Yeah, I'm doing another game I actually like; the first RPG I ever played and completed, in fact. Because Phantasy Star II deserves some company in the Nutshell section that isn't ass on toast.

King of Alefgard: Descendant of Erdrick, thou art the only one that can defeat the Dragonlord. Now go forth!
Hero: I'd love to, but I'm kind of trapped in this room by a magic door. Come to think of it, so are you. How did I even get in here?
King of Alefgard: Take my treasure chests so that thou can escape and buy some equipment!
Hero: I'm on a big quest to save the world from an evil fiend and you couldn't spare more than a torch and some chump change? Well, I guess if this game was easy, it wouldn't be any fun.

This early on, the hero is a gigantic wimp, and has to take a break every 3 or 4 fights to rest off all the damage he's taking, which the game charges you for each time (of course). But once you gain the Heal spell and figure out that talking to the magician guy in the castle restores your MP to full for free, the inns become pretty pointless.

This stage of the game is pretty much just a gigantic grinding session to earn levels and buy better gear, because almost every area you need to complete is blocked off by magic doors, and you don't find any more keys until you're strong enough to survive a trip through a tunnel to the southern island, and then make the perilous trek to another town where you can finally buy the damn things.

On the return trek...

Hero: Hey, I've got these keys now. I wonder what that door in the tunnel on the way here has behind it.
Dragon: ROAAAAARRRRRR
Hero: Ohhhh SHIT!

The hero is reduced to charcoal, but the King is kind enough to bring him back from the afterlife to continue his quest. But only after extorting half of his gold from him.

King: Didn't you know? That 120 gold wasn't a gift, but a loan! And I make all of my loans at 13,000% interest!
Hero: You're... kind of a douche.
King: But a rich douche!

It's at this point that you venture into the locked doors in the king's castle and realize that there's a key shop right behind his throne room.

Hero: Why could he not just loan me another key so I could save myself a lot of time and effort? What a cheapskate!

Actually, it's a pretty elegant, if shoehorned, way to get you prepared for what lies WITHIN said dungeons - the enemies would stomp you flat if you tried going in before level 10 or so. So you venture deep into Garinham's dungeon and find a Silver Harp, which - get this - summons enemies whenever you play it!

Hero: What was the point of that? I've already got enough random bad guys trying to kill me!
Nintendo Power: Don't you pay attention to the villagers? Some guy on the other end of the island wants it!
Hero: You mean that unlike 98% of all RPGs ever made, the villagers actually have vital, important things to say? Amazing!

So you talk to the guy and get the Staff of Rain, which you vaguely remember being one of the key items you need to get to the Dragonlord's keep. Nifty.

Anyway, you venture south for a while longer (after some more level grinding) and come to Hauksness, a ruined town full of really powerful and supremely annoying monsters. Rooting around doesn't reveal much until you venture into the burned out ruins of a shop, with a tree behind it where a knight with a really big axe attacks you.

Hero: Jeez. Guy hits like a damn truck, and the Sleep spell only knocks him out for a couple of turns. Must be some good shit back here.

Sure enough, you find the Armor of Erdrick, the best of its kind in the game. Not only does it make you immune to poison swamps and magic barriers, but it also lets you regenerate your HP. Sweet!

That done, you try to venture even further south to Cantlin to load up on more awesome gear, which is an unnecessarily long path north, then west, then south, then east across a giant swamp, then north again through a maze of mountains. It would be a really short trip if you had a boat or an airship, but unfortunately that hadn't become an RPG trope yet in 1986. Just before you enter Cantlin however, your path is barred by a Golem, who hits like a bullet train and takes no damage from spells!

King: Oh, hello again. I brought you back from the dead and stole half the money you were going to spend on equipment to hopefully kill the Dragonlord with and save my kingdom!
Hero: Dick.

So, anyway, you do a little research and find out you're supposed to use the Fairy Flute you found in Kol to knock the guy out, then beat him up while he's asleep.

Hero: Why couldn't I just use the Sleep spe-- nevermind.

Killing a bunch of Goldmen to make up for what the king pilfered, you buy a shiny Silver Shield and a Flame Sword for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 bucks a pop. Now that pretty much every enemy in the game is helpless before your might, you venture back to the tunnel to teach that dragon a lesson.

Gwaelin: Oh, hello. I'm the king's daughter that he mentioned in passing when you first began your quest!
Hero: Well, that's convenient. Should we go back to the castle?
Gwaelin: Yes, but you must carry me the entire way!
Hero: Wha... why?
Gwaelin: Because I am unnecessarily lazy!

You do just that (although it is slightly amusing to lug her around for the next few hours of the game just for the hell of it), and your reward is... Gwaelin's love. Both in a literal sense and in a surreal metaphysical sense, as you get an item in your inventory called "Gwaelin's Love". Using it results in her giving you your current coordinates, but only after you sit through a lengthy dialog about how much she loves you that never changes and cannot be skipped. But you just have to put up with it because you need it to solve one of the game's biggest puzzles.

So anyway, you get back to the quest of trying to find the three key items to get to the Dragonlord's castle, learning that one is in a small shrine south of Rimuldar guarded by a wizard guy.

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: What, seriously? I have his ARMOR. That's not enough?
Nintendo Power: You need the Amulet of Erdrick!
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find that?!
Nintendo Power: 70 South by 40 East.
Hero: Oh boy.

