Taking On the Dragon Quest I Remake with the Hero Alone: Strategies for Each Boss and a Record of the Run to the Ending

The story begins with the protagonist, guided by a mysterious voice, heading for Tantegel Castle. Guboy is introduced as someone who never doubts that he is a descendant of the legendary hero. The commentator says, "This time I haven't lost my mind or anything—it'll be a completely solo journey," making clear from the start that the run will be done without companions.

After hearing from the king, Guboy first visits "Erdrick's Cave," where the previous hero is enshrined, and gains a lead for the adventure. As the commentator summarizes it, the archfiend who once lived on the "Demon Isle" was defeated by the previous hero, but now the "Dragonlord" has settled there. Guboy wants to cross to the Demon Isle again and defeat him, but reaching the island requires a variety of preparations, so the first step is to travel the world and gather the necessary items.

The first objective is obtaining the "Thief's Key" in the "Rock Mountain Cave." The commentator explains that in Dragon Quest, getting keys is how your range of movement expands. The key was held by Kandar, a thief dressed in his underpants. In battle, Guboy first wiped out the henchmen with "Crackle," then attacked the boss with "Flame Slash" to defeat him. Regarding the first boss fight ending with Kandar being taken down by Flame Slash, the commentator says it felt like a homage to the previous game.

Next, hearing that one of Kandar's henchmen hadn't returned from the depths of the cave, Guboy went to check and found him being attacked by monsters. To earn a favor so the key would be handed over, Guboy fights the "Conjurer." Since the opponent clearly looked like it would make heavy use of spells, the commentator went with a strategy of sealing its spells with "Fizzle." Once its spells are sealed, the opponent can only use regular attacks, so the rest is just whittling it down while using "Parry" to limit damage taken.

Fizzle wears off after a few turns, but the commentator says you can simply recast it when it does. The commentator considers Fizzle's success rate to be within a reasonable range even though it doesn't always land, and judges that a failure is no problem since you can just recast it the next turn. In fact, it failed once during this fight, but the enemy didn't cast any spells in the meantime, and it succeeded on the next turn. Once the enemy was down to about 30% of its HP, Guboy stopped parrying and finished it off quickly with attack spells.

Continuing the exploration, Guboy finds the fairies in the "Hidden Fairy Village" in dire straits after being attacked by monsters, and fights the "Armoured Knights." Here the commentator uses the new skill "Beast Mode" for the first time. It is a skill that makes you perform each chosen action twice for several turns. Since "Zapple" could take out any of the enemies in one hit, Guboy dodged attacks with evasion-focused equipment while reducing the enemy count by two per turn.

After that, Guboy obtains the "Magic Key" and, deep in a cave, finds Princess Gwaelin of Tantegel, who had been kidnapped by the Dragonlord. The "Dragon" fought here becomes enraged and troublesome when its HP drops, so the commentator chose to stack support effects and defeat it in one go. Guboy doubled his attack power with "Baikirumin," increased his number of actions with Beast Mode, built up power for the next attack with "Super Psyche Up," and then unleashed an all-out "Dragonlord Slash" to defeat it. This "Baikirumin → Beast Mode → Super Psyche Up → big move" sequence is used repeatedly in later boss fights.

If the rescued Princess Gwaelin is taken along, she provides support in battle. However, the commentator said, "This time I want to quietly enjoy a solo journey," sent the princess back to the castle, and continued exploring alone.

In the "Forest of Confusion," Guboy fights the "Dark Dreamer," which wields illusions. By this point, Guboy had had the fairies create the "Emblem of Life" for him, letting him use more powerful skills than before. According to the commentator, flimsy bosses like this could now be defeated in a single hit.

In the next town Guboy reaches, he fights the "Golem" that guards it. It looks extremely tough, but the commentator figured that hitting it with everything might work surprisingly well, built up power to the limit with Baikirumin, Beast Mode, and Super Psyche Up, and settled the fight in one go with the next attack.

After that, Guboy visited a priest who knew where the "Ultimate Key" was, but arrived just a moment too late, and the priest was burned to death (the commentator describes it as "he ended up as grilled meat"). The following "Dragonfly" fight ended with a single "Sky Splitter."

Guboy finds the leader of the Dragonflies, which had escaped once, attacking a settlement, and fights the "Alien Fly" again. This boss alternates between powerful fire and ice breath attacks, but according to the commentator, equipment alone can't cover both elements.

