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Keep healing the tank!

: "We should look for any captives they might have taken. If we can release them, the Old Gods will look favorably on us."

P-33

Part 4: An Adventure Begins



We return to the world of Dragon Quest to see Azrael standing in front of the guardian statue. He appears to be missing a few things. Equally as worrying, the villagers of Angel Falls are talking about him.

: "Hey, it's that Azrael character who turned up just after the earthquake the other day."



They can also see him. Since Ivor and Hugo do not appear to be ghosts, this is troubling.

: "I don't know what Erinn thinks she's doing bothering with the likes of him. He won't tell us where he's from, his clothes are all weird...I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

: "I bet it's his name that's got Erinn so keen. It is the same as our village Guardian's after all."

: "Huh! I doubt it's even his real name. I bet he's just some no-good wandering minstrel taking on a Guardian's name to get a free lunch."



: "Yeah, watch your step! Ivor doesn't like Erinn giving all of her attention to you."

: "Shut up, you idiot! Why would you say that!?"



: "Uh-oh!"



: "What's going on? What are you two bothering Azrael for?"

: "Er...Hi, Erinn! Nothing's going on. Just teaching Azrael here a few village rules. Anyway, we were just leaving. Come on, Hugo."



: "I don't know why Ivor's so full of himself these days. He never used to be like that. Anyway, you must be feeling better now if you're out walking around, Azrael. Coming up here reminds me of when I first found you. I was quite surprised.



: "Anyway, I'm heading home. There's nothing more to do at the inn for now. Enjoy the rest of your walk, but make sure you don't overdo it, okay? I'll see you back at the house."



Welp. Here we are. No wings, no halo, no convenient invisibility.



Nothing but a weak sword and the clothes on our back as far as equipment goes. We do have a few restorative items from scrounging around earlier, and some gold pieces.



And the horse manure. Can't forget that.



No spells, abilities, or traits. Low stats. Apparently we're going with the idea that we are indeed a wandering Minstrel. Basically, we're not having a good day.



This is Erinn's house. Let's come back later.





Misfortune has struck Angel Falls, and we're getting the blame for it. I guess we are sorta failing to accomplish our Guardian duties...



At least the dog likes us.



Good news: we can access the shop! It stocks basic medicines and some very basic equipment. Virtually all of it is a direct upgrade to our Celestrian garb. I'm not sure what that says about angelic standards.

The bad news is that we cannot afford anywhere near everything. The soldier's sword alone costs more than we have, and simple leather armor would bankrupt us.



The church, despite losing its bell in the earthquake, offers two new services. Resurrection revives a fallen teammate, which is super-useful in the early game, while Purification treats poisons...which is somewhat less useful considering that antidote herbs are available from the get-go. Still, the option is here. Both services cost some gold.



Erinn runs the local inn. Of course, with all of the village's troubles in the past few days, the customers have stopped coming in altogether. Not a good situation.



Walking into Ivor's house triggers this scene.

: "You'd do well to take a leaf out of Erinn's book. She puts in a lot of hard work at the inn, that girl."

: "Huh! What's Erinn got to do with it? I am trying to find something I want to do, anyway. And when I figure out what that is, I'll work my socks off! ...Probably..."



Upstairs, Ivor's sister asks to see some party tricks from us. Party tricks are a new feature in DQIX, and are basically short animations Azrael can perform to interact with other players. They also get used quite a bit in side quests, and every once in a while in the main story.



You can get a pretty decent selection of them. One each can be assigned to B+Up, Left, or Right. B+Down plays a string of four party tricks in a row.



Some backstory for Erinn. Edwinn apparently moved to Stornway, got married, and had Erinn. His wife died young, sadly, and I guess he and Erinn moved back here.

There's nothing else to do in the village for the moment. It's time to head back.



These "Angel's Tears" are apparently what made this place a success despite being something of a backwater.



Yes please!

One quick fade to black later...



: "Come on, get up! You have a visitor. Ivor's here. He's got something or other he wants to talk to you about."

Ivor, huh? I wonder if he wants to threaten Azrael again over stealing his girl?



: "We can't talk about it here, though. Come outside a minute."

Hoo boy. We head outside.



: "Well, that pass is a lifeline for us here in Angel Falls. We're totally cut off if we can't use it. It's a real problem for Eri- A real problem for everyone, I mean. So I was thinking: what better time for Ivor to come to the rescue? I'm going to clear the landslide and make it passable again. It'll get my dad off my back for a while, and I know Erinn will be pleased as well. There's just one hitch with my perfect plan.

"Since the earthquake, there have been lots of monsters about, and it's pretty dangerous to leave the village now. That's where you come in. I was thinking that maybe you could tag along."



Ugh. Of course, what he really wants is for Azrael to risk life and limb to protect him while he gets back into Erinn's good books. Still, even if we lack wings and a halo we ARE the Guardian here. Getting their lives back into something like order is probably the right thing to do.

