Dragon Warrior Playthrough, Part 9: Get That Bone Out of My Face

Garin. What he did to earn a mausoleum the size of a small town is apparently lost to time. All I know is that this dungeon might have an object I can give to an old man with another object, which I can possibly use to make a bridge to a place that might house a bad guy... or something.

Before I have time to question the wisdom of this endeavor, my feet are already conveying me down the stairs and to the first level of Garin's Grave.

My first is in tomb...

The darkness is suffocating. I did bring a torch, but am curious about this new spell I learned while adventuring near Rimuldar. I mumble the appropriate magic words and in a moment the cavern around me erupts with light.

I can see further... much further than I could with a torch. But it is not ordinary light, for I can also see through nearby walls. ^{[Note A]}

It quickly becomes clear that this vast labyrinth is unlike any I have encountered thus far. What possible reason could its makers have had in carving out these spaghetti-like hallways?

Fortunately, its denizens are nothing new; Skeletons, Drolls, Warlocks, Drakeema. Aside from a treasure room with an Herb and a small amount of gold, the only notable thing on this level is the presence of a magic door in the southeast corner of the dungeon. Fortunately, even though I am running low on keys, I do have one to spare.^{[Note B]}

Before long, I have a map of the entire first level.

My magic power is getting low by now. On a brief stint to the second level, I encounter a Wolf, and while I can handle him without too much trouble now, my magical resources are low enough that I need to return to the surface.

Mo Money Mo Problems

Why are monsters always carrying around gold? Are there secret monster shops where they gather to exchange goods and services? Maybe they just like the way it glimmers in the sun.

And where do they get it? It has often crossed my mind that every time I purchase something from the store I'm using the savings of some unlucky adventurer.

Anyway, I have more than enough on me now to upgrade to a real adventurer's weapon: a broadsword. Unfortunately, the only place I could get it is back in Rimuldar. I groan at the thought of marching all the way back there^{[Note C]}, including through the Swamp Cave, but my axe is getting dull.

On top of this, I've run out of keys, and if I want to venture back into Garin's Grave, I'm going to need at least two more.

I won't waste pages on the details of my return trip to Rimuldar. Suffice to say, I got my shiny new sword and another handful of keys, as well as a new level of experience. During the trip, I learned magic that will block the spells of monsters, though it remains to be seen how useful it will really be.^{[Note D]}.

Regardless, I believe I'm ready to venture further into the depths of Garin's Grave.

All in all they're just a...

Now I've hit a wall. The second level of Garin's Grave is relatively small, and the monsters I find here are ones I already fought near Rimuldar (Wolf, Warlock, Metal Scorpion). Here's the layout:

As you can see, there are a lot of staircases that lead down to level 3^{[Note E]}. Unfortunately, the moment I try one of those staircases, I'm viciously assaulted.

While this beast is apparently a close relative of the Druin I fought in the Mystery Cave, it is much stronger. Had I known the extent of its magical capabilities ahead of time, I would have used Stopspell on it, particularly given that it has healing magic.

For now, however, I think it would be unwise to continue exploring the third level. I need to be stronger.

Rimul-derrrr

Rather than grinding in the darkness of Garin's macabre legacy, it seems more prudent to build my strength in a familiar setting. I also want to upgrade my equipment again, if possible, so I set out again for Rimuldar.

The ensuing days are a bloodbath; I lose count of the number of monsters my sword runs through. It's a shame that monster hides don't fetch anything at the town stores, else my path to a new suit of armor would be shorter. What's more, my hard work might have kept some Rimuldarian children warm at night.

Nevertheless, I now have greater experience and a shiny suit of Full Plate Armor. While my magical abilities are no more advanced than before, I think it's time for another trip to the Garin's grave.

Once more unto the breach

Even with my self-improvement kick, I know this is going to be no cakewalk. I try to keep my health as high as possible between battles so as to keep my options open for the toughest monsters. This means burning through my magic power more quickly, but that's okay, slow and steady is better than fast and examinate.

There is a virtual zoo of unfamiliar monsters on the third level, with a wide range in strength. I already met the Druinlord, which actually turns out to be quite a pushover once he is magically muted. The same could be said for the this juiced-up spirit, who tries to overwhelm me with Sleep and Hurt spells.

On this trip, I also encounter a stronger cousin of the Wolf, but this otherwise fearsome beast uses half of its time trying to silence my spells. I might be worried about that if my health were low and I needed to heal, but I'm always keeping my health high on this trip.

