Hours Played/Hours Total - 8 hrs / 12 hrs
Starting Point - Hamlin.
Current Goal - Find and defeat Hargon!
What Happened - Oh dear me, I'm certainly getting close to the month being over. I should have had this game done WEEKS ago, but in full honesty? It's not the highest item on my "To Do" list. I won't go into the full details right now, but I'm going to try and do better. I PROMISE! Now, let's get right into the game.
Hello again Hamlin! |
It's time to leave the town of Hamlin behind and head southwest. The journey will take me quite a ways away from Hamlin, but I'm more than prepared! We walk on down the south, past Castle Moonbrook, and then keep heading west, south, southwest, and so on. This eventually leads to a small shrine.
Could have just built a bridge, but that'd have been "too easy" |
As you can see, there's a tower on both sides. Put one and one together... The Wind Cape is most likely what I'll need to use here. A quick climb up the tower and then a leap off the north side. Now I'm on the other side of the river!
Hurray for magical gliding cape! |
It's been a long journey from Hamlin to here, so I heal up real quick then look into purchasing some new equipment. The equipment shop in Lianport carries a fancy Evade Cloak which works great for my two lightweight characters who can't handle heavy armor. As I'm making my purchases, I noticed a lady off in the corner. She's being attacked by monsters! LET'S GO RESCUE HER! The monsters chase after her, and she asks us for help. The monsters tell us to hand her over, but of course we don't. BOSS BATTLE TI-
How did they get in town without ANYBODY noticing? |
This is a boat. I have a boat! |
Now, at this point, you'd be free to travel to quite a few locations around the map, but like previously stated, I'm pretty much just straight following a guide at this point. Not like down to the letter, but I'd prefer to NOT spend forever looking for things. It helps speed up the process a little. As for the next location at hand, I need to head to... Can it be? The World Map of Dragon Warrior II actually contains a miniaturized version of the ORIGINAL Dragon Warrior's world! It's pretty cool if you ask me.
I figure it's time for a little stroll down memory lane. I'm going to visit Tantegal Castle! It's pretty much exactly the same as it was, but the town has now been merged with the castle. (This is partially to decrease the size of the map really.) Everything seems to be going okay here, but the King has gone missing. It seems he has ran away from his duty out of fear of Hargon. Not much more to see here at this point though, I heal up at the Inn and then proceed to cross the river into Memory Lane Part 2 - Dracolord's Castle!
I head inside his ancient and very broken down castle to find... That I'm not quite ready for it yet. The first couple enemies nearly slaughter me, so I have to run right back out and heal back up at Tantegal. It seems to be time for... GRINDIN' TIME! I fight my way through quite a few enemies to earn experience... Also money! I used the money to buy an iron helmet and hammer for Keep. Doesn't seem to be anything else for my other members, and the extra levels were enough to get me through Dracolord's Castle. Time to see what's going on there!
The extra levels certainly helped to get through the enemies. The climb down through the current day Dracolord's Castle turns out to be pretty dang easy. While exploring the Castle, I located the ancient Loto's Sword! Keep has his fancy new hammer, but I'm able to equip the sword to Art instead. When I finally reach the bottom, turns out... Dracolord's Great Grandson is here!
Damn you Dracolord the Fourth! |
One of the five seals is on an island south of where the ancient city of Mercado used to be. (Either way, it's south of this continent.) Yay for useful information! I leave Dracolord's Castle, heal up at Tantegal, and then set out for more adventure! Despite the seal thing, the next thing on the list is locating a sunken treasure. A ways back, when I first got the ship, a merchant had a request of me. He lost his vast fortune at sea, and he asked if I could find and return it to him. (He was back there in Lianport.) With the magic of guide, I'm able to locate and obtain the treasure pretty easily.
Yay for random treasure! |
South of Tantegal and where ancient Mercado was is... a Lighthouse? It's a dungeon for the first seal. I enter inside, climb the Lighthouse, and things are going well. Too well. Then Nana dies, and I have to backtrack out and back to the nearest town to revive her. Revived and back to the tower for!... Nana to die again on the first floor. BLARGH... Let's try again. Aaand I try once more. Third time went just fine. I'm able to explore and traverse this lighthouse without Nana dying. If you look through the middle path, it leads straight to the top of the lighthouse which leads to nothing.
