The Dragon Quest Thread

[A user named cat]

I've yet to ever finish a DQ game despite playing most of the entires now, even quit on the fancy DQ V remake for PS2. Always seems like at around the 3/4 point, each game starts to become a complete drag and overly easy. Especially the ones with overpowered casino equipment. At that point, all the random encounters and dungeons just start feeling like a chore and the games offer little else to will you forward since all the plots and characters are totally forgettable. The series is basically just one big pointless tease, holding your interest for just long enough to make you question why you were ever interested in the first place, then making you hate yourself for wasting all those hours only to move on and try the next game like a masochistic retard.

 

[Jasede]

I only ever managed to finish one and I agree with you on most counts. The one I finished was DQ6 on the SNES.

I tried all the fancy remakes too, but it's just too much fighting, too slowly.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think what kept me hooked on the first game was curiosity about what I could find by exploring- the path was basically left up to me to find so finding a new town or cave on the world map was interesting, finding the bottom/exits to those caves was interesting, etc. The second game seemed to have a lot of that too, albeit with more plot to guide me along as well, not that I got terribly far. If the later games in the series don't have that aspect I don't imagine I'd want to bother playing them; I'd keep comparing them to games like Chrono Trigger or FF5 or Lufia 2 that offer much better gameplay and exploration incentives.

 

[Hyperion]

I've yet to ever finish a DQ game despite playing most of the entires now, even quit on the fancy DQ V remake for PS2. Always seems like at around the 3/4 point, each game starts to become a complete drag and overly easy. Especially the ones with overpowered casino equipment. At that point, all the random encounters and dungeons just start feeling like a chore and the games offer little else to will you forward since all the plots and characters are totally forgettable. The series is basically just one big pointless tease, holding your interest for just long enough to make you question why you were ever interested in the first place, then making you hate yourself for wasting all those hours only to move on and try the next game like a masochistic retard.

They also have a habit of not telling you the complete story until you actually finish the (usually) grueling postgame. This is either a plus, or a negative depending how rabid a fan you are.

VIII did a very good job on its difficulty curve and pacing until shortly after killing Dhoulmagus and the 2nd half of the game started. On the plus side, it did a good job of opening up the game, such as being able to go to Dragon's Graveyard which was TOUGH if you go ASAP, and then the fabled Casino of course opens up. With the exploration, so too did a lot of the Alchemy Pot recipes which made hunting, gathering, and guessing (aka Googling) fun. Unfortunately, once you hit the Pirate boss or so, every boss became the same shit - buff defense and agility, attack until your stats get reverted, heal when needed, rinse and repeat.

VII had a great mystery around the pedestals, you never knew where you would end up next. Besieged by killer robots? A mysterious bard luring people away from towns? A fire 'God' who is going to cause a volcano to erupt and wipe out the entire continent? Oh, you killed the Mayor's pet at the request of the villagers, instead of helping it run away? Sorry, you fucked up and now that town is permanently destroyed. VII's main issue was that if you grind too much, too soon it makes the game a bore (especially if Hero and Gabo both have Sword Dance). Overall, it was well paced, but it could get repetitive if you didn't like the whole "save a continent in the past, search it out in the present" theme. Who knows, maybe the slightly more forgiving, casual changes will make the game more palatable for those who can't finish the often overly long games.

 

[aweigh]

eric__s

i hate to be that guy but (ok, no i don't, i love it)-- if you're playing the remake of DQ7 you actually are straight up not allowed to talk about its class system as the remake completely gutted DQ7's majestic and most-complex-and-deep-classing-in-any-DQ.

everything you espoused liking about dq7-remake's classing will make any player of the original knee-jerk post to you to immediately stop playing it and play the original as it is everything you mentioned liking except better, with incredibly important differences that make the classing in DQ7 much more complex and dynamic as the Skill-restrictions from the remake are not in the real DQ7 game and there is actually a LOT LESS GRINDING and A LOT MORE CLASSING in real DQ7 than in the remake.

oh yeah, and they also removed around 25-30% of the game's actual content, up to and including everything from story and character development, untold reams of dialog that when not crucial or plot-relevant always fun and legitimately great to read and play through-- all that good stuff was cut in the remake.

oh, and they removed or simply dumbed down (i.e. if original puzzle required x y and z things to do, in the remake it only requires x and maybe y thing to go, and there is an NPC added onto the dungeon floor the puzzle is located who will tell you exactly what to do-- and no, this is not a good example of mainstreaming design, it is what it says on the tin: outright excising of actually good game content).

