Hey everybody, this is BJ. We just wanted to talk to you for one second. Before we go into your favorite new podcast Dragon Quest FM about our host anchor dot f m-- we've been using anchor since we started doing Dragon Quest FM and we have really really enjoyed the service. That's right. It's the easiest way to make a podcast. It's free. There's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor will distribute the podcast for you. You can be heard on Spotify Apple podcasts and many others and thisAdd as part of their sponsorship program where you can make money from your podcast with even minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. So if you want to do this, you can go to Anchor dot f m-- and get started. Welcome everyone to Dragon Quest. We're talking about Dragon Quest 2. We had a listener Paul. This is the topic everybody chose. So thanks again to everyone who voted I think we're going to be holding another coal soon. So make sure you keep an eye out for that. Now we are going to be discussing this game pretty And depth and it is like 30 years old. So just a fair warning. There are going to be some spoilers ahead before we jump straight into all of the Dragon Quest to goodness, though. We wanted to take a moment and just think all of our new Patron on our podcast brand-spankin'-new patreon. So BJ you want to take it away and that promise to everybody who pledges to our patreon a real nice. Thank you. So Let me give a real nice. Thank you to Steve. Wit Camp. You are fantastic Human Being Mike sweet. I just love you. Justin Andrew Mason. You are a fantastic human person. I love you so much Andy Hildebrandt. Oh boy, Andy Andy and DJ Pimp Daddy, you sure are the pimpy. Astadia all them DJs. Thank you real good. Is that really he? Is that what a real good? Thank you. Is it is like you have up your southern accent? I do that's what I do. Well, that's weird. Anyway, so for those of you who don't know about Dragon Quest 2, I'm just going to power on through here. So Dragon Quest to it is a direct sequel to the very first Dragon Quest game this one it set about 100 years after the events in the first game that focuses on three cousins. They're all the descendants of erdrich and they're trying to save the world from this evil sorcerer Hog on. Basically, you get to run around just this fairly open world and you kill stuff with your cousin's so that's pretty fun. It's really neat to that. It's a direct sequel to Dragon Quest one, which is kind of a sequel to Dragon Quest 3, when you get to the story like Dragon Quest 2 is the last in terms of story for the erdrich trilogy. So it goes like 3 1 2 if you're going to play them all the way through. Lori order like chronological order and then so to before we get too far into this. I just want to add I forgot to mention this earlier, but I did play the mobile version on iOS that's when I played and beat this game on right you've played the Game Boy Color version a little bit and the mobile version, correct? And actually yeah played the the Game Boy Color version. I've tried the Super Nintendo version the super famicom version of it and really didn't like Like it that much and then the the Remake that they've done for it and then I'm actually playing through the mobile version right now, which honestly I like better than either of the other two that I've tried. So this is going to be the one like I haven't beaten this one, but it's the one that's a lot more fun just overall to play. So I really like the the mobile version of this one like you had played through. Is there a is there a certain reason why you prefer the mobile version? I like the battles better for some reason on the others like going through this. While I keep actually keep dying in the beginning of this like a always do with the beginning of a Dragon Quest game. Like I realized that I need to do more battles in Dragon Quest games. Like I always get killed a few times at the beginning of a special one of the older Dragon Quest games and I never just grind up a couple of levels to keep going. So I always try to explore and I go back to the beginning and it seems Less penalizing in the Game Boy not Game Boy. It seems less penalizing the iOS version or maybe the Droid version to the mobile version and then it doesn't any of the others. So I like this one a lot better just in terms of that and the quick the quicksave. Is that what it's called? I can't remember the quicksave part of it. I couldn't remember if it was something else like memo save or whatever but it it really does make a ton of difference in these in these mobile games to be able to just quick save and restart if you need to and do you remember what names they gave you for your like the default names for your characters? I don't remember right now. No, okay, because the reason I ask that is so I beat this game way back in like January so it's been a while. But so just for those of you who don't know the three characters we have our main hero. He's the prince of Mendenhall. There's the prince of kanak and I assume these are this is how you pronounce these things. But so there's the prince of Mendenhall the prince of cannock and then there's the princess of moon Brooke but the names are like Randomly generated, I guess it's all the reason. Yeah. So the reason I was wondering is because like the I just went with the names that it gave me. Like you can name your me. You can name your hero but like the prince of cannock and the prince of Moon Princess of moon Brooke. I went ahead and just went with the default and the princess of moon broker's was fairly kind of something like I figured it would be I was like Gwyneth or like Gwendolyn or something like that. Yeah, which you know, I it is like a is coded in there because of like Waylon the princess from the first one and but the prince of can it gave me a really weird name for him. His name was just like Tony or something like like it was like it's not like a weird name, but it's like a weird Dragon Quest ain't you know what? I mean? Like, you know, you don't like there's not just necessarily just like I don't know. But anyway, I can't remember what the guys name was like Tommy or Tony or something like that and I was like Really do not expect in a DQ game. Yeah, and I'm trying to see like I'm going around right now and talking to talking to NPCs and see if they'll tell me again and I can't it's not telling me what the defaults were. Like, I just went with them. I was going to name them something silly and then I decided just to go with go with what it was and I cannot I can't find any NPC right now telling me what they are that I chose so I didn't. Realize they were randomly generated either. Yeah, I did. I'm not sure how how like, I think that's a cell phone thing. I think it's for the mobile versions. I think that was one of the new things they had in for the mobile versions is just like it's like a randomly generated names instead of you like naming each of the three main characters that gives you like a recommendation. I guess that's what I call it. And so I don't know. I was just curious kind of what the because I'm not sure. I haven't read anything that's like a list of like all the different names that are possible and it may be that no one knows. It may just be like this incredibly long list and it may even be one of those things where it's like where you know, they take like they take certain sounds and then they just kind of make names out of them randomly so you can end up with like really absurd names for things is it weird that I want to Start this game come really not that far into it that that I want to do it so I can rename the characters then if those aren't the official names. It's kind of weird. Yeah, I mean they don't have official name. So does it feels like why would I send him these stupid names? I don't know. I don't care about like I want to name them something I care about it's weird. Like I'm seriously looking at my phone right now and being like I'm not far enough along in this to have dumb names for 10 hours. It's a that's me you guys. That's the kind of stuff I care about in video game. So don't like Dragon Quest 9 though because I got to give them all the names that I wanted and completely customize them. Like I saw that sack Chief did a video of ranking all of the the Dragon Quest games and Dragon Quest 9 was talking about how it felt like less of a party because they didn't have their own stories and you couldn't do Party Chat and stuff like that because they were there like Dragon Quest 3 where you just made them and I liked that that was one of my favorite Parts was being able to customize. Send and give them names. So realizing that I chose the default names in this one and not and that wasn't a thing that matters. It's like oh, I'm gonna go rename these guys. I'm restarting and had because that was my like literally my favorite part about Dragon Quest 9 and what I'm looking forward to about Dragon Quest 3 is because I get to really create that party that I take with me Kasia and out. I like the customization