Torneko: The Last Hope #05

All right, let's try this again! Attempt number 4! Did I mention they hoisted me back home in a stretcher last time?

Brought a sword in with me, and by the end of 1F I have a shield as well. But ugh, by the time I reach 7F I've been caught and surrounded and poisoned so many times, I just used that Outside scroll to escape with my life.

Trying again.... Made it to 4F without a hitch. Made use of a Bang scroll I brought to take out a couple Mummies while I was cornered. Yay! Down to 8F now, and I have a couple Warp Herbs for emergencies. And here I am using one, cornered between a Wyvern and a Crabus! Nice, straight to the exit! It's gone really well through 10F, let's see how I handle Berserkers again....

And I can hardly believe my luck! I started 11F right next to the exit. Just a little exploring for a little EXP and money, then down the stairs! 12F isn't being so nice, but thankfully I still have Warp Herb to get out of a jam. Met a couple of Berserkers, thankfully still L1! And here's the exit! That should be the end.

Another pentagram! And Torneko jumps into the middle of it like a moron again. And we get a Tree's Lament. Yay! And here comes the Old Man! He asks if I could possibly be.... Well, of course I am, dingbat! You never thought to ask the last half-dozen times you saw me?! And again with the tubby joke. He says he's been investigating the kingdom for some time, and he never expected the Magic Dungeons to get this far. He's glad to hear the King is looking for him, and comes with me to the Castle voluntarily!

The Old Man is surprised to learn that they think him responsible, and explains that in the past the kingdom was home to fools who wielded magic selfishly. They gathered demonic power without realizing its nature, and it destroyed them. Afterwards, all that remained was the channel through which that power had been gathered. This power causes the land to cycle through extinction and rebirth. It is responsible for reshaping the land into dungeons! But we don't believe all that nonsense, take him away. Sigh.... But what's this?! The Prince and Princess have returned from the west! The Old Man is none other than Gashira, Great Sage of the Western City! Unhand him, ye scoundrels!

It seems the root cause of everything is the Darkevil Chest, the twin of the Joy Chest. Do we know why the Joy Chest was in a Magic Dungeon? Well, no...so Gashira tells us! It was created by the dungeon itself! Amazing! So was the Darkevil Chest. The Magic Dungeon creates them "regularly"...you know, with regularity and all that. So we must destroy the Darkevil Chest which has been created! But even then, the dungeon may simply create another. What to do?!

Don't panic, that's why I'm here! says Gashira. He'll create a Banish Chest to seal everything up. But he needs three things! (Sounds like Dragon Quest I here, don't it?) I already have two: The Fiery Murmur and the Tree's Lament, of course! The third is the Stone's Mutter. Let's get to it!

Hmm, there is a villager cackling like a Gremlin saying he'll find the Joy Chest. Also, Ernest thinks the monsters want the Joy Chest because he wants it too. Can't argue with that logic! Remi's Magic Shop can now increase staff usage points, so that's good. And there's another monster-like villager outside.

Well, that's it for now. Toro Ruins next time!

Torneko: The Last Hope #04

No intro, right into the action! Lost Forest! Oh, a Gargoyle with a shop! Didn't bring any money with me, so I only have enough for some bread, really. On 3F, we see something new: ice panels! Slip-n-slide!

4F: I need to stop attacking Mummy Men. Hmmm.... Pillow Rats seem to be mildly annoying right now, just moving to act like they're threatening, but then stepping back. Ooh, nice, a Gargoyle selling shields! I needed one, since I only took a sword and Outside scroll with me (in case of emergency!). An emergency like the one on 7F, where I disturbed a meeting of Yetis and got knocked out before I could run to safety. Did I remember to use the Outside scroll? No, I was too busy running like a moron. D'oh! I guess I'll retry...I've lost everything I came in with now, though.

On the retry, I'm getting mauled by Big Mushrooms. My Strength is down to 3! Close call on 6F, Mummy right behind me and I just barely found the exit in time! No way to heal right now besides waiting, and that doesn't work with monsters in the room.... Aaaand on that note, 7F is my end again, knocked out by a Dance Vegi. The Gargoyles failed me! I never found one shop that time! Retry once more.

AWWWW YEAAAAH, there's a Dragon-X sword for sale on 2F! I'm just a little short on cash since a Trick Bag got me before I got knocked out last time. AAARGH, I just need one more gold bag to buy it! And I got hit with two poison traps while looking for cash, so I'm down to 6 Strength already. Gotta take what I can buy, I guess. Another shop on the next floor, now I get an Antidote and a sword again!

Okay, 7F again, and now I have a Bronze Shield+3. Let's see how it goes this time. Awesome, actually made it to 8F! Meeting Wyverns now, great sources of Exp! Stepped on a trap, and it molded all my bread. Yuck! Also decided to kill that group of Yetis--they're fast! But I lived, so that's nice! 9F! I'm just going to run for the exit now, and I get to 11F easily. Aaaand, there's a Level 3 Berserker. Done.

