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HondaCivet posted:Over and over in Games, I see one person say that DQ is grindy, then immediately after, someone posts that it isn't. Which is it damnit? DQ games are always grindy, its just some of them only require you to grind in the traditional sense (go out and randomly kill enemies for levels/gold) and some have the grind built into the game (so many random encounters to slog through that you're, in effect, grinding through every dungeon to progress the story).
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Mar 26, 2012 17:37
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HondaCivet posted:Over and over in Games, I see one person say that DQ is grindy, then immediately after, someone posts that it isn't. Which is it damnit? I absolutely hate grindy games and I love DQ. I've even played the first 3 games recently which are probably the grindiest and I never found myself getting frustrated with them, and I'm saying this as a person who has zero patience for jRPGs anymore. The only one that I have ever had to really grind in was DQ7 because I didn't really understand the job system at first and had to make up for it later when I ended up being too weak to proceed. One thing in DQs favor is that when you enter a new area the enemies are typically difficult enough to be interesting to fight, and you also gain a lot more exp/gold fighting them than the enemies you fought in the previous area. Also, when you gain a level or get a new weapon or armor it's really noticable how much more powerful it makes you. So you enter a new area and find the enemies are surprisingly strong, but after you level and get a couple of new pieces of gear you start to really kick their asses. That constant sense of progression is very appealing to me and makes the 10 minutes or so I spend leveling when I reach a new area go by pretty quickly.
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Mar 26, 2012 17:52
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nessin posted:so many random encounters to slog through that you're, in effect, grinding through every dungeon to progress the story DQVII is apparently the one that really stands out amongst the pack as being "the grindy one."
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Mar 26, 2012 17:53
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Nate RFB posted:Pretty much this. You will end up fighting a lot of battles. The fastest way to unlock the Hero class (most notable for regenating 50 health a turn and the manual making a big deal about it, it's skillset is kinda bland) takes 1150 battles, plus another 200 to actually get the regen. You wind up picking up one of the other top tier classes on the way there. The other one takes 1420 battles from start to finish. And that's not counting monster classes if you feel like going though that hell. Oh, and there's plenty of dead end classes (including the one tier 2 class you're told about in the manual), often full of garbage skills. And the game punishes you for switching between classes by requiring you to fight 30 battles to get back to gaining anything.
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Mar 26, 2012 18:19
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HondaCivet posted:Over and over in Games, I see one person say that DQ is grindy, then immediately after, someone posts that it isn't. Which is it damnit? DQ7 is just a marathon of gameplay that seems like it never ends. It's grindy in that respect! See the above posts. DQ8 in particular has a few difficulty spikes depending on how good you are with the alchemy pot (or how many FAQs you access). The difficulty probably spikes the hardest when you get the ship, but it's manageable. I admit to grinding a little bit in this game when I probably didn't need to - especially when I was just winging the character builds (arguably the weakest aspect of the game in my opinion, without FAQs that is to see what you are building towards). The DQ5/DQ6 remakes and DQ9 (I think that's the DS one) were probably the easiest DQs I have ever played in my life. No reason to ever grind unless you wanted something in particular. There's a lot of side content in DQ9 though that will seem like grinding though.
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Mar 26, 2012 21:48
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DQ5 also has like, the best JRPG story ever. You will be extremely invested in it. Short version: you play through a character's life from childhood. Doesn't that sound awesome? It's really well written, too. Long version: You get married. And you get a choice in the matter. Is there a better way to get you invested in the characters? loving YES there is: You have kids later. You get to name them. They grow up. You fight the final boss with your family together. Isn't that just the best thing?
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Mar 26, 2012 21:58
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DQ8 isn't terribly grindy at all, save one or two points. Grinding for Angelo's Allheal spell isn't necessary for a certain boss but makes you far less likely to die to a lucky double attack. DQ9 is very very easy by Dragon Quest standards as Rascyc said. There are thing you can do to grind but it's never necessary. I think as you go back in time they get grindier (except 7 but you can read all about that above).