stuff fine and nine is still the only one I haven't played I plan on getting it. Into it after I beat Builders to but I really like the party chat, you know, I know complained on here and on my blog about then taking it out of the DS version of Dragon Quest for and so I really do enjoy the party chat and just you know out waste a lot of time just going into the menu and going over to the party chat and seeing what funny things my party members say. So so I can totally see that how it would feel like less of a party because you can't get to talk to everybody because that is One of my favorite parts of especially later Dragon Quest games for they have that and you can just kind of talk to everybody and see and also if you I like it because like with Aid especially I took some breaks between it and so it's kind of convenient because you can pull up party chat and Angus will be like, we're supposed to go over that gov or whatever he calls. Yeah, and he calls you go because you go of yeah. Yeah, and so so I really like that about it my the thing about Dragon Quest 2, though. Though and they don't have an ask is do you have party chat into like that wasn't invented yet when this game came out, but did they put it in for later remakes? I actually this would like the mobile one that yeah, you're playing with actually don't know. I feel like I feel like you could talk to the party members into but I could be wrong. Like I said, it's been so long since I played this game. Yeah, that may be something to follow up on because I'm not sure. I vaguely remember it. The reason I think you can is because so this is one of the spoilers here, but the princess of moon Brooke when you first encounter her she's a dog. She's been turned into a dog. Oh, so people are talking about. Okay, and so I remember her. I remember being able to like turn around and talk to the dog and the dog be like wolf wolf would be like the dog whimpers sadly and things like that, right? And so I But I can't remember if it's because once the dog was in your party for that little bitty while because you can talk to and get the dog to join your party. You don't have to you can just go get the item turn her back into a human and do all that stuff too. That will Quest but I'm not really sure. I don't think it was party chat though. I think I was just kind of like talking to the dog. Okay, got it into my party because if I remember correctly, she won't leave the town that you're in. I believe she stays in the town. Like she'll be your party show the dog will follow you around then once you leave the town she won't be in it anymore. Aw crud. I was about to say that if that were the case when I get there, she's staying a dog because one of the reasons I want to play like like Tales of Vesperia is that you have a dog with a sword in its mouth that fights for you in your party. And like that's one of the reasons I'm getting Pokemon Sword is because the legendary is a dog The Sword in its mouth and so I was really hoping that the princess of moon Brooke was going to be was going to be a dog and she would fight with you. I didn't know all of the sword in her mouth but no no, she's actually she's actually a pretty good spellcaster. I really liked she's very powerful. But so here's the here's another thing is the the AI for the tactics and everything and Dragon Quest 2 is not the best. It's one of those that didn't have the a I originally and then they've added. Into some remakes like it's I mean, it's definitely there on the mobile web right? I don't know. What at what point down the light chain they added this in but the AI was not terribly good. Like I know I think I complain to you about this at the time was that I tried to play this game even just minor enemy encounters with the setting to fight wisely. Mmm. Yeah, I remember it totally didn't work because there were so many times that Especially the prince of cannock who if you haven't played this game. You probably seen a meme or a joke online or something. I'm Prince of you can if about dies all the time like he's just pretty much always dead. I mean, I feel like in that game. I know this is kind of like a running joke with Dragon Quest 2, but it's kind of true. Like I really feel like a lot of the time it was my hero the princess and then just this coffin like dragging along behind them and and my favorite thing like that's why I knew about Dragon Quest 2 and and like how bad of a party member he was was because of that Meme that I saw just like it may have been no context Dragon Quest the the Twitter account that I just saw a collection of like fanart of the Dragon Quest who hero the princess and just a coffin and all of these ridiculous situations and like like I think one of them like they were at a dance party. It was just her dancing with a - maybe like it was it like these things are great because apparently he's terrible and so it's gonna frustrate me so badly. Yeah. I mean there were there were several bosses, especially like in game bosses where he would just die and I would just let him stay dead instead of trying to like waste a turn trying to revive him or anything and Ivan. Ivan be got through the final battle. The prince died really early on like just you know, like second or third round. I had it in my notes. It was a third round. Okay, he died within like the third round of the final battle and I just didn't bother like Reviving him and just tried to power through with my hero and the princess doing her magic and like heels and stuff. Yeah and and got through it because I learned kind of early on that if I'm wasting all this these precious turns just healing the It's every single turn. It just takes forever to like do anything. And anyway, so the going back to the princess because I think that was like my original train of thought there is that I would get really annoyed because having it set to fight wisely because the princess would use like the last of her MP and she would cast Dazzle. It was always Dazzle. I don't know why but she would always cast Dazzle on enemies and use up. The last appearing P2 cast Dazzle when the especially the prince but also the hero were like really low and needed heels and she would just waste her and pee on Dazzle instead, even though she totally would have enough MP to Castile. And so that was really early on in that game. So I set her to follow orders and just controlled her throughout the whole game and loved her so much more for that like Dragon Quest 2, even though they added in the tactics and stuff. I think it's one of those games that you can't really Use tactics for like I for the most part most of the other games where they added and tactics like I could use it wisely and things like that at least for like the minor encounters, but when you're doing just grinding out stuff like that. Yeah, like tactics are fine that it's only within the major battles in the boss battles and bonus battles and things like that that I end up switching to follow orders. Yeah, and so not in Dragon Quest to like, it's just like you you switch it to follower. Orders you control it all and it's just it's it's a much easier game. If you do it's still a hard game, but it's easier if you just follow orders, and I also wanted to mention while we're talking about the characters here. And while we're talking about the prints and how he's always a coffin that guy was just like such a pain in the butt for me. Like I know I complained about him a lot and it was just kind of like he his defense is Very good. He dies a lot. Even at the beginning of the game. It's kind of annoying because you keep having to go back and forth between like his kingdom and like a cave and other places and everybody's like, oh, he's not here anymore. He's moved on to blah blah blah and then you keep going on and so he was already kind of like, oh my gosh, when am I ever gonna like finally find this guy and then you get in and like pretty much throughout the story. He just kind of lines a lot. And like he's almost like man. I can't think of the word. You know, where you think you're sick like someone sickly you react hypochondriac. Thank you his kind of a hypochondriac and even even like one point in the game. There's this town. It's called Baron. Okay, and he you go to sleep at the end and then the next day you wake up and something's wrong with him. It doesn't tell you why it's just like I don't know. He's got a case of like the vapors. I got the vapors. And anyway, you have to go and it actually sends you on like a little side Journey with you and the princess we have to travel like all the way across the world and you have to get an ID Drusilla leaf and revive him and it's the only way to get him back is you have to go get this eager Soul the leaf take it back to Baron and then he feels revived once. Use it on and otherwise you just go and you talk to them and he's basically like oh, I can't get out of bed. I am so tired and he just stays there. And so I found out much later after I had beaten this game that if you don't stay at the end and baron, it just doesn't