Dragon Quest II HD-2D, Part 4 - The Nippleheim Incident

 

Our heroes get visited by God while sleeping at the inn, and gives them one mission: Find the boat. But what does God need with a boat? Nothing, actually, it's specifically for me. That's today's journey: Finding the boat. Not finding the little man in the boat, finding the boat itself. I've delayed this long enough, time for The Nippleheim Incident.

Left off with the two towers north of Oasis. These are the Dragon Horn Towers, and stare each other down from a safe distance. Given that both towers are decaying ruins at this point, wonder what the story here is. Who built these, and for what reason? What's the LORE here, Yuji Horii? Is there a VaatiVidya on this?

This next dungeon is a big spiral. I beeline through it using Holy Water to avoid all the fights. At this point I'm mostly booking it through the dungeons without fighting anything.

At the top of the tower, this random guy asks the important questions. Can he leap from one tower to the other side of the river? ...probably not, this isn't Fast and the Furious and you aren't Vin "teh f**k" Diesel.

Our heroes are ready to use the Windbraker to sail across the channel. Good thing France never invented this powerful weapon, as they'd have been able to get past Britain's pesky moat and defeat them ages ago.

Cannock freaks out at the prospect of our heroes sailing to their deaths if the Windbraker doesn't actually work. This is how a lot of skydiving expeditions go. Young folks think they're invincible and can't wait to skydive, then when they're up there and faced with the possibility of a parachute not deploying right (or worse, them not being able to get it to work), they realize they might not be so keen on this after all and can't do it.

"Wendy I can fly!" says Cannock as he careens to his death.

So yeah, the Windbraker works fine and our heroes sail across the channel.

This lands them safely in the bosom of...

...Nippleport, the land of milk and honey.

No relation to Final Fantasy VII's Nippleheim, where Tifa grew up (and man, did she)

Before I go there, though, it's easy to miss the other of the two towers, the one on the north shore. This is an optional dungeon, so I'm wondering if they did anything interesting with it in this version.

This dungeon is far more complex than the south tower, a maze of stairwells that makes the spiral-ascent a considerably tougher journey than the other tower's straightforward climb. However, Holy Water keeps everything away from me regardless, and I eventually figure out how to make the climb. Got a good robe here for Moonbrooke, and I believe I also got the Celestial Skein which is used in a sidequest later.

Soothing Song appears to be the big treasure of this dungeon, and is a low-cost AOE heal. Who should I give it to, between the two casters? Decisions abound.

After a lengthy climb, at the top of the tower is... ::drumroll:: .............a Mini Medal. That's it. A Mini Medal. Welp.

This was a great opportunity for them to add some sort of new challenge, like a mid-game secret boss fight. Ah well.

There's only one other thing to do here, GO FLYING again. Wheeee!

This, of course, lands our heroes back on the south shore. Not much point in this now. Long ago this might have been needed for backtracking purposes, but with the Zoom spell now letting you warp wherever, it no longer serves a purpose. Speaking of, time to warp back to Nippleport.

I wasn't sure who to give Soothing Song to, and luckily the game made the choice for me. Only the Princess can use it. Which makes sense, because Cannock's abrasive cat-like yowling isn't very soothing at all.

As for what it does... a group heal is VERY welcome at this point in the game, but... 20 HP? Really? When characters are rocking 150-200 HP, this is kind of paltry. 40 HP would have been really good and given it some longevity without being overpowered.

Morgan Freeman V.O.: "It was the best of nipples, it was the worst of nipples."

LOCK BOX ALERT: This house in town has one hiding at the foot of a bed. This one's green, which I think means Ultimate Key, so it's particularly worth noting for later. Al Gore stashed these Lock Boxes all over the land.

Now for the real goal of Nippleport: Getting a boat. There's a noble galleon parked here and aye, she's a mighty wessel indeed.

However, first I have to solve the current problem with the town, which means going north into this weird-looking mountain pass.

This looks like Corel from FFVII. I really need to do something with FFVII Rebirth before it's said and done.

I'm going to call this place... Nippleheim.

The townspeople are gathered here to listen to a sermon from an angry karen, who says that giving people things is the thief of joy! She's like the polar opposite of Christmas Cheer.

Then she tells everyone to go out and steal from their neighbors, because they're entitled to it. What? I mean, "stop giving people things" is already lame, but "go steal" is a bridge too far.

Now, she calls on the townspeople to begin the First Annual Purge. Grab your machete and murder your pesky neighbors!

::loud horns are heard::

"CUT DOWN THE TALL TREES."

It's Hotel Rwanda all over again! Get outta there, Don Cheadle! Go!

The nun has this simp sidekick who stands there and agrees with everything she says. Steal all your neighbor's stuff! Go from being the plundered to being the plunderer!

"PLUNDER MORE COFFERS! MORE COFFERS!" he says while bouncing up and down.

So wait...the answer to feeling robbed by giving things to others...is to actually rob others? But then when others following the same ideology start taking YOUR stuff, then you'll be literally worse off than the hypothetical that this all started with.

Newsflash for this grinch and this "giving is to be plundered" thing... it's only plunder if it's involuntary. Like being mugged, or paying a massive amount of your income to taxes that your elected officials then wipe their ass with, while your own quality of life barely rises above solvent. Which are pretty much the same thing. Is there really that big of a difference between a state charging you excessive tolls for driving on your roads, and a guy who comes up to you and demands your wallet? I might even take the latter, he'd almost certainly be satiated with a lot less than the state is.