Going back to the main path, I follow along the outside of the tower and find... a random old man? He says he'll lead me down the right path, so I get to follow him. After a few floors, he leads me straight to a chest. However, the chest seems to be empty... Turns out the random old man was very suspicious being in this tower in the middle of nowhere. (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT?) The old man turns into a monster and several more appear around me. Looks like this was a big ol' trap. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
Again, the boss battle time is probably not the correct term. I should probably avoid using it until I hit an actual boss battle. It was just four Gremlin-style monsters, and they weren't very hard at all. The only way to describe it would be "tough-ish", but it was far from impossible. ANYWAYS! Battle is won! One seal down, and only four more to go now. I sail back to Lianport real quick to heal up and then head back out into the massive world.
Next up on the list is to obtain the Gold Key. To find the Gold Key requires leaving the inner space of sea among the continents and exploring the outer waters. (This sounds confusing but the World Map below explains this.)
Actually, that's pretty detailed... |
I stay at the Inn to heal and then jump back on my ship. The next small bit is just exploring various places to obtain treasures that were unobtainable without the Gold Key. I'm just jumping to the next island at the moment though for a Warp Gate. I enter the Shrine, shoop-da-woop, and the Warp Gate takes me to Lorasia Castle. Just walk over to the Castle Treasury and open all the chests. Nothing special here except DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN! LOTO'S SEAL!
Yup, the Seal of Loto makes another appearance in the game to unlock yet another item for my heroes. Unlike last time though, the item is simply a piece of equipment. From here, I use the multiple Warp Gates at the shrine to check out other places. Not much more to get out of it though... the Loto Seal was the best thing. Oh well, back on the ship and out to sea for more Gold Key things!
Northwest of my position was a small island surrounded by mountains. In the middle was a single forest. If you get on the island and check the forest, it rewards you with the magical World Leaf. It's the only item in the game that can revive people, and it does so at full HP! Otherwise, you'd have to learn the Revive spell or visit a Church. From this island, it's just a short sail west to the nearby continent and the city of Wellgarth!
You can only enter Wellgarth through a Gold Door, so the Gold Key is a must here. The city is built underground to avoid Hargon's wraith, so that's kinda interesting. Apart from that, it's a pretty loaded city. Lots of shops to buy from, and easily one of the bigger towns in the game. It's the only place in the game that sells the "Fur Robe" armor, and for whatever reason, it's actually a really good piece of equipment. Of course, it also sells for the "low, low" price of 60,000 gold... I'm not getting that anytime soon. Apart from the Fur Robe, there's also a few new weapons to acquire here. I buy a new sword for Art (all I can afford right now) and then look about the rest of the town.
One item of importance here is the Jail Key. You need it to get into a few places that are necessary for finishing the game, but it also seems incredibly un-hero-like to open random jail cells... Not much I can do about that though! Checking into the local jail here reveals a bit more information about reaching Hargon. He's located in an area of the map called Rhone, but I can't get in there without an item called the Evil Statue. It breaks past the illusions that Hargon has set around his domain. This just adds to my quickly expanding To Do list. With nothing else to do, I leave Wellgarth and head for a shrine east of here called the Fire Shrine.
Remember that random flute I got back there? The Echo Flute. It seems I've encountered the reason to have it now! At the Fire Shrine is located another Seal, but you can only locate it through the use of the Echo Flute. It's hidden just outside of the building (not on the world map, just the local one) and... THE SUN SEAL! (Yes, I'm certainly speeding through the post of this game, but I'm way behind as is.)
The Fire Shrine isn't just for the Sun Seal though! There's a few Warp Gates here, and I figure to follow each one through. With three gates to choose from, I'm going to start with the rightmost one first. This teleports me to the shrine from the first game where I made the Rainbow Drop. The man there is guarding a piece of Loto's equipment, his helmet. With the Loto Seal in hand, he deems me both a descendant of the past hero and worthy to obtain the helmet.
I equip my shiny new helmet to Keep and warp back to the Fire Shrine. Turns out the other gates don't have any use right now, so I leave the island and sail North for more islands. Our goal at the moment is Osterfair Castle, and it's located at the center of a... medium-sized island on the east side of the world. You can only sail in through the west side, and then you get to walk around. Osterfair comes equipped with bunny girls and an arena. Apparently the King here is very bored, but he promises us a reward if we amuse him with a fight. The group walks over to the arena area, and a lion is set loose for his entertaining/our battling pleasure.
