Erdward... sunk like a stone. At least everyone else washed up on land!
...Amber? Oh great, we're dead now.
Or at the very least just hallucinating. This is, I think, an exchange that actually happened at some point when Erdward was a kid.
He got woken up in the middle of the night by something.
Turns out that "something" was him getting into a fight with his best friend.
...Ah, to be a child and to fight over things like that.
...
Seriously, game, why is Gemma not a party member? At least let her pick up a frying pan as a comic relief Guest in an optional dungeon.
Erdward gave as good as he got. Not that we can see the one on Erdward's head.
That got him mollified.
What's "right" in this situation being to find out what caused the conflict and deal with that. You'll find your previous opponents are more friendly if they don't have reasons to hate you.
A fight where both sides figure things out is a fight where everyone walked away better for having done it.
A fight that ends with both sides forgetting it is a fight precipitating deeper problems to come.
Even off-screen, Erdward and Gemma have a strong foundation to build their friendship on.
...Gods, it would've been great if the party got to meet her.
And with that, time to get some rest. Hopefully Erdward remembers this in the morning.
When tensions aren't running quite so high.
And a neat little nursery rhyme to end the little diversion off with. Seems a bit of an odd moment to have this pop up, though- this comes right after Yggdrasil's fall. I imagine the idea is because of a plot point that's going to come up in the next Town Story- this flashback in general really works towards that goal. At least, it does in the vanilla game.
I don't think we're supposed to know who these voices are. Other than the obvious fact the first one is Mordegon.
For some reason, though, Mordegon takes the lack of a body as proof he's dead. We can also see a cameo by his new body- Mordegon metamorphosed when he stole the Heart of Yggdrasil, although I failed to catch a snap of what he looks like now. Perhaps it's better this way.
We now dive under the ocean's waves to have a look in to Queen Marina.
I'm not sure if this scene is in the vanilla game, but here's where I make a statement: The four Side Stories happen here. The game shows the Amber flashback and all the other window dressing this update has been up until now, and then it cuts, shows the four Side Stories in a row-
-and then comes back to Marina here. Like hell I was making an update of just that, though, for the sake of chronological order.
With Erdward's friends raring to go (...well... some of them), the time has come for the Luminary to reunite them all under one banner! ...Eventually.
For now, Erdward needs to recover and get back into action.
...This is certainly a thing.
The loss of the power of the Luminary is properly reflected in the mechanics. I'm not 100% sure what happens to your Skill Points if you had any invested, but I'd make it a habit to not be invested at all before Yggdrasil, just in case. You shouldn't be deprived of the Skill Points "in the end".
This accolade is for completing all four of the Side Stories. It's a story accolade.
Attempting to leave the room has us bump into this male Nautican. As a fresh reminder, while females speak exclusively in rhyme, males do not appear to have any vocal patterns at all.
Although this line sounds like he's trying to pull something off.
While transformed into a fish, the contents of Nautica have expanded significantly. You also have altered controls- mostly just a button to rise and fall while swimming. Sadly, no button to move forward faster.
The sunken ship near where we spawn is now being used as a courthouse.
The trial that is currently in progress is about a merman who bit (as in, actually partially consumed) a fish without asking permission. In Nautica, merfolk are allowed to eat fish, despite the sentience of the latter, but this ritual of asking permission is mandatory. I don't really think there's a proper analogue for a similar cultural phenomenon in the real world- maybe sexual contact, but I don't think the way the Nauticans treat this matches.
Take this line, for example. This is not how people talk about asking permission for sexual contact. I feel like the fact there's no good comparison for this in the human legal system sells the alien nature of the underwater one.
I feel incredibly unqualified to state a position on Nautican predation, but I think my answer to this particular question is Yes. As strange as it is, the asking permission thing is incredible.
It seems to have been an accident on the defendant's part, although I'm not sure how much of a shield that will be in the eyes of the law.
...Well, that's just concerning.
There's a few strong currents that you can swim into on the ocean floor and be transported to the main area. There is no reason you cannot swim between the two areas normally, this is just a timesaver.
