Retro Game Walkthroughs for Dragon Quest 8: The Journey Of The Cursed King (PlayStation 2)
Submitted By: Kawada
A guide to power levelling in Dragon Quest VIII
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Like all RPG's Dragon Quest requires your party to be strong and powerful to be able to beat the tougher monsters and those pesky bosses later in the game. The only way you can get stronger other than buying equipment which boosts your stats a little bit is to level up your characters. Being a traditional RPG, Dragon Quest doesn't make this easy by normal means, if you try levelling fighting the normal monsters you meet along your way then you'll find yourself having a very long journey to that magic level 99 number.
Luckily though, also like most RPG's, Dragon Quest has a secret up its sleeve that can make levelling up far quicker than it would be than by conventional means. This secret being the Metal Slime family, so yup, you guessed it, it's time to go Metal Slime Hunting.
WHAT ARE METAL SLIMES?
----------------------
Metal Slimes are basically your everyday slimes with a few differences that makes them far harder than their lower counterparts to defeat.
Firstly the most obvious difference is their colour, instead of the cute blue or bright orange these are a dark gray colour.
Secondly these guys have huge defence and agility stats, even an all powerful Hero will only be dishing out 2hp of damage at most without being psyched up when he manages to hit them full on. A vast contrast to the lower slimes where our Hero can run rings around them and only has to scowl at them to defeat them. Of course due to the power they have in defence their attack leaves alot to be desired and they'll only hit you for a paltry 10hp at the most so there's no need to worry about your HP fighting these monsters.
Lastly, unlike their cousins these guys don't like to fight or hang around. You'll often find when confronted by a group of these slimes that the majority of them, and sometimes all of them, will run away from you before you even get chance to defeat them.
So now you're probably thinking to yourself, "hmmm ok, they run away often but even when they don't i still can't damage them all that much, how on earth can i defeat these blasted things". Well like that advert once said, here comes the science:
Preparations before Metal Slime hunting
---------------------------------------------
1. Invest 30 points into Hero's Sword Skills, this will let him learn Metal Slash, an ability that will double the damage of Hero's attack to the Metal Slimes from 1hp to 2hp.
2. Invest 22 points into Angelo's Sword Skills, this will allow him to learn Metal Slash so he can also do 2hp worth of damage to the Metal Slimes.
3. Invest 3 points into Jessica's Staff skills, this will allow her to learn Accelerate which increases the agility of your party members and should allow you to have the first moves in the second turn against most of the Metal Slimes that hang around.
4. Invest 66 points into Yangus' Axe skills, this will allow him to learn Executioner which gives Yangus a 50% chance of either getting a critical hit or missing completely, this is most useful against the King Metal Slimes which will be explained later.
5. When the Baccarat casino finally opens in the game, go inside and win 20,000 tokens. Spend this on buying 2 Falcon Blades. Equip Hero and Angelo with one each. A falcon blade allows the user to use the same attack twice in the same move so with one Metal Slash Hero or Angelo can do up to 4hp of damage un-psyched.
6. Gain the ability to fly from the story sequence.
Once we have all this we're ready to go hunting.
So what exactly are we hunting?
-------------------------------
The Metal Slime family, and they come in 3 forms.
Firstly the baby of the group, the Metal Slime. These little critters only have 4hp. They have the same design as your normal everyday slime but with the dark gray colour.
Next we have the Liquid Metal Slimes. These fellas are stronger with 8hp. They look like a puddle of ooze with bubbles coming off it, again with the dark gray colour.
Lastly the King Metal Slime. These are the daddies of the family and have a whooping 20hp. These look like your normal King Slimes but again come in dark gray flavouring.
Right ok, now i know what they are, where can i find them?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Metal Slimes can be found near the Royal Hunting grounds. From the exit of the grounds go forward and hug the right mountain until you eventually come to a little valley cul-de-sac. This area seemed to yield the majority of Metal Slimes.
Liquid Metal Slimes will require the ability to fly to get to the area where the majority of them hang out. Zoom to the Desert Chapel and hop on your gryphon, follow the desert directly south until you come to a open plateau, land there and you'll have your Liquid Metal Slimes to hunt.
King Metal Slimes can be found, very rarely, in the Dragon Graveyard, or more frequently on Slime Hill north of Rydon's Tower (it is the ledge full of the autumnish brown and green trees). I say more frequently but really the encounter rate goes up from about 5 every hour in the Dragon Graveyard to about 10 every hour on Slime Hill. These guys don't appear very often so when they do show up you have to make them count, it can be especially annoying spending 30 minutes hunting for some to find a pair show up and then have them both run off.