BO- No point calling it that. I beat the lion in the first round. Yup, that wasn't much of a fight at all. For my minute of effort, the King is pleased and hands us a Moon Shard. I believe it's one of the seals, or it's at least a Key Item I'll need for later. Whatever! It's in my hands now, so what does it matter? Now time for a little shopping plus stealing an awesome armor from the weapon/armor shop here. (If you go around the outside path of the castle, you can enter his shop through a secret passage and rob him blind!) Hooray for hero theft! That's all for Osterfair I'm afraid, and I leave this place to never return.
Back into the ship, and we return to Lorasia Castle for a bit of unfinished business! We're here to visit the prison and release a prisoner! (Hurrah for bad choices!) I head inside his cell and talk with him. He thanks us for releasing him and promises to serve our corpses to Hargon! BOSS BATTLE TIME! It's an evil and powerful mage called Magus, and he's ready to leave this place. However, he's not as powerful as I would have thought... He survived two rounds against my group of fighting royalty. All I did was straight up attack him and lower his defense. With his defeat, I earned the Bolt Rod, Nana's best weapon. Woot.
Now I'm off to Cannock Castle for another Gold Door item. And... it's the SHIELD OF LOTO!
That's just a classy shield. |
Next on the walkthrough is returning to the small islands in the corner of the map. (I didn't name them before, but it's called Zahan.) I make use of my fancy Jail Key and the spell Stepguard to obtain a few treasures. The Holy Loom and a Wizard Ring. That does put an end to the island this time I'm afraid. Nothing left to get here, so onward to the twin towers known as Drakhorn Towers. Which towers?
These towers.
Is it lazy to use the same image twice? ...Yes. |
That's right. Not even in a chest, it's just a random tile. |
Now, it took a bit of time to get there because of the distance and the confusion trying to find the right path. Tuhn is located just in-land, but it's mixed among a maze of mountains. There's only one actual path to get there, and I kept going the wrong way. I guess that just means more experience for me. After a few tries and some surprisingly hard enemies, I made it to Tuhn!
Once there, I had two goals to complete. The first one was handing over the Dew Yarn and Holy Loom to this random old man known only as the Master Robe Maker. He requires the materials to make a Water Robe, which is the best armor for Nana and needs to happen. After giving him the materials, he says it'll take a day to make, so we'll have to come back. Since there is no clock in-game, I figure that means I have to stay at an Inn and come back. (To further complicate it, you have to sleep at an Inn OUTSIDE of Tuhn.)
That turned out to not be any problem though because... I skipped a step. I forgot to retrieve an item from Wellgarth when I was there. Now I have to leave Tuhn, sail all the way back to Wellgarth, and obtain a "Dam Key". To summarize why I need it, there's a dam in Tuhn that needs to be open so you can reach a tower for a special item. (Somehow NOT a seal.) I run into Wellgarth, hit up the jail, find a missing prisoner (who just dug into the wall), and obtained the Dam Key! Now, let's head back to Tuhn. *One long boat ride later...*
The Dam is located north of the Inn in Tuhn, so you have to work your way around the building because it's at the edge of town. I open the Damn, the water floods out, and now I can access the Lune Tower! Time to leave Tuhn, but then a pit stop before heading to the tower. Just southwest of Tuhn is a village called, Beran the city of Water. I'm only staying here for one reason though, and it's to eliminate an event in the game. Basically, if you sleep at the Inn here, one of your characters, Art in my case, will fall to a curse by Hargon. Then you have to run out and find a cure before they can join back up. Lucky for me, the cure is a World Leaf, which I have on my person. I immediately revive Art and move about my way.
Of course, I run back to Tuhn one more time. I need to get the Water Robe from the Master Robe Maker. Doo doo doo doooooo! THE WATER ROBE! And Nana is now suited in her best equipment. Now to sail out from Tuhn and back in through a nearby secondary path to reach the Lune Tower.
So much work to get here... |
Pre-Moon Shard look. |
Post-Moon Shard look. |
That is one EVIL Statue. |
One ship ride later... Back in Beran, you have to enter a Warp Gate behind the temple.
This warp. Also a Jail Key is needed. |
Now that I have all five seals, I have to leave the Road, teleport back to Beran, and head back out to the middle of the sea. There's another cave out in the middle of nowhere that I have to visit. This second random cave is located just a ways north of the Volcanic Sea Cave. You enter in, climb down quite a few stairs, and present the five seals. The elemental spirit, named Rubiss, appears and says it was expecting us. It gives us the Rubiss Charm, and now it is finally time to go take on Hargon! BACK TO BERAN.
