Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition S (Demo)

Sweet Dragon Quest

So after experiencing the origins of the Dragon Quest-series I got this itch to play the latest game, which I unfortunately didn't pick-up before going on vacation for a week so I thought I would get it on the Saturday before going back to work... but it rained the whole day so I stayed at home. But then on Sunday I recalled there is a demo for the game that can keep me satisfied until Monday when I can get the game after work. So I started playing and I gotta say, love the graphics. Looks fantastic and music is as expected (well, it's a Dragon Quest-game). 

Starts with a cutscene of a small spirit creature (?) walking through a city. Clouds goes dark and we see a council of old men talking about a newborn child. We see the mother and child... and then the city is attacked, mother flees with the baby and some other girl. The mother leaves the baby with the girl as she distracts the headless horsemen's that haunts them, but the girl is found and... killed? The baby turns up in the river like Moses and is found by a fisherman. 16 years later you, the main hero is supposed to do the coming of age ritual with your best friend Gemma who has the same birthday as you. Monsters attack at the top of a pillar and as Gemma almost falls to her death you save her with the zap-spell, which you don't know but a special mark on your hand seemed to react to the distress.

Returning to the village your mother tells you that your grandad told her that you are the reincarnation of the Luminary, the hero of old that defeated the dark one and now resides as the red star in the sky. Gemma tells you this at the tree in town where her scarf got caught in as a kid and you helped her get back. As you intend to go to the capital and meet the king Gemma almost tell the hero that she loves him and instead run of crying. I assume that she would like to say. Next morning you set out and I gotta say, the improvements to the quality of life, superb. You can run, jump and you can get a horse that can trample down weaker enemies (not gaining any gold though, and 1 EXP per chrushed monster under my hooves). Love it. At the city of Heliador you get audience to the king Corelian and as you enter the royal chamber and show the sign as the luminary, you get arrested and thrown into the darkest dungeon labeled as the darkspawn and the harbringer of Doom and a squadron of knights are sent to your hometown to investigate. In the dungeon you meet the thief Eric that helps you escape although you get spotted by guards, outrun a dragon and in the end stands above a waterfall all Fugitive like and do the only rational thing, jumps  out and then title screen.

GERONIMO!

I thought the game would end here, perfect ending really since I'm already hooked. You wake up and team up with Eric to go back to the city to look for a red orb that he... acquired from the royal family. Since I know orbs are important for the Dragon Quest-games I'm all game. Turns out that Eric's old partner took the orb, gave it back and used the reward money to get a shop to acquire more money to bribe the guards to look the other way so that Eric could escape. It set is up as the thief being betrayed by his old friend, but Dragon Quest is the optimist series. I feel happy playing this. The orb now is in a pyramid near Cobblestone (the hero's hometown) so back you go. Through the Mangrove Forest where you discover that the Hero is the chosen of Yggdrasil and can see events from the past near a root of Yggdrasil. Back in Cobblestone and... somethings off. Eric disappeared and the townspeople talk about the Hero as if he is a child. Your mother don't recognise you and the you see Gemma as a 6-year old child, standing below the tree crying... with her scarf at the top. Have I time-travelled? Have they put up some temporal distortion as protection? You help her and she shows you the way to your grandfather and your young self. Your grandfather see you as the adult version (although he was long dead at the start of the game) and happily talks with you and listen to your story. He hints you toward a triangle rock near some waterfall and as you return to the village and speak with your younger self the world is once more distorted and you look upon the crumbled ruins of the town as you look at the tree with the Yggdrasil root formed around it. And it feels  bad looking at the town. Gemma's gone and so is your mother (or adoptive mother). I hope to good that as this feels a lot like Dragon Quest IV that it ends the same with Gemma coming back to life... and the dog to since it's not fair. 

You will pay for this, king Cornelian!

