Today on Dragon Quest V: A super-eventful part of a super-eventful game. Check out this world map. Looks a bit like DQIV's, with a large inner sea. Pretty sure this game's world is bigger though.
Cutscene as lightning crashes. Check out those PS1-era visuals! Playing the phone version is like getting a boundary break on-screen all the time.
Bianca and the Hero infiltrate the haunted ghost tower.
The ghost horde from FFVI shows up and lurks around here.
This apparently used to be a castle, and the king and queen are still here faffing about as ghosts. Of course, the leader of the spirits that have taken the place over is lurking in the throne room.
"Fear Me!" says a voice in the dark.
Hero: "God?"
The nefarious mystery man uses a pit trap to get rid of them, like Ozzie. In the basement, skeletal chefs sprinkle salt on Bianca like Salt Bae.
...Salt Bae-anca?
Our heroes escape from the chefs and corner the ringleader on his balcony. The well-salted Bianca is INFURIATED.
"Fear Me" he says as my overleveled party turns him into cat food.
Was that the first boss? I think it was supposed to be.
HBK: "Was he in the match?"
Gold Orb acquired. I don't know how significant this will end up being. Will this game have multiple orbs to collect, like DQIII? We'll see. I don't remember too much about DQV, since it's been about 20 years and I only played the SFC version.
Oh yeah, the reason we went and did an entire ghost fortress in the first place: So that these two little shitheads would give us a cat they were bullying. It would have been a lot less trouble to just knock the guys into a river and retrieve the cat that way.
Bianca's got quite a mouth on 'er. Let's think of a name...
"Shithead?"
No! Dammit Ramirez! I'm not covering Highlander II yet! Get outta here!
Anyway, a name for the cat...
"Stupid?"
Man, get outta here, jerk!
"Stupid stupid stupid!"
Get outta here, Randy!
Bianca suggests various names (you can't make your own) and we land on...Punk.
Cat: "ALL I EVER! WANTEDDDD!"
I was pretty happy to have a 3-person team now, except Bianca immediately takes off. Her parents have a cat allergy and she's gotta go anyway.
The hero obtains a ribbon...which immediately goes on the cat. I gotta say, the first chapter of this game has something charming yet emotional about it. It's a certain something that the Mother series also has.
Time to trek to the next town. Pankraz obliterates anything that shows up on the way.
Me siento como mierda
A little what? Stop trying to set him up with women, Sancho! He's 8!
Next the hero hands over the gold orb to some weirdo without me even confirming it. I thought this might be a monster who'd make off with it, since they looked suspiciously like the hero and DQIV made me unable to trust.
He hands it back. Wait a minute, that's totally an older hero. This game... has time travel.
Next, the hero gets accosted in the basement by some weirdo named Honey who goes on about a magical faerie land.
Next you're gonna want us to build a manger for your savior, right?
Oh, huh. A stairway into some sort of other dimension has materialized. I vaguely remember this faerie world concept, but I thought it was in DQVI.
It's all good, I'm being surprised more than expected.
Honey brings the hero before the Faerie Queen.
"I meant a strapping MAN" the Queen squeaks. "GAWD."
"And no one...is softer or creamier than I am"
We need to go.
The Faerie overworld is a snowy land, a setting not used enough in this series before now.
The next objective involves going through this cave. What's down this pit?
The Fuok?
This is the Thief Key stand-in for this game, and teaches you how to lockpick.
Not sure why they changed from keys to this book-learning method. Maybe so that keys wouldn't eat up inventory space? In any case, now we can proceed to the throne of the being causing all of the problems in Faerie Land:
The Winter Queen, AKA the Night King except actually a threat.
This fight is BRUTAL, even with my levels above what they need to be at this point. I ran out of MP and started using Medical Herbs. This was like the 12th turn of the fight and at this point I was just wondering if I was supposed to lose the fight because she just WOULD NOT DIE
Finally got her. Out of MP, out of herbs, about two turns away from losing. She had massive amounts of HP. If this is a portent that the game will have tough bosses...then great, because DQIV was a bit of a steamroll.
Translation: "Come back to our dimension of prancing, giggling women when you're older, so we can get our thanking on. Wink."
Fuck, this entire place is so erotic. The Hero totally needs to come back here later after he goes through puberty.
The hero returns with a branch from Honey that blooms when left out. That's pretty great.
Time for our next journey with Pankraz:
Piped-in chants: "COOOOO-BERG. COOOOOO-BERG."
