One Fantasy Life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it

I never thought this day would arrive, but, yeah, I’m totally playing Fantasy Life. It’s not some fever dream; I’m actually running around Castele, raising skills, unlocking Bliss, gaining Dosh, earning XP, doing quests, and having a really grand, relaxing time. As of this writing, I’ve logged just about 12 hours in the game, which is akin to maybe gaining your first dragon shout in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I’m not exaggerating.

If you are wondering why I would open on such disbelief and/or are new to Grinding Down…well, Fantasy Life is a game I’ve been pining after and trumpeting for a good long while now. Let’s see, let’s see–boy, am I thankful for the “search” function on this ol’ blog of mine. I first wrote about it in August 2009, back when it was originally geared for the Nintendo DS and was all about them sprites. After that, not much word surfaced until July 2012, when the game took a big visual shift to be more accessible for the Nintendo 3DS. And then time marched on some more, though gamers in Japan got to see it released while everyone else waited with collectively held breaths. With zero to even zero-er fanfare, a North American release was announced during this year’s E3 after Nintendo finished announcing all the things they felt were cooler and more worthy of air time than a multi-job cartoony life sim. Well, let’s put all that behind us, because the game is out, the game is mine, and the game is good.

For those that really ate up Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, you’ll immediately notice a lot in common here. Let’s first touch upon the story, or rather the overarching story. See, each Life has its own set of main characters, problems, and resolutions, but the main path is different. One day, the ever-peaceful Reveria is shaken when a meteorite falls into your character’s house, setting off a chain of events foretold in an ancient prophecy involving the land’s goddess and the moon Lunares. Castele’s King Erik asks the main player to investigate these strange occurrences, and he or she is joined in this quest by Flutter, a strange glowing butterfly that has the ability to speak. Later on, you learn that the butterfly is really the daughter of Celestia, the goddess of Reveria, and she fell from heaven to help people. Not exactly Stella–but it does sound a little familiar, yes?

At the beginning of Fantasy Life, you get to customize your character a bit and then must select what Life you’d like to start on. I picked Alchemist as I’ve always been a big fan of alchemy pots in previous Level-5 games, and I wanted to see how addicting it would be here. There are twelve Life types in total. The Alchemist is a mix of gathering items and some light combat out in the field, though I actually can’t remember many story details from the early Alchemist-only quests. After eleven hours of this, I finally decided to switch over to a new Life–you can freely switch between Lives when not on a main path mission and learn universal skills–but I made the mistake of picking Cook, a Life that is perhaps too similar to Alchemist to feel different. I mean, they both use the very same mini-game for creating items. I suspect I’ll try for a Woodsman or Paladin next to get out into the wild more.

So far, at least for Alchemists, combat is real simple. You have a three-hit combo by mashing the attack button, but no dodge or twirl away from danger like in Disney Magical Castle‘s dungeons, which often leads to getting stuck in the combo animation and taking a few hits from enemies. I found it works well enough to hit twice, back off, and repeat, though it doesn’t make for exciting combat. However, many quests are of the MMORPG ilk, meaning kill X wolves or X bandit leaders, and your list will eventually fill fast just like that miscellaneous quests tab in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that you have to get out there and kick some monster butt. In addition to these side quests, you also have Life challenges to complete and Bliss objectives to move the story forward. There is always something to do or work towards in Fantasy Life.

Great news–the writing is funny. Very amusing, but then again, just about everyone in the game is speaking my language. Even when it isn’t diving into puns like a fiend, it handles everything else lightly, but still in an entertaining fashion. Even the quiet moments that Flutter has to herself are soft and poignant, with a pinch of fun. I’m not deeply invested in the world or its characters yet, but just about everything they say is interesting. Oh, and animals talk and say the silliest of things, so make sure you speak to each and every cow, chicken, and cat you come across.

I don’t doubt I’ll be back to write more about Fantasy Life, but probably not until I’ve tried out a few more Lives and figured out which is my true calling. Alchemy is good fun, but I need a little more adventuring under my belt.

