This was the missing chapter when I did the remake. Here I raise Zenithia Castle and battle Duran Duran, while that Hawk guy continues to hang around.
The game starts to get legitimately obnoxious at this point, with two huge worlds and little to no clue where to go half the time. The most tedious part is how the overworld functions as a maze, with all sorts of obstructions keeping you from flying or sailing from Point A to Point B. You know how in FFVI you can just fly to your destination, land, and go in? Not the case here. Nope, there's always some obstruction and some long route to take, or an otherwise confusing layout. I haven't seen an overworld this uncooperative since DQ2.
Long story short, the next destination is this solitary tree in the SW part of the world. After failing to find a way to land the carpet and get to it, I take the boat from elsewhere and make landfall with that. Why not just give me a spot to land the carpet? Was it really that important to cover all the shores with trees and hills so I had to go drive the boat over from somewhere?
After finding this completely hidden location, I get to solve a puzzle that requires obscure clues from elsewhere. Here's the solution. This causes a flying castle to emerge out of the ground...
...and attack! Yeah, this is Zenithia Castle, and it's a boss fight. Whoa.
After defeating it, I can board it. It's been infested with demons and is now called Hell Cloud Castle.
Castle ruler Duran (the latest Maou) is the Rubicante of the Maou group, and has good manners. He makes sure the demons let us through without incident.
Turns out Duran's been seeking the four legendary equipments, and is disappointed to find that our heroes got it done first.
::"Hall of Pain" plays as Terry stomps out::
"Somebody gon' get their ass kicked! Somebody gon' get their wig split!"
So this looks like a throwaway fight but it's actually a pretty legit boss fight. Terry's got a lot of HP and strong AOE attacks.
After that is Duran himself, he's the toughest fight yet, but no match for this overleveled group. He's noteworthy because he's got a very bad-ass Dragonball-esque design.
He's gracious in defeat, and vows to have a rematch with us in the afterlife. He also warns us that a new evil is descending that dwarfs the four Maous in power. And his name...
...IS JOHN CE- Er, Deathtamoor, the nefarious one.
Yes. Yes I am.
Turns out Terry was Muriel's brother all this time! What a tweest!
I'm not a fan of Terry, guy's an a-hole of a character and takes WAY too long to join the group. His time to join the group and make an impact was much earlier, and now he's out-leveled and out-classed by everyone else so I don't get much use out of him. The same issue faced by Saro in the DQ4 remake and Deborah in the DQ5 remake, except at least they were likeable in their own villainous ways.
The Hell Cloud becomes Zenithia Castle, and rises into the other world (which I guess is above this one?)
Terry's stats. He's got good equipment (that I should poach from him to pay him back for earlier) but his levels are way behind. Even if I'd been slow-walking the leveling in this playthrough he'd probably be underleveled for this point in the game. We're nearly at the end here and this guy has low-20's levels.
At least he's got...an entire one class mastered. It's better than zero classes mastered. In short, he's a bit of a wash. I made something of him in the remake playthrough but not going through the trouble here. In a game like this with classes to master, he should have either A) Joined much earlier or B) Had higher levels / more classes mastered upon joining. Much like making me go take the boat over to get to that one tree, there's no real reason why Terry can't join much earlier in the story, they just decided to do it this way.
The same thing happens in DQ7 with Melvyn and Aishe, which is way worse because they're half of what ends up being my final party.
Zenithia Castle's citizens are all restored somehow, as well.
This guy gives our heroes the Sap of the World Tree, which is basically a Megalixir for the group. Gonna hang onto this for a time when the situation is dire. All my leveling and I'm still not ready for the final boss or the postgame.
King Zenith, ruler of Zenithia, speaks of the nefarious Deathtamoor. It seems I'll have to go to someplace called The Dark World to beat him and put an end to all these Maous. Getting there requires a flying pegasus.
Next stop: Pegasus Tower, a weirdly-short dungeon in this game where literally everything feels unnecessarily drawn-out.
Another super-potent one-use item, this is a 100% rezz that I'll save for a time when things are bleakest.
At the top of the tower is the ultimate flying mount, Pegasus. Of course, there's gotta be a boss fight too:
It's a Gank Trio! I cast Explodet a bunch of times and move on.
"My sweet Deathtamoor have mercy!" he screeches before going back into his lamp or whatever genies do between fights.
That gets me the ultimate travel tool. Finally, a GOOD flying mount.
Flammie's theme plays as our heroes take off and fly around. I can now go over hills/forests/mountains and traversing the overworld is FINALLY not a total chore. Which means it's probably immediately time for a new world where I can't use it, right?
Visiting King Zenith is the only thing to do with the pegasus, much like visiting the Dragon Queen in DQ3.
The blue button = X. This is a Super Famicom game, after all. Always liked the Super Famicom controller a lot more than the Super NES controller.
Whenever I get USB controllers for SNES gaming on PC, I've always gone with the SFC design. Noteworthy that Y/X on the SNES controller are actually indented while none of the SFC buttons are indented. That's the main thing noticeable while playing. I think the rounded buttons are less rough on the thumb than the indented ones, as well.
AND ON CUE, right after I get the pegasus, it's time for the third and final world: The Dark World. Can't fly here, of course, so my pegasus is immediately not needed. That nearby town is Sorrow Town, and it's got problems. Fitting because I'm feeling sorrow at finally getting a flying mount right when I no longer need it for anything and can't use it.
People here in Sorrow Town are completely without hope. Most of them are alcoholics and nobody cares about their job or has any optimism. THIS...is the domain of Deathtamoor, and it hits a bit harder than the rest of the game.
As G'Mork said in Neverending Story, "those without hope...are easy to control"
Of course, there has to be something tedious happening, so our heroes get cursed with depression that lowers their max HP to 1. This means pretty much any random fight will crush them. There's a hot springs to the west of town that seems to temporarily cure people's depression, but it doesn't help with my HP problem.
Just when I thought this game couldn't get any more tedious or obnoxious, it pulls this and halts the momentum yet again. I bet a lot of people just Seinfeld-ed out at this point.
Progressing requires getting this pipe from a depressed toolman, then going back to the real world and finding this hidden mountain town while on the pegasus (making sure to avoid getting attacked, as a stiff breeze will kill you), then showing the pipe to this random dog.
WHO WOULD FIGURE THIS OUT? I mean, the game gives you enough hints, but it's another thing that slows the momentum to a crawl while you roam around trying to put them together. At this stage you're in the Dark World and you're ready to take on the bad guys and reach the conclusion, not stall out looking around the world for a hidden town where you have to hand a pipe to a DOG of all things.
What I really don't like is how you have to use the item. In most games, just having the right item in your inventory would cause something to happen when you talk to the right NPC. In this one you have to use the item on the NPC. Imagine being totally lost and having to go through your inventory using a bunch of items on each NPC.
The toolman's wife is in the house, and gives us his tools. Bring that back to Sorrow Town and the toolman stops being depressed.
Which leads to everyone else ceasing to be depressed! All of that tedium just to get rid of this curse that prevented our heroes from winning any fights. I could see a lot of players giving up on the game during this particular episode, roaming around the world fruitlessly trying to figure out where to go next while every random battle is a wipe.
The endgame of DQ6 rolls onward as the momentum stalls yet again. Actually I'm not certain that it has even really had any momentum since I got pegasus and went to the Dark World, only to immediately get cursed and have to go on a bunch of fetch quests.
Looking forward to this one being done. Man, DQ2 is finally being challenged at the bottom of my series tier list!
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