A little over a century ago income tax was a very small amount, when it existed at all; most of the social programs and infrastructure of the era were paid for with tariffs and things got by. The government just didn't have that extra 80% of "black budget" spending money to engage in various bullshit like foreign coups and the war industry. Mathematically-speaking, replacing income tax (with tariffs, in theory) can work if done right. Which I'm not sure we're doing, I'm not an economist. I'd ask around, but nowadays almost everyone's an ideologue who decides on a side and then works backward from there to justify what they already decided, rather than working forward using all available information, so it's hard to know who to give credibility to.

Anyway back to this douchey nun who wants everyone to rob their neighbors before their neighbors rob them first, or something.

Our heroes barge in on this situation. The Nippleheim Incident will go from bad to worse if people begin the First Annual Purge. Which I just realized after all these years is "FAP". Kind of ironic, given that the idea itself is one big cultural fap, the sort of thing out-of-touch-with-reality people would come up with and then pat themselves on the back for.

I remember when The Purge was a wacky movie idea, now it isn't that far of a stretch when a pretty large percentage of our population spend actual time out of their day fantasizing about killing people they don't like. We're probably headed towards a blood-curdling genocide of some sort in the near future while I sit here.

Completely unrelated side note: Recently I found out that over 70% of recorded cult members worldwide are women. Huh.

The cult's tranquility is momentarily broken when this one courageous young lady stands up and points out how stupid everyone on their own side is being on this issue.

Not an easy position to take, which is why so few people do it until it's socially safe to, and no longer means as much. I have utmost respect for people who are able to criticize their own side while it's making mistakes, because it's so rare.

Everyone decides that the young lady is right, this is weird, so they're going home. Looks like the First Annual Purge is cancelled! There will be no FAP for these guys!

Alright Nasty Nun, get outta here.

Side Note: Credit to this game (or translation?) for having the characters frequently note that the bloodthirsty ideologues they meet "aren't like any real member of the priesthood". We've come a long way since 90's RPGs and their constant "the church is evil" theming. Which is a whole other thing with a cultural reason behind it in Japan, but regardless, it's nice to see the game noting that individuals stand on their own merits (or lack thereof) and not demonizing a whole ideology / organization. It didn't need to have the characters make those addendums, but it did. Just another in a long list of thoughtful things this game does.

Of course, they transform into monsters, and we've got a boss fight. Finally, a chance to really test this 3-person group.

I've noticed that games from Japan tend to constantly excuse human nature and propensity for evil by making them monsters in disguise, or "under mind control" of monsters. So many games do that and it'll probably never change, but, eh. It's okay in this series, with it having that partly-comedic Dragon Quest style. You don't really fight humans in this series and you definitely don't kill them. So when I criticize "evil people always end up being demons or something to absolve humans of responsibility" I'm mostly criticizing other games outside of this series.

Our heroes advised the townspeople to have faith in something besides the false teachings of violence-mongering weirdoes who think it's okay to just take from other people if you feel put-upon by life.

That's the thing about weird destructive ideologies, they tend to creep in when people's faith in goodness wanes. It gives them something new to believe in so they don't feel as empty. Then you end up with the Stalin-era Soviet Union and everyone with the balls to speak up ends up living in a gulag for the rest of their life.

Chances are, the main reason that nun was so nasty was because Jay and Silent Bob stopped making with the head.

While we're here, what's interesting about the Nasty Nun's sermon is that you can take it a bunch of different ways and make pretty concrete arguments for it being an indictment of several different ideologies:

Her messaging could be "I've got mine, Jack!" just as easily as "Give me yours, Jack!"

The game's message could be "it's okay to share your money" just as easily as "you're not entitled to demand other people's stuff" (and those two things aren't even mutually exclusive)

Which leads me to give out about taxes some more: If all our taxes went to helping those who are poor and have a good reason for it (like disabled veterans, seriously handicapped folk, the elderly, single mothers with chylde who were left high and dry by some douchebag), I suspect most of us would have a lot less of an issue with them; it's the wasting that becomes an issue for far more people. Lots of us would give our neighbor the shirt off our back willingly but would appreciate not being ground into the dirt the rest of the time unless the money is going to noble pursuits, which for the most part, it isn't.

Moving on, with the Nippleheim Incident resolved, it's time to go back to Nippleport town and get my damn boat!

The Mayor of Nippleport claims to have a bosom. I'm pretty sure you have to have breasts for that. He's pretty flat, like Butters.

In any case, his town has been freed from the ideological grip of the Purge Cult, which would have no doubt led to a Jonestown Massacre if we hadn't stepped in. ...actually the girl in question seemed to be dealing with it fine before we did anything. Assuming anyone would have listened to her.

Now, instead of all the boats being on fire, we get to use one to sail the seas.

The family is so grateful that they give our heroes a boat. Not just any boat, the best boat they have.

Moonbrooke makes sure to let them know that we didn't demand this boat or anything, but if it's a gift, we sure won't turn it down.

The boat is glorious, and can reach a top speed of 0.0000001 Impulse Power.

"I'm givin' her all she's got, cap'n!" says the Scottish guy we keep in the boiler room to make sure everything is running right.

Next time on DQII...

That new landmass to the east looks very familiar.

My God. Is that...Alefgard? That's right, Alefgard returns for the third straight game! ...a shrunken version of it, but still. I'll also be far less verbose in the next one and more to-the-point.

Editor's Note: As of this post, in real-time I've now finished and 100%'d the game. I can't say the DQ1 or DQ3 HD remakes are the definitive versions of those games (DQ3 might be) but I can say without any doubt whatsoever that DQ2 HD-2D is the definitive version of this game and obsoletes all other versions. They did an incredible job with this, without hyperbole.

This is what all HD remakes of RPGs of that era should be aspiring to from here on out. Just...do this.

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