Mixing items with items to make more items in Ni no Kuni

Of all the videogame-based alchemy systems, I can confidently say that I like the one in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch the least. Which is a shame, as Level-5 generally knows what its doing with its item synthesizing mechanics, a gameplay element that warms me greatly. Seriously, I love it. You take one item, mix it with another, and get something–more often than not–greater than the sum of its parts. My feverish appreciation probably all dates back to mixing herbs together for stronger health potions in Resident Evil 2, but if a game has any kind of alchemy element, I’m in. Heck, I bought Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny solely on this reasoning, even though its very name scares the life out of me and I’ve not played it yet.

In Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX, you have a magical pot for all your brewing needs. In the former, it travels with you, riding on the princess-drawn carriage with her goblin father. In the latter, it stays put at the Quester’s Rest inn, which you must visit to do your mixing thing. Either way, you put items together and hope for the best, or you can pick up recipes (or clues) along your journey for killer gear. In VIII, you had to wait a bit for the pot to create the item–maybe about ten or fifteen minutes–which made grinding more bearable, as you battled for XP while waiting to hear that salivating ding that indicated your item was done. They took this away for IX, probably because it was on the DS and meant to be played in short, portable bursts, so waiting was not an option.

In Rogue Galaxy, you have two different ways to create new items: Weapon Fusion and the Factory. Basically, all weapons gain XP from battle until they are maxed out, wherein they can then be synthesized along with a similar weapon to create something new. Toady, a strange frog monster, helps with this by swallowing both weapons and spitting out something new; one could argue it is an alchemy pot. However, you don’t really know if something is going to turn out great and just have to chance it, though Toady will also warn you if the results are really negative. For the Factory, it’s more of a puzzle system, where you have to line up machine parts to get it running properly to create a special item from a set of blueprints.

For non-Level-5 joints with alchemy-based systems, it’s a mixed bag, with most alchemy systems fairly uninteresting or just bad altogether.

Odin Sphere has the player combining two items to generate a new item during gameplay, which is then stored in a “Material” bottle. These bottles can be improved as well by alchemizing two of them together to get a material bottle valued at the multiplicative product of the two original bottles (e.g., Material 2 combined with Material 3 results in a Material 6 bottle). It’s a bit complicated, and I don’t even remember getting to it during my first hour with the game, and I’ve not gone back since. I remember more about various plants you grow during battle than the alchemy, which says a lot, I guess.

And then there’s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, all of which with systems that are nothing more than perfunctory.

However, in Ni no Kuni, the alchemy system is unnecessarily clunky. You have two options once you obtain the alchemy pot and its genie master Al-Khemi in Castaway Cove: use a recipe or mix and match. If you have all the right ingredients, simply click “use a recipe” and Al-Khemi with automatically take care of it for you. For mixing and matching, you are either guessing or looking up the select few recipes available in your Wizard’s Tome, a tedious process that involves you backing out of the alchemy menu, into the tome menu, zooming down on the page for alchemy, zooming in more to find the recipe you want, mumble it to yourself a few times so you don’t forget, exiting back out to the main menu, back into the alchemy menu, and trying to create something based off of what you were mumbling to yourself.

The sad part of all that? Even if you are successful and create an item, the recipe does not appear in your list of “acquired” recipes; you can only get ones added there from completing errands or earning ’em as the story progresses. That means, even though I successfully made a Fishburger from White Bread (x2), a Dumbflounder, and Crispy Lettuce, I can’t quickly select it again down the line from my recipes list; I have to either remember how to do it from scratch or go back into my tome to remind myself of what is actually in a Fishburger. In short–I really don’t like this. All it means is that I now have to play Ni on Kuni with my laptop next to me open to some recipe wiki page, instead of staying immersed in the game.

What a bummer. At this point, I’d rather just have a repeat of Dragon Quest IX‘s system.

Experiencing the swift smack of death in Ni no Kuni

I died three times last night in Ni no Kuni, and I’m only four hours into the game. To say the uptick in the combat’s difficulty caught me by surprise would absolutely nail it. I mean, yeah, Drippy warned me to avoid fighting monsters in the new area we just got to and simply make a bee-line for Al Mamoon out in the desert, but I didn’t think he actually meant that. Plus, with a Save Stone sorta nearby, I figured I could do a little bit of grinding and heal up for free before moving on. Um, that’s not how things went.

