Wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve written one of these. I hope you guys haven’t forgotten about this. How about a quick recap to get us all up to speed.
Dan is a small boy who wears a purple robe. His father, Pankraz, is a big strong man who is on the search for Dan’s mother. One day, while on a job bodyguarding Prince Harry, Pankraz is brutally murdered while protecting Dan and Harry. The kids are sold into slavery and don’t escape for ten years. Harry falls in love with Maria and leaves Dan. After Harry leaves, Dan starts searching for the legendary Zenithian gear to fight off an ancient evil. Along the way, he meets Debora and gets married. Debora becomes pregnant and gives birth to the twins David and Rebeca, but she is kidnapped shortly thereafter. Dan goes off to save her, but both he and Debora are turned into statues and sold to different families. Eight years later, Dan’s twin children finally find him and undo the curse before setting off to finish finding the Zenithian equipment and eventually find their mother.
When we last left our heroes, they were about to head to Helunaptra to check on the Zenithian Helmet that Dan tried and failed to acquire eight years (or so) prior to now. It is interesting to be traveling with children who were infants last Dan saw them, but, on the other hand, aside from the ten-year gap Dan served in slavery, the world has disappointingly not reflected much aging in the eight year statue period. In fact, we’re kind of in the middle period of most RPGs. You know, that section of the game where you can finally explore most of the map with focus semi-diluted focus. In my opinion, the game does a bad job here of imploring upon the hero that he needs to get anything done with any haste. It’s not a complete failing of the narrative, it’s just a part of the genre, especially during the era this game came out.
Remember all that time back when Dan found out that he was part of the royal family of Gotha and was actually crowned king? It was so long ago that I found myself caught off guard when NPCs referred to Dan’s royal heritage. It doesn’t bring with it too much, in terms of benefits, but it’s a nice touch to the dialogue that people are acknowledge the return of the king.
Arrival in Helunaptra was met with little fanfare as I made my way to Cleohatra’s royal chamber. Ready to try again, she escorted us to the chamber containing the Zenithian helmet. This time the helmet was placed on Dave’s head, but it was far too large. Just when I was starting to wonder just who the Zenithian hero might be instead, a message came up on the screen saying that the helmet began to change size and shrank to fit to Dave’s head.
With my main task out of the way, the next step was to head for Mada’s hometown, but without any real feeling of hurry, I decided to make some housecalls on people Dan hadn’t seen in ages. First on the list, King Harry. As he heard about the rough times Dan had just suffered, he spoke a line that made me laugh at its sheer audacity.
“You did have a rotten bit of luck there, eh?”
That’s got to be the greatest understatement I’ve ever run into in a video game.
There was also a pretty great moment in Coburg when Dan went back downstairs and found Dave interacting with Kendrick. Just like in Dan’s childhood, Kendrick was trying to make Dave his lacky and used the same underground passage to punk him. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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