Jessica's overworld theme
A little ways down the mountain, we find a woodsman's shack.
: Get off this mountain right away! You can go to the Castle.
The sad/mysterious themeThe woodsman is displaying a form of cognitive bias called the
fundamental attribution error, in which observers explain the behavior of others in terms of fundamental qualities (e.g. Jessica looks unhappy because she's naturally gloomy all the time) instead of circumstances (e.g. Jessica looks unhappy because everyone she'd ever loved was brutally murdered an hour ago).
To punish his incomprehension of basic psychology, Jessica steals his spare outfit and life savings.
Now that we're marginally better-equipped...
...meet Jessica.
As expected of the legendary hero, Jessica is solid across the board: strong, smart, and already equipped with a spell! Expel banishes monsters to another dimension; they leave the battle, but you don't get any XP or gold from them. It's not something you generally want to use, but in these awkward early levels where everything in the entire world can kill us it's just what the doctor ordered.
But it would be better still to never use it, so we take a tip from that snarly woodsman...
...and run like hell for the Castle.
The standard Castle themeBranca Castle, as it turns out.
Necrosaro's been advertising; he and his minions were the only witnesses so who else could have said it? If he was trying to break peoples' spirits, it doesn't seem to have worked. Then again, maybe he's trying to lure heroic types to their deaths.
That's working out pretty well.
Taloon's very popular in this part of the world (and rightly so!), so I guess it's no surprise that he'd spawn imitators.
As is standard for new chapters, we're too poor to afford anything good and the Wooden Hat is king. We're going to have to supplement the woodsman's life savings with some monster hunting if we want to buy effective weapons and armor, but right now we're too weak to fight even the lowliest Babble (which is as lowly as it gets around here). What to do?
Endor, eh? If nothing else they might have weaker monsters there, but Jessica's never seen a castle town, so before we going haring off anyplace, we explore:
More the effect Necrosaro was going for.
By "monsters" this guy probably means "monsters who obey Necrosaro"; monsters as a species (collection of specieses?) don't seem to have any goals beyond "eat everyone and maraud everything". But Necrosaro certainly does, and apparently he's opposed to trade among nations.
: Many people, claiming they can defeat the monsters, come to see the King.
This is going to be a major subtheme in Chapter 5. In contrast to most RPGs, we are not the only people who know the threat is there and we are not the only ones who are willing to try and stop it. We're the only ones who can
succeed (modulo any careless deaths I might accrue), but the rest of the world doesn't know that and they're sure as hell going to try. It gives the game a strange grim-but-hopeful air, like reading an American newspaper from the middle of World War 2.
: I'll tell you what you must do.
: Prevent the resurrection of the Ruler of Evil at any cost.
: It must be hard for a girl like you, but I wish you luck, Jessica!
So, what, Necrosaro is just the servitor of someone
even worse? We can at least take heart from the king's positive attitude; whether you're a seasoned adventuring team or a lonely 17-year-old girl, if you want to help out in the fight against evil he's willing to give you his blessing. Not his shiny weapons and armor, and not the keys to his treasure vault, but it's the thought that counts, right?
Right.
: She fell in love with a young woodsman, and they had a baby.
: Where is the baby now? Oh, it's just a fairy tale.
Down the stairs, we find...Jessica's whole backstory. Jessica won't be able to put it together until she's met up with her destined companions, but the implications are pretty clear if you've been following along (and if you haven't, welcome! I recommend that you start at page 1, but whatever works for you is fine with me, I guess).
Hm. We could certainly use any spiritual assistance that's on offer, so chalk up a big one in favor of the Endor Plan.
: She told me she was searching for the Hero with her little sister.
Uh...
huh. Ok then. It could be a trap, but we can't
not check this out.
Course set, Jessica ventures forth...
...and reaches the tunnel safely! No encounters, no worries.
I'm overstating the risks, kinda. The monsters around Branca aren't that dangerous, but if you make the mistake of going east instead of west, God help you.