Eric and you travels to the rock and finds your real mothers letter that proclaims you a prince of Drundrasil (the city attacked in the beginning and I think your mother is really Cornelians daughter and one of the reasons why he is so hellbent in destroying the darkspawn, or maybe the girl that helped you escape was his daughter) and then a letter from your "granddad" giving you a keystone to use at a door that will teleport you somewhere. You continue to the pyramid to get the red orb gets to the door at the last minute while hunted by the knights from Heliador. You end up in some Eastasian Japanese city of Hotto where you find a girl in red looking for her sister and another girl looking for her father. You follow the red girl to a crypt where you find the sister and it's revealed that they are twins but the red dressed girl was captured by monster and lost all her magic to them and at the same time becoming a young girl. The other sister is a cleric/priest and the red one is a mage, so basically the sisters from Dragon Quest IV. You defeat the monsters that are working for the the shadow king or something like that and restore Veronica (the red hooded... is she a red-riding hood reference?) although not her age. The sisters swear loyalty to you, you get the dad that is an information broker for thieves called Noah and he tells you about the Yggdrasil branch in the sand kingdom and you head of there... and this is where the demo ends.

I love this part of the game. I just feel happy playing it. It gives enough story for intriguing me and make me emotionally attached to the hero and the other characters I've meet. I like the call-backs to the earlier games like Dragon Quest IV and the orbs I think is Dragon Quest III, and Eric looks like he is inspired both by the main guy from Dragon Quest VI in hair and art style, but dressed like the main guy from Dragon Quest VII. I now need to get this game so I went after work and... the game was sold out. Meaning I have to wait at least a week for a copy from the internet (since my Switch doesn't have enough storage capacity to hold all games I want for it). Damn my luck. Well, at least I can fill out the blog post count with the demo and make it easier when I get the main game. You basically can start from where the demo ended and it then also gives you access to the nifty 3D to 2D conversion so you can see it as a pre-Dragon Quest VIII look (or VII since they remade that in 3D as well). Can't wait for what's next in the game.

Castlevania: The Adventure (Switch)

Mortal terror reigned
Sickness now then horrible death
Only Lucy knew the truth
And at her window
Nosferatu

I got this for the 3DS, but never finished it... or rather played it at all. Part of my collectors OCD that gets me to get it to play someday. Part of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection I got it again and this time, I actually played it and finished it for the first time. A gameboy game so we will probably see some changes to the formula. It stars a Christopher Belmont some 100 years before Simon Belmont and it's his turn to fight off the evil count. There is no subweapons and instead you can upgrade your whip to shoot fire balls. At least there is no stairs this time around... instead you get ropes. It's gonna be that kinda game.

Apparently not that well received at launch. First off it's rather short with only four stages. And then it's the difficulty. And really there is only one stage that is ridiculously hard, and it's hard. The third stage is the torture chamber and begins with an area with a spiked ceiling that you have to traverse. Then follows a segment where you have to climb up while a spiked floor follows and then a spiked wall hunts you from the right to left. Insane stuff. The game also have a problem with lag with both monsters and candles. But at least it has a Dracula transformation.

Die Monster! You don't Belong in this World!

It was apparently remade as Castlevania Rebirth for the Wii Eshop (which no longer work), and I got it through my Wii U, but I never finished it. Maybe someday since I got a bit of training with all these old-school Castlevania games. Back to this game. Graphics decently for a Gameboy game. Music alright, mostly rearranged version of old songs I think. A good thing is that you actually can choose if you want the game displayed in Black & White, Green or colour. Why couldn't the 3DS fix that for its gameboy games? Would I recommend this game? Not as standalone, and the third stage is absurdly hard if you would do it legit (THANK GOD for save state). 

Super Castlevania IV (Switch)

Only a woman can break his spell
Pure in heart who will offer herself
To Nosferatu

Choosing Blue Öyster Cult's Nosferatu lyrics below the game cover was just a fun bit and the only vampire song that I had at the front of my mind, but it seems to have suited up better than expected with the curse mentioning in the second verse, the ship in the third and then the fourth is the refrain again (although had it been the first verse again it would have been even better) for the remake. Good choice on me. Back to the game. I completed it lastly back in 2014 for the Wii U and wrote of it here.  Much faster this time since I didn't spend a couple of months fighting Death. 

