Squeenix Dragon Quest

[aweigh]

Great Deceiver, trust me, DQ7's worth your time.

dq 7 is fucking long. it is also one of the most supremely beautiful (not graphics-wise, but thematically and philosophically) jrpg's i've ever played. the art of story telling and nuanced character development, both in the gameplay sense and in the literal sense, are alive and well in dq 7. while the game by no means features C and C of the sort we nowadays expect in western RPG games there is however a threaded narrative that, among many other themes and concepts is completely about the fact that every single action you take has a completely unpredictable consequence and the game's slow burn allows the player to nurture the admittedly gigantic investment asked of them by the game; the reward is complete and the game never breaks the authorial contract it forged with the player from the very start by seeing every single one of its themes, every single one of its characters, and every single pixel of its larger-than-planet-9 world fully realize a mature and terrifyingly complete narrative arc.

i shed weeabo tears during the final, mid-credits scene... only rpg j or otherwise that's ever wrung a tear out of me. btw, the first time i finished it it was on ps1 and the game clock read 167 hours and some minutes :D

and nope, i did not do a single sidequest whatsoever!

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've been playing DQ7 tonight and damn, the first fight comes after 2 hours of puzzles - that was certainly unexpected, haha. Usually DQ games are just pretty mindless grinding fun, this is definitely different. Is the entire game like this, a balance between fighting and puzzles?

 

[aweigh]

pretty much. dq 7 is the wiz 4 of the dq series basically... i don't even know how to describe the overall experience of dq7. yes, it is a dq game, no more and no less; it's also the only dq game that punches so far upwards that it transcends its DQ-ness. it's a legitimate masterstroke as far as the JRPG is concerned and if you stick with it for the entire 100+ hours the game will ask of you when you're done you're gonna feel like how one feels when we close the last chapter on the final volume of some decade-long book series we've been reading since we were teenagers. man, the entire game is one continual slow burn of thoughtful narrative and expertly executed characterizations. it's one of the few games that carries with it every single little detail it brings up and it never insults the players intelligence.

i won't go so far as to say it is a philosophical game but instead i would say it's a game about growing pains, adventure, faery-tale mystery and the unknown, time-travel, friendship, love, sailing, yes, lots of fucking sailing, and a IMO the best implementation of the DQ class system. i don't like what they turned the class system into with dq 8 and 9, and i find the implementation in dq 7 to be the perfect mix of old and new in terms of approaching multi-classing. the best thing i can say is the game isn't a one trick pony (unlike a few of the other DQ games). it's fairly obvious why they went hollywood with dq 8 after dq 7; dq 7 tanked kinda badly. dem japs didn't want to read all that shit lewl.

tl;dr it's the only dq game that achieves to be more than just a DQ.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I thought DQ7 was a huge success in Japan? I remember millions of copies being sold in the first month and perfect scores on weeaboo rags like Famitsu.

 

[Siveon]

dq 7 tanked kinda badly.

Says who?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2001/04/06/dragon-quest-vii-reaches-quadruple-platinum

 

[Stabwound]

DQ7 is equal parts awesome and flawed to me. The biggest flaw to me is actually the length, I put in a good 80+ hours twice since it came out and I don't think I ever came close to finishing it. Obviously you can't complain about games having "too much" content, but DQ7 kind of drags.

The second flaw to me is the job system. You basically HAVE to use a walkthrough guide to know how to unlock certain classes and skills or it will take you an absolute eternity to get anywhere with it. Second of all, many of the jobs just suck, and some of them are way better than others.

Supposedly the remake fixes the job system flaws and who knows what else, but it may never come to non-moonspeakers.

 

[aweigh]

hehe that's what i liked most about dq7's class system: it's for grown-ups. herpderp. none of that decline skill points flowchart classes bullshit from dq8 and 9... u better grind boyyyeeee.

besides everyone around here knows by now that balance != fun (PoE)

part of the fun is powergaming which classes are better and then optimizing them. to be fair though i legit say there is NO useless class.

edit: and it doesn't take an eternity to level up classes, btw, you see they use the old DQ system of a set amount of encounter victories in order to progress to the next class level which is orders of magnitude better than the horrible decline shit of drip-fed trickle-down skill-points. at least when you reach the amount of victories you get a tangible, usually MASSIVE reward in the form of a super-saiyan new class level or whatever whereas in dq 8 and dq 9 (and all those other games with drip-feed skill point systems) you spend the SAME AMOUNT OF TIME "Grinding" and leveling up so that you can finally accumulate enough skill points to unlock shield bash, which once you put enough points into it you it then unlocks the one you REALLY want... etc. that is way worse than having concrete rewards for your hard work (killing mobs).

 

[TigerKnee]

Supposedly the remake fixes the job system flaws and who knows what else, but it may never come to non-moonspeakers.

Out of the loop a bit? They announced a localization so it should be coming unless something unexpected happens

 

[aweigh]

i expect they'll turn down the difficulty way down, lower the encounter rate, halve enemy stats, yadda yadda yadda. the same shit they did with the dq 4/5/6 NDS remakes; implemented obsidian's story time mode.

 

[flyingjohn]

i expect they'll turn down the difficulty way down, lower the encounter rate, halve enemy stats, yadda yadda yadda. the same shit they did with the dq 4/5/6 NDS remakes; implemented obsidian's story time mode.