The dungeon themeTaloon's tunnel continues to be a boon to international commerce.
I have nothing funny to add to this, I just like to see Taloon's tunnel receiving proper respect.
Aw
Poke me once we get Taloon, and we'll bring him by and see if we can cheer this poor guy up a little.
Endor.
The crossroads of the world, as seen by night. Jessica takes the opportunity to explore her second castle town ever, and incidentally look for that dancer:
More meteorological divination; it seems to be this world's #1 pastime. In this case, though, her meteorology is chronologically incoherent; the black clouds showed up a long time ago, but Jessica only "died" a few days ago. Maybe Necrosaro's been spreading rumors for a while now, just on spec?
: It's just a rumor, but I thought he was too strong to be a human.
"Too strong to be a human". Monsters are getting more powerful every day, and it's starting to take its toll on the human psyche. This guy's built up an inferiority complex that I doubt he's even aware of.
Also: Necrosaro can apparently pass for human. That might seem obvious to you guys and girls out in readerland, since he entered the tournament in the first place, but do remember that they let that slippy dippy illusion-using bullshit artist Linguar in, and his body was like 50% tongue. What was the King planning to do if
he won?
At least the princess would have been sati - no! Bad Fjords!
Oh, right, this guy. He wanders around that sandy area, lying down from time to time. But he's not full. "Full". Sure.
Jessica was raised with small-town values, and reflexively avoided the glittering sin-pit that is the Casino. But it has a certain allure, and there's nothing wrong with winning, so maybe...
The Casino rag
Woah.
But before Jessica can be lured into trading
the woodsman's her life savings for shiny Coins, she spots a brightly-garbed dancer. Could it be?
: I'll recover my losses and surprise my little sister, Nara.
So, plot twist! This has to be the dancer that that guy in Branca told us about, but she wants nothing to do with us because she's too busy gambling. Much sobered by this negative example, Jessica goes off to try to find this 'Nara' character.
Also, my theory about Mara's intelligence and dry wit has taken a serious blow. You can't really gamble away your savings ironically.
Yeah, this looks promising.
10 gold pieces is a fifth of our total stash, but...'Nara', right?
: You are the Hero!
: I've been searching for you, the one with the untapped power to defeat the evil ones."Nara joined the Party!"
:Let's go. My sister, Mara, should be at the Casino.
One could quibble with that "should", but who cares? We're finally safe from Death By Flying Rat!
: You spend all the money I earn on gambling! We're broke!
: I'm sorry....
: This is the Hero we've been searching for.
: How nice! You can take care of us from now on, right?
"Mara joined the Party!"
: Let's go!
The first (and second!) of many.
Hey kids! Time to play "one of these things is not like the others"!
Yeah, that's probably a safer ordering.
The sad thing? Even at level 1, Jessica is tougher than Mara.
The newly-formed party continues to explore the town of Endor:
Conventional wisdom centers on this Ruler of Evil guy; despite all his evil deeds Necrosaro has managed to stay out of the spotlight.
Nara hasn't been idle, these last days/weeks/months/however long. But I actually came over here to visit...
...Taloon's/Neta's shop, but of course it's closed at night; we'll be back in the morning. To pass the time, we'll...
The standard battle theme!...get into the first battle of Chapter 5!
Now, we've already seen how many interesting new ideas Dragon Warrior 4 brought to NES RPGs generally and to the DW series in particular. Monster companions, dynamic villains and worlds, small medals, multi-perspective storytelling, the list just goes on and on. This game is just chock full of good ideas.
But it also has...this idea.
Once you reach Chapter 5 you can only control Jessica directly. Everyone else's actions are chosen by the game's AI, subject to the Tactics you select in this screen. The tactical options are mostly well-named: 'Normal' is the baseline, 'Offensive' favors direct damage and disregards MP costs, 'Defensive' favors defense buffs and healing, and 'Save MP' and 'Use No MP' weight against magic and forbid it respectively. 'Try Out' seems to weight all actions equally - characters are as likely to attack as they are to use an Antidote Herb (probably on someone who's not poisoned).