First, just like in Dragon Quest VIII and IX, death is not final in Ni no Kuni. There is no perma-death for Oliver and his familiars, and the Game Over screen offers you a choice: return to the main menu to load your last hard save, or lose 10% of your money, called Guilders, and pop back into the game wherever it last auto-saved. For me, that place was upon exiting the Golden Grove. And at this point in the game, I did not have much money, and 10% of not much is, shockingly, not that much, and so I chose to pay the pauper and restart each time. I wonder if you’ll be able to visit a bank later on and safekeep your earnings while you go out and live dangerously. It’s either that or spend a lot of it before you fight in dangerous locations since there’s a good chance you’ll lose a slice or two of your earnings.

Let’s talk about the reason behind Oliver and company’s unexpected crumbling: the monsters. Now, sure, I was feeling fairly confident leaving the Golden Grove, as I had just defeated a–well, in my eyes–fairly tough boss called the Gladiataur, which required a lot of switching between familiars and eating of sandwiches for HP regeneration and the heavy use of the Defend button. I can’t say for sure what level the non-boss monsters in the Golden Grove were, but I feel like they were around 8 or 9, which is level with where I had Oliver and two out of three of his familiars. However, once you exit the Golden Grove, you’ll find monsters seemingly around level 12 or 13, and they can completely take out the team in a few hits, especially if symbol alignment is in their favor.

The very first monster we ran into killed us. Maybe two or three hits to my level 10 Mitey. Then, heeding the words of the Lord High Lord of the Faeries, I avoided monsters until I couldn’t, as there is a sort of hound-like beast in the desert that is too fast for Oliver to avoid. It killed us fast. The third time saw me trying to take a new path over to Al Mamoon, only to have that hound-like monster stomp us flat. My fourth attempt at making it to the city proved successful, with no encounters at all, but now I’m seemingly stuck in Al Mamoon, and hopefully there are some ways to level up before I have to head back out into the wild. Otherwise, things don’t look good for the future. Sorry, Oliver’s mom.

I’m not sure if the appearance of these super strong monsters is deliberate from Level-5/Studio Ghibli or my fault. Should I have leveled Oliver up to 12 or 13 before proceeding on with the story, thus making these monsters more balanced? Though that might have then made the ones in the Golden Grove severely underpowered. And there wasn’t too much left to do in terms of side-quests in Ding Dong Dell or near it (from what I explored), so I felt it was time to move on story-wise. It’s hard to say, really. But now I expect Oliver and his battle-loving critters to succumb to Death’s call many more times; I just hope I won’t have to pay too high of a price to try again.

Champing at the bit to play Level-5’s Ni no Kuni

I am champing at the bit, foaming at the mouth, sitting on the edge of my seat, barely breathing properly, raring to go, ready and willing, and/or hot to trot to experience Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. If all those crazy synonyms don’t make it clear, I am extremely excited over this JRPG from Level-5 and Studio Ghibli. And it stems more from the Level-5 aspect than the Studio Ghibli, which might surprise some people. Sure, I love Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service and the amount of wonder and childlike imagination they give off, but I love Rogue Galaxy, Dark Cloud 2, and Dragon Quest VIII ten times more. To be honest, those are three RPGs that really shaped my late teens and early 20s.

Let’s go through them in the order I devoured them.

Dark Cloud 2 really is its own game more than a sequel to a sub-par Zelda wannabe. Which I had and played at some time. Never got very far in it though, but it at least was something to do on my PlayStation 2 other than watching Metropolis over and over. But the sequel…oh man. It was just stuffed with gameplay mechanics, most of which were intuitive and fun and worth the work. Not Spheda though. You had the Georama system, which allowed Max to rebuild villages to your taste. Then you had randomly created dungeons, a camera to snap photos for inventions, breakable weapons, a ride-pod thing named Steve who you can upgrade, and action-based combat. Also, fishing. Plus, colorful settings and a light-hearted story, with some cheese to it. It was a game my sister also fell into, and we’d play together on her save since she disliked the battles, but loved exploring and building towns. Though I never beat it, I do mean to…one day.

