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Something else to note is that up until DQ4 (maybe 5), not counting remakes, the only ways to restore your MP are inns or an item that can break after one use just as easily as it would after ten (Wizard's/Prayer Ring). To put it another way, Dragon Quest games tend to teach you how to best squeeze every last bit of MP out of your characters in order to get through areas without being overlevelled. On that note, one of the reasons that the later parts of DQ3 and later DQ games are much more manageable than those of DQ2 is because of items/skills like the Sage's Stone and Hustle Dance, which provide free multitarget healing with each use and can be used as often as you want. Given that the later areas of those games tend to have monsters that freely toss out party-wide damage, at times via abilities they can use infinitely... well, you get the idea.
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Apr 16, 2011 03:33
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Ghost of Orbo posted:I grew up on Final Fantasy, and up until 15 minutes ago, I had never played any Dragon Quest games. If you're used to Final Fantasy games then it might seem difficult. You actually have to strategize a bit and not just spam your most powerful attack/spell/limit break over and over again. Buffs and debuffs are really important against bosses. Status spells like sleep, dazzle, etc. are extremely powerful against any non-boss enemy that seems too tough.
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Apr 16, 2011 03:42
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Really, there's two important things to remember about the NES-era Dragon Quests over the more modern Final Fantasy-style jRPGs. The first: it's more about the journey than the destination. Which sounds like some silly philosophy, but I mean more, the games are balanced such that it's an endurance push rather than focused on difficult boss encounters. You need to manage your items and MP to get through and out of dungeons intact, as individual fights generally aren't a big risk but you'll be slowly worn down, and it's difficult to recover from a party member death. The endbosses are still difficult fights mind you, and 4 has several tough boss fights scattered throughout, but they aren't really the main challenge. The second: it doesn't really matter if you die. There's no game over. You lose half your gold, but keep all the items and experience you got in the meanwhile. The gold thing's a bit painful, but there's ways to mitigate it (the bank, simply spending it on new stuff, etc.) and it's generally a minor problem. Don't be afraid to venture out into unfamiliar places, or push the limits of what you think the party can do.
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Apr 16, 2011 04:15
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Not losing your progress when you die is such a great feature, I don't know why so few RPGs follow that model even today. I've reached the point where if I die in an RPG and lose more than about 10 minutes of progress, I turn it off and never go back.
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Apr 16, 2011 05:18
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Adam Bowen posted:Not losing your progress when you die is such a great feature, I don't know why so few RPGs follow that model even today. I've reached the point where if I die in an RPG and lose more than about 10 minutes of progress, I turn it off and never go back. loving this. It took me a while to adjust to what Dragon Quest was doing, but once I got used to it I have roughly rage quit any RPG that threw me back even thirty minutes of progress after a wipe. It isn't so much a matter of time, just tedium. In the case of Dragon Quest if I died I was probably under prepared. The game literally puts you back in town, exactly where you want to be, and any treasures remain found, so you can just B line it to where you left off. In the case of roughly everything else if I die it is likely for the same reasons, but I am A) either not where I need to be to address that, or B) have to repeat EVERYTHING up to that point. One feels natural and coherent. The other just is basically backward no matter how you look at it, short of the gimmick boss that is easy when you know the gimmick, but otherwise impossible, and that is just a matter of game design. Don't stick those bosses anywhere but somewhere immediately accessible. For example, the Khalimari fight in DQIX. The "gimmick' is to basically defend on the first turn to avoid the fire breath attack. It wasn't a dungeon boss. There is no "progress" to recover. You are placed back in town where you technically initiate the fight from, and you don't even have to deal with all of the dialog/cutscenes that were immediately before the fight. Maybe a quick line or two to the effect of "Here it comes again". So, yeah. Frequent saves, or even quick saves might be great, but even something like Morrowind could benefit from the DQ style of dealing with "death".
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Apr 16, 2011 20:40
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Just to let anyone who is interested know, Amazon appears to be stocking DQV again! $40, but thats cheaper than I've seen it almost anywhere else USED (when I even HAVE seen it), so its still a bargain.
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Apr 27, 2011 21:00
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Oh finally, that's like half the price.
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Apr 28, 2011 00:43
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Hold off on buying it for 2 hours. Quoting Amazon's daily deal page (it's #4): Upcoming Deal The second installment in the Zenithia Trilogy for your NDS
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Apr 28, 2011 19:45
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Syrg Sapphire posted:Hold off on buying it for 2 hours. Quoting Amazon's daily deal page (it's #4): DQ5 is up there now for half off ($20).