BTW DID I MENTION THEY DUMBED DOWN THE CLASS SYSTEM

 

[aweigh]

ALSO THEY CUT DOWN THE STATS ON ALMOST ALL ENEMIES OT MAKE THEM EASIER AND BLAH BLAH BLAH

GLAD YOU'RE ENJOYING DQ 7 m8
<(' '<)

 

[eric__s]

I'm playing the original. The remake's not out yet.

 

[aweigh]

<(. .)>

 

[eric__s]

BUT as I'm playing, I'm seeing some pretty serious fault lines in the class system that I just didn't notice before. The first class that I made everybody was mage, because I've always found mages to be tedious and figured I'd get it out of the way. This was a huge mistake. Arming everyone in my group with blazemore has demolished any need for strategy or party planning. I've bombarded every boss battle or difficult fight so far with blazemore regardless of my characters' current roles because nothing else is nearly as powerful. Things will change as I get access to new classes and skills, but I haven't seen any serious challenges because I'm too powerful.

This underlines the serious issues with balance that transferring skills create and has opened me up to the idea of classes serving as temporary roles and stepping stones to better classes rather than an interchangeable smorgasbord of skills I get to keep forever. I like the original DQ7 system but it allowed me to immediately become too powerful. I want to see how the remake does it and if it's a better solution. Skills not transferring might not be horrible so long as your level doesn't go down to 1 in DQ9 and mastering classes can still lead to something meaningful and new.

 

[eric__s]

I just got to disc 2 and it's been 48 hours. It really doesn't feel like I've got another 70 to go. Is there really that much left?

 

[newtmonkey]

What's the consensus on the original 3? I want to play 3, but I've heard that I'd appreciate it more if I played 1 and 2 first, which I know little about. I've heard nothing but bad things about 2, but they were pretty nonspecific so I don't actually know what's about about it. What are the best versions of these games to play?

No spoilers please!

I would suggest playing all 3 on NES (not famicom ver as 1&2 use password saves), as the remakes screw with the balance and make them too easy...

DQ1
I replayed this recently. It's got a cool atmosphere and the first few hours are fun if you challenge yourself to get as far as possible without grinding levels/gold. However you will reach a couple points in the game where you simply aren't strong enough to explore any further, and you will have no choice but to spend an hour or two grinding.

Spoiler

The two parts I got stuck at were right before you have to get the ultimate armor in the ruined town, and then the first before the last boss.

This is because there is no tactical aspect to combat whatsoever, since battles are always 1 on 1 and it basically comes down to whittling away HPs until one side falls. You have some protective spells but they have a pretty high chance of failure and are seldom worth using. I would skip this one, though you can get through it in only a couple nights of playing.

DQ2
This is totally awesome and worth playing. I usually play through it once every 1 or 2 years. You build up a small party and fight groups of monsters, so it already offers more tactics and strategy (resource management) that the first game. It's linear for about half the game but the difficult is set just perfectly. If you pay attention to resources and how enemies behave, you can get through the entire game up until the very last part without grinding at all (this is even with running away from dangerous/annoying enemies). Halfway through you get a ship and the game opens up into a nonlinear treasure hunt that reminded me a bit of the older Ultima games.

The maps are actually all block-based (each block is made of 4 tiles) and are easy to map on graph paper.

Along with Final Fantasy I and Mother, this is the best RPG on the Famicom/NES as far as I am concerned.

DQ3
Can't say much about this as I have only fooled around with it for a few hours. From what I remember it's basically DQ2 but with more of everything and the ability to make your own party.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Playing through the DQ5 PS2 remake; it's charming and the music is great, but the pace is really slow and the random battle rate is through the roof.

 

[aweigh]

eric__s

as great as DQ7 is remember that you are playing a a super mainstream JRPG made by the house of the undisputed and inarguably biggest and longest selling JRPG franchises in the entire world. JRPG's are made to sell copies, and that means that the game must be easy enough to be finished by even a first-time video game player. What you are playing is not a "real RPG", and I don't mean that in the sense of it lacking bullshit Codex-style C&C (C&C is detrimental to true RPG gameplay, as evidenced by Wizardry); rather I mean that the one and only and primary purpose of the dev team behind DQ7 is to make a JRPG that will sell units and that means that while they absolutely injected depth and complexity into their game, it also means they made DAMN sure that the game was EASY and something like "class balance" is not something japanese RPG game-makers take into consideration when making a mainstream wide-release console game.

this does not mean that a JRPG lacks complexity or depth or maturiy, not at all, but it does mean that issues of class balance, and overpowered abilities to be more specific, are not only commonplace in JRPG's I also believe it is an intentional design decision in many ways.