I ended up picking up Dragon Quest VIII right as I moved out of my parents’ home and to my own apartment after college and getting my first job in northern New Jersey. It was exciting times, but also poor times, and I ended up not getting cable or Internet installed in my place for two and a half months. This meant a lot of DVD watching and digesting books, but also some serious time spent playing JRPGs, like DQVIII. Which was perfect for eating away at time, with so much to do and see and explore and collect: alchemy recipes, monsters, mini coins, and so on. Funnily enough, I was actually playing DQVIII when the cable guy showed up to install stuff, and he asked me some questions about it, whether it was any good or not. I told him it was brimming with things to do, as well as just a pure joy to explore. That remains true to this day.

Lastly, Rogue Galaxy, a game I’d venture to call underrated. Yes, it has terribly long and drawn out cutscenes, but that’s JRPGs for you. Everything else more than makes up for its sluggish pace at times. You have bounty hunts and skill trees to fill out, as well as a sickeningly deep weapon alchemy system. Oh, and a bug battling championship called the Insectron. All of which I ate up. The combat is all right and has its moments, but towards the end I just found myself able to efficiently spam special moves and clear out enemies in one go. Y’know, I’m just gonna give Rogue Galaxy its own post one day soon so y’all can learn what you missed out on, like a race of shark-people.

In short, Level-5 packs their games full of Stuff, and I love that. It’s not enough that there’s a lengthy plot to follow, but give me miscellaneous tasks and side projects, and I’m in it for the long haul. Looks like Ni no Kuni is following this tradition with familiars to collect, parts of a magical book to piece together, merits to earn from side quests, alchemy, and on and on and on. Plus, it looks fantastic thanks to Studio Ghibli’s involvement, and really presents a magical world that one wants to be in, even if it’s filled with talking cats and cows.

So yeah, I like Level-5’s games a lot. If you need more evidence of my appreciation and confidence in what Level-5 puts out, then there is this: I am buying a PlayStation 3 this weekend so that I can play Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Specifically, the special classic white bundle Sony recently announced. White for the White Witch. Oh man, I totally fell for it. Too late now.

The top five job boards in videogames

I’ve been playing some Rage recently–mind you, just a bit–and once you get to Wellspring, the first main hub city, you have the opportunity to pick up sidequests from a job board located next to where everyone is knee-deep in rounds of Tombstones. Which reminded me just how much I love picking up miscellaneous tasks on an open forum. Surely there are others out there, and unfortunately the bulletin board from Animal Crossing: Wild World does not really count as it exists only to post funny, strange, and disturbing notes about your neighbors…

And so, without any further blathering on my part, here’s my top five videogame job boards. If I’m to be honest, there’s was not much to pick from, at least from my gaming experience. May I continue to find more boards in the future.

5. Rage

The job board in Rage is extremely ho-hum, but it’s still something to constantly check in on even if it ultimately doesn’t offer a ton of new quests. However, some of the sidequests, when selected, take you directly into the action, which is a nice feature considering the wasteland is a dangerous place for travelers. And yeah, I love just how big it states what it is: JOB BOARD. Otherwise, it’s perfunctory at best.

4. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Sorry about the Japanese screenshot, but couldn’t find one in English. Let me explain then. In Dragon Quest IX, when inside the Battle Records menu, you can select Quests, which brings you to another menu screen, with two more options available: Normal Quest and Extra Quest. Above these is pictured a bulletin board, with unreadable scraps of paper pinned to it. Oh man, and I just checked, and I still have like seven pages of undiscovered extra quests to do. Might have to get back into this one. Such a summer game…

3. Dragon Age: Origins

Side quests in Dragon Age: Origins pop up in a number of ways, and one of them is by visiting a Chanter’s Board. I think I found my first one in Lothering, but there’s others in Redcliffe Village and the Denerim Market District. Since these tasks are being handed out by the Chantry, most help the already rich and powerful. But they are worth doing as each task provides a monetary reward, and you need money to buy bigger backpack space as soon as you can. Also, love the parchment look of the quests, as well as the “seal of approval” at the bottom of the description page. Nicely done, BioWare.