If you are interested a user on gamefaq lists most of the changes:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/688276-dragon-quest-vii-fragments-of-the-forgotten-past/69380016
I have no idea if they are bad or good considering i never played vii,but i would love to hear your opinions if the changes to the class system are incline or decline.
Considering the length of the game,if i ever play vii i will probably play only version.

 

[aweigh]

well i kind of already said my opinion on the current state of DQ's class system mate. read above. skill points are the decline a la diablo skill trees.

 

[aweigh]

Hybrid skills and "maturation" status are gone

-- sigh. absolutely no reason for this. less options for the player now.

A secret character...[REDACTED] rejoins in the post game

-- WOW. WOW. They completely neutered the game's final act, the ending and epilogue and destroyed that character's narrative arc all in one fell swoop. what a fucking bad decision... i don't really care all that much about the mechanics but for god's sake don't mess up the authorial contract the original game has with the player...

Human classes have had their job point requirements cut by 1/2 to 1/3 depending

-- ...stupid. stupid and shitty. it's not like the game is even that complicated; now it'll just be one-button-to-win the entire game more than ever before.

Roughly 1/2 of all skills and spells are now only usable with the classes they were learned in. This holds true for Human classes (I have seen no confirmation on monster classes). Most to all (not positive) of human skills/spells that are fixed to a particular class, can become universally usable if relearned by a monster class that knows the same skill. So if you want your skills/spells universally useful, gotta ca..I mean learn all of them monster classes. The monster classes are the same as before, as are the tiers, so just farm the base hearts.

-- so they completely killed what i liked about dq7's class system: its versatility and endless hybrdization. they turned it into a lite version of the class systems in dq8 and dq9 which are mediocre, boring and treat the player like they were an infant.

Battles take place in standard 1st person when actions are being selected, and switches to a 3rd person isometric view that shifts the camera depending on the action to make it more cinematic. Very different cinematic feel than 8's and 9's camera movement.

-- personal preference but SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. DQ = first person combat. I hated the change in 8 and 9 and see absolutely no need for dumb animations.

Many shops have been altered and "rebalanced".

-- ROOFLES

Some minor tweaks to certain armour resistance bonuses...very minor, a +5 here, a -5 there....stuff like that.

-- ROOFLESSSS

The beginning was streamlined, as with all DQ's, especially 6's remake. Sadly, this means the puzzle elements of the Temple are either removed or dumbed down to such a point as to be...well, subtle puzzle-look-alikes.

-- kill this remake with fire. UGH.

 

[Stabwound]

Wow, that's pretty disappointing. Not sure why they couldn't just do a straight-up modernized remake and iron out the rough spots, which is really all it needed. The remakes all really declined the games, which is a shame. This DQ7 remake sounds like it really makes it shitty.

I do have a soft spot for DQ7, and it really is a great game despite the flaws. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the job system, which I was never that fond of because of what I mentioned. I forgot about the fact that it takes a good 20+ hours before you even unlock the ability to change jobs, which also sucks a lot.

Some year I'll maybe make an effort to complete the game, but something about it makes me really burn out around the end of the first disc. I tried when it first game out and then about 12 years later and I still didn't manage to do it.

 

[Perkel]

Playing currently Dragon Quest Builders on Vita. Without henkaku hack don't bother with Vita release (i had to OC vita cpu from 222 to 444mhz and gpu from 111 to 222mhz to play at clunky 30fps)

Pretty fun. I was doubtful that this will be again Minecraft early access clone but this feels more like mish mash between DQ and Minecraft rather than minecraft clone. And it feels polished and finished.

Main gist of it is that you have small patch of land where you build really small town and various NPCs are joining that city which will progress story and give you quest. In between various quests there are monster waves that can raze your city.

Seems simple but a lot of good polish was put into it and quests seems a lot more fun that in most of DQ games. Yeah they are mainly about new stuff to town but due to exploration and a lot of quirky DQ stuff they are fun.

Combat is simple button mash with some special skill.

I am yet finish chapter 1 so i can't properly say it is good or not but so far it seems fun.

 

[The Decline]

Seems pretty good from the PS4 demo I played. Ordered a copy.

 

[Doktor Best]

Currently playing Dragon Warrior 4 NES version. Its fun so far (chapter 2), but one thing is really bugging me. As soon as you stop walking, the status window plops up automatically, making you unable to give any control input for like almost a second. This is clunky as hell and greatly disturbing the game flow...

I dont wanna play the dumbed down DS version. Is there any way to get rid of this problem?

 

[Eggs is eggs]

Hack your NES rom

 

[Doktor Best]

Hack your NES rom

I'm not a hackerman. Guess i'll live with it.

 

[grimace]

https://dragonquest.square-enix-games.com/tact/en-us/

With over 10 million downloads in Japan, DRAGON QUEST TACT finally comes to the West!
DRAGON QUEST TACT is a free to play mobile tactical RPG coming soon to Android & iOS!

Befriend, collect, and train iconic DRAGON QUEST monsters to charge forth to epic battles!

Maybe we'll see a port of Tact to Nintendo Switch.

 

[OracleX]

Now lets see if they bring DQ Walk over too