The strategy, then, was to build up resistance only to fire through equipment and push the enemy to the brink of death before the ice breath came. Using Baikirumin and Beast Mode, Guboy dealt heavy damage with Dragonlord Slash after Super Psyche Up. This changed the enemy's action pattern, so even when it acted first, it only used fire attacks. Guboy then finished it off with Sky Splitter. The approach was to use the change in action pattern to keep the enemy from using an attack that resistances couldn't block.

To help the fairy folk once again under attack by monsters, Guboy fights the "Dragon Zombie." The commentator had fought mainly with physical attacks up to this point, but in this battle switched to casting the newly learned "Kasizzle." Thanks to the emblem's effect, spells occasionally go berserk, and the commentator took advantage of this for a "get them before they get you" approach. Guboy first prepared with Beast Mode, then fired off Kasizzle and defeated it.

At the stage of gathering the equipment left behind by the previous hero in preparation for the final battle, Guboy fights the "Axe Knight" in search of Erdrick's Armour. According to the commentator, all of this boss's attacks are physical, so you just need to keep parrying for a while. If you set the game to remember the cursor position on commands, the battle progresses on its own just by mashing a button. Indeed, after parrying for a while, Guboy defeated it.

At the "Rain Shrine," Guboy fights the "Murdergoyle" to save an old man who was being attacked. After powering up with Beast Mode as usual, Guboy uses the recently learned "Hellspark" against this boss, which is weak to Zap-type attacks. The commentator says that besides its high power, its ability to paralyze the opponent is a major advantage, and that this alone was enough to shut the boss down completely.

Hellspark has activation conditions, such as having HP at half or below. However, the commentator says it is surprisingly easy to use, since you can adjust your HP using the poison swamps found in various places.

Visiting a spirit shrine in search of the "Token of Erdrick," Guboy fights "Exodus," a monster with an absurd number of arms. Guboy would have liked to attack mainly with spells this time too, but the enemy seals spells for a while with "Black Fog" on its first move. So Guboy bought time with "Total Defense," then used Beast Mode the next turn once the fog had cleared.

Guboy took the enemy's "Falcon Slash" to lower his HP to the threshold for Hellspark, then spammed Hellspark. Combined with the effect of the "Echoing Hat" picked up along the way, Hellspark went off a total of four times in one turn. This took off more than half of the opponent's HP, and Guboy finished it with his actions the following turn. The commentator praises the fact that later bosses have fixed action patterns, so with careful planning, battles become stable.

After that, having traveled the world, Guboy finally obtains the "Rainbow Drop," and the preparations to cross to the Demon Isle are complete.

After a long adventure, Guboy reaches the Dragonlord, and the final boss battle begins. Here too, as usual, Guboy powers himself up with Beast Mode and deals heavy damage all at once with four Hellsparks in a row. Since paralysis also works on the Dragonlord, the plan is to keep spamming Hellspark and push through.

In the second form, the Dragonlord's HP increases and its attacks become even fiercer. The commentator says that while the previous form was weak to Zap-type attacks, this form seems to resist them instead. Even so, the commentator says, "If you just keep firing until it goes down, it goes down, so the difference is only along the lines of 'good for you, you get to live a little longer.'" Paralysis works on the second form too, so Guboy kept firing Hellspark while it was paralyzed and defeated the Dragonlord.

During the battle, the commentator talks about the differences from the previous hero. The previous hero apparently ended up fighting mainly with physical attacks thanks to a powerful weapon called the "Falcon Blade," and the commentator finds it very regrettable that only a low-performing sword was passed down to later generations. On the other hand, the commentator got the impression that the current hero, who can equip the Echoing Hat, is highly talented as a mage. Since the final equipment is also specialized for spells, the commentator jokes that later generations might inherit things like "Guboy's Hat," "Guboy's Bolero," and "Guboy's Glasses."

In the ending, the hero's solo journey comes to a safe close, and in the end, the two of them set off on a new adventure. Looking back on the game, the commentator says it was a fun gaming experience that recreates the atmosphere of the original well while adding new presentation and extra content, making Dragon Quest feel higher-resolution. The commentator closes the video by saying that the well-balanced combat tuning and the variety of ways to approach battles left a particularly good impression.