Together Retro: Eighties' Ladies' Night

[MrPopo]

The Phantasy Star II grinding eases up once you get past the dams. At that point there is less and less stuff worth buying, and a lot of the good gear comes from dungeons.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I just got the last crest in Dragon Quest 2! The tower it's in is such a pain to get through though! I'm just glad the earlier DQ games don't really have sub-bosses. If it had been anything but that pack of 4 gremlins guarding the thing, there's no way my totally mana-depleted party could've beaten them Xp

Not 100% on where to go now. I was hoping that tough mage in the jail of the starting castle would give a hint, but he just gave me a nifty staff. Linda needed a good weapon though, so that's not so bad (especially given that I was only able to kill him because he never attacked and just repeatedly lowered my defense ). My next best guess is the tower that using the water-gate key allowed me to access, because the area around that place was full of monsters I could baaaarely survive against earlier, and that's usually a good indicator on where to go next

Also kinda trying to triage my money at the moment. I know this remake (I'm playing the 3DS one) raises the amount of money and XP you get, but it's still a damn miserable money grind compared to the first game. I can certainly see why Popo said the original Dragon Warrior II was a game for masochists with how bad the worse money and XP grind in that game must be

[noiseredux]

Are you playing on original hardware? I found that having an emulator speed up the gameplay makes the grinding a lot less problematic. The combat can be so slow at times.

I'm playing the XBLA version. I don't think there's any such option. But eh, I'm doing fine.

[nullPointer]

Well...I still can’t get Bug Honey to work right; so, I am giving up on that game for now. Accordingly, I started up:

Haha, oh man this cover art might as well be the official poster for this month's theme.

Just heading out to jazzercise, but never without my sword which I carry for self-defense. And ... oh yeah, I totally train lions, bruh.

Please tell me that's the basic plot structure for this game.

[BogusMeatFactory]

You can not possibly be more 80s than the cover of Ghost Lion.

[marurun]

If you chuck the feathered hair, that's getting close to what a lot of current college students dress like.

[prfsnl_gmr]

The plot is basically, “A long time ago, a white lion attacked our village, but one super strong soldier threw a spear at it. It ran away to a cave, and never came back. My parents went to explore the cave a few years ago, and they never came back either. (I’m starting to get a little worried about that cave...) So, I told the village elders I was going to the cave, and they gave me a spear which holds the spirit of the soldier from long ago. They also told me to find a lamp. I went to the cave, fell into a river after using some keys, and woke up in a pond surrounded by fairies that look like butterflies. I went to a village, and an old woman demanded I buy bread for her since she hadn’t eaten in three days. I did that, and she asked for more, which I didn’t have. She chided me for abandoning an old woman, and now she is back to saying she hasn’t eaten in three days. Also, there is apparently a goblin that stole some glitter.”

Also, you carry around a spear the whole time and can’t use it to fight. (I am using a dagger and saving up for a club.) So...yeah...fever dream.

Noise: That is exactly the hint book I used to get through the game! I drew arrows between the stairwells in the final dungeon.

[pierrot]

[...T]he 4th I found it easier to get to a safe spot with the sheild and then switch to the glove

This, thing--. This-- THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! That rock golem is absolute insanity. I had practically zero recourse in fighting it. I must have made at least seven trips down through the depths of Meia's route, getting owned by that thing in mere seconds, almost every time, before I started to look at videos of people actually beating it. The first few I watched still make absolutely no sense to me, because I don't understand how they didn't die with those strategies. Finally I settled on checking an old SGDQ race of the game, and found the trick that would win me the game. Still took me about three attempts, and in the second to last attempt, I had actually killed it, but didn't switch back to the shield, so his orbs killed me, and my death took precedence. Woof.

I did beat the game. The final boss was actually surprisingly not that difficult. I lost patience in Royas' section, because of how much trolling was involved. I was on the right track, warping with the crown, but I never would have found the second warp in that sequence. I didn't remember it being down there for one thing, and Royas can't even get to it (even with jump shoes) without riding on an enemy.

So, overall, I enjoyed the game, even though I hated Xemn for being a big, dumb, oaf, and having really particular controls for moving blocks (even though I thought the block puzzles, on their own, were generally good). It feels like it shares a lot more in common with the original Dragon Slayer than does Xanadu, or Romancia. That's probably by design. I liked the idea of having the family work together, and the story was kind of fun, too. The whole dungeon is just massive, and obscenely intricate. It feels a little bit like Metroid on steroids (assuming Metroid didn't just 'adopt' a bunch of ideas from Xanadu). Great sound and graphics for the time. Part of me wishes I had played the MSX version instead, but they seem similar enough that I didn't play a significantly lesser version. I am a little upset by the few things that kept me from feeling like I legitimately cleared it on my own: The ridiculously hidden Shield, the fourth mini boss, and the insane location of the second warp to get to the Dragon Slayer.

All in all, it's nice to add another beaten Dragon Slayer game to the ledger. I'm feeling a little bit of confidence in going back to Xanadu. With that one finished, the only games left in the series for me to beat would be Sorcerian, Lord Monarch, and Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu--I will never finish Romancia, legitimately or illegitimately; it's bullshit, and "definitely" for kids.

[laurenhiya21]

Woo! Now that I am finally finished with exams and homework for the quarter, I can finally start participating for this month

I still couldn't figure out what I want to play though ha... I'll look around a bit for something that I might want to play, but is there anything that you guys have played so far that you would recommend?

[alienjesus]

[...T]he 4th I found it easier to get to a safe spot with the sheild and then switch to the glove

This, thing--. This-- THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! That rock golem is absolute insanity.

Yeah, this golem was the fucking worst. I also died to a post-death fireball one time, just as you did.

Also, my last crown acquired was Xemn's, and that was a bad idea. Xemn doesn't shoot as fast as the ladies or Pochi, and I literally couldn't make my shots go fast enough to pierce the golem's fireball barrage.

In the end I beat the golem by running up to the fight with the shield and then swapping to the glove ASAP and laying into him. This took several attempts to actually work, and was total luck when it did.

Also, you can get to the Dragon Slayer without jumping on an enemy, but it's still super trolly - you have to fall left from a teleporter you go through. Of course, there's no actual way to know to do so without trial and error and even then you'd have no idea that it was worth attempting.