happen. So I would say maybe just don't stay at the end there. It's not necessarily like it's not a necessity so I would just say maybe don't stay at the end and baron just get that part because like a pretty good pretty good thing to know that I'm not going to be doing that. Yeah, and so I mean and right now I know it sounds like I'm complaining a lot about this game and I really legitimately did like this game and even learn to love it and I have some really fun memories with it. And so, you know, I don't want to make it seem like I'm just going to be sitting here like complaining for the next like Thirty minutes or hour or however long the game does make a lot of improvements. I think from the very first one. First of all, you have that pool party line up, which is really nice. I mean, it's three instead of the typical for you get Dragon Quest but still really nice having a party and a lot it's both good and bad that point because you have a lot more freedom when you have a party to be able to make mistakes and it's much easier to not die and be sent back home and lose your Stuff but also at the same time you have to worry about equipping them which is my least favorite part of games like this on mobile because I tend not to not to want to go to Shops and and compare everything when I'm playing a game in spurts when I'm doing it just a little bit here and there so that's one of the the small things about Dragon Quest one on mobile. That was nice like oh, this is a better sword. I'm going to put this on I'm gonna go on out outside and fight things. Yeah that that is one thing. That kind of I guess I really like about the first Dragon Quest game is that there's one dude you worry about like if you get a weapon you get some armor, you put it on that one guy. And with this one we kind of have to even it out but I will say the one thing I like about the game is that the like legendary equipment and weapon. I can't even remember if it's actually called like heard Rick's armor in this one out think it is and it's just like legendary armor. But you it's split up. So like the hero gets one piece the the okay Prince gets a piece the princess I think even gets like think it's the helmet and sweat. She gets she gets a little something too so that so that is nice of them that they did split that up. At least. It wasn't just like your hero had all of the good stuff which I kind of gone back and forth on whether that's a good thing or not. And I think it is like I think I like that they split it up that way. Yeah, because usually in games like I tend to give the special armor. If it is something you can spread around like the best armor. I give it to the hero no matter what and then all of my other characters kind of get the hand-me-downs and I don't know if I'm the only one who does this but basically in like an 11 I'll have my main party and then always the the hero the luminary is going to have the by far Best Equipment then like whoever I keep them in an order like a dove descending. importance and then I will give this person the next best one that I've just taken off of the hero then the next person in line gets that next best thing and just continually move it down the line instead of equipping everybody all the time with the absolute best equipment that I possibly can and that's that's kind of why I'm glad that like you have to in this one put the legendary armor on one of the party members as opposed to well on each of the party members as opposed to One of them. Yeah, and and also like I think again, this is something I go back and forth on that. I liked its predetermined. So it's like the hero has to get this trends of kanak has to get this the princess has to get this where it's not like you it's not just like it's like, nope. You have to choose yourself because decisions like that in games really like mess with me where I tend to be very indecisive about that kind of stuff and especially in games that like warn you ahead of time. That's like are you sure this is the choice you want to make it's going to like drastically affect uh-huh your characters or the story or whatever. I always like no, I'll look it up online. Like what most people do like at that point. I'm like am I going to completely ruin the rest of this game for myself somehow and I look up what most people do who have played at multiple times if there's something like that so I make sure that I don't Like have something that I'm almost unable to help almost unable to power through at that point. I did that with the Guardians of the Galaxy The Tell-Tale series, you know how it gives you choices in that game all the time. Yeah. See, I don't look it up because I kind of like want to like I don't want it spoiled. I guess. I don't know like I guess I haven't played a game yet for it is like it affects me that much but in the Guardians game, like I killed Drax or I'll let draxe.com Die, oh, I guess which is I did and I'm pretty sure it's been a long time since I played that one but I'm pretty sure he like comes back. He's not really dead like everybody but everybody gets mad at you because you let him fall to like kill this giant space worm and like you're like the whole crew gets mad at you and for the longest time. I was like, oh man, I screwed up. I had totally like I didn't expect the game to just like killed racks, but then I'm like 99% sure. I remember in a later episode that he like comes back and he had to he didn't really die. He like Bob For worm or whatever but for the longest time, I thought I'd killed Drax. I felt really guilty about it. What tall tale does. I mean that's one of the things they want you to feel things like that. So yeah another get Improvement for Dragon Quest 2, though is it kind of has the beginnings of job roles? And this one like, you know, the hero is definitely that kind of hero, you know, he fights with a sword. He has a shield that kind of thing the the prince I think at least is kind of the early makings of the Mage class because he has really low defense like the Mages do in Dragon Quest. He's got the those kind of Magic Bus and different things that a lot of the majors tend to have in the Saints and then the princess is you know, the Healer for the party, but she does have some of the major abilities to so it's kind of like the I mean it's pretty basic stuff, but I definitely think it's the kind of the beginning of job roles in this game, which are like you also get you get a ship. Right. Oh that ship. Yeah, and I think I could be totally wrong about this and I couldn't find anything online that just told me explicitly granted. I also didn't look super hard. Right, but I did, you know to a basic Google search it up, but I think this might be the first video game like that to have a shift for World exploration. It might be yeah because I'm trying to think of others at that point like at this point like I can't remember. What year did you to originally came out? Was it a E7 maybe I think it was 87 years and I can't think of any others that have been released at that point the head of shit. Yeah, I think it was like really early 1987 is when it originally released because I want to I mean it was just like right on the heels of the first one, you know, January 26th ab7. Oh, you just looked it up. Yeah. Hey, I was right so very early in a 1987 and I can't think of any at that point that that had any anywhere near the the open-world kind of exploration that you have in this one because even like Legend of Zelda and things like that where you run around as a very small area technically and this one is pretty massive. Yeah. I mean there's a ship. There's also the word pool. Still teleportal thing right you can step on and this one which definitely got me lost on more than one occasion at which yeah, that'll happen. Anytime their warp things like that. I'm going to get lost in a game that doesn't have like a full world map. And this one I know is a much bigger map than the first one where it's like two and a half times as big as Dragon Quest one where it was a hundred by a hundred and then this one is 256 by 256. I know where I I had read that at one point where it's a lot bigger than the first game. So as you're used to exploring I know like toroidal power and a few others have been talking with me where they're like, I'm just wandering around I just keep going all these places. I like Dragon Quest 2 is so much more than the first one was just in terms of that openness. I think the second one also was the first one to have like gambling mini games because it had that it had that Pack him Bola Tombola. Oh, yeah, you get a Tombola ticket. Yeah. Yeah that you take it to certain NPCs and cities and it's like a really weird like slot machine type game where you it's like there's different symbols, you know, like a heart or like a triangle those kind of things. It reminds me of the you remember that in Super Mario Brothers 3. Yes, I do where you could go in and if you got like three mushrooms in a A row you don't like a mushroom and different things like that. That's what it really