has already shown us is full of bathing shrines and towel-wearing supple lasses.
"Is that...a MAN?" say the guards.
After all of the heart attacks, they had to ban men for their own good.
This place sells the spicy Pink Leotard, which I notice has a midriff cutout. I get it for all of the ladies. While the shopping is going on, Ragnar is being pawed-at by curious female onlookers.
This merchant managed to sneak in after tucking his man-parts.
Taloon gets caught in bed with the Queen's chambermaid, and sentenced to prison for indecent exposure.
"We'll be taking good care of him" says the guard as a line of women begins to form outside Taloon's cell.
What the hell is even going on here
"plz" says Taloon, "bring me ice packs"
This old priest is all "haw haw, I've taken up residence in this town full of women, #WINNING"
I don't see you winning much, sir, given that you had to pretend to be celibate to even get through the doors.
I track down the nefarious Kirk Buzzer for some fisticuffs, in an effort to get the next Zenithian item from the women.
Kirk Buzzer is fully a Toriyama character to say the least. He's also a surprisingly challenging boss. The boss fights in this game tend to be considerably easier than DQIII, at least in my experience. The Balzack fights are the main obstacles, and nothing that can't be cured by some levels.
After defeating Kirk Buzzer, we make it even worse by READING HIS DIARY.
In here he talks about how dirty he gets when he goes to Femiscyra. Yeah, I'll bet his hands got some use in the land of milk and honeys.
Rosehill is the home of Psaro and his girlfriend. Not sure why it's named after her. It was also somewhat of a haven for monsters, which Psaro and Rose both have a soft spot for - given their sense of rejection from the human world, it makes sense.
Somewhere in all of that, Taloon is freed from prison. He stumbles out, holding an icepack over his groin and smelling strongly of girl-scent.
Somewhere on this obscure beach, we find a key item. This is not easy to find without a guide, and really is obscurely-located for a new player.
This stone reverses sea level rise and lets our heroes reach this staircase. So it makes this cave a lot less wet, meaning it has the opposite effect that Taloon does on most things.
This is a PRIMO item. It's actually stronger than the Zenithian Sword by a shade. However, it's a bad move to give it to the Hero, since he's the only one who can use the Z-Sword. Rather than do an incremental upgrade, it's better to give this to someone else and have two strong sword-attackers. I generally go with Ragnar. Him, the Hero, and Alena generally provide all the physical damage output you need. Add Brey/Borya for the Oomph spell and Sap, and you can maul most foes before they even get out of the blocks. Even the final boss can be felled relatively quickly with this strat, unless he goes heavy on dispels.
Can also sub in Taloon for the Ragnar spot and give him the Liquid Metal Sword instead. I prefer to keep him in the Wagon where he can pleasure Maya and Meena simultaneously while Cristo sits in the corner with headphones on and pretends to be doing things on his phone.
We arrive at Rosehill, which is a pretty memorable place for being possibly the smallest location in the game.
This armored knight is Rose's guardian, and keeps visitors out. Presumably Psaro left him here to keep an eye on her. Well, he should have found a tougher guard. I hear Golem is looking for work.
Roseguardin is pretty clever, in a game full of clever puns. I'LL ALLOW IT
After that easy boss fight...wait, WAS that a boss? ...we hear from Rose. She needs for someone to stop Psaro and his terror plot before people get hurt.
Next up, I find the secret Chapter 5 shop in Endor. The LM armor might be the best in the game, and provides massive defense to the characters that can wear it...at the cost of more money than I have right now. The grind to get LMAs for everyone will take me right through the leveling I have to do for the final boss anyway.
They also have Cloaks of Evasion which might be the best mid-game, mid-range equipment. Spiked Armor is cool in its own way because it bounces some damage back at the attacker.
Here's the result of consolidating equipment to create one Super Cena type dude.
Speaking of Liquid Metals, it's time for Metal Babbles to start showing up. Awesome.
I GOT ONE.
...My God.
Danny Glover: "Alright, which one of you is next."
Getting very lucky here just like the previous game, damn.
Here's the Mod Rod, of Everquest fame. Formerly the Staff of Change. I've pointed this out before, but a whole bunch of the names of recurring spells/items in modern DQ ports are from Everquest, enough to think it isn't a coincidence. That game was hugely influential so it isn't much of a stretch. For example, Evac being the new name of the spell that warps you to the beginning of a dungeon, and also the name of the same spell in EQ. Fizzle is another one that jumps out, as is Magic Burst. Someone at Enix played a Wizard.
Scaling the colossus.
Using the Mod Rod, you can infiltrate the enemy fortress unseen. Here, everyone loves Psaro the Manslayer. However, their real leader is Aamon. It's like how in Chrono Trigger, Ozzie is the real leader of Magus' army and Magus is more of just the frontman/best fighter they have. Considering some of the same people worked on both games, it's no surprise.
I become THE YETAY as I continue to wander around. So basically Estark is SATAN HIMSELF, to paraphrase Jim Ross.
Psaro holds a meeting to discuss monster issues. He's basically running a corporation here. He informs the rank-and-file monsters that they need to get their preorders, Powerup Rewards cards, and GPGs up.
Estark's pronouns are capitalized, so you know he's a big deal. So basically a bunch of miners unknowingly burrowed into the ancient crypt of Estark and now he's awake. Also, Estark knows the "Secret of Evolution" that Psaro is always on about.
Our heroes head for the mine to deal with this Estark character.
The mines are full of toxic fumes from millennia of Estark passing gas, and all this guy can think about is gold as he lays there dying.
Here's Estark. He looks....very Nintendo DS here. This is just an HD port of the Nintendo DS remake, after all. Which was based on the PS1 port that this got because it was too late for a Super Famicom port...and my OCD is being driven nuts all over again.
Captain Codpiece is a formidable opponent, our most challenging fight yet. I don't remember this fight being particularly difficult, and thought Balzack was the big thing to look out for. Well, in this run Balzack wasn't bad at all, while this guy is a huge threat.
He mostly uses single-target slices that do large damage. It's enough to maul my casters though, leaving it to Ragnar and the Hero. At that point there wasn't a lot I could do, and I actually took a loss here.
WHO? Who? WHO?
The second time I took things a lot more seriously and managed to get past him without any losses.
Psaro shambles in and seems to be appalled that anyone who knows the Secret of Evolution could lose a fight. Maybe his precious Secret of Evolution isn't actually all that. Chill out and go home to your girlfriend.
Meanwhile...one of the miners bottled up some of Estark's gas and is trying to figure out how to sell it on the black market. THIS IS WHY YOU STAY OFF THE DEEP WEB.
The nice thing about the stone is that you can see the spot where it is during the night when the tide is different. Then the trick is just remembering that spot.
ReplyDeleteTaloon is a... busy man.
THE YETAAAAY