This week, I'm continuing my adventures in Astoltia, the world of Dragon Quest X!
You can read the first post in this series by clicking here. And if you're in the U.S. and want to play a trial version of the game for free, without a VPN, you can click right here and get that info.
Now, let's get to the good stuff!
It's About to Get Wet
After choosing a Wetling (or Weddie) as your chosen tribe, you get to watch a pretty odd opening sequence. Our newly revived hero is fighting another Weddie (a guy who looks like the fish version of Dragon Quest VI's Terry), and this friendly little spar turns out to be not-so-friendly because Fuser (a.k.a. Weddie Terry) kills you. But don't worry! That guy died, but your soul goes into his body. So…that explains how you get a free Weddie body, I guess.
I'll admit the Google translate app isn't the best for knowing what's going on, but it seems like Fuser doesn't like you very much. And, despite the fact that he kinda murdered you, he doesn't seem too beaten up about it. Still, it doesn't feel like he's a bad guy–just a dude with rough edges (he's Weddie Terry, remember?) who you can expect to encounter quite often.
You can explore this new village to your heart's content. There are a couple of fun side quests. I especially liked the one that involved taking photographs. (To take in-game photos, you hold R2 or ZR on your respective console to pull up the capture mechanic.) As you wander around and talk to NPCs, you can also pick up a swanky Slime Angel hat to wear around that gives you a 3x boost to experience until level 79. After all, besides looking silly and awesome, it also triples your experience for a while. So make sure you equip it!
Once you return to the main story, you find out about a wedding. There's some bumps along the way, and you agree to help the groom find a missing seashell, a symbol of love used in weddie weddings. There's a quest involving water that confused me for a while (I missed the part of the translation that told me I had to bring it back within a limited time period). Eventually, you bring back the shell, meet up with the bride, and–uh-oh!–it turns out a malevolent entity is hiding inside that shell.
Wedding Crashed
It turns out, the spirit of a heartbroken groom has kidnapped our bride-to-be. Years of heartache has turned his soul into this dark blob creature:
Gameplay-wise, this is something I really like about Dragon Quest X. Starting at this point, you can set the difficulty settings of bosses. You can play it on Easy, try it on Normal (for 1.5 times the exp.), or brave the boss on Hard (for double the experience!). I was pretty over-leveled at this point because of Metal Slime Mania, in which you can farm metal slimes as common enemies for a half hour period at different parts of the day. I decided to go with Hard and got twice as much exp! Pretty cool!
After the fight, our evil spirit turns back into the groom he once was–just in ghost form now, you know? He's reunited with his deceased bride, and the two fly off into the sunset in a scene so reminiscent of La La Land that I expected Ryan Gosling to start singing.
Now that everything is taken care of, you head back to the village of Lane and get to witness the Weddie wedding of the century (or, at least, the week). The Weddies are a romantic people, after all, who sing about their love of each other and the sea. So, I'm assuming this sort of romance happens there quite often–just maybe not with evil spirits kidnapping brides.
After this, you're free to head to the big city! For all your troubles, you have a ruler stone that lets you return to a marked location of your choice and some good experience. The trek to the Weddie capital is a long one, so make sure you're prepared!
Next week, we'll reach the Big Weddie City, find some cool swimming gear, and fix a tuning fork. We'll also meet a cute kitten being secretly raised by a young Weddie child. I can't imagine what could go wrong with a cat-person living inside a city inhabited by fish people.
Until next time, questers! See you in Astoltia! You can listen to Dragon Quest FM (our DQ podcast) to hear other DQX commentary as we play through the game, too.
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