#slimereads

For the 40th anniversary, 8 THE THALASSO is doing a collab with Dragon Quest! This is a company that sells... shampoo!

Their website currently features some adorable illustrations of healslime and friends washing up!

After retrieving the Venus Tear and a stolen horse, the party is now in search of a boat.

So far there's one big thing that I DISLIKE about this game... the 3D overworld. Specifically, the map. It hardly shows elevation differences so it's difficult to tell where there's an insurmountable cliff until you're stuck at the top of one! Also, I wish you could draw markers on it. This is the Nintendo DS, let's get some Etrian Odyssey action going! Also, a few minor gripes with the battle menu. The item menu is locked behind the Fight option, which makes sense for usable items, but then you can't switch equipment unless you change that party member's tactic to Follow Orders. In addition, I wish you could customize which skills a party member will use automatically, but as far as I know, that feature is only in a couple Dragon Quest Monsters games, so I can't really expect that. Anyway, back to the good stuff.

Red is cool. According to the wiki, she and Yangus are THIRTY-TWO YEARS OLD. I suppose that's fine, but I can't believe there's such a huge age gap between them and the hero, Jessica, and Medea, with Angelo in the middle. That means... the events of Yangus mystery dungeon took place WAY before the main game. Maybe over 20 years?! It would be nice if the whole party was in their mid-twenties or above. As I approach 30 myself, this teenage hero trope is getting tired. I suppose from that perspective, only having 3 teens in the main cast is a fine compromise. It's neat that they added Red and Morrie as party members in this version. However, I am currently enjoying that I don't have to choose between party members because there's only four... I'm sure it'll take a while to unlock them anyway.

The Swordsman's Labyrinth was a pretty fun dungeon. Yes I was pushed into a hole by a fake door. That's ok, because I like exploring every corner for treasure!

I also unlocked Morrie's Monster Arena! I don't really like Morrie's personality, but that's beside the point. This is my current team, Slimers. I have no idea how you would accomplish anything in the tournament without a wiki to consult. And look! It's Hork! Hork slimed you! Its title is even Old-School Drooler, a reference to how walking corpses were called horks in the old translation. This was so important I had to take a few pictures with my phone camera.

Imp dressed as Morrie is funny! I like these special monsters. I wish they could join my monster arena team!

A few days ago, I found my copy of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. I bought it when it was released in the US in 2017, then forgot about it for 9 years. After some deliberation, I decided to break the seal and start playing! I'm about 4 hours in and I just got inside the Tower of Alexandra.

I'm surprised the art direction isn't more similar to DQVII 3DS. The game looks pretty nice, like DQIX but fancier (and full 3D of course). I was disappointed when I turned on the 3D slider and nothing happened. Wait, right there on the box it says "Playable in 2D. Some areas also playable in 3D." What areas?!

Slimes are so tiny in this game!! The photo mode is fun. I wish we could also take normal screenshots though. I want to capture lines of dialogue and battles!

Hunting down infamous monsters is pretty fun. So far I've beaten Automaton Aviator, Shortshooter the bodkin archer, Buffalo Bill the bullfinch, and Axoraptor the hacksaurus. I wish they were in the defeated monster log. Wait, I just got spoiled that you can recruit them later?! Oh boy!!!

More thoughts (without screenshots 🥀):