Boomerangs rock my world.

Guess you don't know the Dragon Quest series. Nope, surely you don't. There was an anime for it, but it wasn't too good. Kinda Dragon Ball-ish style for the art. It was called The Adventures of somethingsomething, can't remember really.

Well, the DQ series was (till Enix went broke) Final Fantasy's rival series. Quite good RPGs, with a rather different feel to them. Harder, in my opinion. I did play Dragon Quest V, which had contributions from Akira Toriyama (yep, he designed the Chrono Trigger characters as well...) himself, back a few years ago, because some kind soul had translated it. No such luck with DQ VI, though. Glad I'm studying Japanese.

It all begins with some errand to buy a wooden crown (well, something like that) for your small middle-of-nowhere town's yearly festival. You have to go down the mountain (get killed a few times because all you have is a ing stick, and a lousy char), get to Sienna, then find out the wood crafter (sp?) is gone to find some good materials for this year's crown.

Of course, you do have some money, namely from selling this year's production over at Sienna. The people there will give you 350G, tops. Wisely spent on armor, weapons and all that. Oh, who needs a crown anyway? :grin:

Go north, and you'll find the wood crafter hanging on to the edge of a cliff for his life. Save him, and then you go down in his place xD. Don't worry, you're not dead. You're just... a ghost? A ghost in a parallel world to yours (oh ho, Chrono Cross here?). Luckily, you find out there's a 'dangerous' well north of the town you fall next to. Which, also luckily, brings you back to this world.

After returning to Sienna, surprising the woodcrafter and finally getting the stupid crown, go back up the mountain for the festival. Oh yes, your sister happens to be the local beauty and so is chosen to be the festival's angel, i.e. messenger from the gods. The usual ceremony is interrupted by what appears a real manifestation of the goddess through your sis, which basically tells you to go and try to talk to the king about some legend. (Forgot the exact name... you know, things like Zoamelgustar from Slayers are hard to remember!)

Then... off to the Big City. With a castle, and... oh, but you need to be a soldier. There's a quest for that... oops, you didn't win that one. Well, Hassan, the winner, will help ya catch some huge horse to help an old man who can't use his carriage any more. The king is so impressed, he makes you a soldier as well. Which means looking for some mystical mirror which is supposed to reveal the whereabouts of Mudoh, the evil sorcerer king.

Which means going through the north gates of the king's territory and, after passing by a nunnery, reaching a dwarf's house, who tells you of a story about an ancient temple (not without letting Hassan show off his l33t carpenter skills - that was weird!) to the east. But first, of course, you have to locate the secret entrance near the sand to the cave so you can cross the river. Do so, then after getting to the other side, well.. keep going east till you see a Big Hole, just like the first you fell in.

Oh yes, you do have to fall in. And Hassan's up for the surprise. After you reach the city, you witness a love story between the son of the mayor and a maid. Touching. Well, after that, you may meet Mireiya (she appeared just today, that's why I remember her name), who is the first from this parallel world to actually be able to see you.

Well... that's mostly everything. Now Mireiya and her grandmother have asked Hassan and Muraki (made up the name... guess where it's from!) to get some Drops from a particular shrine, deep in a cave. I'm stuck there right now. Darned Hell Hornets with their paralyzing attacks. Killed me twice or so.

Yep, it's complicated. Dragon Quest games are... very complicated, VERY long. But it's better than the usual "go grab the 5 crystals, then the 3 gems, then OH, BIG BOSS" pattern. Zelda :ug: is like that, and when you stop finding new stuff all the time, gets boring big time.

And.. it's sometimes too realistic. Annoyingly so. Every character can only use in battle 'his' or 'her' items. That is, you just don't have an inventory everyone can use, oh no, like in the FF games. Everyone's got their own inventory, with only 10-12 items, and then there's a big sack for general use, which CAN'T be used in battle.

Can you imagine how annoying it is to find you forgot to pack Medicinal Herbs in Hassan's inventory right in the middle of battle?

Whoo.. enough typing for today. Gotta study tomorrow anyway xDD.

Mata kondo ne!