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Mar 26, 2012 22:00
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HondaCivet posted:Over and over in Games, I see one person say that DQ is grindy, then immediately after, someone posts that it isn't. Which is it damnit? 1 and 2 demand that you grind; if you don't, you simply won't be powerful enough. With all the others excepting 8, the encounter rate is higher than average (although the battles are fast) but you don't need to seek out combat in order to remain strong enough; in fact, if you don't run from or otherwise avoid a goodly portion of the encounters, you may end up slightly overleveled. 6, 7, and 9 have advancement systems that are parallel to just gaining EXP, so you might be tempted to fight without progressing. 8 and especially 7 are very long games; 8 just has a lot of content and more detail than the series usually has, but 7 progresses very slowly. The bulk of 9 is in post-game content intended to feed into passive local multiplayer, so it only ends when you get sick of it. In that respect 9 eventually becomes a grind, albeit of a different sort than you usually expect in an RPG. 10 isn't out yet but it's to be an MMO, with mechanics unique for that genre but apparently influenced by 9's multiplayer. Dragon Quest's storytelling is minimalist and driven by small vignettes, mostly centered around single towns with nearby dungeons. Their modest scale makes them all the more human; more RPGs should be like Dragon Quest.
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Mar 26, 2012 22:37
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Amppelix posted:DQ5 also has like, the best JRPG story ever. You will be extremely invested in it. Short version: you play through a character's life from childhood. Doesn't that sound awesome? It's really well written, too. Long version: You get married. And you get a choice in the matter. Is there a better way to get you invested in the characters? loving YES there is: You have kids later. You get to name them. They grow up. You fight the final boss with your family together. Isn't that just the best thing? Have any of the Dragon Quest games been ported to PC, or are any of the good ones old enough to be run on an emulator with modest hardware? EDIT: Apparently DQ5 is SNES era. Perfect. 
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 22:43
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1-4 are NES games and will thus run on anything. 5 and 6 are SNES games and those versions will run on just about anything as well (neither of them had US releases back then but patches exist). 7 is a psx game and will run on most anything built in the last 10 years. 8's on PS2 and thus needs a fairly decent rig to emulate. 9 is a DS game and my 6 year old cheap rear end AMD desktop can emulate it fine.
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Mar 26, 2012 22:50
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You're better off playing the DS versions of DQ4, DQ5, and DQ6 (the Zenithia trilogy) through a DS emulator like DeSmuME instead of emulating the SNES versions. The fan patches for the original NES/SNES games aren't as polished as the official translations. There's also a PS2 version of DQ5 as well with a full English fan translation if you want 3D models instead of sprites. Dragon Quest V is generally considered the best game in the entire franchise so give that one a look.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:00
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With respect to official English versions, 1-3 are on NES, and GBC. 4 is on NES and DS. 5 and 6 are DS only. 7 is PS1, 8 is PS2, and 9 is DS. There are fan translations of the SNES versions of 1-3 and 5. My personal favorite is 3 (recommend the GBC or SNES version), but it's hard to go wrong with any of them. 7 tends to drag on a bit, 2 is poorly-balanced and inconvenient, and 1 is sort of a relic, but one thing you can say about Dragon Quest is that they're very consistent. Each of them brings modest improvements and minor variations to a formula that was first proven in 1991. Half of them may give you preset characters instead of generics, some of them have class changes and others don't, one or two let you recruit monsters (a mechanic that was later diverted to a successful spin-off series of its own), but broadly speaking you know what you're getting into and you can confidently expect it to satisfy.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:09
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Speaking of DQ, I actually picked up 9 for pretty cheap. I've never played a DQ game before, so what should I expect from it? Also, does the multiplayer not unlock until the main story is finished or does it open up in a plot-related place? VVVV Thanks, sounds good.