JRPGs are not designed and created with "balance" in mind. The criteria to meet is: story, characters, graphics, and in last and distant place the mechanical systems. Issues such as "balancing" are not a thing in japanese RPG game-making.

 

[Siveon]

I would suggest playing all 3 on NES (not famicom ver as 1&2 use password saves), as the remakes screw with the balance and make them too easy...

You say that, but then you complain that in 1 you need to do 1 or 2 hours of grinding. I think if the exploration is kept the same, most of the remakes are fine enough on its own. For example, I played the GB and Mobile versions of DQ2 and I agree with everything you said about the game. Most DQ games are mostly centered around attrition rather than straight up difficult fights anyway. I think it's when they start straight up replacing/removing content is where it begins to get out of hand.

from the remake are not in the real DQ7 game and there is actually a LOT LESS GRINDING and A LOT MORE CLASSING in real DQ7 than in the remake.

How would you know that?

 

[aweigh]

Siveon

from reading first-hand posts/descriptions detailing the remake's new "features" from fawning fans who are playing it for the first time in the 3DS remake, and then afterwards immediately reading the (usually) one or two lonely souls who reply to them that they are missing out on X, Y and Z and that the remake removed X, Y and Z, so forth and so on.

Websites that I utilize for this sort of thing:

- GameFAQs.com
- RPGFan.com
- RPGWatch.com
- Kotaku.com
- Official "Game Website(s)" and their forum, if it has one.
- Reddit.com

etc.

But to answer your question specifically: it is a logical assumption because the 3DS remake removed the ability to carry over skills from a previous class (when Mastered, in the original); instead the 3DS remake utilizes a system where you have to grind repeated battles versus rare enemy types that have a low probability of dropping special "hearts" that allow the character to consume the heart and gain one (1) skill from a previous Class.

As you can see... the casualization, dumbing-down and downright neutering and obliteration of every single facet that made the original DQ7 a master-class in JRPG game-making now a completely forgettable casual piece of dumbed-down shit on the 3DS is something that is easily gleaned from reading only 1 or 2 forum posts that detail the changes + the poster's first-hand account of their 3DS play time.



EDIT: Also, concerning the DQ remakes...

- the remakes for the Game Boy are just fine and absolutely worthy of being an acceptable replacement to the NES/SNES DQ's.
- (again, making a logical assumption) this is because at the time the GB DQ remakes were made for multiple reasons and whatnot the focus was not on making the games able to be finished by even a first-time video-game player, therefore that means that the dev teams making the GB remakes of these DQ games did not shoulder the burden of having to dumb down the games and instead were allowed to make the best job possible in porting and remaking the games themselves.
- the NDS/3DS remakes however stand in direct contrast to the GB/GBA remakes because, for whatever multiple reasons and whatnot, the focus was on making DAMN sure each game sold as many units as humanly possible. This meant that the dev teams making the remakes on the NDS/3DS had as their number 1 priority making sure that the remakes were dumbed down, casualized, and neutered in order for them to be palatable to the unwashed masses and mouth-breathers since in order to sell a game you have to make it appeal to stupid people.

(that last point about selling games is also applicable to everything in the realms of art and craft, btw. complexity and depth are anathema to the masses, whereas instant gratification and the removal of all subtext and extrapolation is the best way to make sure something has wide appeal.)

 

[Hitoshura]

DQ4 is easier on NDS than NES? I own and played both to completion and I do not recall the NDS version to be easier with the notable exception that the rest of the party in Chapter V are not AI controlled anymore. While the idea that you are the hero in the game and should only control yourself makes sense thematically, it doesn't really work well within the game. The fact that Cristo attempts to cast Beat/Defeat on a boss is funny... but this one gets old very fast.

 

[aweigh]

Hitoshura

dude, are you feeling alright? for a moment there i was reading your post and thought you might have been suffering a stroke when you typed that. I have also played DQ 4 on nes and also on game boy and also on PS1 and also on NDS.

dq 4 is casualized, neutered, dumbed-down super-easy bullshit. Ok, sorry, that's hyperbolic. I mean simply that dq 4 on NDS is a remake that features worse graphics than the original NES verison, or the superior game boy verisons, and to top it off made the game twice as easy because they cut down by almost half all enemy stats and they also lowered EXP required for levelling and they also added the Item Bag, which that alone makes the remake(s) dumbed-down enough for anyone.

in any case, in the end all that matters is that people played and enjyoed the games themselves, i suppose. but just so we're clear: you're dead wrong about this and *all* DQ remakes are intentionally casualized and made much, much easier by the devs. This is not me being hyperbolic this time, this is part of the remake's intent of design. Modern-day "gamers" cannot play any video game that features the tiniest bit of challenge.