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Apr 28, 2011 22:04
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Just picked it up, there are three hours left on the promotion. Because the original price is >$25 it gets free shipping too. $19.99 new and shipped? 
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Apr 28, 2011 22:21
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drat, they want me to pay shipping plus import fees that are nearly double the discounted price, oh well. drat you, Americans for getting such a great deal. I wonder if they started reprinting DQV or if someone found a bunch of them stashed on some warehouse.
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Apr 28, 2011 22:39
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Hope you guys who needed one got a copy, it's all sold out prematurely.
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Apr 29, 2011 00:16
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Chronojam posted:Hope you guys who needed one got a copy, it's all sold out prematurely. I was so close. 
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Apr 29, 2011 01:28
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I got a copy of DQV but never played DQIV which I gather is part 1. Is this going to matter?
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Apr 30, 2011 20:42
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Endless Mike posted:I got a copy of DQV but never played DQIV which I gather is part 1. Is this going to matter? They call it a trilogy, but it isn't really. The stories in IV, V, and VI are all self contained and only vaguely related. You'll be fine.
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Apr 30, 2011 20:43
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I picked up Dragon Quest 9 the last time Gamestop had a sale, and I'm loving it. Usually I hate JRPGs, but this is really sucking me in. I think because it doesn't take itself seriously, i.e. Jack of Alltrades, Jona and the whale...it must have been fun as hell to translate. A couple questions: I just opened up the DQVC. Do items still change daily? And the downloaded quests, those will just show up as questgivers in towns, right? And since there's so much to it, is there a New Game+, or do I just try to finish it out before the end, and if so is there a point of no return? Finally, if I want to try the others, should I go from the beginning or work my way backwards? I know they're only loosely connected, but I want to know if there are mechanics I'll get used to in the newer ones that will frustrate me by not being in the older ones.
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May 4, 2011 18:53
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What I do when I find myself interested in an old series is to start from the beginning, and give each game a few minutes to see if I can handle it or not. I think all of the DQ games are still pretty playable today, but I'm sure there are people out there who would say the same thing about the first Wizardry game from 1981, so it's all a matter of perspective. Really, any of the DS remakes or DQ8 on the PS2 should be modern enough for most people to enjoy them. DQ9 represented the biggest change in the mechanics of the games of the entire series, so you might find any of the older games a bit rough around the edges by comparison.
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May 4, 2011 18:59
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Adam Bowen posted:What I do when I find myself interested in an old series is to start from the beginning, and give each game a few minutes to see if I can handle it or not. I think all of the DQ games are still pretty playable today, but I'm sure there are people out there who would say the same thing about the first Wizardry game from 1981, so it's all a matter of perspective. The biggest turn off for ANY JRPG before was random encounters, but I feel like I might have a little more patience now (or at the very least deal with it because 9 is making me like the series). Other than that, are they the traditional "kill things, level up, repeat" system, or do any of the games throw something different in the mix?
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May 4, 2011 19:05
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Fooley posted:I picked up Dragon Quest 9 the last time Gamestop had a sale, and I'm loving it. Usually I hate JRPGs, but this is really sucking me in. I think because it doesn't take itself seriously, i.e. Jack of Alltrades, Jona and the whale...it must have been fun as hell to translate. A couple questions: I just opened up the DQVC. Do items still change daily? And the downloaded quests, those will just show up as questgivers in towns, right? And since there's so much to it, is there a New Game+, or do I just try to finish it out before the end, and if so is there a point of no return? Yes, DQVC items change daily. Yes, extra quests will show up as people with blue bubbles once you reach the point when those quests are available. Many are post-game quests, so don't worry too much if you can't find some quest givers yet. There's no New Game+ but the post-game goes on forever... or might as well. I stopped playing a couple of months ago and I still have stuff to complete. The bonus quests should run out soon (July, I think?), so I'll probably take up the game again in the summer to finish them off. There's a DQIX specific thread; if you have more detailed questions, they might be answered already or you can just ask. The thread is pretty dead now, though a few people like me probably still have it marked.
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May 4, 2011 22:58
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That pretty much covers it. By quests running out, that just means they won't make new ones? And will the item thing keep going? And I noticed some of the download quests are marked "story", are those just quest chains? I would've bumped the main thread, but I figured the megathread was better.