2. Borderlands

Okay, okay, technically they call this a Bounty Board, but it all means the same: moar questz. These are scattered throughout Pandora, and when there are new quests to pick up, a giant, floaty exclamation mark stands tall, making sure you know what is what. Turning in a quest and immediately picking up another is a wonderful carrot-on-a-string tactic, and I had more fun leveling up on the side then going through the main story missions in Borderlands. Most quests found here are given anonymously, but they do offer up experience points, cash, and either a new gun or artifact. They better return in Borderlands 2 or else…

1. Final Fantasy XII

When I graduated college and moved to northern New Jersey to get a big-boy job, I went for a few months in a studio apartment without the Internet. Thankfully, I had Final Fantasy XII to obsess over. And no, this isn’t about hte License Board. Instead, I’m all about the hunts after joining Clan Centurio and becoming best buds with Montblanc. See, in the world of Ivalice, monsters are constantly causing trouble, and so people have to list Marks or Elite Marks on a board in town in hope of help; Vaan and his crew can set out to kill them when and how they please. I can’t say for certain without checking my save file how many marks I took down since I last played in, um, 2006, but am pretty sure it was plenty. These mini-bosses were adventures all on their own and made collecting and leveling up a challenge, but so totally worth it.

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Okay, those are my picks. Did I miss a favorite job board of yours? Tell me about it in the comments below.

Four heroes, one light, a final fantasy, and trying again

Tara got me Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light this past Christmas, and I played a bit of it, but quickly found myself stuck, my party of four split and unsure of where to go next. It was all so very unclear. And that’s a shame as the game itself is gorgeous to look at on the Nintendo DS, with a storybook feel to the graphics and classic fantasy soundtrack and adorably colorful towns to explore. I also loved the way the job system was implemented, focusing on wearing different crowns and enhancing them with dropped gems from defeated monsters. And just like in Dragon Quest IX, changing gear and hats reflects truly with your characters, meaning that sword of +2 fire looks like it means it. From what I played, it was a good game, but also brutally difficult.

The high difficulty–in my eyes–stems from two parts. The first has to do with the battle system; it’s traditional turn-based fighting with a seemingly minor change, but it’s one that can mean the difference between surviving a commonplace fight or failing and losing a good chunk of your gems. See, you don’t get to select who you are attacking or healing or using an item on. You just select Attack, Heal, or Item and hope that the AI behind all the menus can do the correct and smart thing. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, leading to a couple frustrating fights, especially when the bosses come stomping around. The other reason for FF: T4HoL‘s difficulty has to do with its love of gameplay design of yesteryear; there’s no map, no in-game message on what to do next, no quest log, no sense of true accomplishment when it comes to rescuing a prisoner or defeating a legendary monster, no hand-holding whatsoever. You are a hero of light, and you are on your own. The story is simple and without pepper, meaning it can be forgotten easily even as you play the dang game, but thank goodness for online walkthroughs.

That said, I’ve recently gotten back into the game thanks to this wee vacation of mine. I had to grind a bit to get my only two heroes in the party (Aire Samantha and Jusqua Goyle) high enough to beat a specific dungeon, but now I’m making much more progress and much easier at that. Currently, we’re inside a mysterious whirlpool in Liberte, fighting off a lot of water elemental enemies and slimes that like to merge with their brethren. I’m hoping to unlock more crowns sooner than later though as the measly three right now are not enough to call life exciting. Evidently, there are a few crowns you can get from playing wireless multiplayer games with other FF: T4HoL players, but alas, every time I log on, there’s no one to join up with. Guess I should start pretending like these Seamstress and Beastmaster crowns don’t exist anymore. Waaaaaaaaah.

And that’s the update for now on being a hero of light. I’ll be back to let you know if when evil is destroyed for all of time.