Some more items scattered around Nautica. If you can't Forge the Zombieslayer for playing on No Shopping, you want this Zombiesbane. It's a 20% bonus on Undead instead of 30%, but a bonus is a bonus.
I missed one treasure here in Nautica- it was the mini medal. Fortunately, I don't think this causes us to miss out on any thresholds.
The shark, now that we are a fish, is open to talking to us now.
With that said, we can't buy anything from his shop still. It'll get fixed when next we're in the area.
And we swam up here with no need for aid from that mermaid who helped us the first time.
Marina has a plan to get Erdward back in action, and now that Erdward's woken up, they can get that done immediately.
And a good thing, too, because they don't have that much in the way of time.
Marina may say that, but it's probably a good idea not to test that.
I'll take your word for it. I'm not sure how much the pouch helps my hydrodynamics.
That's the reason we're a fish in the first place, incidentally. I'm... sure the Queen knows a way this would actually work in terms of getting Erdward back on his feet. Or, well, fins.
This is not a "naughty timeskip" moment, this is an explicit timeskip. There is at least one place where the fact months have passed since Act 1 is plot-relevant, although it's not something the game lingers on everywhere else.
At what point in this timeskip each Side Story occurred during goes unstated.
...The fish spell is on a timer? I suppose all spells are on a timer, in the end.
I'm sure most people wouldn't know how that feels, but I'm not sure I'm OK with becoming one that does.
Erdward is a lot more confused than us. I feel like the Side Stories might be, to some degree, to blame. We've got a very good picture of how bad the world has gotten, but keep in mind that someone playing the vanilla game has only seen the contents of this update since the fall of Yggdrasil.
Marina needs to head somewhere else to tell us more, though.
You know the whole "the fish can't go faster forward"? This tunnel does not seem to have been designed with that thing in mind.
This is the secret to Marina's ability to know so much about the world above the waves- she can scry anywhere in the world where there is water.
Water, the source of all life, and about 70% of the real world's surface.
And she even has the ability to summon rain.
They can't see or hear us, incidentally.
...As for how Erdrea looks these days...
It's certainly seen better days.
Despite this particularly violent imagery, the geography of Erdrea hasn't been amazingly warped by the pounding. There's a few rockslides here and there to gain access to new passages and block off others, but the terrain isn't reformed by the apocalypse. Although there are plenty of new lava patches and random rocks to decorate the paths.
No one... actually, I better not finish that sentence. Dragon Quest villains, while often seeking devastating objectives, do not regularly succeed on screen- the Hero stops them before they get that far, and anything evil they're doing to a population is happening only to that population. All of Erdrea has to deal with Mordegon.
And we're going to have an interlude to look in on this little girl trying to find refuge from... well, everything.
...
Well... we have seen fresh corpses before, back in the Kingsbarrow.
That's... not something you'd hope happens to one so young.
So remember what I said about "they can't see or hear us"?
There's a rather cute moment here where the game plays with your understanding. Presumably, this girl was looking behind the camera and saw this man come up behind us.
His face is out of frame, and considering we've not see anyone wear these clothes before, it is actually somewhat of a mystery who we're looking at.
This man is the leader of a group of refugees. Or rather, the one protecting them from monsters.
While Erdward is "Luminary", this unseen man is the "Hero". Due to a continued lack of access to the JP script, I'm not sure what the relation is between this Hero and the Heroes of DQs past.
One of the refugees in the party starts to stumble, and she's encouraged to keep things up until they get to the destination.
For some reason, there's a person from Hotto here. While this multiculturalism is probably supposed to reflect on the themes, most of the people we'll actually meet in the Last Bastion came from Heliodor. How someone from Hotto got here and how he gets home is a question that the game doesn't stick to.
While the Hero's costume has made him unrecognisable, the back of his head is considerably less so. So much for the surprise reveal.
Well, if that wasn't a massive downer. On the plus side, it sounds like we'll be getting the chance to lend a hand to a new ally.