Unfortunately, there is another nasty in this dungeon...

It was bad enough that this bony cretin nearly broke my legs, but when he whipped out the Heal magic, I knew I was toast. Even if I had stopped his magic at the outset, it would have given him too much time to whale on me. This threat seems more than I can handle right now.

They may take my life, but they can't take my sandwich

I really, really don't want to hike back to Rimuldar again. No, what's needed now is courage. I need to have the courage to battle through gangs of wolf monsters and spirits. I need to have the courage to finish mapping out the third level. And more than anything, I need to have the courage to run my ass off if I encounter anymore of those bone-wielding bastards.

So after stopping by the Garinham Inn for what I hope is the final time, I take my trusty broadsword in hand descend into the darkness.

To be continued...

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Commentary

A. This little light of mine

Overhead dungeon crawling is difficult to justify from the narrative standpoint, even accounting for the possibility of magic. After all, a birds-eye view is never available in a dungeon, even in theory, since there is no sky from which to view it.

Nevertheless, this was the choice for all of the NES and SNES Dragon Warrior titles, as well as many other RPGs of the era. Later titles would actually give up in trying to reproduce what the player's character would actually see and just illuminate the entire dungeon (or at least the part that could fit on the screen).

The Radiant spell illuminates a large enough area that it feels to close to the "fully illuminated" view, particularly when compared to the three-by-three area of the torch.

Personally, I prefer the approach that would be taken later by Diablo, where the dungeon is illuminated by a combination of line-of-sight factors and an illumination radius, but that likely would have been too difficult to implement on the NES. Honestly, I am just glad that I didn't have to navigate the entire Dragon Warrior series with three-by-three illumination.

B. Open and shut

One of the quirks of the first Dragon Warrior game is that its doors and treasures all regenerate every time you return to an area. In the case of the treasure, this is a boon, but the reappearing doors are a major headache.

In the present case, it means that every time I leave Garinham, I'm going to need two additional magic keys to explore Garin's Grave (one for the door to the mausoleum and the other in the dungeon itself). The only thing that makes this slightly less irritating is the presence of a key shop in Tantegel Castle, but you need yet another key to get in there and the keys in Tantegel are marked up relative to their Rimuldar counterparts.

C. Back and forth

It's a good thing that the Dragon Warrior map is relatively small by RPG standards, because the game doesn't offer many options for rapid travel. The Wings will take me back to Tantegel, and that's nice, but if I need to go anywhere else, hoofing it is my only option.

You might say that this extra time could give some purpose to the grinding that I will inevitably have to do anyway, but the reality is that most of this repetitive traveling occurs through areas where the monsters are way below my level. Sure, there's some satisfaction in killing Slimes in a single stroke, but only the first 20 or 30 times.

D. Do you believe in magic... stopping magic?

The Stopspell spell is a sort of pre-emptive "sh". It only costs 2 MP, so in most fights with monsters, I have a whole bag of "sh" with their name on it. But is it really worthwhile in practice?

Just like with Hurt and Sleep, I need this to save me from 7 - 8 HP of damage on average to be worth it. That's a little more than the average Hurt spell is doing on me right now, so if I can kill a monster in two strokes or less, it's not worth the cost (especially when you consider that they could get an extra swipe at me on top of it).

There is one potential exception to this rule, and that's the Warlock. While I can kill it in two strokes most of the time, it has the ability to cast a Sleep spell that puts me out for several rounds. However, it uses that spell less than half the time, so in most battles with Warlocks, using Stopspell would just waste a turn.

For what I've faced so far, I think Stopspell is not worth the cost. Stay tuned, however...

E. Walking in this spider web

Unlike some RPGs of the time (e.g., the Ultima series), Dragon Warrior does not align the various dungeon levels. Yes, if there is a descending staircase to the east of another descending staircase, the corresponding ascending staircase will likely be to the east of its counterpart, but not necessarily by the same number of map cells.

I suppose you could justify this in the game world by saying that the staircases are long and winding before their endpoints, but it's a bit of a stretch. Maybe this was intended to give the developers more creative freedom in designing their maps. Or maybe it was just laziness, who knows. 🙂

Regardless, the layout can be confusing between levels. My maps always have a number attached to the staircases to indicate which goes with which (e.g., SD1 on L1 <--> SU1 on L2, SD2 on L3 <--> SU2 on L4). Note that SD1 has no relationship with SU1 on the same level, only with the level below it.