Besides, we owe Erinn for helping Azrael recover from his fall.

: "Knew it! Right then, you lead the way, Azrael. It's easy enough to find. You just head out of the village and follow the road east. Oh yeah, and let's keep this to ourselves, okay? We don't want everyone sticking their beaks in."



Everyone, welcome Ivor to the team! Well, sort of. You can't access his equipment or see his non-HP stats. He has slightly more health than Azrael and two extra levels, but no MP at all. Ironically, it is he that is the extra muscle.



We run into Hugo guarding the village entrance.

: "Stop trying to scare people! We're leaving the village and there's nothing you can do about it."

: "W-Wait a minute! What are you doing with him, Ivor? Since when were you best mates?"

: "You are a pain sometimes! We're just going to clear the landslide, that's all."

: "Oh, right...But there really are monster about, you know."

: "Nothing I can't handle. Just let us by, will you? Hold us up any longer and there'll be trouble!"

: "G-Go on then. I'm not stopping you. But if you get tired or hurt, you'll come straight back to the village if you know what's good for you."

Basically, for the duration of this segment of the game Erinn's house serves as a free inn. It'll come in handy.



And now, we are set free on the world map! Well, part of it anyway. While the training wheels are still attached, things start getting exciting from here.



Monster encounters are seen on the world map, like that cruelcumber. Some of them will chase you, some of them will try to flee, some mostly mind their own business. If you touch a monster from behind, you get a surprise round. If they catch you from behind, they get a surprise round. If a monster starts chasing you and you can't get away, it's better to turn and face them head-on. There's probably a metaphor in that.



Here's a teeny sanguini, a perfect opportunity to show off combat. At the start of each round you chose whether to Fight, Examine, Flee, or Misc. Misc lets you set party tactics (assuming you don't have a guest character like Ivor who does his own thing), choose which characters are in the front or back rows, and change weapons if you need to. Flee gives you a chance to run from an encounter. Examine is mostly useless, giving some flavor text on what the enemy team is up to.



Fight is where the real bread-and-butter lies. Party members can strike with their weapons, use an item, defend themselves, or use spells and abilities that they have learned. Spells are tied to a character's vocation, while abilities are not.



Sadly Azrael has no spells or abilities, and if Ivor has any he lacks the MP to use them. Therefore, we just smack the teeny sanguini to death with our swords.



Once combat finishes, we get experience points and gold pieces. Sometimes enemies may drop items as well. This one dropped a medicinal herb!



Ah, the humble slime! Basically the mascot of the entire series, and the main character of an entire (rather fun) DS game. There are dozens of slime varieties, but this one is the best.



A bodkin archer this time. You may notice that the sky is getting darker. DQIX features a day/night cycle that runs when you're out in the field. Some monsters only appear at night. Life in the various towns changes as well.





These dudes are not fluffing about. There's no real fear of getting one-shot this early in the game, but you do need to learn when to call it a day and return to Angel Falls for rest.



Despite my utterly lousy screenshot timing, you can see the first hint of the game's combo system in the upper-left corner! When characters manage to deal consecutive hits to the same foe, a combo is started. Each hit in the combo gets a damage bonus; I believe it is 1.2x for the second hit, 1.5x for the third, and 2x for the fourth.

Combos are tricky to achieve, however. First off, it has to be the same ability being used for a combo to start: if a mage blasts a foe with a fireball before a warrior strikes that same foe with a spear, no combo will occur. Secondly, if the foe gets an attack off in between your strikes, the combo will likewise fail.

It's also worth noting that enemy monsters can inflict combos on your party members, though they run under the same restrictions.



That last battle was enough to boost Azrael's level! He gets some rather nice stat bonuses across the board. However, leveling up in Dragon Quest does nothing for your current HP or MP.



Just a better screenshot of the combo notice.



A quick rest in Angel Falls and a few battles later, Azrael levels up again, this time learning the very useful Heal spell! I should probably avoid getting too strong for the time being; the stronger I get now the further behind future party members will be. Luckily, as you get stronger the weaker monster encounters will start to run from you.



Eventually, we make it to our destination!





Uh.





Uhhhhhhh.

: "The landslide's this way. I'll go on ahead!"



...I think I'll take a quick break here.

Excellent! I'll probably record those sorts of cutscenes more in the future. Hopefully without mysterious temporary account terminations.

Use Cleanse on Tanya!

(12,7) and patch up Kaarina.

Steam recently removed a game, Active Shooter, where you could play as an active school shooter. What I want to know is how the hell it got on Steam in the first place so that it needed to be removed.

My understanding is that you just need to pay a fee to get a game listed on Steam. Not a big one either, maybe $100. My guess is that no one bothered to actually look into the submitted game until complaints started coming in.

Patch up Kaarina.