Mordegon has a den of evil waiting for us, and in what I presume is a conscious act of mockery on his part, put it where Yggdrasil used to be. I presume the Rainbough and the Orbs won't be enough to get up there this time.
Well then... that's rather unpleasant.
...Wait, the seas?
Alizarin is another of the Spectral Sentinels, not that they've been formally introduced as a group until later on in the vanilla game.
Marina's been using her magic to keep it at bay and save Nautica.
But she needs her magic to save us, too. Marina judges getting us to safety to be the most important thing she could be doing.
Marina can't commit any more magic to anything other than the barrier and her plan to get the Luminary to the surface.
Yes, we have to cross the tunnel again.
A world that still breathes is a world that can still be saved.
...Yeah, I suppose we have been doing that the whole time. What's the apocalypse to a little hometown razing?
If Yggdrasil has made it our mission to reforge the world, then we shall make exactly that our mission.
Marina makes our first mission explicit: To be Mordegon's match, we'll have to regather our party members. As much as there's a sense of "the Luminary saves all", we really don't have much of a chance on our own. Seven of us, though...
If we die... well, Erik and co will still fight on, but odds are whatever killed us will get them too, and then who comes next?
It looks like our time has come to its end.
I'm not sure what Marina had in mind to tell us, but perhaps she wanted to give us directions- where our friends are, what key things we need to worry about, that sort of thing. I find things tend to happen by wandering aimlessly and solving problems as I find them.
The way I see it, I'll get around to helping everyone in the end.
...Although I wonder if perhaps it might get a little late down here.
I have no idea where this is, but this is just a temporary location.
We've got to track down a fishing hook and take a nibble. That's all there is to do down here, although where this hook lands isn't the same from playthrough to playthrough.
So we're a big fish! Kinda looked it.
...We're going to have to tell him.
Fortunately, the spell picked that exact moment to wear off. I imagine it faded as soon as we left the water, because of course a mermaid's spell would end there.
Casually fishing up a human being doesn't happen every day.
That's... not really a rule, but only because this is never going to come up in casual use.
From the way Erdward cries, I don't think he's crying about being yelled at.
Blue John, after realising that, offers to point Erdward in a productive direction.
The Last Bastion. The refuge of the Hero, and the place where hope burns brightest.
And a plot achievement pretty quick after the last one. Yeah, you can tell the last one got appended.
Now then, let's look at what we've got equipped- it's time to break out, not just a sword, but the Zombieslayer. There's a time where you really want an Undead-killing weapon, and this is that time. Hell, this is part of the reason I'm even using swords at all.
Speaking of SP, now that the Item Duplication point has past, these Seeds of Skill can now be freely consumed. I suggested you acquire 25 and I will be using that many on key characters. First off, Erdward himself- he needs a whopping 14 extra SP in order to learn all of his Skills. There are some skills he really doesn't need, but what we're really getting now is 14 extra SP to put towards his good Skills now.
Training in Swords is a temporary measure, and once I'm done, Swordmastery will need recertifying. Until then, however, Erdward picks up +25 in Strength, for a nice solid chunk of extra damage.
We spawn on the Emerald Coast- this pier is not only where the Salty Stallion docks, but we could find Blue John's house here.
Now that we're up, let's address the elephant in the room: You call this "morning"? Right now, there's an unrelenting darkness fallen over at least Heliodor. Sylvando and Jade's Side Stories don't depict this darkness going over the places they visited, but for now, at least, we have the reality that "day" and "night" no longer exist.
It's been like this since Yggdrasil fell, which presumably rules out "Mordegon hadn't set it up yet" for reasons it's not in the Side Stories. Probably just assets, then.
After that, things get... Well, let's just say humanity might need a little help.
...Monsters soar over the skies freely. Although the presence of ravens among them amuses me. They could've at least dropped the skulls.
That's just miserable, though. You thought the monster activity was bad before Yggdrasil fell.
Good suggestion. Good luck foraging, sir. And sorry about your bait.
I certainly hope so. But I'll reserve judgement until I meet the man.