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May 4, 2011 23:05
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Fooley posted:That pretty much covers it. By quests running out, that just means they won't make new ones? And will the item thing keep going? And I noticed some of the download quests are marked "story", are those just quest chains? I don't think the game is capable of having more quests added to it. As I understand it, all the quests are already on the cart. Connecting to DQVC just unlocks them week by week. The quests marked "story" have to be done in order. You have to do the current story quest before you can do any later story quests. All the story quests are postgame-only and most of them are weekly unlocks.
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May 5, 2011 00:44
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Fooley posted:Finally, if I want to try the others, should I go from the beginning or work my way backwards? I know they're only loosely connected, but I want to know if there are mechanics I'll get used to in the newer ones that will frustrate me by not being in the older ones. DQIV and V had nice remakes in that leveling up is a lot faster and easier, and it's easy to follow the story from point to point, and maybe the encounter rates are lower. For example, it took me less than an hour to beat Ragnar's chapter in DQIV on the DS without even trying and it took way more time back on the NES. DQVI, however, it like back on the old NES days. The encounter rate is just stupid high, you don't get half the information about classes and items and whatever like in DQIX, the class system is annoying and takes a lot of time, and most of the time they don't tell you where to go or anything.
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May 5, 2011 16:45
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“Arcaeris” posted:DQVI, however, it like back on the old NES days. The encounter rate is just stupid high, you don't get half the information about classes and items and whatever like in DQIX, the class system is annoying and takes a lot of time, and most of the time they don't tell you where to go or anything. DQ6’s encounter rate is higher because the class system iterates based on how many battles you’ve won while using a certain job. If the encounter rate was lower, then most people wouldn’t have the job skills necessary to be effective in the late game. Also, I didn’t think the class system was annoying at all, nor did it “take a lot of time”. In the SFC version you’d be lucky to have the main character master the Hero class before the final story boss. In the DS version, at least in mine, he mastered the Hero class with hours to spare before said confrontation. DQ6 DS is definitely streamlined compared to the SFC version.
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May 5, 2011 17:55
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Terpfen posted:DQ6 DS is definitely streamlined compared to the SFC version. Yeah, I played it back on the Super Famicom as well. The whole "number of battles for class rank" thing is really annoying by today's standards, and to say the encounter rate is high to support this is not very good justification for either system. If you level up just a little too much, or farm metal slimes/metal anything before near the end of the game, then like Hassan virtually gets no classes at all. I also got really annoyed by the whole "not telling you where to go" thing because that mostly ended back in DQII. And then they brought it back? Great, spend hours wandering and looking for the next place to go all while fighting 606064121564265 random battles and not gaining anything from them.
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May 5, 2011 18:55
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Arcaeris posted:Yeah, I played it back on the Super Famicom as well. The whole "number of battles for class rank" thing is really annoying by today's standards, and to say the encounter rate is high to support this is not very good justification for either system. If you level up just a little too much, or farm metal slimes/metal anything before near the end of the game, then like Hassan virtually gets no classes at all. If you have a better idea of how job progression should occur, please share. quote:I also got really annoyed by the whole "not telling you where to go" thing because that mostly ended back in DQII. And then they brought it back? Great, spend hours wandering and looking for the next place to go all while fighting 606064121564265 random battles and not gaining anything from them. Between the design of the overworld functionally limiting where specific methods of travel can go, the stated objectives of the second half, and the fact that a bunch of NPCs won’t shut up about the legendary equipment, progression really isn’t as obtuse as you claim. Besides, some element of open-ended exploration is generally expected and appreciated in the DQ series. DQ8, for example, lets you go practically everywhere once you get the boat, and only gives you vague hints that you need to head west, but not specifically where. I think you’re greatly exaggerating the second half’s progression, since the game clearly tells you that you’re supposed to travel around and look for the hero’s real body.
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May 5, 2011 21:55
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DQVI has a crazy-open world in the middle/late chunks, but keep in mind you ALSO have Madam Luca from early on as an instant "You know, just go here" button. You can warp right to her at almost any time and pow. Plot progression.