Note that all the Metal Slime family can be found on Slime Hill but Metal Slimes and Liquid Metal Slimes will be more frequent in their other zones.
Reward for killing the Metal Slimes
-----------------------------------
If you manage to kill a Metal Slime you will net yourself 1000xp
If you manage to kill a Liquid Metal Slime you will net yourself 10,000xp
If you manage to kill a King Metal Slime you will net yourself 30,000xp
Now as you can see, defeating these little critters can make levelling up farrrrrr quicker than it would be constantly having to find and fight a bunch of normal monsters that yield nowhere near as much experience points. Pound for pound the Metal Slime Family give out the highest amount of xp than any other monster by a loooooooong stretch.
That's all well and good but now how do i defeat these things?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Well hopefully before you go hunting you've already followed the preparation steps and have everything you will need. I will assume you have done and will go through the methods i used to defeat them as such.
Firstly the first thing to understand is Metal Slime hunting requires luck, it doesn't matter how prepared you are, if the slimes decide they're going to run away then there's not really much you can do about it considering they have far more agility than you. The first step of the strategy is to pray, pray that at least some slimes actually stay and fight you.
Now Metal Slimes, as you might have guessed as they give you the fewest amount of xp, are the easiest of the family to defeat. You don't really have to worry about tension here.
* Have Hero use Metal Slash, now with the Falcon Blade equipped he'll use this ability twice and if you're lucky he'll hit the Slime full on twice hitting them for 2hp two times which means he'll defeat one of them all by himself.
* The same goes for Angelo, have him use Metal Slash and again with the Falcon blade if he hits the slime full on he'll also wipe out a Slime.
* Have Yangus use his Executioner ability, if it hits it will do so for a big number (as if he was hitting a normal slime) and wipe out another Slime.
* Have Jessica cast Accelerate. This can possibly give you a jump in the first round of moves if she uses it before the Metal Slimes have their turns, but if not then it usually gives you first moves in the second round as long as there's any enemies left.
So after all this in the best case scenario we now have 3 dead Metal Slimes and you're 3000xp better off. This is good for levels 25-30.
Now onto the Liquid Slimes. This is where tension will come into play and a little more strategy.
The first turn should go like this:
* Hero psyches up
* Angelo psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
After this round hopefully Yangus has killed one Liquid Slime with Executioner and there's still some staying around to fight. Now in the second turn is when to let loose.
* Have Hero use Metal Slash. With the tension and twin attack you will hopefully hit the Liquid Slime for 4hp a pop, thus killing one of them.
* Have Angelo do the same again hopefully with the same result.
* Have Yangus again use Executioner in the hope he gets a critical hit.
* Have Jessica cast Accelerate again.
If there are still some Liquid slimes around in the 3rd turn just have Hero and Angelo use Metal Slash, Yangus use Executioner and have Jessica attack as you'll be adequately accelerated by then. It rarely will get to 3 turns though.
The best case scenario i've had fighting these is defeating 5 of them netting me a whooping 50,000xp. These are the main Slimes that you'll be hunting as the Metal Kings don't turn up often enough. Therefore the Liquid Slimes are great for levelling pretty much up until level 99
And now lastly the King Metal Slimes. These reap the best reward so of course are harder to defeat and rarely show up. This is where Yangus' Executioner skill steps up in importance. It will take Hero and Angelo two turns to power up to the level needed to defeat them and then the 3rd turn to actually use it by which time the Metal Kings will have run away, in the same timeframe Yangus can have had 2 cracks at them which at 50% possibility of a hit should in theory mean you defeat one Metal King at a time (again if they don't run away)
So the battle goes like this
* Hero Psyches up
* Angelo Psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
2nd turn
* Hero Psyches up
* Angelo Psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
3rd turn
* Hero attacks
* Angelo attacks
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica attacks
And hopefully by the end of that you'll have at least defeated one King Metal Slime netting you 30,000xp which means in about the 1 minute it takes to defeat one of those you've gained the same amount of experience it would take you about 1 hour to do so defeating normal enemies.
The highest number of Metal Kings i've faced is 2 and i've been lucky enough to beat the 2 of them netting me 60,000xp. While these enemies give out the highest number of xp they also run away the most frequently when they do show up, thus becoming extremely annoying. When it does work out though it means big xp boosting.
And there we have it, the essential guide to power levelling in Dragon Quest to make those end battles that much easier and to give you a fighting chance in the after game boss battles, the Dragovian Trials.