We already know that Gwaelin's Love is the key to solving this puzzle, since it gives your coordinates relative to Castle Alefgard and all. However, I still got stuck on this puzzle because I kept trying to get to 40 WEST, which is three spaces into the ocean off the western coast. I searched everywhere for a boat, looked for a way to get past the wizard for the item he had, hoping that would somehow allow me to get to it, scoured back issues of Nintendo Power, and checked every villager in every town three times over thinking I'd missed something. I agonized over this for close to two weeks until I finally realized I read the directions wrong! (Hey, I was seven years old at the time, cut me a break.)

Anyway, rooting through that gigantic swamp you had to pass through on the way to Cantlin eventually yields the amulet. Hooray!

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Here's the amulet. That enough proof for you, chief?
Wizard: Well, I was going to give you this neat item, but you need the Stones of Sunlight first.
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find those?

Wondering if that random villager with the same line of dialog might have the other item, he returns to Rimuldar.

Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Yeah, right here. See? Medallion of Erdrick!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: I just showed you my medallion, dickface. Acknowledge me as Erdrick's descendant!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Oh, fuck you.

Retracing his steps, he talks to random villagers and learns that the stones are hidden in Castle Alefgard. However, turning the place upside-down for half an hour earns you... nothing.

Hero: Where are the damn things? This place is two screens wide by two screens tall, it can't possibly be that well hidden!

After painstakingly searching the place tile by tile, you find that they're hidden in a secret room along the RIGHT EDGE of the castle, just south of the key shop, behind that door you need a magic key for. You need to walk south from the shop along the edge of the moat, being careful not to walk too far to the right and exit to the world map, because if you do that you have to start all over again.

Hero: Why couldn't I just see and approach this room from the outside? I mean, I know it's a puzzle and all, but this just seems a little contrived even by mid-80s standards.

So anyway, you finally have the two items the wizard guy wanted.

Wizard: I say something cryptic and the screen FLICKERS DRAMATICALLY! Oh, and have this Rainbow Drop.
Hero: O...kay. The guy who wanted the harp just kind of vanished, but that works too.

Equipped with the Rainbow Drop, we can now bridge the path to the Dragonlord's keep. And when I say "bridge", it's very literal; after a psychedelic light show, it creates a bridge for you.

Hero: See, this is another example of why the king should just build a boat. I could sail the whole two tiles across the river south of Alefgard and get right to his castle and skip all this magical item fetch quest mumbo-jumbo!

Anyway, you root around in this oddly abandoned castle and find a hidden staircase behind the throne, leading into the biggest dungeon in the game. It's also full of dragons, knights, wizards, and basically every super tough generic villain imaginable. It's also got a few misleading paths in it, which is actually kind of a rarity in this game.

Ironically, one of these leads you to Erdrick's Sword, the bane of all evil!

Hero: Why the hell would he have the ONE WEAPON that can defeat him in his castle? Why would he not just, you know, destroy it or toss it into the ocean or something?

The other throw-off path leads to a neverending hallway, which I tried to go down for about twenty minutes before catching on. Again, I blame it on being seven years old.

So after backtracking and finding another route to follow, you come to the bottom of the Dragonlord's dungeon, which unlike every floor before it is fully lit and free of random enemies. You can loot his storeroom too if you want, but it's not really worth it at this stage of the game.

Dragonlord: Join me, young Skywalker, and we will rule the world together!
Hero: And what would I possibly stand to gain by abandoning this quest I've spent weeks trying to complete and following an empty promise from the lord of darkness?
Dragonlord: Your experience meter drops to 0, I emit an evil laugh and the game locks up, implying that I killed you!
Hero: ...And I get to hit Reset and do the entire dungeon again. That's weak sauce, dude.
Dragonlord: This is a 1986 game; villains didn't start thinking ahead and getting truly devious and persusasive until the 90's.
Hero: Good point.

They duke it out, which is pretty anticlimactic since the Dragonlord dies in three hits.

Hero: Well, that was... pretty easy.
Dragonlord: SURPRISE! I have another form!

The dragonlord becomes - what else - a dragon, and is much tougher this time around since he can dish out a lot of damage and none of your spells work on him. Still, if you've got the best equipment available and a decent supply of MP for healing spells, you can outlast him without too much difficulty.

Dragonlord: I am vanquished!

You get Erdrick's ball of light back, which vanquishes all random enemies in the game forevermore, and allows you to wander around to every town in the game and get congratulated by everyone. Actually, just one town will do the trick, since they all repeat the same two lines.

So you go back to Alefgard, where the king offers you his eternal gratitude and his daughter's hand in marriage. She won't take "No" for an answer no matter how many times you try to choose it, so our hero is forced to wed Gwaelin and, once again, carry her off into the sunset. The end, roll credits.

Spoony: You know, as RPGs went on, I expected to be able to explore more of the possibilities the story could take . Like here, where the game gives you a yes or no choice, but the story won't continue until you pick "Yes"; I always just thought that was a system limitation locking you to one path. I was hoping in future games that in a similar situation you could pick "No" just to see what would happen. Like, say, the King putting a hit out on you for abandoning his daughter to the dragons! A pity that idea seems to only have caught on with American RPGs on the PC, and to a lesser extent the Shin Megami Tensei series. I mean, why do they even give you a choice of two or three options in newer games, anyway? Just to tease you?

At any rate, I like the game of Dragon Warrior; it was certainly a milestone in the console RPG genre, and although it definitely shows its age nowadays due to the bare-bones story and heavy emphasis on gold gathering and level grinding, I'd much rather play this than say... Star Ocean 4 or Infinite Undiscovery.