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May 6, 2011 05:46
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Terpfen posted:If you have a better idea of how job progression should occur, please share. Seriously? Job levels like in DQIX. Skill points like DQ Monsters Joker. JP like in Final Fantasy Tactics. Hell, even fewer level caps would even make DQVI better. All of these later systems are way better than "grind your rear end off X battles for a mystery ability that you don't know how good it is." Even more information about the jobs and what skills they give would be a big step up. As for the open-world, sure, it's expected. But the depth VI goes to is crazy. I remember several parts where I saw what Madame Luca said and was like "There?" because I'd explored there. And when I went back to where she said, there were no clues as to how I was supposed to get through it. It felt disjointed. There's other nags I could say about it being just archaic, like how you can totally lose Amos on accident. It's a lot of little nags like this that made me realize that I was a freaking masochist as a kid. You guys can love it, that's your opinion. It just certainly isn't the breezy fun playthroughs that the DQIV and V remakes are, and that's what I was warning that dude about.
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May 6, 2011 06:20
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So out of curiosity, is there a list for the DQ9 DQVC rotation anywhere? Supposedly it's identical to the order for the Japanese version, so you'd think somebody would have written it down, but I couldn't find it in the usual places... EDIT: This is an exclusive week by the way, so if you need the tophat or skeleton suit or something here's another chance Baku fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 6, 2011 |
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May 6, 2011 06:30
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Arcaeris posted:Seriously? Job levels like in DQIX. Skill points like DQ Monsters Joker. JP like in Final Fantasy Tactics. Hell, even fewer level caps would even make DQVI better. All of these later systems are way better than "grind your rear end off X battles for a mystery ability that you don't know how good it is." Even more information about the jobs and what skills they give would be a big step up. So, basically, you’re still advocating the use of battle grinding to add job levels, but you simply want to abstract away the concept of “X number of battles to master” by using a job point system. This conveniently ignores that you still need to grind X number of battles to gain the experience necessary to get those 100 job points and master the class. Glad we cleared that up. quote:As for the open-world, sure, it's expected. But the depth VI goes to is crazy. I remember several parts where I saw what Madame Luca said and was like "There?" because I'd explored there. And when I went back to where she said, there were no clues as to how I was supposed to get through it. It felt disjointed. I wouldn’t say VI is particularly “crazy” about its open-ended exploration. You’re more or less on a rail until you get the ship and Lorelei’s Harp, after which it just becomes a matter of going around and figuring out where you now have access to. And it doesn’t take a wizard to figure out that the ship can access the real world Weaver’s Peak, or that you should explore the seabed near populated areas, which eventually leads you to Poseidon and Gracos. quote:There's other nags I could say about it being just archaic, like how you can totally lose Amos on accident. Amos is an optional character. “Losing” him is an intended consequence of not following the warnings the game gives you. This is like saying that Yuffie and Vincent being optional characters is a sign that FF7 is archaic. Nor am I sure why “archaic” is a bad thing, considering that contemporary games consist of a series of cutscenes depicting the protagonist’s generic rage, which can be quelled only by hitting the win button. quote:It just certainly isn't the breezy fun playthroughs that the DQIV and V remakes are, and that's what I was warning that dude about. You are the only person I’ve ever seen on the Intertubes who had a problem with the open-ended segments near the end. The only one.
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May 6, 2011 19:21
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Terpfen posted:Nor am I sure why “archaic” is a bad thing, considering that contemporary games consist of a series of cutscenes depicting the protagonist’s generic rage, which can be quelled only by hitting the win button. Well it's obvious you're either a way too apologetic fanboy or a troll, so this is just about over. I grew up playing RPGs that by today's standards can only be called "punishing." You might have a thing for those, but I'm not about to fire up The Bard's Tale or Ultima III or poo poo like that again. DQVI is very much on the punishing end of the scale. The thing about the jobs isn't just "abstracting" the battles thing, it's giving the player choice and information. That's what's archaic and frustrating, not your little rant about modern games. Instead of making a well-designed interface full of information and still providing challenge, they just obfuscate what are today considered essential details. If you like an era of ancient game design, more power to you. I'm way over it.
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May 7, 2011 01:45
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The frequency of encounters hasn't bothered me; isn't there an item that slows or disables them for cheap? The battles load fast, the battle messages can be set so fast you barely have time to read them, and the end fanfare music and wrap-up is also incredibly streamlined. It's not like, say, FF7 where it takes forever to begin selecting commands once combat starts, and takes forever to get back to wandering once the last monster dies. It's surprisingly refreshing.
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May 7, 2011 02:10
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I'm not really a fan of "punishing" games, and I found that the only punishment you get is playing the Casino and defeating metal slimes (my luck sucks except for Poker  ). I had only played DQV before that, which probably helped to understand what the gently caress I was dealing with the next DQ I tried. Sure, I died a couple of times, but it wasn't a big deal. In DQV, I used Attack way too much instead of relying on the strengths of skills like Fuddle and Fizzle. I think the DQ remakes spoiled me because I tried to play FF3 and I haven't touched my DS in a month. 