30 Days of Gaming, #20 – Favorite genre

If you thought the answer to this topic was gonna be racing or cooking sims, well…you’ve clearly not been paying much attention to Grinding Down. I’m all about the roleplaying games, but it did take me some years to really get into the genre and stay there, as many JRPGs almost ruined me, as they have almost ruined others before me. Thankfully, standout titles like Suikoden, Suikoden II, and Final Fantasy VII literally blew my genitals, taking me from teenhood to manhood in a matter of dozens of hours, thanks to intricate plots, fantastic battle systems, soaring sounds, elegant pacing, light grinding, addictive gameplay, and endings that still resonate with me to this day. Plus, y’know, they let me play a role in their worlds.

I’ve always been a big reader, and much of the credit can go to my sister Bitsy who, from an early age, passed along books she had already read to me. Many of these turned out to be fantasy novels–works by Mercedes Lackey, Piers Anthony (oh my), and Anne McCaffrey–and it wasn’t too hard to leapfrog from them to more “adult” work, devouring things like The Belgariad series by David Eddings, The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, and stuff by David Gemmell. Throw in the classics like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the entire Discworld series, and well, I was hooked on stories.

And here comes along a genre of videogames that promises epic stories…and more! The majority of RPGs, more often than not, at least five or ten years ago,
were fantasy-themed. Sure, there’s the occasional sci fi-themed RPG, and many could argue that Final Fantasy VII is more space and metal frames than swords and dragons, but these videogames gave all their love to royalty and kingdoms and knights and dragons and magic spells and small-time villages trying to make ends meet before war destroyed everything everywhere. So I ate it up, even the bad meals like Beyond the Beyond and SaGa Frontier. It didn’t matter–I just wanted to be in a realized world, growing as a character, growing into a story.

Character customization is not as important to me as character crafting is. Whenever a new RPG begins and you’re given the chance to mold how your dude or dudette looks, I click around, raise their cheekbones, lighten or dark their skin, find a cool beard, and call it a day. I can easily see that hours upon hours can be spent noodling with dozens of options, but that’s not important to me. Once we’re in the game, spending skill points or focusing on this spell or deciding what kind of armor Mini Paul will wear are the bigger decisions.

While RPGs are my favorite genre, this also can be problematic. On average, a RPG can take around 30 to 40 hours to complete. However, having an addictive personality, I end up playing most RPGs for double that. See: 130 hours logged so far in Dragon Quest IX, over 100 hours for Fallout 3, eighty+ hours for Fallout: New Vegas, and so on. Playing more than one RPG at a time is like juggling balls of fiery acid with no gloves, and yet it’s something I simply can’t avoid.

Last year, I needed a break between some RPGs I was eating up, and so I picked up Mini Ninjas for the Xbox 360, thinking that an action title would be a good change of pace. I completed the game in under five hours. That’s it? I’ve played prologues in RPGs for longer than that (think Suikoden V, people), and I was a bit taken aback at how much quantity I look for in a game these days. Quantity over quality, especially when discussing bug-ridden games like the Fallout series. I don’t care how broken they are…there’s so much stuff to do to distract me from such bummers.

But yeah, RPGs. Love ’em. Always will so long as they continue on, which we all know they will. Can’t wait to see how big and massive Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is gonna be, as well as the multiple choice quiz that is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Sorry, upcoming Cooking Mama 4 for the 3DS…I DON’T GIVE TWO STEAMED CAULIFLOWERS ABOUT YOU.

Games Completed in 2011, #4 – Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

::deep exhale::

If I had cool technology, a better cell phone, or awesome lighting, I’d take a picture of my Nintendo DS screen that listed all my stats for Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies at the time I kicked the end boss to the mortal curb. Alas, I failwhale in that department. You’ll just have to lovingly accept what I give you here as proof that I worked–and am still working–hard to do everything possible from Angel Falls to the Realm of the Almighty:

Time spent playing: 103: 39
Time spent in multiplayer: 01:35
Battle victories: 3,071
Times alchemy performed: 170
Accolades earnt: 43
Quests completed: 41
Grottoes completed: 12
Guests canvassed: 2
Defeated monster list completion: 74%
Warddrobe completion: 37%
Item list completion: 56%
Alchenomicon completion: 33%