really reminds me of I was always I was really bad at the Tombola stuff and Dragon Quest 2 because either wouldn't win or I would win just enough to get another ticket. Just lay it out or you in real life. Yeah, and I was like, I don't think I'm going to I don't think I'm going to spend a lot of time on this like I have enjoyed the casinos and other kind of gambling mini games that are in later games, but the the Tombola tickets are, you know, not my favorite and then we also get the church's you don't just have to go to the wood king and the castle to save your game. You can actually go to like even think Dragon Quest 2 is not even just churches. There's Old men and a couple of towns that let you save at them. Yeah, you just go and there's like an old dude and he's like, you know, he speaks his like that like really proper like Middle English pseudo Middle English as like basically asking you if you want to save and of course, you should say yes because it's this game is hard. If you are not on mobile then save it literally every opportunity you can and if you are on mobile than quick save Save at any opportunity that you remember to. Oh, yeah take advantage that quick say like for me I care nothing about having like gamer cred. So I'm just like I'm going to take advantage that quick save every chance I get because I would rather do that and like play through the game see the story have fun with it. Then not take advantage of quicksave for like dragging rights or whatever and then just died and have to replay another like two. Is a game, you know, and the quicksave in this one. Let me just say that the quick save and run quest one and Dragon Quest 2 and I'm going to assume Dragon Quest 3 when at least these three work the same we're in like I'm used to the Final Fantasy quicksaves where you have to quit the game when you do it where it's an overwritten file, you quick save it lit moves you back to the menu and then when you restart it erases that data, that's not the case with the Dragon Quest games you save you can continue immediately. Immediately where you are and when you start the game again, you can start back from that quick save data as opposed to a and adventurers log and it's ridiculously wonderful for this because it's I hate the quicksave mechanic that kind of memos save where it deletes it once you once you resume it and this one does not do that and it is so wonderful that it doesn't and I love it and I'm so happy about that. I think it's a I think it's a mobile versus DS because All of the DS Dragon Quest or at least four five and six the three that I played on the original idea the quicksave puts you back to the yes to the end actually quit. Yeah, you have to go back to like the home screen or whatever the DS the mobile games and I've only played one two and three on mobile. I think you played for on mobile. Right? I've played part of it. I hated it and then got the DS version like, why don't he did you have it and you called anymore right now to even check? Okay. I didn't know if you ever quick saved in for to see If it does that or not, I'm sure I did because I can't remember if it's a mobile thing or if it's a one two and three things. I'm pretty sure it's a mobile thing because I mean it makes sense when people are playing on their phones. They don't they're not going to typically I think it's because they're not going to typically just sit there and play for long hours. I think they're trying to think of more like you play it while you're waiting, you know at the doctor waiting for the bus or you know, while you're in the car, hopefully not die waiting for lunch at your with your nephew. It's when I was playing yesterday actually. Yeah, exactly. And so I think that's why it's I think all the mobile versions have that I definitely know one two, and three do but I've played as you know played the rest of DS or 3DS, which Dragon Quest 8 on the 3DS, you know has that kind of safe function for you don't have to quit you can just do the quick save and then he playing it's been so long since I played that one. I don't remember that because I typically on the DS I typically just close the DS instead of thinking about quicksaving so that it was one of the things I don't remember about that one kind of like I said a couple times before Dragon Quest 2, it's hard and I think that's why people seem like they don't like it because I hear so many people like really dumped on Dragon Quest 2. And so it's always good. So it's always good to hear for me. At least I'm black when I hear people like complimenting Dragon Quest 2, because I do really like the game and it is really hard. It's probably the hardest Dragon Quest game at least in the main series. It's also it's probably one of the hardest just RPGs I've ever played. I mean, even you know, it's it's an 80s RPG all of those like late 80s early 90s jrpgs. We're all kind of all kind of are tough. You know, I don't know man. I've got some of those shin Megami tensei games. They are insane. I'm not sure this is it's going to take a lot to be harder than any actual shin Megami tensei game I've ever played and I don't play those games. So I'm just saying out of the jrpgs. I played I think Dragon Quest 2 is probably the hardest so also and this feels weird. But I also I feel like I'm a better like gamer after beating it after beating it. I could see that after all the rage text that I've been that I've gotten from you before you beat it. And as you beat it that I can see that you've made I could see that I don't even know how to put this I could see that it has made you better at making those decisions and figuring things out I could see how it would do that. I mean, it's definitely like every every game I've played since then and I can pretty sure all but one of those games have been an RPG every game. I've played since beating to like, I definitely feel more confident because I'm like I can beat Dragon Quest 2. I can be anything. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. I totally like that's how I started running. I did a It's to 5K thing on the hottest record day that we had ever had and while it was dangerous. It was like, you know what I can run anything now, I've made it through that. I feel like I'm gonna die. Let's do this and I'd started running more often and better and enjoying it after that. But like, okay cool. I've done this. I understand that about drag quest to as well and illegal. Yeah and I will say for those people who who don't like Dragon Quest 2 even hate Dragon festive, like don't get me wrong. I mean, I I'm a Myself almost I almost quit several times during this playthrough back in back in like January. I even had an entire life blog post about like all the times. I almost quit and how its kind of glad that I stuck with it, I guess and so just kind of speaking to that allow me if you will to take you on a very brief journey of all the times. Austin I'm just going to refer to myself in third person now all the times all Austin almost quit Dragon Quest to I like to call this the tale of Austin in the sunken treasure. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that was the first time like early on in Dragon Quest 2. I liked it better than the first one. I liked it the characters, you know kind of had more personality. I like that there was kind of a party and something close to a job system. It was like there was more of a structure to the Think of it as opposed to just kind of being thrown in to yeah to like hey you need to do this wander and it's oh, yeah, the first part of the game definitely has more structure than the rest of it. Once you get your whole party. It's kind of a lot like the first Dragon Quest but you know, it's got those spells abilities more of those more year all that kind of stuff and the world like you've mentioned it's a lot bigger. You got a lot more things to explore so I really like it but then At some point in my playthrough, I got to this part where I was supposed to find sunken treasure. For those of you who played this game. You know, what part I'm talking about and it was terrible for a number of reasons because I so So like I said earlier Dragon Quest 2 is basically just an open world RPG. Once you get your ship between the ship and the work the warp work pools. Oh my gosh. I'm never going to be able to say that it's basically open world. And so there's just a lot of options a lot of places you can go so I knew early on from talking to some NPCs that there was going to be treasure out here in the ocean in this certain part. And so I was like cool, you know Sounds like something I'm supposed to go get so maybe I should you know, go up there and find this sunken treasure. So I went out there and like nothing was there and I was like, okay, maybe I didn't talk to the right NPC because some you know, some of these games you have to like talk to certain people to get stuff to open up. Right? Right. And so I went out there still didn't see anything talked to like everybody in the town talk to that NPC that tells you where it's located like