Game 5: Dragon Warrior (NES) - Winning

Battles are so much easier when using the correct strategy. I wonder if there are any games that let you research enemies before having to fight them. CRPGs seem to reward the well prepared, yet the only way to prepare is by fighting first and reloading after learning what to expect. In my last fight with the Axe Knight, I found he could cast sleep. So, this time I made sure stopspell (silence) took effect, negating the turns he cast sleep. Those few turns--plus my own sleep spell--allowed me enough time to finish him off.

See the axe, and he's a knight: Axe Knight... get it?

After the battle I searched the ground to find Erdrick's Armor. Due to Zenic only having room for one armor, he dropped the Full Plate instead of selling it. There goes 1,500 gold. The armor has a couple of beneficial side effects beyond the increased defense. First it heals me 1 HP per step; this reduces my grinding time as I now don't have to go back to gain magic points since I'm not spending as many on heal spells. Second, the armor protects me from damaging tiles; barriers and swamp tiles now do 0 damage. Quite useful for getting to Erdrick's Token, which is in the middle of a swamp.

With the token, I was able to prove to the last of the three keepers I'm Erdrick's heir, and obtain the rainbow drop. Honestly though, anyone could have come along and found in his token, so why does this prove anything? The drop took both of the previous items to make, and is used to create a bridge to Charlock (the Dragonlord's Castle).

Think they could have sprung for a different icon for a Rainbow Bridge

Now, the grinding begins. Let's just skip to the end and say 2 hours later I gained 3 levels, had enough gold to get the Flame Sword, and started to explore the Dragonlord's Castle. Most of the enemies there are still too much for me to take on; I can deal with green dragons if I can heal all my hit points afterwards, and wizards aren't so bad if I land a stopspell. Being level 17, I just gained Healmore, which seems to bring me back to max HP.

Using my new found healing abilities I've been looking for a way to get a treasure chest in the middle of the tunnels. Before getting there I found the path to the Dragonlord (not right up to him, but I think I saw him). There's a second path that I haven't followed to the end yet, but it went down quite a bit. Finally, the last path I tried that night led to the treasure I saw before. Turns out it was Erdrick's Sword. It's a great improvement to the Flame Sword as my damage per hit has increased from 20s to 30s.

There's an NPC in Charlock: must be the Dragonlord

There's an old man in Kol I forgot to visit once I found the sword. He kept making mention that I should come back once I had a powerful weapon. Other than that though, I'm fairly sure it's just the ending ahead of me. I'm going to gain a couple more levels and attempt to take the Dragonlord out.

If I don't get it after a few tries, then I'll grind out another level, and try again. It's about all there is left to do in the game. Gaining levels has actually gotten faster though, as the amount of experience needed for each level hasn't gone up since level 15 (3,000 EXP), but monster experience has almost doubled. With luck, I'll finish early tonight, and be lost for something to do.

Session Time: 2h55m (Total: 9h55m)