Pushmo Pack #1!

If anyone reading this is a Pushmo fan, here's a little gift just for fun: A pack of three Dragon Quest I themed puzzles! Try them out and tell me what you think! Edit them if you like, and send them back--I'd like to see what improvements you can make! ^_^

Torneko: The Last Hope #03

All right! Let's get on with it~!

Mt. Fiery! This is as far as I got the last time I played; let's do this! Scrolls are the tutorial this time around. Yeah...all the dungeons so far have basically been tutorials. At least there are actually some weapons and armor in here this time. Well, armor; Picks don't really count. Oh, my! An injured soldier! But don't worry about him, the King is ahead, he says! Okay!

Oh my goodness, Flames. And now there are traps. Mt. Fiery is not the friendliest place. You know, I take that back--this Metabble+1 Sword is working out great, thanks dungeon! And the deeper we go, the hairier it gets--7F and lower are full of Trolls! And I'm out of Bread and Herbs.... I see a stone statue, but it isn't registering on the map as a foe. Staying away in case I'd wake it up! And yeah, it's definitely a monster, I passed by another.

And 9F introduces Goopi! Damn, I have to walk by one. Grabbed my foot! And, they summon Stone Men. But on 10F, I'm doing great! Level 14, ha! Cleared the dungeon just as Torneko starts to get hungry.

A pentagram! So what do we do? We immediately stand in the center of it! D'oh! A voice calls me Child of Man. How does he know my daddy's name?! It also gives me a Fiery Murmur. Okay. And the King is here! Yay! He steps on the pentagram too, but apparently receives no murmur.

Back at the Castle! Everyone is overjoyed. The Baron keeps panting. The King reveals what he has found! Of course, it's the Old Man's fault, right? Based on him saying the Joy Chest is not good, and he came from the western city. How could it not be good to be happy?! And everyone knows west is evil, right?! Oh, it's been ravaged by Dragons. I mean, no one would ever leave a city overrun by Dragons, y'know? He must be their leader! Oh, finally something that makes sense. The Old Man was in Mt. Fiery and was unharmed by monsters. That actually is suspicious. Now I'm sent to the Lost Forest to arrest him! And of course I can't check out the Fiery Murmur, even though the info it gives is supposed to be important.

Haha! One of the guards says his son has turned into a jerk, and he's a failure as a father! Must be the Loudmouth's dad, heh! Lol, Maggie is displaying the kung fu she'll do to monsters who try to destroy the innocence of children and hurts her back! And the Bank has started handing out free gifts! I get a Joy Herb and a World Leaf, which raise your Level and revive you upon defeat respectively. Haha, that Ernest! He thinks the King game back to eat; he thinks that because he's hungry. Remi's Magic Shop is now open at the Graveyard! Buy an Iron Safe for 2000G! Also, now we can level up before entering a dungeon, for a cost.

Well, that's about it for now. Later!

Torneko: The Last Hope #02

 I'm back! All righty then...

Apparently, the Blacksmith was given the King's Sacred Flame to use in his forge, but can't retrieve it because the Castle Basement has become--dun dun dunnnnnnnn~!--a Magic Dungeon. King is furious! There has also been a Baker lurking around the Graveyard...all righty then. Also, one of the guards suspects this is all the Old Man's fault...of course.

Castle Dungeon! Magic staves are the Item du jour this time. Stupid Trick Bags, stealing all my money; got it back, though! Phew! This was the first dungeon that required a little bit of strategy. It wasn't difficult to recover from bad spots, but there were a couple of places where a less thoughtful Torneko might not have made it.

We got the Sacred Flame, so the Blacksmith will pay us back! Altruism wins again! Now we have a lock for our storehouse. On a related note, several of the Castle guards are afraid of the Power of Torneko. Or something. And by the next morning, Ed has repaired the entire storehouse! ...But it's still a mess, so capacity is limited. However, with more money....

Looking around town, it seems that the Castle has been reduced to a skeleton crew--top secret goings-on. Someone wants to open a magic shop, but the Baker's wailing at the cemetery is proving too bothersome. And a guard says that he can't find the Joy Chest in the village...perhaps insinuating that the chest in Torneko's home is not truly the Joy Chest?! But now, on to the Graveyard! The Baker wants help reaching his mentor's grave. The Old Man pops out, muttering about how A) he can't find Torneko and B) monsters have spread all the way over here. But sir, A) you shoved Torneko out of your way, so you're incredibly observant, and B) we're right freakin' next door to the Joy Chest, again! Sheesh!

