Legend of the Red Dragon II: Role-Playing a Jerk

 

The most wholesome image of this session.

       

This session comprises days 7 to 22, in which I rose to Level 10, bought the best weapons and armor available so far, and solved a number of quests. I expanded my map to include about 60 of the supposed 300 screens the game offers. There's no particular reason to cover things chronologically, so I'll do them topically.

    

My map of the game world so far.

       

Combat and Character Development

    

This is perhaps the least interesting part of the game, partly because combat offers so little in the way of real tactics and strategies. You grind a lot, then occasionally buy a new weapon, buy a new piece of armor, or level up, so you can grind against more difficult enemies. But combat remains limited to attacking and fleeing; you don't even get once-per-day special attacks that the first Red Dragon offered.

      

The thrill of combat.

        

Enemies I fought this session include lost knights, striped tigers, caribou, thugs, rock monsters, lost monkeys, thieves, giant crabs, skeletons, zombies, bears, vagabond cutthroats, sand worms, and highway rogues. They're really just names and hit points.

     

Leveling up requires the character to fight a champion, and based on my experience, it's about 50/50 (influenced by your weapon and armor) whether I succeed. Failure means having to wait a day to try again. Leveling comes with 5 hit points, 2 "Muscle," and 2 "Dodge," and the latter two statistics are not visible on the character sheet.

   

Leveling up.

      

I found a way to make money independent of combat: You can buy a fishing rod in PortTown, north of Greentree. If you bump into a water square while standing on a dock square, the game asks if you want to try to fish. You can cast long or short, and I don't know what the difference is. Either way, after a few seconds, you find out if you caught anything. The game lets you try about 20 times a day, which can net you anywhere between 5 and 10 fish. These can then be sold in PortTown for between $50 and $250 depending on the kind of fish. 

     

I think it probably takes more than one day for all the fish in the stream to restock.

      

Since you only have one item of armor and one weapon at a time, the only other "equipment" worth vying for (at least so far) are healing potions. The pawn shop in Stonebrook sold potions that heal 10 hit points; the one in PortTown sells potions that heal 50, which is just below my current maximum. I've learned to carry three or four.

    

The best shop in the game so far.

     

Encounters and Role-Playing

   

The game's approach to encounters and role-playing is juvenile and depressing. If you want to play "evil," you can't just demand more money for heroics or refuse to engage in supererogation. You have to do depraved, awful things. Worse, even doing "good" in a quest is sometimes creepy. To wit:

   

Twice I have encountered what I assume is the same girl ("she couldn't be older than twelve") lost in the wilderness, crying. The initial option is to "agree to take her home, wherever that might be" or "leave her to rot." If I choose the former, she appears in my inventory, at which point I can activate her to speak to her or kill her. Naturally, I took her back to her mother both times, for a reward of $50 (it's the game, not me, that uses the $ symbol for gold) and 10 experience points—but her mother is just drinking in a tavern and apparently immediately loses her again.

         

In retrospect, I wish I'd said "no."

       

I paid the fee to rent a room at Ma's Boarding House in Greentree so I could explore upstairs. I found a girl named Elle crying uncontrollably. When I asked why she was crying ("Why the water works?"), she said she was pregnant. "Woah!!" the character said, "Does your ma know. She thinks you're a good girl. If she knew you were a slut, she'd have a heart attack!" you soothe. Yes, the game actually says "you soothe" after that statement—a statement which, I emphasize, the player has no control over. She asks the player to tell her mother she's pregnant, which he does by announcing, "Your daughter got knocked up!" before offering to kill the father.

 

Ma declines to have the baby's father killed but asks the player to deliver a letter to her brother Edward. It was a few days before I discovered Edward's cabin south of Greentree and gave him the letter. Edward has amazingly bad breath, and there's a "role-playing choice" regarding whether to tell him. I didn't. He accompanies the player back to Greentree. It soon becomes clear that Ma sent for Edward so he could induce a miscarriage, which he does. You hear her screaming upstairs. Ma is grateful: "Thanks to you, Elle is a virgin again." For this, you get 2000 gold and 10 quest points. Thank you, Red Dragon. That's the sort of quest I've always wanted to solve in an RPG.

      

The end to what might be the worst side quest in RPG history.