...Just west of Cobblestone Falls, eh?
Oh yeah, Tickington is a thing.
We won't have access to the Hotto Steppe for a good long while, and the game wants us to have access to it whenever we please. As a result, Tickle relocates here for Act 2. On my first playthrough, I took this as my cue to do the Tickington stuff I had picked up now, since I was reminded.
This included the Imperial Pantry of Parthenia. Yeah, not a fun solo dungeon. As a general rule, perhaps keep this until later. As a matter of fact, I chose not to do any Tickington at all during Act 2. This is something I like to do for certain reasons, but I'd probably not recommend it.
Yes, the Horse Hailer won't work for us now. Despite this description, the reason we can't work it is because Sylvando has it on his person. I suspect the game has problems with removing it from this screen, and just decided to throw out one of its other error messages.
Knights who, having wished never to die, were brought back by diabolical forces. The jaunty angle they walk at speaks to their cavalier disposition.
Chasmonauts, coming from DQ2, are undead soldiers who can dull your attack and naut else. The reason I suggested packing an Undead weapon, however, is because the Emerald Coast is full of skeletons and zombies. Quite a lot of the enemies we'll be required to fight later- and I mean hard required- are Undead.
Simple slimes driven to dangerous extremes by the dark power of the Lord of Shadows.
Of course I took a picture on the off frame. These things are super creepy with red eyes, and these will be the first Vicious monsters you'll find in vanilla. Although for Erdward, he should probably still be able to oneshot them- they have around 72 HP.
A ravenous reanimated corpse that will eat anything within reach. Unable to feel anything, it will keep coming until it's finally cut down.
The ghoul appeared in DQs 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 and the remake of 7, making a bit of an upset compared to its preceding recolours (who also appeared in 5 and 6). It doesn't have any new attacks, however, just the poisonous gunk.
There's a few new Sparkly Spots lying around in the Heliodor region now.
Rockbomb shards and fatalisticks. Fatalisticks can't be bought, so you'll want to stock up on as many of those as you can grab when you have the chance, but I don't remember fatalisticks ever being the bottleneck on my Forges. Do it anyway, because there's some good stuff on the list, but grinding probably won't be necessary.
The sight of these blood-red birds and the dragon skulls they carry can strike fear into even the most experienced soldiers' hearts.
Rantingen ravens are new to DQ11, DQ3 not having seen fit to extend the raven family up that high. Before you scoff at the description, these things know the ferocious war cry, a fierce fiery breath, and how to call for help from the Skelegons they bear the skulls of. No, the skelegons don't take their skulls back, they have their own.
I'd really rather not deal with the war cry now, though. I only have one party member.
...It can't be. The Last Bastion is...
...Cobblestone?
...That's... that's Cobblestone, all right... Man, they've certainly done a number on it...
...
Gemma!?
There's something... right about finding out Gemma's still alive. And don't forget Sandy in that one.
Gemma's been in the company of someone who was present at Yggdrasil during the Fall, but even then, it's been months since then and who knows what that guy knows about how we survived it at all.
...
In this moment, the number one flaw I can think of is that there's no button to interrupt this conversation and hug Gemma right now.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Jasper was prepared to kill all the Cobblestonians on the spot. Because that man just does not understand the benefits of subtlety and finesse in villainy.
Gemma doesn't name their saviour, but there's only one man who could've stopped Jasper. There's explicit confirmation it's him later, too, just to be sure.
And that's the story of how things looked awful to us. I imagine, after Hendrik outlived his usefulness, the Cobblestonians might've suffered the same fate.
Gemma, I thought you were dead. If anything, I'd like to hear more of your "blathering on".
The curse of a JRPG protagonist to lose their parents only struck once for Erdward. Amber's still around. But first, I'll take a look around camp.
Oi. That's my girlfriend's stuff you're stealing.
Mine.
The Cobblestonians didn't all survive- being in Heliodor Castle was a dangerous prospect when Yggdrasil fell, because that's the first target for Mordegon and Jasper.
Cole's still around, no worries about that.