three or four times and still couldn't find it. So then I know Texting you about it. I get online and spent literally hours of my time trying to find out like what's going on with the treasure and it was it was yeah. It was ours that you were texting me a lot. I don't remember what I was playing at the time, but I know that I stopped playing it a lot because we were texting so much at that point like I remember folding up my DS and it was hilarious to me because you were so mad and like I remembered Trying to convince you to keep playing it because you would started the blog to play all of them throughout the year. Yeah, and and I even you even sent me you would send me links to stuff and you were like, here's something for like GameFAQs or here's something on Reddit and I'd be like, nope already read that didn't work. Nope already read that dick for help and and some of that was because a lot of the information that's on line is from earlier versions of the game. And because I was playing mobile it was harder to dig up the correct stuff for the mobile. Version and so that would at least back when I was playing it was maybe now that it's been out longer. There's some more like mobile information out there. There's also some problems because like I mentioned earlier in this episode the names in the mobile version are different like the locations and different things of different names. So I was having to learn, you know, multiple names for the same place to try to figure stuff out. So I was always like cross-referencing stuff. It was I felt like I was in college. Again, and having to like do all this like cross-referencing like MLA style all this like, you know awful like academic stuff and just to try to get you know, the sunken treasure and watch some videos the video the videos that were available online at the time, you know showed for the sunken treasure was so I'll get in my ship and go back there and it would be nothing I found out through like that. Here's on GameFAQs that they said that the location of the treasure. It changed a little bit from the original and that the animation was different and so because other people I guess we're having the same trouble I was so I was like, okay great. So the names have changed the location has changed a little bit the animation has changed and I can't find anything for the actual mobile version. So I'm like never going to get this treasure and you have to get this treasure to move on right? It's not an optional Quest like you have to finish this to to continue and beat the game. So I'm going to answer that. Hold on just a sec. I've got a little more like ranting to do and then I will answer that. I promise I'm getting but anyway, so after you know, I read all these facts I did all you watched all these videos cross-reference the names just spending way too much time on reddit reddit can be a dark place if you spend too much time here when I say it any time if you spend any time on there, it's anyway. Like it was just this whole ordeal to find the sunken treasure and I still couldn't find it. And so I sat the game down, you know, I restarted the game because I was like, maybe it's a bug, you know, maybe there's some problem with it. So still cannot find the sunken treasure and So eventually though the sunken treasure was there the animation look just as clear and it was in the exact location that the mobile video I found for it. Showed me where it was and it was a spot that I had ran over a million times, but the animation would never pop and so there's two kickers to this story. Number one is that I still have no clue what I did to make the sunken treasure up here. Like I don't know what I did. I mean I I talk to those NPCs, especially if people online tell you to talk to to make it pop talk to those over and over again countless times, you know, that didn't do it. I just you know circled the ship over the same few places like just over and over again probably hundreds of times. Nothing ever showed up. And so that's that's number one that gets me is that I have no clue what it was. I don't know if there's a bug I don't know if I was doing something wrong. I don't know if I'd overlooked something and that did I talked to the NPC's in a different order that last time and that's what did it or what but whatever the reason to this day. I still don't know what I did right to make the second treasure appear, but it And so I didn't just like Rage Quit over second treasure kicker number two, which also answers your question. Is that after like a month after I had eaten Dragon Quest 2. I found out that the sunken treasure is optional. Oh, no, I didn't know apparently you don't have to do it at all. It's completely optional. So all the hours that I spent trying to find the treasure was just like I think I think I'm on my blog I even talked about that. It was just like salt in my open Angry wounds. I was just like no, I can't believe it's optional and but apparently it is I didn't read that much into other than the fact that people online said that it was optional and so I don't know what I did to make it pop but it is optional. And so yeah, so that's my story regarding the sunken treasure part of Dragon Quest. And then after that, I started enjoying the game for a long time after that Captain join the game and then I almost quit a second time. But before we get in to that, I think it's time for that special segment. We like to call Shameless self-promotion. You did it differently. At the beginning of the episode and we thanked the the people who are patrons so far. So do want to tell everybody a little bit extra about our patreon real quick. Just very quickly. You can find it at patreon.com Dragon Quest FM. We have a Discord role for our drinks long-lost cousin we have where you can have a listeners Choice kind of tell us what you want us to hear. We'll have an obscure. Dragon Quest games episode coming up from a patron very very soon. We'll have to get through a few more of the the Obscure Dragon Quest games to actually make sure there's a good episode there. And so if you want to check anything like that out at patreon.com slash Dragon Quest FM. And again, we would also like to give a shout out to one of our favorite podcast apps pod coin. It is a podcast app where you can listen and actually make money while that might sound like a scam. It's actually not what you do is you download the app and you listen and you earn pod coins and this is a kind of currency that you can then trade in for different gift cards for donations to the charity of the month. And the more that you do that the more that you can earn. I know a lot of people who are doing this and it's really really good. So if you go there and you use the promo code geek then you can get 300 extra pod coins and you can support Us by getting us more listens and promotion on the side as a bonus podcast, we would really appreciate it so thank you guys and we use it ourselves so try out pod coin and scene and we're back so the other time that I came really close to quitting was there's this place it's called the cave of render rack if you played an earlier version of the game it's called the cave of grown in the earlier versions Right, which I know because of also having a spend some time Googling things about the cable friend Iraq, most of the information I could find on like all that the cable grown because right in the cable grown for like years and years and years because you don't have enough characters in the previous versions to actually spell out render Iraq, and you have like five characters Max generally. I totally did not know that. Yeah, it's something there. Yeah. It's to be able to fit on the cartridges. That's why you're limited to certain characters for different characters names the older you get back like you might have four characters or five characters instead of like having the Dozen or more that you have now, and it was specifically because every extra character that you had in your character's name took up extra space on that cartridge that had to be replaced had to replace something else. So in order to make sure that That you had so in order to make sure that you were the most efficient at it. That was one of the easier things to do. That's why instead of like erdrich. We had Roto and Lodo because of the characters that's why different different games were like link and things like that. We're okay cool. Well, I totally learn something. I mean at played a lot of old games like that I grew up playing them are totally never realized that things had Names because it was like a cartridge. Yeah, if you go back and look a lot of them will have much shorter names like the Game Boy Advance not Game Boy Advance the Game Boy Color versions. I want to say of these only give you four, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. But yeah, they're they're absolutely for space reasons that we don't really have to deal with now, that's it. So now we just edit in one of those like the more, you know Stars falling with the music or whatever that used to play all the NBC. EC and for those of you who are like under a certain age, you play have no clue what we're talking about because that's probably a 90s thing right? I think so. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, but anyway, but so getting back to Cave your friend Iraq the cave of indirect. It's probably my least favorite dungeon of any game. I have ever played in my entire life it is it is the dungeon equivalent of sticking my thumb in a fan what you did in the last Yeah, you edited that out there, right? No, I did not. Oh dude. Are you serious? I did not hold him. I wasn't editing out it is still there. So if you guys haven't listened to episode whatever that was episode 10 of Dragon Quest FM go back and you'll hear Austin stick his thumb in a fan because I thought it was funny. That's so embarrassing. So so let me apologize to everybody who listened to the last episode 2. I was on very strong prescription like cold medicine and I already felt bad. And you know that prescription cold medicine really mess with me actually had to stop taking it because it was giving me like night terrors and things and so active I haven't not listen to the episode and I barely remember recording it because I was so dissolved out of my mind. So just apologies to thinking about them in the fan since apparently DJ left that in there any other like are too crazy maybe crazy stuff I said But the cave of render rack the cave of render rack is the equivalent of that. It's the dungeon equivalent of being zonked out on cold medicine and sticking your phone a fan. That's what the cave of render back was to me. So it's already you've probably heard of it before it's kind of like Infamous. I guess notorious for how difficult it is. It's very late in the game. And I didn't know at the time that I was playing how like Infamous it was until I started. I kept getting lost inside of it and finally just decided to like Google how to get through the K. Yeah, because I was trying to do it a try when I play these games. I try to do it like without guides are spoilers, but then you know something happens like sunken treasure. I get lost in the cave of render ack. I'm not too proud to just like Google it and get my way out of there so I can get on the stuff and the way that I look at it is I try not to do any kind of guide or or looking up spoilers or anything like that or lower the difficulty. Until a game becomes unfun that when a game stops being fun for me and it just becomes frustrating it to the point where I want to quit I will look something up online and look at a guide because that's not the reason I play games anymore that that there's only been one time that I've done that recently and that was Marvel Ultimate Alliance where I chose to die on The Doctor Strange Hill that I was like, I'm not lowering the difficulty on this I will beat you or I will die trying and after a very long time I finally beat him. But that's the way that I feel about Dungeons like this. It's like if I stop having fun going through it at just like get stressed. It's like, okay. I'm going to look up and see what's going on because I'm obviously not going to be able to do this and maintain my sanity the first problem with the camera render act that I remember is there's kind of like the first game where has that like infinite Loop or infinite staircase, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, there's one of those and so actually there's there's more than one but I It stuck in one and I was like, oh crap not another one of these things. And so I totally, you know looked at like a I looked up a map basically to see how to not get stuck in these endless staircase has heat as I really tried to get out of there myself. It didn't work. It was just kind of like miserable. And so I looked at a fact to get me through there and I was like cool, you know, I'm not stuck in the infinite staircases anymore, but then there's Also, I guess you would call them pit false. Okay holes, were you fall to a different level? What happens is you'll be walking and there's just random pitfalls and you fall through it and then you land into the basement of the dungeon, right? And there's all these really strong skeletons that will just like run at you and just like totally just like Slaughter you but yeah, so there you fall through the basement and all these Monsters Just the skeletons they charge you and I got to be honest the first time it happened. I died like real good. Like I mean those monsters are tough in that cave. Anyway, there's tons of these skeleton monsters that will appear and I just couldn't even get back to like the starting location of the cave, you know, and so so luckily I had A quicksave at some point like before or right after one of the like endless loops. And so I'll just load it up my quicksave and did that and so then eventually I was like, I'll just avoid that spot. Well, then I fell through another Pitfall then after I fell through like three or four I was just like screw this I'm gonna look at a fact for this whole K and so I pull the death started looking at maps for the pitfalls to and sure that's probably He technically cheating but you know what? I got out of that cave and you know, I got out of the cave never looked back and just as like a brief aside right here the enemies in that cave are like really tough. I mean the difficulty curve. I think we might I can't remember we talked about this on the show or if this you and I talked about it since the difficulty curve and Dragon Quest 2 is like super insane, right? Yeah. I know you and I have I guess I read at some point that it was like a coding issue that like the they even admit that they just like they coded some stuff in wrong and didn't take into account like how the monsters would level up as the players level up. And so it made it just like stupidly hard there towards the end. Yeah, the way that they did the math would basically wasn't it multiplicative as opposed to additive so that all of a sudden things were just massively overpowered for you. Yeah. It's something like that either way. It's like I mean, you know, it's a early Dragon Quest game. So you have to kind of grind some to advance the story and get through certain areas. But then all of a sudden it just turns into this game where like you are fearful every time a random encounter happens because it's like you're you might just die like every every random encounter is almost as hard as a Boss by especially once you make especially once you make it out of that case, but, you know, even the enemies in there are Football I want to say that's where you run into like the lunatics the little they're like little ticks that can let confuse you and do all sorts of bad stuff to your party. It's just you know, I got a lot of game overs playing Dragon Quest to even by taking advantage of what looking at maps and the quicksave and stuff like, you know, finally got through it. And so between the sunken treasure and the cave over in Iraq. I had you know some pretty tough but memorable moments in Dragon Quest 2, and then of course, I know I've mentioned it here before but then once you get through all that, there's still the final dungeon to get through and you have to take on par God who is the final boss right now when you the final dungeon of this, so that's not the cave of Iraq or Roan like there's something beyond that. No, you have to eat. Yeah, you have to get through that cave to get over into like the I think it's just all maybe it's called render a guy. Anyway, it's the little there's like a little it's basically Mordor where there's like mountains surrounding it and you have to go through this cave to get in so I kept our guns land and you know, there's like you have to find items and like they call them sigils in the game things like this to like there. Anyway, it's a huge part of the game. Game is basically unlocking this path. So you can get into this area. Now. I'm really curious about this because I haven't gotten to that part in Dragon Quest 2 yet, but I feel like and here are some minor spoilers. So for the next couple of minutes y'all if you haven't played Dragon Quest Builders to I'm going to have little minor spoilers because this game ties in very closely with Builders to so just just hit the forward 45 seconds a couple of times but Do the point right now in Builders to where I found render Iraq, and it is like you described in Dragon Quest 2 surrounded by mountains and all of this but it's beautiful and dreamlike and kind of looks like a fairy Wonderland just just green and beautiful flowers everywhere colorful. And I know that there's a dungeon after I finish this part of the game and I'm really curious how much of it is going. Going to be like the final dungeon into because you've mentioned that there's another part in Builders to that looks almost identical to what the the final dungeon was. And so it looks like a ruined version of it like so I'm really curious on how all of this is going to tie together because I haven't beaten Builders to yet. I'm getting close