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May 7, 2011 02:19
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spacebard posted:I think the DQ remakes spoiled me because I tried to play FF3 and I haven't touched my DS in a month. To be fair, that FF3 remake makes it VERY clear that the DQ DS remakes are tweaking things to make them much less grindy, when you compare to the almost-identical-to-NES poo poo in that one. God, that was murderous to replay (and I LIKE all the job system FFs)
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May 7, 2011 02:46
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Arcaeris posted:Well it's obvious you're either a way too apologetic fanboy or a troll, so this is just about over. Or option C, just a guy who thinks your complaints are largely without merit. DQ6 does have gameplay flaws with the class system, but not the experience grinding you complain about : rather, the general uselessness of all but a few classes. They fixed that when constructing and balancing DQ9’s class system, but DQ6 still suffers. Magic is also not quite as useful as it should be, rendering Ashlynn largely useless (at least to me), particularly in the middle of the game where item magic becomes prevalent. There’s also the massive plot hole of Milly never getting her real body back on-screen or prior to meeting Hero/Carver, though the game unfolds as if she did.
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May 7, 2011 03:05
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The main thing I didn't like about DQVI (both versions, I remember the SFC version had this problem too) is the how ridiculously difficult the real Murdaw is, especially since you can get through the earlier parts of the game without too much difficulty, and then suddenly you need to Man The gently caress Up (which in Japanese RPGs translates to "go grind out five levels and come back"). Bad pacing. DQV and IX don't have this problem. V really is a much better game than VI; the story is more interesting, the random encounters are less frequent, and it is better about giving you clues about what you should be doing next, whereas VI suffers a lot more from the "talk to everyone to advance the plot" bog-standard lazy JRPG design than V does. edit: To be fair, VI is a lot nicer to you than Final Fantasy 3 DS, whose final dungeon is the gold standard of RPG dick moves.
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May 7, 2011 03:36
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Terpfen posted:If you have a better idea of how job progression should occur, please share.  I still like DQ6, and for the time it was an absolutely amazing RPG, but there's basically no justification for the tedium of the job system these days.
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May 7, 2011 05:01
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Asimo posted:You could use the exact same mechanic, but cut the number of required battles by like half? Thing is, jobs in the DS version advance faster than they did in the SFC version. So… they practically did exactly what you just suggested.
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May 7, 2011 05:14
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I felt like DQ6 was very confusing in the mid-late game, and I'm one of the few people who still stands up for DQ2 on occasion. I do think it's kind of cool that there are tons of places that I never even visited in the game (Never found Poseidon, I just stumbled on Gracos while randomly exploring) but there were too many really tough bosses at random points in the game, and the last boss was probably the most frustrating out of the entire series. I also didn't like the job system, it was a pretty big downgrade from DQ3 if you ask me.
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May 7, 2011 05:55
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Adam Bowen posted:I also didn't like the job system, it was a pretty big downgrade from DQ3 if you ask me. I've never understood why people like 3 (including its job system) so much. I can understand in the context of NES RPGs, and the influence of nostalgia, but otherwise... eh. There are like six normal jobs, two of them are pointless (merchant and goof off), and of the four that remain all but one are the quintessential boring RPG mechanical tropes of the warrior, wizard, and cleric. So that's pretty much the only party that makes sense, unless you decide to replace the warrior with the punchy guy, and then maybe you'll use the one book you get to turn one of the casters into a sage. I mean you could do something like run three goof offs and turn them into three sages or have a merchant instead of a warrior but there is like absolutely no reason to whatsoever, and none of these choices make the game more or less fun because none of the classes really do anything interesting to begin with. Three of them (warrior, merchant, and punchy dude) just spam attack every single round for the entire game. EDIT: I just realized I haven't played a single iteration of this game other than the NES version so maybe that's also part of it, maybe the game boy version or some DS port or something added more depth and strategy, or just more options Baku fucked around with this message at 21:24 on May 7, 2011 |
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May 7, 2011 21:20
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I got irritated by the end of DQ6 where I had dozens of abilities on every character and had no idea what most of them did, and most of them were useless. A system like DQ3 but with more character classes and more viable party compositions would be perfect for me.
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May 7, 2011 21:30
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