Dragon Quest IV #05

Welcome back to Let's Play Dragon Quest IV: Side × Side! Wow, it's been over a week already since the last post?! Starting here in Frenor, I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be something hidden in the garden behind the chapel, which isn't. I'll have to investigate further.... Seems what the priest is tending to will take some time to grow. We'll have to get it later! However, the remakes have a Seed of Life in the cabbage patch right now, so take it!

There's a princess in town! But it's not me. An imposter is staying at the inn! We go upstairs to confront her, and oh no! A kidnapper is staying at the inn, too! The fake princess is being dragged out by two goons, so we give chase. But we're too slow, so we turn back to check out the town! Priorities! Side note: I just noticed that the priests actually are holding a little cross in the original Japanese. Kit, the town dog, has found a letter, so his kid reads it to us. We need to bring the town's Golden Bracelet to the graveyard at night to get May—I mean the princess—back! The kid concludes his reading of the note with a pre-YouTube "I'm 12 and what is this?" The bracelet in the southern cave. Spelunking! It's known as the Armlet of Transmutation on the DS.

Walking outside town, Cristo is killed by a Brahmird. They hurt! Heading back to town, I meet five Carnivore Plants and decide I can take them without a healer (not to be confused with the monster). Oh. My. Goodness. They go down, but not without calling five Healers (not to be confused with the character archetype). Goodness. Gracious. Me.

Let's check out the cave! Alena's hat becomes invisible inside, revealing her table-top flat head. Design error, the floor is the same color as her hat! Brey learns Outside, just inside the cave. Good timing! I'm still too weak for the cave and depleting my MP rapidly, so this is quite a good development. Then I forget to save MP for it. Tch. It's not far to the exit, but six Demon Toadstools later, it feels like it is. Everyone gets equipment upgrades! In the Japanese version, I get mauled by some Vampire Bats because I forget basic strategy, and for the first time my Gold fund is so low that I have to decide who to revive first and who gets to stay dead for another minute or two. Also, I am consistently dumbfounded as to why green was chosen as the "dangerous HP levels" window border color for Dragon Quest III and IV on the NES. At about this time in the remakes, Borya (a.k.a. Brey) also learns Snooze (a.k.a. Sleep), which wasn't available to him originally.

Just for fun, here's an excerpt from a battle that I have on the way back down:

Brahmird appears.

Brahmird attacks before you're ready!

But Brahmird-A is asleep!

Brahmird-A is asleep.
Brahmird-A rolls over!
Alena gets 2 Damage Points!

...Exactly. On the second floor of the cave, some Orcs gang up and Surround everyone, then gang up and kill Brey with his Outside spell and all that. ...Great. However, Alena and Cristo do manage to hike back out safely, after which I finish buying the best equipment available so far before going back one last time. Interestingly, Pickayunes—the DS version of Orcs—don't have enough MP to cast Surround at all. Doesn't stop them from trying!

Back inside, Brey reaches Lv 9 and gains 13 MP, as well as learning Bounce and Return. O frabjous day! Even luckier, in the Japanese original I win a Magic Potion from a monster, adding to the one that's already in the cave. Awesome!

I shake my head at the new spell names for the DS, even though I've already seen them in VIII and IX and they are no surprise. Kasnoose? Really?

Absolutely no problems getting into the cave for the bracelet this time, and we head back to town and wait for nightfall. After handing over the bracelet, the fake princess's captors politely say "Bye!" and vanish! We learn that May is just an actress, and people treated her nicely when she acted like a princess. O...kay.... And she gives Alena a Thief's Key. So, what, she's a thief, too?!

Now that the town is back to normal, we can buy a couple of new weapons, and we hear about a bazaar to the south. We'll go there next time!

My next post will be a Let's Play: Side Quest entry, then right back into the action here.

Name Changes
NES (U)	NES (J)	NDS (U)	PS (J)
* denotes an entry which was not significantly changed from the previous version in the same language. Blank entries either have not appeared yet or were not named in that version.
Atlas
		Vault of Vrenor
Who's Who
May	メイ [mei]	Anya	*
Kit	コロ [koro]	Zasha	*
Toolkit
Golden Bracelet	おうごんのうでわ [ōgon no udewa]	Armlet of Transmutation	黄金のうでわ
Thief's Key	とうぞくのカギ [tōzoku no kagi]	*	*
Spellbook
Surround	マヌーサ [manūsa]	Dazzle	*
Outside	リレミト [riremito]	Evac	*
Sleep	ラリホー [rarihō]	Snooze	*
Antidote	キアリー [kiarī]	Squelch	*
Defence	ルカナン [rukanan]	Kasap	*
Sleepmore	ラリホーマ [rarihōma]	Kasnooze	*
Bounce	マホカンタ [mahokanta]	*
Return	ルーラ [rūra]