Dragon Quest #02: Magic of HURT!

Hello again, Readers! It's been a while since I started this series, and it's about time for another installment! Unfortunately, I can't promise that this one will be very exciting, but at least it's moving along now!

First things first! The itinerary:

1. Visit Erdrick's Cave on the way to Garinham.
2. Speak with the citizens of Garinham.
3. Battle Ghosts and Drakees until learning the HURT spell.
4. Battle Magicians until I can buy Chain Mail in Garinham and a Small Shield back at Brecconary.

Each version of the game has the same layout for Erdrick's Cave (I believe the same will be true of all dungeons). The trip in and out is easy, with no monsters, and the message on the stone slab at the bottom is also basically the same: I, Erdrick, left three items in the care of three sages until that time when they are needed again to fight evil. Hence, the primary puzzle of the game becomes clear: Find three things. Clear as mud, eh?

In the meantime, at my low level Ghosts are hammering me. I found it necessary to run from Magicians until learning HURT at Level 4, and even then I have to watch my HP (and my enemy's) to stay out of danger. Even Ghosts were better off defeated by magic rather than trying to club them. The enemy's HURT can cause up to 10 HP of damage (the Hero's can go up to 12), so having less than 11 HP is extremely hazardous. While playing the MSX2 leg, I was a bit drowsy and wasn't paying attention to a Magician which I should have run from; as a result, Egbert was handed his first death so far. However, by the end of the ordeal there was new armor and a shield to be had by all, and there was much rejoicing!

And then there were the remakes. Where the original four releases were slower-paced while still managing to be skin-of-your-teeth ordeals at times, the remakes were all quite a different picture. Ghosts fell very easily without having to learn Firebal (a.k.a., HURT) first, and Magicians didn't live near Garinham at all. After learning Firebal, it was downright boring to fight for gold near town, so I ventured further south and fought near a bridge there, where Magicians, Magidrakees, and Scorpions succumbed all too easily to a single Firebal each. No, really, it was too easy. Maybe it's just because I've played the original about five times through in the last six years while doing my fan translation, but I'm beginning to see why so many fans of Dragon Quest I bemoan the rebalanced stats.

There is a little bit of dialogue difference between the different releases. All three of the original Japanese releases contain a character in Garinham who calls himself みやおう [miyaō] who tells that he is looking for someone else named キムこう [kimukō]. The North American version doesn't name the first character at all, but calls the object of the search "Nester," after a character from the old Nintendo Power magazines. The two Japanese names refer to Hiroshi Miyaoka and Hajime Kimura, the first of whom worked on the game itself. The second (according to an email I received awhile back) was a friend of Miyaoka-san and Yūji Horii, and all three wrote in a column called "Famicom Shinken" for Shōnen Jump magazine in Japan. The names in the game are their pen names for the column. Thanks to Noah Qin for the info! I'll just go ahead and let it slip that we will be meeting Horii-san later...and put forth the theory that perhaps they are looking for Kimura-san because he was not present with them creating the game? Food for thought, and a very clever way of leaning on the fourth wall if it's true! Unfortunately, it seems these characters were removed from the remakes.

Anyway! Next time—hopefully soon—we'll venture onward to the next town, and learn some new spells! See you then!

My Progress
Version	NES (U)	MSX (J)	MSX2 (J)	NES (J)	SNES (J)	GBC (U)	GBC (J)
Level	6	6	6	6	5	6	5
Total Time	00:57	01:01	00:47	00:59	00:35	00:37	00:41
Deaths	0	0	1	0	0	0	0