Good luck and happy hunting!!
--------------------------------------------------
Like all RPG's Dragon Quest requires your party to be strong and powerful to be able to beat the tougher monsters and those pesky bosses later in the game. The only way you can get stronger other than buying equipment which boosts your stats a little bit is to level up your characters. Being a traditional RPG, Dragon Quest doesn't make this easy by normal means, if you try levelling fighting the normal monsters you meet along your way then you'll find yourself having a very long journey to that magic level 99 number.
Luckily though, also like most RPG's, Dragon Quest has a secret up its sleeve that can make levelling up far quicker than it would be than by conventional means. This secret being the Metal Slime family, so yup, you guessed it, it's time to go Metal Slime Hunting.
WHAT ARE METAL SLIMES?
----------------------
Metal Slimes are basically your everyday slimes with a few differences that makes them far harder than their lower counterparts to defeat.
Firstly the most obvious difference is their colour, instead of the cute blue or bright orange these are a dark gray colour.
Secondly these guys have huge defence and agility stats, even an all powerful Hero will only be dishing out 2hp of damage at most without being psyched up when he manages to hit them full on. A vast contrast to the lower slimes where our Hero can run rings around them and only has to scowl at them to defeat them. Of course due to the power they have in defence their attack leaves alot to be desired and they'll only hit you for a paltry 10hp at the most so there's no need to worry about your HP fighting these monsters.
Lastly, unlike their cousins these guys don't like to fight or hang around. You'll often find when confronted by a group of these slimes that the majority of them, and sometimes all of them, will run away from you before you even get chance to defeat them.
So now you're probably thinking to yourself, "hmmm ok, they run away often but even when they don't i still can't damage them all that much, how on earth can i defeat these blasted things". Well like that advert once said, here comes the science:
Preparations before Metal Slime hunting
---------------------------------------------
1. Invest 30 points into Hero's Sword Skills, this will let him learn Metal Slash, an ability that will double the damage of Hero's attack to the Metal Slimes from 1hp to 2hp.
2. Invest 22 points into Angelo's Sword Skills, this will allow him to learn Metal Slash so he can also do 2hp worth of damage to the Metal Slimes.
3. Invest 3 points into Jessica's Staff skills, this will allow her to learn Accelerate which increases the agility of your party members and should allow you to have the first moves in the second turn against most of the Metal Slimes that hang around.
4. Invest 66 points into Yangus' Axe skills, this will allow him to learn Executioner which gives Yangus a 50% chance of either getting a critical hit or missing completely, this is most useful against the King Metal Slimes which will be explained later.
5. When the Baccarat casino finally opens in the game, go inside and win 20,000 tokens. Spend this on buying 2 Falcon Blades. Equip Hero and Angelo with one each. A falcon blade allows the user to use the same attack twice in the same move so with one Metal Slash Hero or Angelo can do up to 4hp of damage un-psyched.
6. Gain the ability to fly from the story sequence.
Once we have all this we're ready to go hunting.
So what exactly are we hunting?
-------------------------------
The Metal Slime family, and they come in 3 forms.
Firstly the baby of the group, the Metal Slime. These little critters only have 4hp. They have the same design as your normal everyday slime but with the dark gray colour.
Next we have the Liquid Metal Slimes. These fellas are stronger with 8hp. They look like a puddle of ooze with bubbles coming off it, again with the dark gray colour.
Lastly the King Metal Slime. These are the daddies of the family and have a whooping 20hp. These look like your normal King Slimes but again come in dark gray flavouring.
Right ok, now i know what they are, where can i find them?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Metal Slimes can be found near the Royal Hunting grounds. From the exit of the grounds go forward and hug the right mountain until you eventually come to a little valley cul-de-sac. This area seemed to yield the majority of Metal Slimes.
Liquid Metal Slimes will require the ability to fly to get to the area where the majority of them hang out. Zoom to the Desert Chapel and hop on your gryphon, follow the desert directly south until you come to a open plateau, land there and you'll have your Liquid Metal Slimes to hunt.
King Metal Slimes can be found, very rarely, in the Dragon Graveyard, or more frequently on Slime Hill north of Rydon's Tower (it is the ledge full of the autumnish brown and green trees). I say more frequently but really the encounter rate goes up from about 5 every hour in the Dragon Graveyard to about 10 every hour on Slime Hill. These guys don't appear very often so when they do show up you have to make them count, it can be especially annoying spending 30 minutes hunting for some to find a pair show up and then have them both run off.
