Dragon Quest 1 HD-2D, Part 5 - Finale

 

Gotta say, this remake is nice. It's a little too padded-out, needs too much grinding, should have kept the fights at one on one, and loses some of the "can theoretically go anywhere at any point in the game's progression if your character can handle it" vibe that the bite-sized other versions of this game delivered so well. However, if you want it to be a more substantial game in the style of last year's DQIII remake, then they landed that. It's high-effort, and I especially like the occasional artwork.

Turning in the Staff of Rain, Sun Stone, Erdrick's Mark, and now I can go to the final dungeon.

"One more thing" says the sage. "To finish the rite, I gotta spend a night with ya wife."

You know dude, I've done enough for you. Just git. I said git!

Our hero then goes out to the cliffside and throws Gwaelin off, before turning to the camera and grinning.

Of course they were true, legends are always true in the land of the Dragon Quest series. It is a land of tales and fables rooted in legitimate heroics.

::"Bow Down To The King" plays as Dragonlord cuts a promo to nobody in particular. Maybe he should go out and head off this dude at the pass? ....maybe he should have marched on Tantegel ages ago, since they had basically no defenses set up?

After he stops his yappin, our heroes cross the rainbow bridge to the center island.

Here it is, Charlock, the final dungeon of the game. It looks pretty impressive in this version. Note that the Dragonlord did not in fact build this; it's Zoma's Citadel and it's pretty dilapidated now.

Behind the old throne of Zoma is a hidden passage. Electric floors are normally deadly, but not with Erdrick Armor on.

I take a side-route through the castle to find the big treasure of this place:

I always make sure to go here and get the Erdrick's Sword even if I'm not doing the rest of the dungeon yet.

Still the best weapon in the game and it isn't even close. (Maybe the Medal King has some super-sword, I dunno, I'm not fetching his 40 medals, he can go raid people's panty drawers himself)

Now to find out where the Erdrick's Helm is. Apparently it's behind a quest where you have to talk to Zalen the Bard in a bunch of locations. Sounds like a quest from Elden Ring. Talk to an NPC in a bunch of particular locales and at the end they give you some key item. Or turn heel on you. Or both.

Every time you find Zalen, he treats you to a stirring guitar solo. Most bards are dainty lads, but this guy is metal AF!

Zalen it seems is descended from Galen. Go to all ten or so locations in the quest to eventually get...

...the best helm in the game. I probably could have gotten this earlier. Not sure how soon it can be obtained. Maybe as soon as you have all locations unlocked.

There we go, complete set. At least on equipment, I need to up my accessory game. I'll throw on the better Mark of Erdrick, along with another accessory that drops in the final dungeon, so my accessory woes won't last.

Alright, here we go! Dragonlord's Castle, Second Ascent. Well, not yet. Ya see, I got here at level 36, and I need to be about level 50 to comfortably slay the Dragonlord. Luckily, the first room of Charlock is home to...

...Metal Babbles. Lots of Metal Babbles. Using Whistle repeatedly in this first room will bring in lots of them. Best way to take them down is to use the Soul Sigil upgraded Lightning Slash, which becomes an all-or-nothing critical attack. It works more often than it doesn't.

Level 40 is the final move you learn, Gigaslash, which is a super-potent AOE. ...and way, way, way beyond anything the hero gets in the original version of DQ1. In that version, you have all your spells done by level 19, and there's certainly no Gigaslash.

Healmore is the best heal in the original, and it's about on par with Midheal in this game, with the oddly-named Moreheal being the new top heal. Which, again, I missed.

Now this is what you want to see. Five Metal Babbles, five chances at a cool 15,000 EXP or so.

Two of them is nearly enough to gain a level. The level requirement stays pretty much the same from level 40 onward, much like it did from 20 onward in the original. It's in the low 30k's.

We also have some fierce endgame enemies here, like Blue Dragons...which are a little less intimidating now since they somehow became overworld enemies.

Even tougher is the Red Dragon. I think the Green Dragon is stronger than both of them in this version (unlike the original). They really beefed the Green Dragon up.

One of the Red Dragons dropped Elevating Shoes, the preorder bonus that I didn't get to use for this game because of a code error. It being a random drop from an endgame enemy makes sense, because Elevating Shoes are insanely OP. They increase Luck stat by a mile (which means more critical hits against Metal Babbles) and they also give you EXP just for walking around. Makes little difference at this stage in the game, but it's incredible at low levels.

At last, I reach level 50. That should be good enough.