Cemetery Dungeon! Woooooo~~, just in time for Halloween. Herbs are this dungeon's specialty item. There are many varieties in this game with offensive effects--they're not just for healing! But sometimes not so effective...I got knocked out by a Mummy Man who wasn't particularly blinded by my science. Guess I should have used a Warp Herb on him...just thought of that. Meh. Retry is going better so far. Disturbing dialogue: "Why did my Master have to get buried so deep?" Shudder to think. When finally we reach the grave, the Baker finds the recipe for Magic Bread and offers this prayer:

"May the spirits of bread guide you in your afterlife..."

...Right. But there's a bakery in the Square now, so let's forgive him! Nina was so worried about Torneko she forgot to feed Paulo! Neglect! That night....

His Majesty is missing! Apparently he's gone off with a company of soldiers to investigate on his own. Silly! Only one tubby is allowed to investigate dungeons, and that's Torneko! Seems he's tracking the Old Man. ...And, we somehow know where the Old Man lives, but we don't know who he is? Okay. Awwww, Paula and little Lulu are playing like Torneko and Nina! Warm and fuzzy feelings! Oh, and the soldier who suggested that we didn't have the Joy Chest? Apparently he hadn't made it all the way over to my house since the beginning of the game. Now he's there; he's convinced. Oh, and now a guard outside the Inn is calling Torneko tubby. Oh good, it's not just me!

At the Old Man's House, the Rumormonger wants to know if there was a ruckus at the Castle. I'd better tell her, right? No. And the forgotten mayor! He practically begs me to rename the village just so he can do something! Ha! A soldier at the door redirects us to Mt. Fiery. Next time!

Phew! I'm glad I quit doing this on Twitter, that's a lot of tweeting!

Torneko: The Last Hope #01

Hey all! What's up!

This post kind of marks a return to LPS×S. I tried the Twitter updates for a couple of play sessions, and I didn't really like it. So I'm coming back to the blog, but with a decidedly less "formal" tone. I'll just write about what happens in the game, and what I think is silly/funny/whatever in the story, in short little blurbs as I go, leaving the really informative stuff for the one post at the beginning of a game (like where I go over all the different releases and such). So I'll kick this one off by repeating my tweets for #Torneko2 in blog form!

Coming home, I'm met with a mysterious man who thinks my having the Joy Chest (see Torneko no Daibōken 1, yo!) is a problem. Now monsters appear! Odd Field! It's now a magic dungeon! Super easy but the poor fool villagers were scared. Storehouse collapse! Next up, Banker!

Banker's mansion is infested with monsters! "Kind sir, though I have no idea who you are, could you retrieve my safe?" Absolutely! Old Man is still looking for me (and walks on by), mumbling "it's already spread to here"...all the way from my house, I guess. Mansion Dungeon! Word of the day is "Arrows." Got the Safe, now the banker can open his bank so I can save my Gold! Altruism!

Blacksmith happily shouting about being allowed into the Castle basement! Sounds great, but this is a video game, mirite~!?

Torneko: The Last Hope

Our Hero, in all his Claymation glory!

Hi there! Although I'm not going to be doing a Let's Play in the same old format anymore, I still thought this would be a good place to write about the games that I'm starting up, so here we go again! ^_^

Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko no Daibōken 2: Fushigi no Dungeon /
World of Dragon Warrior: Torneko: The Last Hope
(PlayStation, 1999/2000)

The original "Torneko no Daibōken" for the Super Famicom was a spin-off from Dragon Quest IV. The format was similar to games that have been referred to as "roguelikes," which get their name from the 1980 computer game "Rogue." It consists of mostly randomly generated dungeons filled with enemies which take their turns after the player, resulting in strategic gameplay regarding the approach of monsters and which skills to use—and when to wait—so as not to let them gain an advantage. At the end of that game, Torneko is successful in retrieving something known as the "Joy Chest" from the dungeon, and all is well! The sequel is another roguelike, and the first (and only) installment seen in the U.S. Six months after the first game, the entire village is slowly becoming a dungeon, and it's up to Torneko to explore the different areas and discover why! The game was quite popular in Japan, as was the original, but the localization of the sequel didn't do as well in North America, garnering as low as 1/10 from reviewers. Really, it's not that bad...judge a game on its merits, not on whether you like its style...but whatever. The NA version has become a bit of a rarity it seems.

Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko no Daibōken 2 Advance: Fushigi no Dungeon
(Game Boy Advance, 2001)

A mere two years after its initial release with Sony, this handheld Nintendo version was published. It appears to be exactly like its predecessor, with the same graphics and sound effects, but with fewer buttons to control the various functions, and an added feature to temporarily save the game between each floor of the dungeon. I'll have to look into it to see if there were any added features, but it doesn't seem that this is worth playing once you've played the console version—unless you just reeeally want your Torneko to go.

And that's that! I hope you'll follow my tweets as I attempt to discover the secrets of this charming little gem!