First, our goals for the evening:
- Loot the Rocky Mountain Cave repeatedly until I have enough money for a Large Shield.
- ...That's it.
Marching a little bit north of the castle and then west to the coastline, and turning south to cross a bridge, one soon comes to a small patch of swampland to the east, around which a majestic mountain range looms merrily over...well, everyone, I'd suppose. East of this swamp is a cave which I do not believe has ever been officially mentioned or named in any version of this game, but which is commonly known as the "Rocky Mountain Cave." Inside, as in Erdrick's Cave, we are welcomed by a comforting blanket of TOTAL FREAKIN' DARKNESS, and unlike Erdrick's Cave, the warm embrace of MONSTERS TRYING TO KILL YOU.
Let's start with the original set of releases. On the first floor we encounter a new foe, the Druin, which dies. There is also an Herb on the first floor, in the northeast corner near the stairs leading downward. Be careful, as there are two sets of decoy stairs which lead to dead ends in the northwest and southeast.
The second floor is not so friendly. All of the monsters are stronger here, comparable to Scorpions and Skeletons from Kol, only worse because they're worse. One, the Poltergeist, would very much like to HURT you. The Sleep spell comes in very handy down here, unlike Hurt which is already starting to lose its utility due to hey, we're getting stronger now and we just bought an Axe. I'd recommend not sticking around if you don't have MP to spare for Sleep castings; Warlocks and Drolls are as capable of making you die as Skeletons (which caused my first NES-U death), and Drakeemas are the first monster we've met which can Heal itself, so Sleep can save you a lot of trouble!
For the intrepid explorer, there is much to find in the depths of the Rocky Mountains. Along with a common Torch and a small sum of Gold, there is the Fighter's Ring and a large sum of Gold. First the Ring: Unless you just like having useless things (which I admit, I do...), sell it. It's worth 15 Gold to you gone, and nothing to you on your finger. It has been discovered that there are only two places is the game code that check for the presence of the Ring. One is a man who changes his dialogue if he sees it. The other portion checks to see if you're already wearing the Ring when you go to put it on. It doesn't increase your Strength, and it doesn't make monsters run away (although it may seem that way, since wasting your turn gives them another chance to try).
Now, the large sum of Gold: There's a 1-in-32 chance that you actually get something other than Gold here, namely the Death Necklace! If you do, JACKPOT!, it's worth a lot of shiny. Just don't use it!--it's cursed! What does that mean? Oh, nothing important...you just won't be allowed into the castle because of the evil stench rolling off of you, so you won't be able to SAVE YOUR GAME. Even intentionally dying doesn't work, because the King will revive you just enough to kick you out of the castle with 1 HP and 0 MP. Now, if you do happen to accidentally put on the Death Necklace, there is a man in Brecconary who will remove it for free...but you'll lose the merchandise. Better to sell it!
Now for something that I didn't expect: While running through the cave on the MSX version, I actually succeeded in obtaining the Death Necklace! Called しのくびかざり [shi no kubikazari], it is worth a whopping 1200 Gold, more than enough to buy the Large Shield and end that leg of the journey. It was fitting that I received it on that run as well, since a Warlock nearly killed me twice with Sleep just beforehand, and then I was immediately ambushed by another before grabbing the treasure, which left me with only 2 MP and no Herbs remaining to escape the cave with my booty. Thankfully, even if I'd died the equity in my Necklace would have remained, but I managed to escape anyway so I was pretty lucky all around! ^_^
But most iterations of my journey were not so fortunate. Even so, after only two or three trips in and out of the cave, noble Egbert had enough money for the Large Shield sold at Garinham. Let's go get it! ...and then we're done.
But now it's time to talk about the remakes. I stated in previous blogs that I expected all the caves would look the same. Boy, was I wrong! The Rocky Mountain Cave in particular has been vastly redesigned for the SNES, and the same new design was carried over into the GBC. Instead of heading toward the northeast, we are forced to take a circuitous route along the outside edge of the cave moving clockwise, stopping for a small treasure behind a pool along the way. The amount of Gold? ALMOST 350. Sure beats 14, right? Our goal, by the way, is the stairway in the northwest corner, unless you're coming here late and you have a key to open the door which has shown up in the southwest; both lead to the main area of the lower level. Also, for some reason the メーダ [mēda] are drawn as floating in the SNES edition--that's the monster called "Druin" in North America.
Or is it? Here's an interesting tidbit: Although the Japanese names never changed, the monster originally called "Druin" was renamed "Eyeder" for the GBC. The reason? Who knows, but it probably had something to do with the "Warlock" being renamed..."Druin." O_o
As different as the upper level was, the lower level is much more so. Along the north wall are several rooms, one of which contains a large amount of Gold (OVER 670!) which I promptly lost by putting off healing in a battle with a ドラキーマ [dorakīma]. Forgetting that the battle system was now shared with DQII on the same cart, I also forgot that in each round the monster now actually has a chance to go first if it's faster than I am. I learned the hard way to heal ahead of time! However, even after losing half I still had 657 Gold, which is pretty dang good this early in the game.
Anyway, back to that long hallway. After the big chest of Gold is one which contains a Torch, or perhaps the Death Necklace if you're (un)-lucky? No, you'd be lucky! ^_^ Going around the east end of the cave brings you to a section where you can turn west and enter the central chambers. In various rooms around here are a 鉄の盾 [tetsu no tate], ちからのたね [chikara no tane] to increase STR, ふしぎなきのみ [fushigi na ki no mi] to increase Max MP, and displayed very prominently, the 戦士の指輪 [senshi no yubiwa]--you know, the ring that does nothing. But wait, that "tetsu" thing...that's actually the "Iron Shield," which is the same as the Large Shield we were here to earn money for. That means we're done! Banzai! Head back to town, and if you have over 1000 Gold (you probably do), put it in the Vault at the Inn before saving.
Next time we'll try to journey on to Rimuldar. Will we make it, or will we laugh in the face of failure and try again until we make it?!
| My Progress | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version | NES (U) | MSX (J) | MSX2 (J) | NES (J) | SNES (J) | GBC (U) | GBC (J) |
| Level | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Total Time | 02:10 | 02:22 | 01:57 | 02:09 | 01:27 | 01:24 | 01:22 |
| Deaths | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
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