This is a much better game that any of the ones I’ve played so far. It is an NES hangover Dragon Quest clone, but there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. I’ve made a fair amount of progress this week and I hope I can finish the game by next Saturday.
The next destination is Athens, where you are not allowed into the city. Instead you have go to a side area where the slaves live. You might think you can climb a tower and jump off to enter the main section, but if you do that you just get arrested — this does reunite us with Reion, though. We also discover that the King of Athens is hiding in the slum area, observing slavery, and doesn’t like what he sees.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t historically accurate |
You have to lead the king back into the palace through a secret passage, which is a strange dungeon that you have to dig out while you explore. Like all the NPCs, the King has his own stats and attacks, although he’s not very effective.
In this game you don’t get the chance to become King |
Once he’s back on the throne, he abolishes slavery(!) and then becomes your ally in the war against all these monsters that are threatening the world. But for now it’s off exploring more. This is like many older RPGs where it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to go next, but you can usually figure it out just by trying to go everywhere you can. You also find Hercules in town, who joins you, but he’s not any more powerful than any of your other guys.
An annoying heat shimmer |
This will be a long post if I detail everything, so I’m going to skip over the next few dungeons: in short, you find a hidden temple to get new spells, and a fierce heat starts up everywhere you go, although the cause is yet unknown. You also meet a stonecrafter and his servant. The stonecrafter thinks he might be one of the immortals, the same as your characters, but isn’t sure.
“Don’t talk!” |
Can we stay like this? |
We get thrown into the Persian jail, and then have to escape by evading soldiers, walking around when they’re not looking. If they catch you it’s back to the jail. This is a rare thing in the NES era; I wonder what the first game to have this idea was?
A strange scene that wouldn’t be in most games. |
In the skies you first have to help Phateon find the horses to drive the sun. Then we fall back to earth with the Temple Key and can enter the locked temple to Olympus. Here, the main character has to face a challenge alone. Once you make it through and beat the boss, it’s finally time to meet the gods in Olympus.
This is not how I pictured Olympus |
All of the familiar gods are there, and they greet us with either anger or resignation — Zeus has decided that humanity will be wiped out. Meeting Zeus doesn’t even change things; he just tells us to go back to Earth and die with everyone else. Fortunately, Hephaestos is some help. He gives us a key that we can use to enter a tower in Olympus and find Prometheus, who is the one that gave us immortality.
Thanks for nothing |
Next up, we’ll finally reach the place that we saw in our dreams, and perhaps unlock the secret of our immortality.
Dragon Quest 4 had a couple of places where you had to sneak past guards or follow someone without being seen. It was also the first console RPG I know of where NPCs had movement patterns more elaborate than "wander around randomly" or "stand still" (Ultima 5 did it first on computers)