Hmm. I know. It’s not as pretty as a screenshot, but it is, as a whole, a wonderful way to sum up my experience with Dragon Quest IX. My fab four, Hadwynnn, Tarla, Kingsley, and Juniper, who I’ve pretty much had since the very beginning of the game, have done a lot; conversely, there is still a lot yet to do. “Beating” the game is a hollow experience. Sure, there’s an end boss, some loose plot resolution, and an ending eeriely close to Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past‘s, which shows us how all the famous locations are going about their days now that true evil has been vanquished. But it’s only then, after the credits roll on by, that the game really opens up.

New quests unlock, and there’s also the bonus content gained from using the DQVC and such. I think I have over forty quests titled ????? just sitting pretty, waiting for this day to come. More grottoes to clear, more clothes to collect, more fiendish thingies to make, and I’m also contemplating changing my main character’s vocation now that he is capped at 100 in his whip skills. Maybe something that lets him wield a boomerang? Evidently the new story-related quest I’m on now, the first post-game one, will net me my own personal flying train to let me travel around the map kind of like the magical phoenix form from Dragon Quest VIII did. That’s gonna be sweet because I know a few unreachable spots on the map have been teasing me for far too long.

Unfortunately, this quest is a bit of a mindmess to put it politely. Let’s take a looksie at what exactly we’re being asked to do:

Quest #039 – Follow That Fish
Location: Porth Llafan
Request: Summon Lleviathan by wearing a Watermaul Wand, Flowing Dress, and Silver Shield and then defeat him.

Yeah, sounds simple, right? It’s not. Two of the three items require rare ingredients to create. Thankfully, I already acquired a Watermaul Wand earlier on. I was able to use the Krak Pot and make a Flowing Dress. Really hope my male character doesn’t have to equip that to bring about Lleviathan. The problem I’m having now is that I don’t have enough items to make a Silver Shield. My next best option is to buy it new from the upgraded shop in Stornway, but it’s around 30,000 gold. So, my options are as such: 1) grind until I get 30,000 gold or 2) grind until I get enough alchemy items to make it myself. Either way…uh, grinding.

At least this game continues to keep me busy, keep me interested. That said, I’m really not looking forward to battling Lleviathan…again. But yeah, this is going on the “2011 games completed” list because 103 hours is far too many hours to devote to a single piece of media and not feel like you’ve done far and above what was set. I can’t ever imagine re-playing Dragon Quest IX a second time, but the good news is I never will have to…I can just keep on playing it from my very first time, from way back in July 2010!

It’s a good week to love slime in DQIX

Still haven’t beaten the second form of Corvus yet…

Trust me, I’ve tried. Twice actually since the last update on Dragon Quest IX. He’s supremely frustrating in that he seems to understand too well how badly I need Kingsley, our group’s priest, to stay alive in order to buff and heal and set up magic barriers for the party. Corvus kills him as fast as possible. Two or three hits, down he goes. Then the others fall quickly. I think everyone needs better armor and weapons, and the good news is that this week on the DQVC is loaded with awesome gear. Why? Well, it’s Metal Slime Week, of course!

According to the Internetz, metal slime items can only be obtained through treasure chests in high level grotto maps. So…there, and DQVC. Meaning, if one really wanted these items sooner than later, now is the time to jump on them.

The downside to all of this is that metal slime items are extremely expensive.

So far, here’s what I’ve been able to buy after many thoughtless hours of grinding during movies like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Elf:

• Metal Slime Armour (bought for 38,000 gold)
• Metal Slime Sollerets (bought for 11,000 gold)
• Metal Slime Gauntlets (bought for 12,500 gold)
• Metal Slime Shield (bought for 30,000 gold)

And here’s what I still really want to get, but lack the funds currently:

• Metal Slime Spear (costs 49,000 gold)
• Metal Slime Helm (costs 25,000 gold)
• Metal Slime Sword (costs 45,000 gold…but I don’t know if I actually want or need it currently because Hadwynnn, my minstrel, rocks a whip)

I was also able to snag one oricalchum, a reset stone, some lava lumps, and a couple Hephestus’ flames. Either way, it’s a good week to be hopping online and doing some shopping. Just hope y’all have the gold to blow! I suggest trying to farm the Gold Golems near Gleeba because each one drops around 500 gold upon death. Other than that, just keep at it…the mindless button-mashing is worth it.