EDIT: there are so many things to talk about when talking about the DQ remakes but i will simply finish with an example of the NDS version of DQ 4 where during Alena's chapter (chapter 2) there is an NPC in the gladiator arena that has dialog which says something like "IF I WERE YOU I WOULD SAVE UP GP AND BUY THE CHAIN SICKLE THEY SELL AT THE STORE HERE!!! I HEAR THAT WITH THIS WEAPON YOU CAN'T LOSE!!!".

that is the level of casualization prevalent in the DQ remakes: a level where the remake devs felt the need to go out of their way to change NPC dialog in order to tell the player to buy the best possible weapon before heading to a fight. UGH.

 

[Great Deceiver]

aweigh, Would you say the DQ5 remake on the PS2 is also casualized?

 

[eric__s]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HB8b1I2NQA&t=1m15s

 

[aweigh]

Great Deceiver

I don't think it was casualized since it was never made for release outside of japan, and even inside japan it was meant to be a "unique" remake since it is the DQ series' creator's favorite DQ game out of all of them. Supposedly this amounts to them not lowering the "difficulty" (i.e. all of the various things that constitute difficulty in a JRPG) since they, 1) huge unit sales of the remake were not their #1 priority due to not having to spend money localizing it for release outside of japan (this is the single biggest money-sink when it comes to an RPG); and 2) since, again supposedly, this remake of dq5 was supposed to be a "love letter" to the game in honor of the series creator's love for it one assumes that they didn't make any big changes to it.

now, from my own anecdotal experience playing the ps2 remake I will state for now that no, it was not dumbed down in any way i can think of. It has been a number of years since i finished the fan-translation of the original dq5 on snes-emulator and everything that i remember doing and battling in the snes version i have so far done as well in the ps2 remake's fan-translation.

however there is one thing that is wildly different: the speed of the game. due to the extra 3d/polygonal animations in the ps2 remake of dq5, combined w/ the fact that the ps2 remake of the game is locked at 30fps in-game (you can run it at 60fps in your ps2 emulator, but it'll still be 30fps in-game) plus combined with the fact that for whatever reason I cannot imagine the ps2 remake is simply slower in everything you can quantify such as:

- speed of menu access
- walking speed
- text scrolling speed
- the aforementioned additional animations
- etc, etc, etc

we end up with the undeniable fact that an already slow-paced DQ game (dq5), is made even slower than ever. Half the time i'm playing the ps2 remake (i play it on and off whenever i need a break from dungeon crawlers) i'm in awe of the love and tender loving care that the remake dev team put into this version of the game, and everything from the beautiful graphics to the amazing orchestral soundtrack really brings home the fact that this is undeniably the best presentation of dq5 you will ever find; however the other half of the time i spend wishing i could walk as fast as i could in the snes version because, y'know, i already did all of this shit before except now i have to do it again but slower.

i am a huge, huge proponent of speedy gameplay in RPGs, be they JRPGs or CRPGs or DRPGs or any RPGs. In fact, slow conflict resolution and slow menu interaction and stuff like that can make me stop playing an RPG altogether, and it is one of the reasons I don't have in my to-play queue the (by all accounts) brilliant ps2 Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land, just to give one textbook example.

 

[Keldryn]

Did anyone else pick up DQ VII today?

 

[Siveon]

Nope. Picking up games day 1 is a waste of dough.

Regardless of the fact that 3DS games almost never go down in price and the fact that I'm broke. Yup. Regardless.

 

[Hirato]

Did anyone else pick up DQ VII today?

Not yet, but I'm currently playing MH X, so I might leave that for Thursday.

 

[Keldryn]

Only place I could get it locally was EB. Tried Wal-Mart on the way to the train thus morning (as they're the only place that carries video games open at 8am). They don't carry it in store. Same with Best Buy. Toys R Us didn't even have it in the web site.

They all carry Fire Emblem: Fates and Bravely Second (didn't even know that was out). Why not Dragon Quest? It's not like it's from some obscure publisher -- I think Nintendo took on publishing duties.

I don't usually buy day one games anymore, but I've been wanting this one for a while now. Also wanted something new for my 3DS.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

*in faggot voice*

it's Dragon Quest 7 time boys. What do you mean SMT4: Apocalypse? I'm gonna play the homo game instead