        

Moving on, while exploring the wilderness, you occasionally come across two men wearing Dragon Tooth armor raping a woman. In case the role-playing choice isn't clear, the screen is titled: "Violation or a right, you decide." Because "a right" is one of two valid conclusions in such a scenario. Your options are to "help the woman and kill the men" or "join in the fun." I mean, it's all text, but still. The authors could have done anything with these encounters. They're unlimited by graphics or sound. Did they have to make the player's skin crawl so often? 

      

What kind of sicko chooses the second option?

      

More benign, you occasionally encounter injured travelers and have the option to help them back to town or beat them and take their money. Helping them causes your alignment to increase by 1. I don't know what beating them does.

    

Some other quests and encounters that didn't have any creepy components:

   

• The Dragon Tooth Cult shows up in another context. They've stopped me twice and said that the Dragon (the one defeated in the first game) is still alive and will soon return. One of their prophets was preaching in the StonePass Lodge. If I insult them instead of listening to them, they attack. With 700 hit points (against my 60), they are unbeatable at my current level.

     

This was not survivable.

      

• After getting resurrected at my mother's house after another defeat, I poked around the area to make sure I hadn't missed anything and ended up re-visiting the old woman. When I asked her to make more stew (naturally, the game has the character demand the stew in the most obnoxious way), she said, "Not without my Hector!"

• Hector turns out to be a parrot, found in the dark cave south of the hag's home. I grabbed him there (no choice once I stepped on the nest), earning 3 quest points, but outside I had the option to set him free. I also had the option to take him back to the hag or taunt him. Freeing him got me +20 alignment, the most in the game so far, and 2 quest points. The old woman was furious when she found out and ordered me from her home.

       

Rescuing a child lost in the woods doesn't affect my alignment, but freeing a bird causes it to go up by 20. Got it.

       

• While making rounds of Greentree again, I tried the lock on a house and discovered that it was Barak's house. I found his journal in a chest. In it, he outlines how he stole 20 gems from the "student gem deposit" and planted them in Turgon's house while he was drunk. His entries show that he initially felt bad about both actions but later came to enjoy the position that it earned him. I brought the diary back to Turgon, who accompanied me to Greentree, showed it to the officials there, and got Barak tossed out of the training academy. Turgon resumed his position as training master but kept Barak's methods.

    

Suddenly, I'm a man of integrity.

    

• At least six times while I was exploring the wilderness, a man approached and offered to sell me a piece of the "Skystaff." I've said yes every time, even though I don't know what it is. I've accumulated two bases, three middle parts, and one gem.

• You occasionally meet "traveling folk" in the wilderness. Spending the evening around their campfires gets the character fully restored. They've heard rumors of the Dragon returning. "I suspect only the Dragon Tooth and maybe the Koshi know the truth," one says. I don't know who the Koshi are. 

     

An encounter with the traveling folk.

      

Locations

     

My basic approach was to explore until I died, then explore in a different direction. North of Greentree is a town called PortTown, where there were a few encounters worth noting:

 

• The store in town is called Quick-E-Mart [sic, given the reference]. There's an option to order a "super squishie." If you choose it, the game replicates the dialogue from a scene in The Simpsons Season 5, Episode 8 ("Boy Scoutz 'n the Hood"). The episode aired in November 1993, so it's not impossible that this encounter is original to the game.

       

Of all the homages to pay.

      

• The mart also sells the best weapon I've found so far in the game (a "pirate hook") and the best armor (a skull helmet), plus blue potions that restore 50 hit points.

• The Sea Hag Hotel rents rooms. Wandering around, I was propositioned by a sad-looking prostitute. They bothered to create a full-screen image for this. 

       

Whenever I see an eyepatch, I think "prostitute."

      

• In addition to selling fish and fishing rods, the House O' Fish also gives courier missions to other towns, but not until I've completed my current one.

• There's a travel agency where you can "fast travel" to other towns for lots of money.

• There's also a ship going to ArrisVille. The game gives me the option to stow away, but I haven't tried it yet.

       

The layout of PortTown.

     

I went east from PortTown and then north up the coast. At one point, the only way to keep going was to pass through a gate, where a guard demanded a pass. I had found one in Greentree. On the other side was the StonePass Lodge, where I could buy a fully-healing meal for $20, get a room for the night, or flirt with other patrons. Renting a room got me access to the guest floor, where I found a "Mountain Amulet" under one of the beds.