The Top Five Most Annoying Videogame Sidekicks

Two’s a party, three’s a crowd. And sometimes even two is too much.

Naturally, I’m talking about sidekicks, and more often than not, they are annoying and useless and just there to get in the way. I mean, how often did Batman really truly need Robin tagging along? Or Wolverine with Jubilee? Granted, those are comic book examples, and videogames handle sidekicks much differently. Often, they are used to help give a tutorial on gameplay mechanics, offer up possible sidequest missions (think about Ratchet’s Clank here), or are just there to chat and fill in story gaps with heavy-handed exposition.

So, as we close in on the time of thanks and giving, Grinding Down would like to spin the world the other way around and moan and groan about some of the worst videogame sidekicks out there with hope that they never come to our aid ever, ever again.

5. The Adoring Fan (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)

Meet the Adoring Fan. Amazingly, this guy is your “reward” for becoming the Grand Champion in the Arena. He’s nothing special. He just follows you around and lovingly praises you. He won’t fight by your side as even a single rat is enough to get him running away. His voice is the very reason there is terrorism, and one can find countless videos on YouTube of players pushing him off the land’s tallest mountain. Frustratingly, he does not ever “die.” If killed, he reappears at the Arena a few days later, ready to follow you again, whether it is to his death or not. How annoying!

4. Navi (a whole bunch of Zelda games)

I think many gamers would agree that a box of scrolling text would’ve been a much better choice as a companion for Link than a hyped-up fairy that never shuts its airpiece. I mean, they’d both accomplish the same thing, but one is less obtrusive than the other. I think I’ve mentioned here before that I’ve yet to actually play any N64 Zelda games (gasp!), but I got to partially know Navi through The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and the small time spent with it was more than enough to convince me that Navi is Satan’s child, all razzed up on speed and insanity and the power to cling and never uncling. How annoying!

3. Daxter (Jak and Daxter series)

My PlayStation 2 days were filled with platformers. A trilogy of trilogies, I guess you could say. They were the Sly Cooper series, the Ratchet and Clank series, and the Jak and Daxter series. Now, all of them had sidekicks–Sly had Bently feeding him advice, Ratchet had Clank and all his crazy gizmos, and Jak had Daxter who…did absolutely nothing. Except get himself turned into a chatty rodent through the power of Dark Eco. For the first game–and, well, probably the next two–Daxter did little but make small quips when Jak “died,” as well as start trouble during in-game cinematics.

Unfortunately, Jak is one of those silent lead characters, forcing much of the talk on Daxter. How annoying!

2. Stella (Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies)

Not to be outdone by Navi, here’s another annoying fairy, this one more of an actual fairy…if inspired heavily by the now out-of-date ganguro craze. She has a horrible flappin’ accent, only cares about herself, and is constantly berating our main hero, as well as her old boss fatguts. There is no good to her, and she’s there for the entire ride through Dragon Quest IX. Occasionally, she awards you Accolades, but that’s nothing to get excited about. If you tap her on the DS touchscreen, she does not explode into a thousand fairy pieces, only gets slightly miffed. How annoying!

1. Your Mother (Pokemon HeartGold)

She tries to do good. She really does. See, in Pokemon HeartGold, one can give your mother some extra money and, while you’re out combing through tall grass for every last ‘mon, she’ll buy you some items. And then call you to tell you that these items can be picked up at the local store. This might seem all cool and great at first, but it’s only after awhile do you realize that the items she is buying you are stupid and a waste of money, and that it would break her heart if you told her to stop, considering it’s all she can do for you, and so you let her waste your earnings. It’s hard to even ignore her phone calls because…well, it’s a call from your mother. You can’t ignore something like that. How annoying!

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P.S. This top five article was inspired by this early morning tweet.