Our house is still relatively untouched. Well, compared to what it was before. The Last Bastion does surprisingly little with the burned down homes that were here beforehand.
The Knights of Heliodor, to shore up the numbers, have resorted to sticking a sword in every hand they have. I have the sinking suspicion this won't help much.
I'm not sure what's up with the glowing barrel here. Visual glitch of some kind.
Another shop here, selling a handful of decent upgrades to your stuff. Nothing I'd buy, though- although if you want to keep using Greatswords, that Nightcleaver isn't the worst choice in the world- it does Light damage, and not a lot of enemies have worryingly high resistances to Light.
The "bastard sword" is a legitimate kind of sword- to my understanding, it describes a sword that can be used with either one or two hands, and is usually light and easy to handle compared to its effectiveness. It appears in 7, 8, 10 and the remake of 3 as one of the more powerful swords with no bonus effects.
The Heliodorians have been told that we are not the Darkspawn and should not be treated as such, but "have been told" and "understand" are two separate things. It certainly doesn't help that they had a "kill on sight" order for so long.
Fair enough description, but that kinda undersells who's in here.
Dragon Quest knows exactly how dark to go and how to take a quick right turn to stop getting any darker than that. I think this line is the perfect encapsulation of that at work- yeah, we've got the brutal, unrelenting threat of starvation to worry about, but the poor guy who's noticed is taking it in stride and preparing for the worst in a comical way. Leave the grisly stuff to the imagination and play up the actually written dialogue for smiles.
I'd scoff about stealing this, but I don't know how much 3000 gold is worth right now. What are people going to spend it on?
I think there was one of these guys living in Cobblestone. I imagine this is that guy.
I love the fact I got ahead of Gemma to talk to this guy, and there she goes in the background to get back in front of me.
Amber's back here, with everyone who can't lift a weapon.
I was trying to be polite in my phrasing. There's a female warrior and a former male noble stuck back here, but yeah, the things trend overwhelming in that direction. Never let it be said Amber doesn't kick the most ass on this battlefield, though.
I just love the casual lines that show Amber treats Gemma just as well as she might her own daughter. The line between doing that and making things weird when it comes to "like brother and sister" is blurry, but when Gemma still has her own guardians alive, that helps.
Hi, Mum! Good to be back.
Depending on how long Act 1 took, Amber probably thought we were dead after the Fall longer than we thought she was dead. I think. The timeline is confusing and it's not even a time travel story!
That spark of hope still burning is doing so despite the best efforts of everything else to put it out.
And then the Hero appeared. While DQ Heroes usually take a more proactive role in dealing with evil, other JRPGs and stories bearing their tropes like to have their Hero show up at the last minute in a daring display like this one. There's something to be said about a DQ Hero coming to meet a different kind of Hero...
The Last Bastion being built on top of Cobblestone can be read to have a powerful symbolic effect: the place where hope shines brightest is the cozy sanctuary village whose people continue to live on despite whatever has been thrown at them.
King Carnelian's here, too!
...For a given state of being excited about that one.
Even Gemma's got no love lost for Carnelian on that one. With that said, he's very definitely not evil anymore, since Mordegon's got better things to do with his time than possess him, and technically speaking, nothing he's done so far in the story has been his fault.
Amber suggests that we at least hear out what he has to say. I'm on board with that suggestion.
There's no shortage of beds around here, apparently. The inn still charges us, and I guess if anyone in this place can pay, it's the guy who can fight monsters.
Out on this pier is a little girl- I'm fairly sure this is the little girl we saw in the vision from Nautica. Things have hit her hard.
...There may be no difference between Day and Night, but the Day/Night cycle is still on, so whichever it was, it is now the other one.
One of these days I'll ask who's charging you.
She's not named, but I suspect this is Roxy from Downtown Heliodor.
Never let life experience go to waste. If you can't do what you've been training to do, figure out what you can do and do that instead in the meantime.
Kids can never fully realise how hopeless things get until it personally affects them. Which helps to keep the adult's spirits up, at least for a little bit longer.