There, NOW we have a fully geared endgame character, with worthy accessories and stats through the roof. HP in particular really soared in the last 15 levels or so.

I go back and continue down Path B of the Dragonlord's Castle, raiding the treasure hoard. The lack of a chest in the upper right bothers me. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?

::"Bow Down to the King" plays as Dragonlord appears::

This guy couldn't be bothered to leave this room for the entire (present-day portion of the) game, and we're supposed to see him as a threat? He's lazier than Freeza. He thinks Gwaelin was brought here as a sacrifice, and gives you the option to be his servant (ending the game there).

Well, we know what Erdrick IV says at a time like this: "What the hell."

Dragonlord is comparable to the Green Dragon, just stronger. He uses fire attacks frequently that are easy enough to mitigate.

I keep Wild Side on and unleash DOUBLE GIGASLASH every round.

I was saving Gigaslash for this, and it absolutely decimates the guy.

One thing that helps a lot here is to make sure you level off of the 19k or so EXP that the first form gives you. This lets you go all-out on the first form and be totally healed for the second. Oh yeah, and I'm level 53 now. Going through the castle one more time and slaying everything on the way netted a lot of EXP.

Dragonlord looks pretty faithful to how he looked on the NES. I was curious to see if he'd get some sort of massive new form for this version. Being level 53 is overkill, but it's necessary in my case due to the lack of Moreheal. I could Evac out and go get it but I really don't want to run through this dungeon a third time. Reheal is nice for the regen component, but wears off. So basically my healing needs come down to double-Midheals using Wild Side.

I wasn't following a guide, and I never looked into finding any heals because it seemed logical that such a critical spell would be acquired from leveling up, if it existed (Midheal being the top heal would line up with other versions of the game). Doesn't make any sense to have a critical spell be on a bookshelf somewhere when all the other critical spells are obtained from leveling.

The Dragonlord shows no mercy, and attacks with BLISTERING fire waves.

Gigaslash gets upgraded via the Soul Sigil for this fight, and sometimes turns into an even more powerful X-Strike version. Double-cast these and you do like 800 damage in a round. MP drops fast, though, and it's a good thing I had Sage's Elixirs (+100 MP) saved up.

One final Gigaslash brings down the Dragonlord. Without Moreheal, that was a real brawl.

Our heroes emerge from Charlock into a now well-lit world. Given how nice Zoma's Citadel is, maybe they should consider renovating this place. Somebody should, anyway.

We get a nice ending where our heroes get to chat with all the allies they've made along the way.

Oh yeah, I made sure to go get this from some random bookshelf. Well, I have it now!

Rubiss is happy that the world is safe yet again. But for how long this time?

Hero and Princess embrace, while The King looks on and raises his arms going "Yeah! Yeah!"

This is a little weird. We should get going.

Confetti falls as they leave to travel the world and have honeymoons. Erdrick IV: Hero to thousands, and will never have to pay a bar tab anywhere.

We get a cliffhanger final moment, with Hargon (who unleashed the Dragonlord to begin with) scheming for his final takeover of the underworld. He will be The New Zoma! Which is like New Coke. This dude isn't even Baramos-tier.

This leads directly into DQ2 HD-2D, which I'm probably not going to get to just yet. It's a bigger game than this one and I've got other projects to get to. I'll do some DQ2 content in the near future though. Looking forward to DQ2 because it has the most room for improvement out of the original trilogy. Like there was always a potentially great game there with some fixes and refinement. And it'll be able to avoid, by structure, some of the issues I had with this one, like 1v5 fights.

I've got a couple of DQ1 guides to look at as a supplementary post, but in the meantime, this early preview of the game in Nintendo Power is super nice. I talk a lot about how NP could make games seem like magical journeys into another world. Well, this is a great example of that:

Particularly like this spell page with giant illustrations of the spells. As far as early Nintendo Power articles go, this one is super impressive. I wish the magazine had kept having this much heart in later years, instead of straying further and further towards being bland and normal like other game magazines.

This shot of the hero walking off through the reeds gets me a bit. This is the sort of thing that would capture the imagination of a kid in 1989.

The artwork here is a lot like the "Days of Mana" coverage of Secret of Mana a few years later, and really brings some of the game's moments to life. Most of all, this article really sells the game (ironically, they were giving it away around this time). It's a great supplemental to the game, too bad I just found it in the archives after the game was over with.

Going to check out the Explorer's Handbook and the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide next. They were ALL IN with DQ1, especially compared to the almost-no attention paid to DQ2.