Pretty much a reimagining of the first game. Better graphics and music higher quality and certain songs are really good, but I miss certain songs from the original game like the music for the stage toward Death. Better gameplay since you have more control than ever and it's rather refreshing after the earlier first games. So game is better in most ways. The only thing now I would say is a bit disappointing is the ending battle with Dracula. Don't get me wrong, battling him is intense (reminder to myself, get the cross as a subweapon for Dracula next time compared to the holy water) and when Simon's theme kicks in at the end of the game it is awesome. But why isn't there a second transformation? Every game (besides Castlevania II) have had Dracula transformations. It began in the first game so why not here? On the other hand I'm glad it wasn't that hard. Still, games good.

Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation (Switch)

It's party time!

So, finished off Dragon Quest III and with that I have played every main Dragon Quest-game from I-IX and XI (I won't play X since it's a MMO and I don't play those) just released in the store for the Switch so I know how I will spend Halloween this year (as of writing it's mid-October). I've heard that this is seen as one of the best games in the series and apparently sold the best at release(?). Playing it now 31 years after its release and after experiencing the first two games I can see why. It's the first that feels like all the other DQ-games I've played. I don't know if it's later additions from the SNES and onward remakes compared to the first release, but you have day-and-night cycles, quick menus for healing and a bag that can store all your things. Fine by me.

Game starts with a quiz, you chose your gender and then answer question and take a test of personality that will give you a personality that affects how stats are leveling up (you can change them in the game by reading certain books), I got the lazy status, apparently I should have pushed the rock some more times in the beginning. Didn't matter, you wake up at your 16th birthday and meet the king that informs you that your father was Ortega, the warrior that set out to defeat the Archfiend and never come back so you are on a quest to finish what he started. And your first objective is to go to Patty's Place... wait, Patty's Place? From Dragon Quest IX? 

It is Patty!

You create your team that follows you around. You can choose between Monks, Warriors, Thief, Priests, Mages, Jesters and Merchants. I created one of each but pretty much stuck with a team of the Hero, Thief, Priest and Mage, the Hero being the only available job for the main character so he was the brawn of the operation. You set out trying to follow in Ortega's footsteps and you very quickly circle the island you are on and get a key to open a portal that leads you to another continent and a castle where everyone speaks Italian. Travel around for more keys, you see a village cursed to eternal sleep, a pyramid out in the desert, towns harassed by the infamous villain Robin 'ood. A town with a a holy river... and besides it an island that looks like Japan that you can't reach until you get yourself a ship. While on the island you find a town where they speak akin to japanese and are being harassed by the dragon Orochi... isn't that the dragon in Okami that took place in Japan... Wait, how did the map look again?

Oh my GOD! It's our world!

Yes, the map looks fairly much like our own, with exception from the starting island which I would guess is a reference to the "lost continent" of Mu since it is in what would be the Pacific Ocean. And suddenly the world was at least easy to navigate. The Italians where in Rome, the boat you got from the Spanish city near Gibraltar. The Englishmen are the one that stole the pot from the Native Americans and the pirates live in Argentina. Once you get the boat it's pretty much a travel the world quest in order to find the 6 orbs that you will use to awaken the bird god in the tower on the south pole. Now, most of the orbs I just stumbled upon walking around the world and finding caves, towers and new places mostly without a guide, but I would recommend a guide regardless since there are a couple things that makes it harder than it should be. First, the echo flute is a joke. I forget to use it, most of the time (which is on me) but when I use it doesn't tell me in a way that makes me say "there it is". Worst example is the Merchant town. There is this old man that want to build a city in I guess New York, but you need to bring him a merchant, which I did and used the echo flute... and it didn't react. It didn't react because the orb wasn't there yet since only appears after you progressed the town to a certain stage. Which is hard to guess for something that just looks to be a side quest without pay-off. But you can't progress until it's done. Also, the thief has an ability that are pretty useful that is telling you how many treasures there are in a level. Fine for dungeons and such, but it also works in town which is good, if not that it separates stairways as different levels, meaning that if you don't test it at every room below or above ground level you don't know if you gotten all items. And the side companion spell snooping never worked for me so I can't see where the damn treasures are. Which is infuriating since I know there is a hidden item in Asham that I can't find... and the damn guide I used were for the remake on the SNES where it doesn't exist. Damn it!