to it. So but I know there's so tied together that I'm like how closely is render act. I've already been through. Cave over and Iraq and which by the way that's where liquid metal slimes are if you're ever looking and they they spawn there because I found one and I didn't find one when I was going through that area. And so I was very happy to find it and also Pro tip for for metal slimes in General on here. The poison needle that I love so much that I've mentioned a couple of times in the last couple episodes. It never does zero damage. To the metal slimes it always does damage to them. So it is so much easier to kill them just swapping to it. It doesn't one hit kill them or anything like any more than anything else but it actually always does damage. So you'll do one one one one one one one and they die as opposed to 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 run 0 0 1 0 0 run that is that is the best way to kill metal signs that I've found in Builders to so while before we continue with Dragon Quest 2. at heart I'm a few Builders to spoilers The so I'm and the same at like I got to R indirect as well your little bit ahead of me in the story right now is building Rusty, but in in Dragon Quest to the the environments are switched, so it's like it's really nice and pretty outside and green and Dragon Quest 2, and then it's all snowy and like Ashen and Okay and like they're in I guess in In the once you make it through and Dragon Quest 2, so it's kind of like those environments have swapped. Okay, there's two I'm not sure if there's a reason for that because of all the NPC's talking about Illusions and stuff. But but yeah, so that's kind of just something for you to take home. Whatever right for so long Harry. I'm very curious on how all of this is going to play out into because I know what's going on in or in Builders to so I'm really curious how it's going to play out in because I What's going on an actual Dragon Quest to so it's really interesting. I love how they're tying everything together there. So yeah, so anyway, so there's actually there's that whole little area once you make it through the cave and thankfully there's like a church and everything so that you can save and kind of and grind for a little while because the monsters in that area are really tough, but they also give a lot of experience. So that's a nice thing that has a church really close by like that. I'm pretty sure you cannot like Zoom or anything like that to it. I think once you if you leave that area, it's like you have to go back through the cave of and you're like no no. Yeah. Yeah, like not dumb get so and then there's the last the last area you get a lot more guns castle and everything and then that's a dungeon that that you have to work your way through to get to Har gone, right? Okay. Yeah, it's very similar to the first Dragon Quest game it's a little different. It's not the same place. You can actually visit the dragonlords castle in Dragon Quest 2. Like I don't think it's required at all. But you can totally go back to Carlock Castle Charlotte Castle Carlisle Castle you go there and then the dragon lord or maybe I think it's supposed to be like a descendent of the Dragon Lord from the first Dragon Quest game. No, he's just sitting in there like you go and you talk to him and it's not even a fight or anything and he's just like You know, you need to go take care of that sorcerer hard gone. He's getting uppity and I'm the real dragon lord and you need to go take care of him and put him back in his place fair enough. Oh, that's so so you can totally go back to you know that whole area but the final dungeon is kind of similar in to the first one and you go and you know, you're all prepared for this final boss with hard on and then You know, I thought it was pretty prepared. I mean I grinded up a lot of levels and in the mobile version the levels are a lot higher than they were in the original like I think you can get up to 50 with all the characters think so. Yeah, I think they'd change that in the original you can like the princess. I think only goes up to like 35 think that's what it is in the original. Yeah, and your that your hero can still get up to 50. But in this one they can all get up really high and I was in the upper. 30s lower 40s the first time I attempted this and so you beat hard on he dies and you're like yay, I beat the game, right? Yeah in my head while the beat hog on like it took you more than once. I know. Yeah, and so I just wanted you to say right by the way, I was fishing for a right so that I can say wrong you're wrong because they're about rocks shows up. That's what I was going for. You just um play into my hand. But anyway wrong now Rock shows up and man. Oh man. I know I've talked about this a lot. But Mal raw is like the final boss to end all Final Bosses. Like I think this is the I play a lot of video games. I've played and most of those are RPGs. Most of those are jrpgs, right? And so I've had my like share of like Final Bosses and things But there's something about Mal raw that he is incredibly powerful he gets to go, you know, multiple has multiple turns every time and the honestly I think it comes down to like orangey because so I think I've said this is another episode. He beat me 14 times. It took me 14 tries to be which is an absurd amount of time. I mean, I quicksave like before right before Hog on. And so as you know, like I said take advantage of that quick safe. So I had it right before so don't have to fight my way back through the dungeon. So I had all that I ended up leaving the dungeon anyway and grinding up until all of my characters were I think they were in the upper 40s. Okay, they weren't they weren't maxed out. I don't think but they were they were a lot higher than my first attempt because I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna have to go and like grind this up. So I finally I grind it up for a little while then I All the way back to hard God fight him again had a quicksave there again to fight him again and then get ready to take on my Roth and I'm like, okay, I've leveled everybody up another like five or six levels. This has to be good enough and he still he would get like I would get really far to where I was like, oh, yeah. I got this in the bag and then he would use like back to backfire breaths. And just my whole party would just be like dead like instantly and so I I did it took me 14 tries, which is a personal record. Like I don't consider myself bad at video games about like this seriously was one of those things where I'm like do I just suck or is this like really hard and I think the answer is probably a little bit of both like that with it being random like that with him taking multiple turns and you not knowing which a Acts are coming. And you even when you heal, I know you were telling me that you were healing up between major attacks to like, oh, I just so looking here at my notes. I said, I went up eight levels. That's how much I'm more I love although so finally after getting up eight levels from my like first attempt of going in there. I was able to beat him eventually. But yeah, I mean it was just I think a lot of it was just bad luck on my part. I think a lot of it was based. Based on orangey because sometimes it'd be like I would of because I attempted to fight him so many times I kind of like saw this a lot. And so sometimes it'd be like round 2 and then he uses fire breath like twice in a row and then you know, I'm dead and then sometimes it'd be like, I'd fight him for like a really long time and I'd be like I'm gonna beat it and then he would use fire breath twice in a row for it was like there wasn't really a Rhyme or Reason or like pushing him through phases or anything like you see in bosses. Yeah. It was just Kind of like, you know, he would use these attacks and I would die and so I wanted so, you know, I know I've talked about other times. I wanted to give up. This was one of those times that I was just like, you know, I made it to the very end here and I really not going to be able to beat this because I said I was going to play in beat every Mainline Dragon Quest game in a year. And so I was kind of like wondering how I was going to have like an asterisk there by my name how to like kind of like a base. Ball player using steroids and hitting all those home like like I was afraid I was gonna be that I was going to be one of those like steroid baseball players and I was gonna I was going to Barry Bonds Dragon Quest 2, and and so I was but I was really like afraid of that. And so I ended up that ended up not happening and much like I'm sure I died a bunch because of luck. I think I'd beat me. Off because of luck because I think I'm convinced that that final fact Mal Rock just has a lot to do with luck and it's right after the battle of Argonne. So there's not like a there's not like you can leave and like, you know, he'll up or whatever then come back and that's what I was gonna ask. Like I'm do you have to beat hog on every time that you go into my Roth? Or is there a gap