   

The farthest north I've explored is Castle Coldrake, also found in the first game, which is apparently for sale for $20,000. It will be a while before I have that much. I soon died to some monster outside the castle.

       

I think I killed all the knights here a couple of times in the first game. Maybe that's why it's for sale.

       

South of Greentree, screens of forests gave way to a Graveyard with numerous headstones as well as random (easy) combats with skeletons and zombies. I always feel compelled to recount what headstones say in CRPGs, so here's the full list from this graveyard (most stones say nothing):

   

• "There once was a man from Knantucket . . ." Trust me, you don't want to look up the rest. I don't know whether the misspelling is intentional. 
• "Here lies Beavis, he never scored." The author is fond of comma splices. I've fixed them in most places.
• "If you die, don't die on me." Like many of the others below, these words seem to be coming from the earth, not the headstone.
• "Dig me up and take me with you!"
• "Get off of me!"

        

Each gravestone is a mountain!

       

To the west of the Graveyard were snowy passes and an Ice Wizard's cave where a titular Ice Wizard said that to let me through, he'd need a pass from his "giant masters." I got killed shortly after this visit.

     

I guess I'll be back.

     

I haven't fully explored west of Greentree, but on one screen there was a building called Runion Keep for sale for a much more affordable $3,000. At the end of this session, I decided I had enough gold and I bought it. Other than offering a place to store gold, it doesn't do much for the offline player. I assume that during online play, it was a safe place to rest. I wonder, could only one player buy it?

      

My new castle.

       

Beyond Runion Keep is a Dark Forest, which I was exploring when I wrapped up this session. You have to go through a special gate to get into the Dark Forest, so there ought to be something to find here, but I haven't found it yet.

     

As you can see from the screenshots in this section, the game uses its limited tools—ANSI graphics and colors—to occasional cool effects. 

      

A large pond with a fishing dock.

      

I ended this session by grinding a bit near StonePass Lodge, as it was the place that offered the most gold and experience for the least risk. I could also heal at the lodge, though I had to go all the way back to Greentree every time it was time to level up.

Miscellaneous Notes

    

• If you don't do anything for a couple of minutes, the game kicks you out to the DOS prompt. I guess this made sense when players were competing for BBS time.

     

I guess you didn't want to take a bathroom break when this was live.

    

• There's a screen called "Tree Elf Highway" on which you occasionally get attacked by elves with bows. These are little Keebler elves, not Tolkien elves, and their arrows are no real threat. If you kill them anyway, the game says that: "You pick up the tiny body and throw it back into the woods. Haw!"

      

It's the "haw!" that really cements the character's character.

      

• I still have a letter for FlagCity. I haven't found it yet.

• A screen west of Greentree has a Stonehenge-looking "Shrine." If I bump into the central megalith, the game says I meditate, but "nothing happens."

• I don't quite have a handle on what you lose, if anything, when you die. I think you lose some gold and maybe some experience. I'll try to pay more attention next time. 

• The game has a lot of screens with little formations (like mountains encircling a copse of trees with a single entry point) that look like they're going to be something but in fact don't have anything in them.

       

It feels like there ought to be something in here.

     

As I discussed in the first entry, a solitary player misses most of the "point" of the game, but it still strikes me as weird that dozens of players would be doing the same quests on the same map. Or did they? Could they only be solved by one player per day or something? I guess that's how MMORPGs do it now. It makes sense from a programming standpoint but not a world-building one.

     

My character at the end of this session.

     

I'm also playing a very different game than the original players by not being limited by the number of turns. I don't have to strive for efficiency in movement the way a contemporary player would have, desperate to make the most of his 3,000 moves before he had to shut it down for the night. I'm curious how long it took contemporary players to win, compared to how long it is likely to take me. Maybe I'll be able to research these things for the final entry.

     

I find the game frustrating because its authors were clearly competent and creative, but they filled the game with sophomoric humor, vile "role-playing" choices, and countless spelling and grammar mistakes. The version I'm playing isn't an independent game; it was owned by a company that's still around operating a service that still exists (although as I write this, it wouldn't load, so I don't know what form it's still around in). I guess enough people ate it up that they didn't feel like they needed to do anything different.

   

Time so far: 7 hours