Still, I got all the orbs. I awaken the bird god and now enter the castle of the archfiend fighting my way through spellcaster and other hellish beast until I reach him and... he promptly beats me. Again and again. Now, I check up the strategy and I could probably have used my anti-magic spell and sleep on him, but since my healing output was negligible I started grinding for the first time during this game. 4-5 levels until my priest had multiheal, rather easy in the archfiends castle since there were liquid metal slimes that occasionally decided to stay long enough for me to kill them getting 10 000 EXP. I then promptly beat the archfiend and returned to my home to soak in the attention from the king and then... some dude named Soma shows up and spoils the party. I return to a chasm guarded by two soldiers and jumps in and finds... the world from the first two games (mostly the part that appeared in the first game). The Soma guy resides in the dragon lords castle and you gotta redo the task of getting sword, armour, shield and amulet together with the staff of rain and sunstone to create the rainbow drop that will summon the rainbow bridge to his castle. Traveling the world you learn a few things, that it's a prequel since things are either built or exist that were referenced in the earlier games and then that your father Ortega is still alive in this world fighting Soma. After finishing gathering all the items and heading for the castle you enter and fight your way up with most things looking like the original castle map until you reach a bridge where you see Ortega once more fighting the King Hydra, but is finally killed. As you rush to him his final words is that someone have to tell his child he is sorry that he wasn't strong enough to rid the world of evil. Damn!

A hero he was through all his life!

Now it's personal so you find yourselves on the final floor where Soma summons King Hydra, then the Archfiends soul and lastly the corpse of the Archfiend. I dispatch them all back to hell, but my resources are mostly depleted when it comes to magic so I make a quick save and goes for the kill, half the party dead after the first round. I restart, I survive three rounds before it's pretty much pointless to continue when only main character stands. So I check the guide... which tell me what the sphere of light is intended to do. Restart, shuffle around the equipment and thief use the sphere, priest insulate and mage kabuff while hero omniheal the first round. Surviving the first round priest uses the stone of sages while hero and thief spams attacks and mage uses Oomph on the attackers. Unfortunately the MP on the mage is already depleted after a few short rounds and the stone of sages isn't that effective in healing so then priest and thief go down leaving hero and mage. The mage only deals 1 point of damage and then she's gone leaving the hero. The omniheals depleted the hero's MP so there isn't enough for a full heal so just spam attack. The HP is lowering and then... with another strike Soma goes down leaving the hero the only one standing as the castle begins to crumble. No magic left I can't resurrect anyone so I just leave, but falls into a chasm that opens beneath me spitting me out in the cave that would become the grave of the hero Erdick. As I leave the cave all companions return to life and I return to Tentegral Castle where I'm told the chasm to my own world is closed so I can't return home, but I'm bestowed the title Erdick and the tales of my adventure would be spread around the lands, setting up the first game. 