between there where you like you can save the game and not have to beat hog on every single time you did it for 14 times. No, I think. Let me think. I'm thinking. And again, it's been a long time since I've played this. I want to see what happens is you beat hard on and there's a cutscene and you don't really get to do anything yet. And he is like, oh I give my body up to Mal Roth Lord Of Destruction and then hard on disappears and Mal Rock shows up and it's black surprise. I'm going to kill you outside. But it may be I don't think this is dragged us to but maybe it is in one of the games. It's like you beat the first boss and then you start to walk away. And then as you're trying to exit like fire shows up all around to block your exit. Yeah, and then you go fight the other boss. So it's like you have a moment to heal. Okay and safe, but I don't think it's Dragon Quest 2, and maybe that one is too but it's been it's just been so long since I played this game, you know. Where he was like a very long time ago to me. I mean, this is like what August pretty much? Yeah, so I want to say there that it's the one that's just kind of a cutscene and doesn't give you a break but it could be the fire thing that I'm talking about. I really don't remember it's one of those too. But you know, I have been chilly beat Mal raw and I've come to love him a little bit. I mean our respective at least I have from our off the toy hanging up right above my A desk right here. I mean I'm looking at him right now and he doesn't look so bad. He's just like chilling out. That's what I was going to say. It's like I know you bought a toy from our off like it was one of those things where he beat you so much that you just started to love him that you spent so much time with him that it was a professional respect between you. Yeah. I mean, he's become the most memorable play boss fight of any game I've ever played. Because the end part of that is because you know, I mean you can't really hope to like destroy a guy 14 times and then get beaten time and time again, and it not be memorable. Yeah. And so yeah, you know, I haven't standing up there. I love him in human form and Dragon Quest Builders to I do too. I love him so much and so I guess just generally I know this episode's kind of go a long but you know, we did have a it's a big game so I know you had a lot to talk about today. And I guess just kind of my last thoughts last opinions here is that you know Dragon Quest 2. I think it's a fun but flawed game it is pretty it is pretty grind heavy. And you know, Mal raw is a pretty big final boss to take on but if you know, and if you've played other early Dragon Quest games and you haven't played this one then I Really think you should play it. If you've never played any of the earlier Dragon Quest games, I went and start with to I mean just not only because I mean like chronologically and story-wise. I don't think it makes sense. Like I definitely think you should play them as 1 2 and then 3 for sure I think you get more out of them that way but if you played one you've played 3 or 1 or 3 and you kind of know what to expect from those earlier Dragon Quest games, you know, I mean I recommend to its Not my least favorite Dragon Quest game. I like it better than quite a few of the other ones in the series but it is a tough game and I think that's probably why people disliked it so much is because it is absurdly difficult at times and it's not as it's not as simple as the first Dragon Quest the drag. The first Dragon Quest game is difficult, but it's simple because you know one character. There's not a whole lot to explore. And you know, then you have Dragon Quest three of course, which is just like amazing. And so I think Dragon quests to kind of gets lost in the mix between those two when you just looking at the Urgent trilogy there at yeah, of course yes to kind of kind of gets lost in that mix because you have like the game that basically, you know inspired every jrpg that came after it with the first Dragon Quest game and then you have Dragon Quest three, which is one of Greatest jrpgs of all time and then you have little Dragon Quest to in the middle that people kind of dumped on and don't like you are one of the few people. I know who really likes this game Who wind when I when when it's brought up you defend it as being a good game and I see a lot of other people just being like Oh to oh, I don't know man. Maybe maybe just skip that one entirely. Yeah and it and I think it's because I had so much trouble with it that feel like I've earned it and I feel like I know this sounds stupid because it's a game but I feel like we came to respect one another and I know I know it can't respect me at all. But in my head at least I feel like I respect it respects itself. Like we're all good. I kind of look at it almost like a look at Dragon Quest to the sounds cheesy. I know but look at Dragon Quest to kind of like I look at my younger brother. It's like we fought a lot when we were kids, you know like me and my brother Michael we fought a lot. He was my little brother and I fought a lot with Dragon Quest To Find I was playing it but then like now that I'm away from it like I love it and like I look back at my memories with it. Fondly, you know, even like the bad stuff like the fighting and stuff. I look back on it kind of finally like I do my memories of my brother and childhood and it's like if you talk bad about it. It's like it's my brother. So I'm going to defend it. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? I think so. Yeah. I don't have a brother so I can't say that but it's like I understand it. Yeah. It's like growing up like so this is kind of off subject a little bit. But I remember my brother and I like I mean, yeah, it was just us. It's just me and my brother growing up we were pretty rambunctious and we would I mean there'd be times when we're just fat like flat-out brawling with each other, you know, just like punching everything and I remember, you know, we would fight a lot of times and I remember one of my distant cousins came over when time and was he was bigger than both of us. He was trying to bully us and You know, we joined forces and and just like totally I really got in huge trouble because we gained up on it and like really beat him up. And and I remember his parents were like super just angry at my parents and it was this whole like ordeal. But anyway, that's kind of how I feel about Dragon Quest 2. It's like people dump on it, but then it's like but at the end of the day you have its back. Yeah, so that's kind of how I feel about Dragon Quest to I hope that analogy kind of translates. But that's kind of how I feel about Dragon Quest 2. I think that's a good place to stop on that that you consider dragging that you consider Dragon Quest to your brother my little brother. Yeah, that's right. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening to the podcast today. Remember you can talk to us on Twitter at Dragon Quest FM. You can leave us voice messages and sign up to our newsletter. On our website, which is Dragon Quest dot f m you can talk to me personally on Twitter. My Twitter handle is at underscore Austin underscore King. You can also check out my weekly Dragon Quest blog. You can find that at Dragon Quest austin.com and you can find me on Twitter as at Professor beej that's bej. You can listen to me on my other podcast the geek to geek podcast at geek geek cast.com and That you can check out the entire media Network, where a part of at geek to geek media.com where you can see all of the other podcast live streams and blogs that we have for you. You can also find links to our slack and Discord there where you can join us and talk about Dragon Quest all day long then again, wow. Bye everybody.
This week, we’re talking about Dragon Quest 2! We had a listener poll, and this is the topic you chose. A HUGE thanks to everyone who voted. We’re going to be holding another poll soon, so make sure you keep an eye out for that. We’re going to be discussing the game in-depth (plus the game is, like, 30 years old), so there will be some SPOILERS ahead. For those of you who haven’t played the game, Austin gives a brief synopsis at the beginning of the episode. He played the mobile version, and B.J. has played bits of both the GameBoy Color and mobile versions. After that, we run through the main characters and discuss the perks (and pitfalls) of having three people in your party. From the weird AI in the mobile version to the many deaths of the Prince of Cannock, we have a long discussion about all the great--and not so great--things DQ2 has to offer! Then, it’s time to talk about all the times Austin almost quit playing the game--but how he’s glad he beat it. Sunken Treasure, the Cave of Rendarak, and the final battle with Malroth--we talk about it all! Then, listen to why Austin feels respect for the game now, and also thinks of the game as his...little brother?!? That doesn’t sound right. How can a video game be like a little brother? You’ll have to listen to find out! 