Derk's wife is also here. She's just unnamed for other reasons, but you can always pick her out of a crowd by her peculiar vocal trait.
Derk's here, too, and she suggests we talk to him.
Ma'am, please, this is a Dragon Quest game. That pun is cleverer than most of the ones I hear.
I... think her sweetheart is still alive? It's concerning to me that I'm never quite sure.
Yggdrasil finds a way. I can't say I could say for sure, but I don't feel like Eleanor, Jade and Pang could've quite done the same thing between them if it wasn't for the fall of Dundrasil.
The girl on the pier does get commented on.
The game actually does want you to remember her for reasons, but there's nothing more we can do to help her now. Well, doing the plot would help her quite a bit!
In addition to the social reasons lack of sunlight is terrible, this is a pretty practical reason to bemoan its absence.
...Although something's telling me it'll take more than that to make you forget who you are. I mean, people have lived without sunlight in the real world. Just ask astronauts!
One of my favourite things to do in the Last Bastion is to run around and find as many NPCs as I can. They have a bunch of interesting things to say, often changing as the Town Story plot progresses.
This baby is probably one of the clearer ones- as things clear up, she'll figure out a name.
Down here we've got a retired thief with a similar story. There's another kid with no parents, and while she might know her own name, that doesn't give her much of her old identity as it is.
She's a little young to be caring about that. I'm sure it'll hit her once the sky turns blue and they don't get her to her parents, but she seems to be enjoying things as they are.
This is one of those NPCs that tells you, in no uncertain terms, that wealth and fortune are of little aid in this environment. The richest man in the world would find himself in trouble if shops stopped accepting his cash.
The tragic thing is, Jade did know something was up with her father, and that's why she didn't tell any of you lot. The real problem in the equation is, what could you lot have done about Mordegon? Certainly, anything you did before I let him into Yggdrasil would've had less consequences than this, but you'd all still be dead.
I'd challenge you on that, but none of my party members are stated to be particularly good cooks. There's probably one of them who can do it best, but it's certainly not one of their character traits.
...
Clutches Zombieslayer tighter.
It's Derk!
Because I was a wanted criminal... oh right, so was Erik.
...
Now, see, do I tell him I have no idea where he is, or do I tell him I have no idea where he is and he's amnesiac?
It'll take more than that to kill him, though.
Derk is an actual shopkeep, and he's got actual business to conduct!
Not that many of these items are particularly helpful. The Holy Talismen and the Silkblossoms are the best things here.
No one may be listening to you openly, but I guarantee that if you stop, they'll notice immediately.
...I am, Cole. Keep it up... but maybe don't make it a habit until you're a bit bigger.
And Cole's made a new friend, too! She doesn't have a name, but she is supposed to be recognisable- one line of dialogue in particular will tell you that this is the girl who'll let you borrow her dog to scare away the guard in Downtown Heliodor.
The Last Bastion is my favourite area in Dragon Quest XI, and it knows exactly what it did to earn that title. Dragon Quest knows how to play "bleak", and the Last Bastion is the perfect expression of that understanding. This area back here, with all the NPCs with their specific plights that you'd never think about worrying about without experience but which define the worries they have, this really sells the reason to have NPCs that you're looking forward to having a chat with.
One thing I have to admit to, because it probably colours my view more than I realise, is the comparison to Three Houses's timeskip to be had here. With the sudden onset of violence, both games host a timeskip where you are immediately invited to see the hopelessness of the characters. Three Houses, for all of its strengths, cannot hold a candle to Dragon Quest XI when it comes to succeeding at portraying it. The first time I played this game was hot off the heels of being particularly disappointed with Azure Moon's version of the timeskip (I had started the run not expecting to get my hands on DQXI, and when I did, I wanted to finish my AM run... but grew exhausted and switched early), and the Last Bastion's sheer conviction hit me even harder. That's not to say it's without faults- the NPCs can be hard to find in the mazelike Cobblestone without being marked on the map and with this permanent darkness- but a sharp contrast really highlights the good points.
Next time: We go meet the King.
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