Note that all the Metal Slime family can be found on Slime Hill but Metal Slimes and Liquid Metal Slimes will be more frequent in their other zones.
Reward for killing the Metal Slimes
-----------------------------------
If you manage to kill a Metal Slime you will net yourself 1000xp
If you manage to kill a Liquid Metal Slime you will net yourself 10,000xp
If you manage to kill a King Metal Slime you will net yourself 30,000xp
Now as you can see, defeating these little critters can make levelling up farrrrrr quicker than it would be constantly having to find and fight a bunch of normal monsters that yield nowhere near as much experience points. Pound for pound the Metal Slime Family give out the highest amount of xp than any other monster by a loooooooong stretch.
That's all well and good but now how do i defeat these things?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Well hopefully before you go hunting you've already followed the preparation steps and have everything you will need. I will assume you have done and will go through the methods i used to defeat them as such.
Firstly the first thing to understand is Metal Slime hunting requires luck, it doesn't matter how prepared you are, if the slimes decide they're going to run away then there's not really much you can do about it considering they have far more agility than you. The first step of the strategy is to pray, pray that at least some slimes actually stay and fight you.
Now Metal Slimes, as you might have guessed as they give you the fewest amount of xp, are the easiest of the family to defeat. You don't really have to worry about tension here.
* Have Hero use Metal Slash, now with the Falcon Blade equipped he'll use this ability twice and if you're lucky he'll hit the Slime full on twice hitting them for 2hp two times which means he'll defeat one of them all by himself.
* The same goes for Angelo, have him use Metal Slash and again with the Falcon blade if he hits the slime full on he'll also wipe out a Slime.
* Have Yangus use his Executioner ability, if it hits it will do so for a big number (as if he was hitting a normal slime) and wipe out another Slime.
* Have Jessica cast Accelerate. This can possibly give you a jump in the first round of moves if she uses it before the Metal Slimes have their turns, but if not then it usually gives you first moves in the second round as long as there's any enemies left.
So after all this in the best case scenario we now have 3 dead Metal Slimes and you're 3000xp better off. This is good for levels 25-30.
Now onto the Liquid Slimes. This is where tension will come into play and a little more strategy.
The first turn should go like this:
* Hero psyches up
* Angelo psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
After this round hopefully Yangus has killed one Liquid Slime with Executioner and there's still some staying around to fight. Now in the second turn is when to let loose.
* Have Hero use Metal Slash. With the tension and twin attack you will hopefully hit the Liquid Slime for 4hp a pop, thus killing one of them.
* Have Angelo do the same again hopefully with the same result.
* Have Yangus again use Executioner in the hope he gets a critical hit.
* Have Jessica cast Accelerate again.
If there are still some Liquid slimes around in the 3rd turn just have Hero and Angelo use Metal Slash, Yangus use Executioner and have Jessica attack as you'll be adequately accelerated by then. It rarely will get to 3 turns though.
The best case scenario i've had fighting these is defeating 5 of them netting me a whooping 50,000xp. These are the main Slimes that you'll be hunting as the Metal Kings don't turn up often enough. Therefore the Liquid Slimes are great for levelling pretty much up until level 99
And now lastly the King Metal Slimes. These reap the best reward so of course are harder to defeat and rarely show up. This is where Yangus' Executioner skill steps up in importance. It will take Hero and Angelo two turns to power up to the level needed to defeat them and then the 3rd turn to actually use it by which time the Metal Kings will have run away, in the same timeframe Yangus can have had 2 cracks at them which at 50% possibility of a hit should in theory mean you defeat one Metal King at a time (again if they don't run away)
So the battle goes like this
* Hero Psyches up
* Angelo Psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
2nd turn
* Hero Psyches up
* Angelo Psyches up
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica casts Accelerate
3rd turn
* Hero attacks
* Angelo attacks
* Yangus uses Executioner
* Jessica attacks
And hopefully by the end of that you'll have at least defeated one King Metal Slime netting you 30,000xp which means in about the 1 minute it takes to defeat one of those you've gained the same amount of experience it would take you about 1 hour to do so defeating normal enemies.
The highest number of Metal Kings i've faced is 2 and i've been lucky enough to beat the 2 of them netting me 60,000xp. While these enemies give out the highest number of xp they also run away the most frequently when they do show up, thus becoming extremely annoying. When it does work out though it means big xp boosting.
And there we have it, the essential guide to power levelling in Dragon Quest to make those end battles that much easier and to give you a fighting chance in the after game boss battles, the Dragovian Trials.
Good luck and happy hunting!!