I really liked this game, it feels like all the other Dragon Quest games and I get why it's one of the more popular entries. The throw-backs and the main quest of avenging your father is very powerful. A pity this version didn't have the intro where Ortega fights a dragon into the volcano, showing of the world and would give you "aha"-feelings as you find Ortega's helmet in the village and such, Now, there is a bonus dungeon after beating the game.. but I won't try that since I know I have to grind to get there. We have the different class-system here, but it has some problems which is indicated by that I never used it. Taking a standard team pretty much ensure you can't go wrong so that's nice, only grinding part was at the archfiends castle. The problem as I see it is that changing class takes the characters level down to 1 and you restart the leveling process. That goes also if you return to the old class, you start from 1. I think you get bonus if you max a class to level 99, but you can see it's a grind if I got to level 42 and beat the game. There is an advanced class of sage that would be useful, but I don't dare try it. Final Fantasy V got it right with separating normal level up and the class level so it was easier to change between the classes (if Dragon Quest V was first with that or something I wouldn't know since I can't remember right now) so that I don't feel I lose progress by trying some different tactic. If I ever replay it I could try some other starting classes just for the fun of it, but that means that the thief is the only one that I would dare change since healing and buff spells are pretty important in the end game. Now I'm itching for Dragon Quest XI. 

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered (Switch)

Who do you call?

From one game fighting ghost and monsters to another. This time it's Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered, the original game released in 2009 and I have that for the PS3, but I never finished it and thought it would be better to replay it for the Switch instead. And I actually finished it this time. And it was a fun game. Taking place in November of 1991 it begins at the museum where a guard stumbles upon a woman who runs after a wave of energy have spread from the Gozer exhibit and then he is attacked by an unseen ghost. Then the game starts in Ghostbusters HQ and the outfitting of their newest recruit... you, the player. You don't get a name since they have bad experiences with the last one. The shockwave of energy releases Slimer and you have to catch him. Which take you back to the hotel from the first movie and you find the woman from the intro that leaves the hotel.

Slimer isn't the only ghost haunting the hotel so time to exterminate ghosts big time. You capture some sea captain that was about to turn the hotel into a sea cave. Leaving the hotel you see an old friend again, Stay-Puff Marshmallow man walking through the city causing havoc looking for something. You follow him and meets the woman once again and has to protect her while fighting of Stay-Puff atop the roof. Turns out she is a specialist on Gozarian and was recommended by Walter Peck (the EPA agent from the first movie) for the exhibit, Walter Peck is set to keep an eye out on the ghostbusters by orders of the mayor so you quickly decide to ignore him and try to get into the museum, but are forced on a detour to the library since the gray lady is again haunting it (like in the first movie). You also meet another ghost called the Collector and have to travel through several dimensional portal and destroying a node in a powerful crest. Get to the museum and find a secret passage beneath the building and the symbol again after destroying the node. Back at HQ you discover the pattern lines up with the hotel, library, museum and a point in the Hudson river. You return to the hotel and travels to the 13th floor and have to fight... a spider witch.

Why does it have to be spiders?

Defeat her and the node you then head out to sea and discover an island rising from the bottom. Destroying that node and coming back to HQ reveals that the woman have been kidnapped and a strange phenomena at Central Park where graves are rising from the ground. Fight your way through and you find the mausoleum of Ivo Shandor, the architect behind Dana Barrets apartment in the original movie and all the buildings and sites you visited in the game. His spirit apparently possessed the mayor and you defeat him, the world saved and you get the opportunity to start your own Ghostbusters sub-group, the end!

It was a fun short game. I really like the use of the music from the first movie, all the references to the both movies, like Viggo the Carpathian painting with Max von Sydow reprising his voice by pretty much insulting you every time you interact with it. The characters looks like their actors at the time and it's nice to hear all their voices. I played it on casual since I'm not that thrilled to waste that much time. Something that bothered me was that I pretty much upgraded my equipment very quickly due to be very thorough by finding the relics so I had $ 60-70 000 at the end without anything to spend it on, do you get less money on the harder difficulties? Also, I don't like the save system since it's automatic so you can't always tell where the save point was if you wanna quit. And the game crashed on me once, but other than that worked fine. Maybe playing the PS3 version for the trophies cause there is no real reason I see to play the game on switch again (besides the portability).

And since it's Happy New Year as this goes up have a great time and let's hope 2020 gets even better.