This game is full of NPCs like this, that just surprise you. They don't tell you where you need to go, or about some item you might get. AKA they aren't there for gameplay hints, like previous games. They might just be milling around, thinking about something going on in their lives. Again, it reminds me of the Mother series.
The king of COOOOOO-BERG is happy to see us, because he has problems. Alright, what problem do I need to deal with next?
Didn't this happen in the previous game?
"These baseless rumors have been fact-checked as false by fact-checkers. Also, the people peddling this Crazy Conspiracy also believe that the world is run by alien lizardmen! What nutbags! Here's a picture of some of them now, looking angry and unattractive, which we will subliminally tell you is representative of all of them."
I can't tell if the queen is laughing at us or not. "As IF" she cackles.
Our hero tries to hang out with Prince Harry, but it turns out he's a real prince-o-shit!
Prince Harry escapes through a trapdoor, where he's out of sight of the guards. He seems to want the hero to BEG him to be a lackey, when...
...kidnappers rush in! These cockney bastards are going to rake in the dough for this one.
Cockney Bastard 1 Voiceover: "Li'l did we know, dis would be da last day ov our lifes."
Cockney Bastard 2 Voiceover: "We was going ta use tha miney ta start a taxi company."
Pankraz sets off in pursuit, and we're following after we get equipped. The Iron Claw here is the first really good weapon equippable by Punk.
Punk: "MY ONLY ADDICTION IS COMPETITIONNNNN"
I do some money-grinding (the main quest can wait) to get new armor. During this time I battle... Fan-dann-glowwws.
After a little while (once again overleveled, hopefully) I'm able to get the Iron set here. We're coming up on the end of Chapter 1 (of 3) and this is the best equipment set you can end the chapter with. It's also unlikely that most players will because it's so pricey to get all of it.
There we go, the best equipment you can possibly have at this point. Even the cat is decked out in best equipment and he doesn't even wear clothes.
Next we battle the Slime Army. In DQII, slimes learned to team up. Now...they have formed militaries.
Party Talk usually gives you this, and it's the best Party Talk yet.
Pankraz, after presumably murdering the kidnappers, is now fighting monsters.
Morgan Freeman V.O.: "The cockney bastards had goals. Hopes and dreams."
Prince Harry is rescued before they can drink his blood or whatever is happening here. Let's get out while we can.
"I don't give a damn!" says Harry. This kid might be the most obnoxious person in this series.
Goons show up and Pankraz holds them off while the kidz flee. This is never a good sign in a DQ game. However, this is Pankraz we're talking about, the next Ortega. Nothing can stop... well, hold on, Ortega didn't actually do that well.
The kidz are stopped by the ringleader of the group just short of the exit. This is turning into a Saw movie.
He's the boss...the big boss, and annihilates the group with AOEs.
It's worrying, and impactful, when a boss just sits there and emotes during a fight. This guy chuckles a lot while your attacks plink off. Obviously there's no winning the fight, though I'd be willing to grind to level 50 or something if it were possible to win. ...maybe. That'd take like 80 hours. Probably not.
Pankraz shows up, and must battle the Bebop and Rocksteady of the bad guys. He easily defeats them (so much for their heat) and it's onward to the boss.
...wait, no, it isn't onward to the boss. Ladja probably doesn't think he can win against Pankraz, so they threaten to murder Gaz just to get him to comply.
Pankraz is forced to throw the rematch with the goons as they administer a brutal beatdown.
After that Pankraz gets blown away with a fireball from the Bishop.
Also, threatening people's families (livelihoods/jobs/access to food etc) to force ideological compliance is a tool commonly used by really shitty ideologies.
Ladja hauls the kidz off to the gulag. ...at least they aren't going to be sex slaves.
So this is now basically the story of Conan the Barbarian. Interesting, since that movie also partially inspired the original Legend of Zelda (in a very very different way).
In one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the entire series, maybe THE most, the cat looks around and finds himself alone, then looks for Pankraz in the smoldering crater where he once stood.
Man, WTF, game.
I don't want to end this on a total bummer, so I should note that seconds later Punk digi-volves into his Raichu form and triples in size. Before and After:
"EVEN THROUGH THE DARKESSSSST DAYS! THIS FIIIIIIRE BURNS!"
"LOOK IN MY EYYYYYYYES!"
CM who?
ReplyDeleteSoft and creamy WTF
This is definitely the most Mother-like game in the series.
Slime Knights are one of the most iconic new DQ5 enemies.
Kitten purring is A+ party chat.