There's allegedly a learning component too, where your characters become more effective over time as they learn which spells and items work best in which situations. It's some kind of weighted-feedback model, I guess; the only thing I've concretely seen it do is work out which status effect spells are most effective against which monsters. Which sounds great, until you realize that:
a) All boss monsters are unique, and
b) The AI starts with the assumption that all status effect spells work, and
c) On boss monsters, none of the status effect spells work except maybe one or two, and
d) Learning doesn't update until the end of the battle.
So, yeah. Ambitious as hell, but unlike most of the ambitious choices the developers made this one doesn't quite work. I'll try and keep my bitching to a minimum, but if you make me take Cristo along everywhere I'll not be held accountable for my actions.
Anyway, for random grinding 'Offensive' is usually your best bet, as it optimizes for maximum killing power per round and you can always catch a nap when your casters run dry.
Nara's rarely-seen Infernos spell deals Blaze-level damage to a single monster group. Jessica alone was fragile, but the gypsy sisters are more than enough to close the gap.
Rather than spending that grinding time just walking back and forth in front of Endor, I took the opportunity to head north to the Santeem travel gate.
: Our Princess Alena was saying someone called Necrosaro was suspicious....
It sounds like Alena at least took some time out to end Santeem's civil war, so that's good news. Even so, we're not allowed in to see for ourselves.
Anyway, all that travel yields plenty of yummy delicious XP for Jessica. Even split three ways, it isn't long before:
Jessica complements her balanced starting stats with great level-ups.
Seriously, she's just outstanding in every category. The magic is just icing on an already-delicious cake.
With Mara and Nara to serve as backup, 2 levels is probably enough. Exploring the area east of Castle Branca, we find this little desert outpost. What could it be?
Ah, I see.
Three attractive young women come to visit a young man living by himself next to a desert, and this is his response? Something's clearly up. Will we leave him alone? Not until we've solved the mystery! We tell him so, and then this happens:
: One day I heard of a cave where the world's most valuable treasure was hidden.
: I went to the cave with my best friend.
: I truusted him, but he betrayed me, and....Darn....
: I just can't trust anyone anymore! Go away!
Huh. Well, that was certainly impassioned. There's not really anything to be done about it, though. And it's not like we really care; it's too bad that he feels that way but
Oh.
Yeah. We need to get further south to reach port town of Koneber if we want to be able to travel by ship (Endor doesn't have a port, as such, it just accepts ships full of refugees from time to time). That means crossing the desert, and that means going through one scared, angry young man.
: Only my son returned, unconscious and injured, on his horse, Primrose....
: He changed after that. He doesn't trust anyone.
: What happened in that cave, I wonder....
No way to know, but if we want to persuade him we're going to have to go there.
This next sequence is all about trust and betrayal (and, less directly, faith). It's mostly quite straightforward, but some clever fellow on the dev team worked in a little gameplay-driven meditation on trust and insecurity.
This young man has a treasure that he clearly prizes; it's locked behind a barred door, the most secure kind in the game.
But he's so obsessed with guarding the front entrance to his treasure trove that he never even noticed the gaping hole in the wall.
And the prize itself is trivial.
There are a couple ways to read this. I see it as a metaphor for peoples' tendency to hide their true natures under false fronts of "normalcy" and "coolness". Your camouflage isn't as effective as you think, and in truth, your secrets just aren't worth keeping. Open the jail door and let people in; it's not that big a deal.
This update got pretty philosophical, didn't it?
Anyway. Life lessons and free lunches are great, but at some point we're going to have to visit the cave that ruined this young man's life. Next time on Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4: the world's most valuable treasure.
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Topic: Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4! (Read 56468 times)