Reading Report: 25 October 2026

ドラゴンクエストＩＶ導かれし者たち

『モンスターハンター』プレイ日記 本日もニャンと！逆鱗日和

This week was fairly good progress, though it felt more like a slog than any other week with this series. Kadoman and his pals prepared to fight アカムトルム, though most of the focus was put into the preparation (mostly one of his allies needing to rank up to fight it in the first place), and the fight itself was sort of a footnote. Kadoman attends the 2008 Monhun Festa at various locations and writes a handful of anecdotes about his time, including some cute hunts he does with various attendees. Notably while hunting with the producer, 辻本良三, and two young boys, he and one boy bond over using the lance. Kadoman gives the boy advice that the charge/ram/dash attack is the lance's coolest move, and then the boy proceeds to use it constantly, running over his teammates and frustrating Kadoman. Towards the end of one Festa while drunk, Kadoman challenges two of the Capcom marketing team to see who can hunt a certain challenge quest faster with the loser being forced to treat the others to dinner. This turns into a multi-essay epic where Kadoman recruits one of his coworkers, 江野本ぎずも, to partner with him for the quest. They basically go through a whole training arc until the final essay where they finally do the quest in the competitive setting, but the time attack is too much pressure on 江野本 and due to various factors of the competition she has trouble reproducing the routine they had practised, and the Capcom team ends up winning. There was also a very very long interview with another hunt speedrun team called Effort Cristal who had, at the time, recently come first in a stage speed tournament. They mentioned that for some hunts they practised over 1000 times. That's commitment!

ドラゴンクエストＩＶ導かれし者たち

A very eventful week, which ironically makes summarising it pretty difficult. I basically played through the entirety of chapter 5 in the week, stopping right before the entrance of the dungeon beneath the 天空の城. I think I made so much progress partially because I was fairly efficient with my routing (sometimes on accident and sometimes using memories of my prior play through from years ago), though I wasted a lot of time running around old areas each time I got a key upgrade. Eventually I started taking notes of where the iron-grated doors were, but shortly after I got the ultimate key and it was just a matter of cleaning up what was remaining. I really like the keys as a miniature system to gate progress, though there was a massive power boost after getting the ultimate key, and I wonder if it could have been more gradual.

One of my favourite puzzles related to the カワキの石. It's a very understated item, you only know it exists really because of NPC dialogue in the town you find it, and then you have to return to town at night and use clues about its function to figure out how it's affecting the town at night, and then finally in the morning you can use that information to retrieve it. What I like additionally is that it's pretty much useless unless you also find a random cave on the other side of the map, put two and two together, and realise you can "drain" the water blocking its entrance by using the カワキの石 as an item. It's the exact kind of puzzling I think works best in Dragon Quest games.
On the other hand, I was a little bit disappointed by the puzzles relating to ガーデンブルグ, the all-female castle. The entrance is blocked by rocks and you have to use the マグマの杖 to clear the path. Getting that item was sort of a big deal since it required clearing a significant story moment, but I just took the item to be a cool weapon to use for combat. As far as I could tell there was no NPC dialogue hinting at its relationship to the road block (though I'm sure there must have been, somewhere). Instead my brain literally just handed me the answer, as if a ghost of my past was tired of me making no progress and unlocked the memory. But because I didn't figure it out through language or logic I felt a bit disappointed. And then further into ガーデンブルグ's puzzles, I made a stupid blunder after confronting the NPC who framed us for theft. When you talk to him he does a funny walk out of his room to avoid the player, but I thought it was the kind of cutscene where I had no control, so I just watched him leave over and over, trying to mimic his movement after him thinking maybe his special walk pattern let him enter another space I couldn't normally access. Well, as it turns out, you can just walk while he's walking, and if you block the door he's forced to confront you. Maybe my misunderstanding and eventual discovery was the game design intent, but I felt sort of dumb for it and it wasn't very satisfying when I finally figured it out.

Since my play through has been fairly smooth without much grinding at all, the boss fights have all been really tough and engaging. I beat キングレオ by the skin of my teeth on a second attempt, and I managed to take out エスターク after two party members died. I find it interesting how, given a lack of a party heal, it's sometimes easier to upkeep a party with a smaller size.

Also crossing the body of water to get into デスパレス is so cool. I love the dungeon that is just a humongous walking statue. What a great idea.