Dragon Quest II HD-2D, Part 3 - The Bridgewater Triangle

 

The lore artwork in this remake is great, and usually accompanies a character retelling a legend or a fable. In other news, I've been reading up on the Bridgewater Triangle and all the weirdness that occurred there over the centuries, and it really is the kind of location you'd find in a DQ game. If I were designing one of these RPGs I'd probably base an area directly off of that place, and Hockamock Swamp.

Now that I've got Moonbrooke, it's time to elevate her.

"Right here? Right now?" says Moonbrooke.

In the NES version, I believe she started at level 1. Here, they give her a leg up and she's pretty much where the other two would be normally if I hadn't grinded so much already. I'll keep the Elevating Shoes on her until she's within a level or so of the others, then put them back on Midenhall. Him being a few levels ahead later on would be tradition, and chances are he's going to be doing most of the damage by the end anyway.

Each kingdom has their own signature treasure. The treasure of Moonbrooke Kingdom is, ironically, the Mirror of Ra.

Moonbrooke starts with some new abilities, including the multi-hit Call of the Wild attack that was new to last year's DQ3 remake. It seems based off of physical power so it doesn't do much when she uses it, but it might be useful against metals.

She also starts with a nice repertoire of spells. Mostly defensive now, but she'll be an offensive powerhouse later.

Now I get to go grind levels to get Moonbrooke up to speed. This means fighting lots of rats and other varmints.

The Elevating Shoes help a lot on catch-up, like they did with Cannock. Once everyone's within a level or so of each other, I switch the shoes back to Midenhall since he's the tank and needs levels more. If any fights are desperate, I'll have everyone hide behind him and Forebearance, which means all HP/Defense seeds get funneled to him for the whole game. I don't know if I'll ever NEED to employ a Forebearance tactic but we'll see. It's pretty rare for DQ to get that difficult.

IMPROMPTU LIST: HARDEST DRAGON QUEST FIGHTS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Dragon Quest VI HD Remake DS/Phone Version - The postgame superboss, Nokturnus. He's so blisteringly overpowered that I had to completely overhaul my entire strategy. I got the Liquid Metal Slime special class and gave it to Carver, then boosted his HP and stats as much as possible to employ a Forebearance strategy using his now sky-high defenses. Hardest fight in the entire series and the kind of thing I'm cautious about running into again here.

Dragon Quest XI 2D Version - The last few postgame fights, especially the one with two bosses. They're just sheer brutality across the board. There's no good way to gimp them; they're hard even at level 99. The 2D version is nastier than the normal version because of the more traditional turn structure.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D - King Hydra near the end of the game was ridiculous in this version, with his status effect pile-on that could basically stunlock you entirely once it had a while to get going, during which he'd regenerate his health. Winning this was a matter of obliterating him fast before the status effects started snowballing. You really needed to have the new Monster Wrangler class abilities, preferably on two characters, and powered-up by engaging with the class' various side-projects. Do that, and it isn't too bad. Don't do that - like me because I was rolling with traditional classes - and the fight is practically a softlock.

Dragon Quest VII 3DS Version - God. Yes, you fight God in the postgame. He's really really strong. I didn't have to totally overhaul my party or strategy, though.

Next stop: Moonbrooke Town, laying in ruins. Did they really have to bring the Princess here?

The few survivors are overjoyed to find that the Princess is okay. Nobody knew she was trapped in dog-form! She could have been roving the land forever, chomping on bones and scarfing at her own butt.

This gets me the first of the game's three keys. Like the previous game, it's not very useful, and barely opens anything except low-level chests with vendor loot in them. It's more of a plot item than anything else. All the decent stuff is in Magic Key chests, with the tip-top rare loot in the Ultimate Key chests.

Time for more grinding, as I LIVE TO WIN. How did these vicious psychotic baboons come to form an alliance with killer ants and air elementals, though?

LIIIIIIVE!

Kids using big words. Look at what you've wrought, cable TV! YOU did this, Silk Stalkings and WWF Raw! USA Network should be ashamed.

WIIIIIIN!

At this point there are several objectives. First I bring Moonbrooke back to the kings of Cannock and Midenhall to explain the dire situation at hand:

This gets me marks from the kingdoms that identify our heroes as royalty.

The next destination requires an extremely lengthy walk through a bit of an overworld maze. DQ2 uses the overworld as a maze more than any other game in this series; at a couple points it's almost like a dungeon unto itself. It's much easier now with a map and a destination marker, though.

After a long, long trek, I arrive at the next dungeon, the tower of the Windbreaker. Now I know what we're all thinking, but no, the Windbreaker is an item that lets you hang-glide off of towers.

This tower has statues of turkeys, making it fitting that I played this part around Thanksgiving.

This guy warns our heroes not to get too close to the edge. These towers don't have any guardrails and it's a long way down. Luckily nobody takes falling damage in the world of DQ2.

After a long ascent, I reach the gorgeous vista at the top. Wish there were a way to turn the camera and get a better view off into the distance.

The boss of the dungeon is the aptly-named Lumpfather, who participated in the Sacking of Moonbrooke. He did so much murdering that he's tired now, and of course yaps about this out loud. Which means...

...our heroes must administer a beatdown!

Or try to. Going into this fight so banged-up, I was well on the way to an unavoidable loss the first time and opted to restart the game / load an autosave. Went into the fight with a severe MP deficit from the extremely long overworld walk leading up to this, as well as the dungeon which went on and on. The boss has surprisingly high DPS.

After reloading the autosave, I left, got restored, warped back, and Repel'd my way through the tower. This led to a full power beatdown, and that's a wrap for the Lumpfather.

Moonbrooke has to sit down after the fight. She is...not okay.

Our heroes set up camp here for a while. Moonbrooke's need for vengeance is the driving motivation for the heroes in this version.

While the others nap, Moonbrooke stands and keeps watch with her shotgun like the Uncle Bob Terminator. Eventually the sun comes up.

After that, they finally proceed into the next room to get the cloak that allows the wearer to glide. For example, off of towers like this one. This is what'll get me to the north continent soon.

Journeying on, it looks like the next area is a vast desert. Don't recall there being a desert here in the NES version at all, nor an Oasis. I just remember there being another long overworld walk. If the Oasis is really a new area, then awesome.

After trekking across the desert and facing the fiercest enemies yet, I arrive at the Oasis. Now, the Prince of Cannock can pour water all over himself in slow-motion...for the ladies.

Oasis is probably my favorite "town" so far, and it's such a small understated one too. If one looks closely, you can see the next dungeon (a tower to the north) off in the distance.

This is true. The older you get, the more you need to worry about resting and conserving energy reserves while traveling. When middle-aged, going two days of exploring a city without resting is now a NO GO, where as a youth you might have been able to get away with it to save money.

We've got a new tier of equipment here that is well beyond anything I can afford, in the tradition of the DQ series, so I must stop and grind. OR I could continue on and power through with my above-average levels. Not gonna lie though, the Serpent's Sword is enticing, so I got one for Cannock. Let's see what it looks like.

Not bad, it is very serpent-like.

Yeah, I'd be happy to linger in this oasis for a while. Place is great.

An easy-to-miss Mini Medal lurks in the rocks to the side.

I take the opportunity to grind levels in the desert. Oasis is a great base of operations, the desert looks cool, and the enemies give a lot more EXP/Gold than they did earlier. I ended up banging out a bunch of levels and am now overleveled, which is a good place to be.

This is a good stopping point for the moment, but I'll plow the rest later. Looking forward to finding out what kind of postgame DQ2 has now. There wasn't any in DQ1 but I'm expecting something cool here.

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