Now, the Road to Rhone is a fairly hard place, so I won't be immediately heading through it. I have to gain some extra levels and possibly a last minute armor, Fur Armor for Art. Unfortunately, that is 60,000 gold, so I don't see it happening, but WHO KNOWS?! Much like other dungeons, the further along you get, the harder the enemies that will show up. I spent around 30 or so minutes in just the front part of the road trying to gain levels and gold. Skipping past that, I did gain quite a bit of both, but the gold wasn't nearly enough for the Fur Robe. Thus, I moved right along through.
During your trek through the road, there's quite a few items and equipment to find. It's all top notch stuff too, so much of it is worth the effort. Examples include Loto's Armor and the Thunder Sword. Both of them are for the "ultimate' items for Keep. Thus, we've got this in the bag.~ This final road is full of challenge and obstructions. There's a few areas that require a specific path to avoid dropping below. If you fall down a hole, you have to start all over from the beginning. I'm using a guide right now though... so yay for lack of errors! Things went pretty well until I his this stupid maze-like area. Even following directions, I got very much lost. I spent longer here than I care to admit...But once I got past, I exited the cave and found myself in Rhone!
Turns out, Rhone is a wintery wonderland, and it's full of "HOLY CRAP THESE ARE TOUGH" monsters. Many of them feel like mini bosses, and I almost died while trying to traverse this terrible place. Lucky for me, there's a shrine as you're walking along. I enter inside, save and heal, and back out because it's time to end this! It's a spiral movement through Rhone until I finally reach... HARGON'S CASTLE!
Look at that fancy double-tower castle. DAMN YOU HARGON! |
The slow climb up is further slowed through by Hargon's generals. Each floor contains a new boss fight, starting with the second floor. Thus, without further interruption, I come up against the first TRUE boss fight in the game. BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND ONE - ATLAS!
IIIIIIIIIIIT'S ATLAS! |
And that floor? Contains another of Hargon's Generals. BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND TWO - BAZUZU!
Oh noes! Evil purple flying monkey! |
Now up some stairs, across a bridge, and BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND THREE - ZARLOX!
Uhh... Some sort of cow-dragon combo with a trident? |
It's Hargon Time! I approach Hargon on his fancy throne in the middle of the top of his castle... Let's do this! FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME!
Looks pretty similar to a certain Dragon Lord... |
Team strategy meeting. Keep attacks, Art supports and attacks, and Nana supports and heals. The Increase/Decrease effect works fairly well most of the time, and I was able to even throw a few offensive spells in there! (Firebane for Art, Explodet for Nana) It was a pretty rough battle, but I finally came out ahead and now HARGON IS DEAD! Huzzah!
Upon his defeat, he's all "Blargh!", but then he offers himself to a 'Lord Sidoh' and collapses. This is clearly not over yet. I turn around to leave, but then the floor around us begins to crubmel and LORD SIDOH IS REAL! (Duh) ACTUAL FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! THE FINAL BOSS OF THE GAME EDITION!
LORD SIDOH! Now THAT is a Final Boss. |
He comes with the same basic attacks and abilities, but he's quite a bit more powerful and likely to kill someone without much effort. He likes to increase his defense, decrease ours, and I just have to keep rebuffing to keep myself alive. This battle ended up taking a lot of luck, a lot of attacks, and more rewinding than I care to admit. However, Sidoh isn't getting the world THIS time because HE IS DEAD!
Hooray for us! The world is saved!... But now the castle is coming down! OH NOES! Lucky for us, Rubiss appears to save us. Hooray! The spirit teleports us outside of the castle, and it's time for a world tour.~ Just like the previous game, I'm able to explore the entire world free of monsters, encounters, and damage. The world tour is full of mostly thankful people. There are a few cool events that take place during this time though.
The King of Cassock tells his son that he's proud of him, and his sister picks on him for being lazy most of the time. It's a fun moment. The biggest event worth mentioning was returning to Castle Moonbrook. The castle looks exactly the same, but speaking with the departed King has a special surprise! For a brief moment, he comes back to life and speaks with Nana. It's a nice touching moment between father and daughter, and he asks Keep to take care of her now. He then departs for the afterlife. *tear drop* Now... just one major place left to go.
Back at Lorasia, the King congratulates us for defeating Hargon and saving the world. In light of our accomplishments, he offers Keep the crown, and I take it! WOOT! KING KEEP! Hooray!
I don't have the physical crown yet, but I do has a title! |
fin |
Ending Point - End of the Game.
Screenshots - Imgur.
Current Party -
- Keep - Level 26
- Art - Level 25
- Nana - Level 20
Next Goals - Start Dragon Warrior III!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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