Azraden fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 23:14
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Azraden posted:Speaking of DQ, I actually picked up 9 for pretty cheap. I've never played a DQ game before, so what should I expect from it? Also, does the multiplayer not unlock until the main story is finished or does it open up in a plot-related place? You should expect a laid-back adventure with a huge amount of sidequests, ranging from MMO-style fetches to unlocking new classes to whole plotlines that continue developing post-game. You'll probably reach the final boss about 40 or 50 hours in, then keep playing for at least that long afterwards. The multiplayer is local only, and it unlocks once you reach a certain city fairly early on, and features related to or useful in multiplayer continually unlock as you attain other milestones in the plot.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:25
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Maybe people are just confused about what "grindy" means? I always think of "grindy" as referring to games that require you to stop and repetitively defeat lots of monsters to gather enough XP/levels to get you through the next piece of content. Am I wrong? Maybe some people think that "grindy" is just having to fight a lot?
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Mar 26, 2012 23:33
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Gyoru posted:You're better off playing the DS versions of DQ4, DQ5, and DQ6 (the Zenithia trilogy) through a DS emulator like DeSmuME instead of emulating the SNES versions. The fan patches for the original NES/SNES games aren't as polished as the official translations. There's also a PS2 version of DQ5 as well with a full English fan translation if you want 3D models instead of sprites. DQ4 isn't a fan translation, it was officially released on the NES here. DQ5 has a pretty decent translation, I definitely wouldn't bother with DQ6 though. I guess technically there's enough translated to finish the game, but lots of text is left untranslated. HondaCivet posted:Maybe people are just confused about what "grindy" means? I always think of "grindy" as referring to games that require you to stop and repetitively defeat lots of monsters to gather enough XP/levels to get you through the next piece of content. Am I wrong? Maybe some people think that "grindy" is just having to fight a lot? I agree with your definition. A lot of people just hate jRPG gameplay and especially random battles, and for them I think any sort of combat is considered a grind.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:34
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HondaCivet posted:Maybe people are just confused about what "grindy" means? I always think of "grindy" as referring to games that require you to stop and repetitively defeat lots of monsters to gather enough XP/levels to get you through the next piece of content. Am I wrong? Maybe some people think that "grindy" is just having to fight a lot? "Grind" is one of those words used inconsistently. Dragon Quest 1 and 2 are grindy in the way you describe, but the rest are not. The rest are grindy in that they have relatively high encounter rates, but battles tend to be well-differentiated and end quickly.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:40
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DQ is probably the most straight-laced in jRPGs. You never really need to grind for hours, but if you skip too much, then the bosses will hand you a new one.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:46
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HondaCivet posted:Maybe people are just confused about what "grindy" means? I always think of "grindy" as referring to games that require you to stop and repetitively defeat lots of monsters to gather enough XP/levels to get you through the next piece of content. Am I wrong? Maybe some people think that "grindy" is just having to fight a lot? But doesn't it depend on what content people are interested in? I've only played the DQ games that are on the DS (well, also the first back when it was called Dragon Warrior), and just as an example, DQ9 definitely required grinding to unlock all of the content. Not all of the story content, but mastering the vocations took forever.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:46
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Papercut posted:But doesn't it depend on what content people are interested in? I've only played the DQ games that are on the DS (well, also the first back when it was called Dragon Warrior), and just as an example, DQ9 definitely required grinding to unlock all of the content. Not all of the story content, but mastering the vocations took forever. True, but isn't extra content almost always grindy? It's for people who want to spend extra time with the game so it seems kind of appropriate really.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:51
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DQ9's vocations (an idiosyncratic name for classes or jobs) are kind of a pain to unlock. Some of them are puzzle-like things you can do in particular battles, whereas others are just repetitive MMO-style quests. It is a complaint unique to that game in the series.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:55
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HondaCivet posted:True, but isn't extra content almost always grindy? It's for people who want to spend extra time with the game so it seems kind of appropriate really. In RPGs it typically is, but the definition of "grind" being anything locked behind a time wall instead of a skill wall can still be valid. As far as jRPGs go, DQ isn't particularly grindy, but compared to Western games it is. I'm just thinking in terms of something like Skyrim, where if you want to you can do the College of Winterhold right when you start.
