Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level (Tough Going) Part 1: Golem & Crabble-Rouser

While I still need to stop procrastinating on completing the popular Dragon Quest XI Low Level run I started 6 years ago, which features nearly 40 videos (link here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list..., ever since Dragon Quest VII Reimagined came out I haven't been able to resist - I played around with the game, ogling any opportunity for a multi-restriction low level playthrough and started a couple runs of that nature, testing the waters. I attempted something I didn't even entertain doing on DQ XI low level run, which is killing off all non-Kiefer party members before each battle is over to see what would happen. Obviously, with time the MC and Maribel would remain at lv. 1 and be utterly worthless in combat, Kiefer leaving the party after hogging all the boss exp, and there would be no vocation progression going on. It's almost certain that the party would be too impotent to keep fighting very soon in such a run. So, let's establish the ruleset, shall we? Low Level / Mandatory Battles Only This should be a familiar restriction to frequent visitors of my channels. Levels are kept low not only thanks to the Tough Going difficulty choice but also because we abstain from all non-essential experience gain. I do not, however, kill anybody off to maintain an even lower party average with lv. 1 party members, so as to avoid putting myself in the corner early in the challenge - we want this thing to continue after all. Tough Going / Hard Mode / Draconian Difficulty Whatever you want to call it. The default settings include -20% damage dealt by the party, -30% exp gained after battles, -20% job exp gained, -30% gold dropped, +25% monster damage. Tough Going also includes Monsters Attack, i.e. they aggro you on the field, and Don't Restore HP after battle, but I will frequenly toggle off the former to navigate the dungeons much more easily and painlessly - after all, I can't fight any non-mandatory battles. As this game has been reported to be too easy on Normal difficulty, Tough Going seems like a must for any run, and us mixing it with Mandatory Battles Only creates a distinct difficulty mode the game didn't quite intend. DLC Items Allowed They're mostly only a factor early on; see my description of the battles below for more specifics. 0:00 Golem The first mandatory battle I bothered to record, Tribulators and the Slimes not being worthwhile recordings in my book. I tried doing the fight without any DLC gear, Maribel becoming OHKOable by any attack at her base level of one, and the strategy quickly deteriorated to Kiefer, with max 6 MP, getting fed Single Phials to use his Flame Slash skill when pepped up. This led to a 20-minute long battle, by the end of which I had run out of most of my valuable resources, emerging with very little gold to speak of at the end. Unsustainable and incredibly tedious. Now, permitting the DLC items changes the way the fight unfolds very much. Everyone gets a great unique weapon for free, though the MC (sometimes known as Auster) deals about a half of Kiefer's damage with the slime boomerang he gets. Maribel gets a sizeable boost to her Frizz spell and should use them whenever she's pepped up. The real treasure, however, lies in the slime stick that Maribel has equipped. It will generally summon a slime to attack the boss, matching the damage Kiefer deals with a regular physical blow, but occasionally - and frequently enough to matter, it will deal 8x-10x the damage by summoning a king slime instead. This makes Maribel easily the strongest member of the party offensively in this strat. Kiefer can still use Flame Slash, running out of MP in 3 actions, which is the number of actions it gets in pepped up state, so he should be using Flame Slash at this particular moment to benefit from bonus attack power and crit rate. Auster, meanwhile, should heal and use Ocean's Devotion Let Loose skill that his default vocation gets - it's an incredibly useful one that will be considered in much later battles to come. The DLC shield we get lets Maribel take any hit from the boss now, and it's Auster who's the strongest defensively, compensating for lower max HP than Kiefer. 05:02 Crabble-Rouser Everyone is lv. 3 now, Maribel having leapt two levels. We stick to the same strategy as before, and the only difference is that the boss is more defensive, not threatening the party anywhere as much as Golem, but sometimes taking a defensive stance, which seems to cause attacks targeting it to miss more often than not, which does include even the king slime's attack. I successfully preserve my resources here. 10:15 Maeve You won't believe it, but you can actually Flee from this battle and avoid everything, the exp gain included, entirely! It's not worth recording or even fighting either, as the boss has very little HP and doesn't even provide enough exp for anyone to level up. She doesn't seem to do anything dangerous either.