Part 2: Episode II: Cirque du Soasis

Episode II: Cirque du Soasis

All right, now that we're actually getting the ball rolling as it were, lets take a quick look at the menu.



INFO: Shows you the pictures and stats of all your cute little companions.
ITEM: Access the item menu. (hurrrr)
SKIL: See and utilize the magic spells your monsters have.
PLAN: All the game options. From here you can check your keys, change your monster's battle styles, change the order of your monsters, change the text speed, see how many monsters total you have, and save the game. You can't prevent horrible run-on sentences, unfortunately.

Now, go to your mother and swipe an herb from her.



Herbs are the basic healing items of the game, they heal between 20 and 30 points of health for your monsters for one use each. Until we get some monsters that know healing magic, we're going to be going through a lot of herbs.

Head back to the farm proper and you'll see that a Dragonkid has been added to the gang. Talk to him and he'll give you some tips about how the farm works.



Dragonkid: …the farm can hold up to 10. It's not much to start, but the farm will hold more as it grows.

The farm will eventually get much bigger, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. A quick peek around the farm will show that other than Dragonkid nothing new has been added.



It will also show that Drakslime hasn't gained any conversational skills.



Talk to your dad and he'll give you a pork chop. And while we're on the subject of meat...

---
MEAT TALK
There are 5 different types of meat in the Dragon Warrior Monsters games, each of them providing a higher level of friendship in the monsters that you throw them to. The types of meat are as follows in the order of effectiveness;
Beefjerky - Removes 10 wildness
Porkchop - Removes 20 wildness
Rib - Removes 50 wildness
Sirloin - Removes 100 wildness

Wildness increases in the monsters you meet as you go through the game. Most of the monsters at the beginning of the game will go with you for a beefjerky or two, eventually you'll need to get some better meat and by the end game porkchops and beefjerkys are basically rendered useless. There's also something called Badmeat, which does remove wildness from opposing monsters but it also poisons them.
---

Anyway, let's get out of this farm. Remember that shop two screens away?



Yep. Jackass.



When we told this guy that the island was sinking he booked it. welp. And I liked that guy.



Again, nothing escapes this genius.



All the interesting looking pathways are being blocked right now so we're going to go to the well.



This here is the magic door. I hope you enjoy the scenery because we're going to spend a lot of the game going in and out of this damn thing. Time to finally play with some monsters!!



But first... Motion sickness!



For an oasis, it's certainly sandy.



Press select to bring up the map. A lot of the places we'll go in this game don't have the map filled in, so the main worlds having a ready made map is pretty nice.



Random items will litter the ground in all the outside worlds you go to. You can find money, potions, herbs, staffs, meat etc lying around and selling all this junk gets you most of your money in this game.

Oh yeah, you can also find RANDOM MONSTER BATTLES!



Spotslime!!


SPOTSLIME
Slime
Learns: CallHelp LushLicks Imitate
Cute little bugger, looks like a rotting banana! He's actually weaker than his regular Slime brother and learns much worse spells, albeit much faster than his blue brother.



aw yeeee.




Oh. Sup? This early in the game you don't even need to throw meat to get some monsters, they'll just join you right off the bat.

Hey, remember when I said I would name my monsters after you guys? Nobody threw their name into the hat so I'm just going to name them whatever I think of at the time. And considering I was hungry while writing this, our little spotted friend will be named Banan after the rotting banana he resembles!



Slime parade upcoming.

The first place we're headed is the closest town southeast of the shrine door on the map, Kalka.




When we get in there we'll see a bunch of people wandering around knowing nothing about plugs for planet navels. This woman is the only useful person to talk to.



Hot Kalka Chick: …underground canal to Asiya. Asiya? It's a town due south.

See, now that's useful.



There's a free herb over here.



Nice, we're only two updates in and the game is already making the sex jokes for me!

Hop into the door up there and you'll be at the entrance to the Well.



Grab a free beefjerky in here, the other jar is filled with wood chips for some reason.

Beardo up there won't let us through so it's time to go out of here and find that Asiya town the hot chick was talking about.



But first, a new monster for us!


CACTIBALL
Plant
Learns: Paralyze HighJump OddDance
Cactiballs are our first plant type.



After a bunch of random monster killing, we have this party. As long as your party is full and everyone is level 3, you'll basically rape everything you can find on the overworld here in the Oasis.

That's right, I named the cactus "Water".

While we have a bit of a break, let's take a look at the battle screen.



FIGHT makes your monsters do what their plan is set to, without giving you the ability to use specific abilities.
ITEM lets UZ use his various items. (hurdurhur)
FLEE lets you run like a coward. Be warned that it doesn't always work and basically wastes your entire turn if you try and fail it.

The one we'll want to focus on it PLAN.



CHARGE will make your monster go on an all-out offensive. Spells, regular attacks, whatever works best. I try to avoid randomly running into battle with Charge on because most of the time it drains MP like a motherlover what with your monsters using their best spells every turn.
MIXED makes your monster use mostly buff and debuff spells on itself and others, although I've seen monsters both heal and do attacks with mixed on. I rarely actually use this except in the arena, since in that case it normally works better to just select the attacks manually.
DEFENSE makes your monster either defend itself or heal its compatriots every turn. An invaluable one to have turned on in the arena.
COMMAND is what you'll be using the most out of all of these. It allows you to either tell your monster to attack a specific monster, defend, or use a specific skill/spell. Choosing ATK will also make your monster automatically avoid spells when you hit FIGHT until you change back to CHARGE, MIXED or DEFENSE.

All right, with that out of the way, let's go due South to Asiya!



Yay. Let's start talking to some people.



Old Dude: …to recruit people at the inn. He says the troupe scattered when the thieves set on them. Traveling is much to risky for me!

Sounds serious. Good idea to find the circus master, I suppose.



Gee, wonder which one he is!



By the way, if you're looking for an antidote you can get one in this jar here.



Circus Leader: We were invited to perform before the king, but my group has scattered like so many leaves in a storm.

Ooh, poetic.

Circus Leader: So, I'm the only one in my circus.



Oh. Fuck. Yes.



But I wanna be the bearded lady!



Circus Leader: …and only fearless Monster Master! Come, we must go to the castle!

To the castle for our exciting, death defying stunts! (Yes, that's actually what the game calls them)

Suggested listening as you stare at the two following pictures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhf9U5Wf3Q




Actually, this is fairly impressive, considering we have two probably flammable blobs of gel and a dry plant leaping through the flame wheel.



Circus Leader: …for your debut performance! The audience was quite pleased. We are to stay for more shows here, so we have been permitted to go into the castle by the King.

So, we get free reign of the castle, eh? Well rule number one of castle exploration; always go down to the dungeon first!!



Some prisoner was apparently blabbing about some manner of "mirage lake". Obviously a crazy man and not foreshadowing at all, move along!

Now, how about talking to those guards at the entrance to the castle?



Yeah, where's the nearest Arby's?

Guard: A new plug for the Log's Navel? It has to have a magic power? Well then there's only the King's Tidalbell among his treasures. It can be used to cross the sea.

Well there's some good information! I don't know why crossing a sea would be useful in the desert, but still, we found a plug!



The tidalbell awaits.



If you didn't see that coming, you have never played an RPG before.

See you next time where we try and get that damn tidalbell by talking to the King himself!