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Mar 26, 2012 23:59
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HondaCivet posted:Maybe people are just confused about what "grindy" means? I always think of "grindy" as referring to games that require you to stop and repetitively defeat lots of monsters to gather enough XP/levels to get you through the next piece of content. Am I wrong? Maybe some people think that "grindy" is just having to fight a lot? That's the classic definition but it often gets used to describe anything that requires a repetitive series of tasks for advancement.
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Mar 27, 2012 01:12
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One reason people call the DQ games grindy is that, as previously mentioned in this thread, equipment is expensive and if you want to fully upgrade everyone when you get to a new town, you'll need to grind. Here's the thing, though: you don't need to fully upgrade everyone, especially in the newer games. Buy a few pieces that are the biggest upgrades for however many people you can afford, then move on to the next dungeon; you'll almost certainly get the rest of your party fully upgraded before the boss. In VIII and IX, the alchemy pot offers a nice stopgap because you'll often be able to take equipment you just upgraded and make something better from it. For most DQ games, you never need to actually grind if you explore a lot (i.e., don't use a FAQ to run straight to every treasure chest).
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Mar 27, 2012 02:00
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dis astranagant posted:5 and 6 are SNES games and those versions will run on just about anything as well (neither of them had US releases back then but patches exist). Just to clarify Dis Astrangant's post, "Just about anything" means "As long as your computer is younger than you are." Honestly I'd be more surprised if NES emus worked on any computer. Those tend to be a bit less stable in my experience. And yes, I have played SNES emulators on computers older than I am. It isn't pretty, but it does make for a fun nerdy-type story. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 02:14
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Nate RFB posted:The game is based on a JRPG from 1991, so there is some element of old school grind to it (though not as much as, say, Dragon Quest). They upped the difficulty for the DS version, which some people did not like but a lot did. Essentially this time around you have to make use of status spells like Slow, Haste, Berserk, Blink, or whatever to get through the game, which is something no FF has ever really done well, even the original releases of FFIV. Did they include this in the psp remake as well?
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Mar 27, 2012 02:28
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casual poster posted:Did they include this in the psp remake as well? No. The PSP remake is based on the GBA version, which is a much more conservative remake. A lot of gameplay elements were revised in the DS one only, for the sake of increasing the difficulty and complexity.
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Mar 27, 2012 02:36
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The White Dragon posted:Just to clarify Dis Astrangant's post, "Just about anything" means "As long as your computer is younger than you are." Honestly I'd be more surprised if NES emus worked on any computer. Those tend to be a bit less stable in my experience. I'm pretty sure a device contemporary to the NES will not run SNES games  VVVVVVV 
dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 02:49
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The White Dragon posted:Just to clarify Dis Astrangant's post, "Just about anything" means "As long as your computer is younger than you are." Honestly I'd be more surprised if NES emus worked on any computer. Those tend to be a bit less stable in my experience. I don't think a Commodore 64 would be able to run a SNES game very well, so I fail to see your argument
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Mar 27, 2012 02:54
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It's really going to depress you guys when you realize he isn't talking about running a SNES emulator on a C64, but rather that he wasn't born until 1995 or something.
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Mar 27, 2012 02:59
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Bongo Bill posted:No. The PSP remake is based on the GBA version, which is a much more conservative remake. A lot of gameplay elements were revised in the DS one only, for the sake of increasing the difficulty and complexity. Aww thats too bad. It was on sale on PSN and I wanted to play it again (to play through 'The After Years') but now.....I don't know 
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Mar 27, 2012 03:41
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Ornamented Death posted:It's really going to depress you guys when you realize he isn't talking about running a SNES emulator on a C64, but rather that he wasn't born until 1995 or something. I was trying to work out when someone would have to be born for there to be a PC older than them that would be likely capable of running SNES emulators and that was what I came up with too.
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Mar 27, 2012 03:47
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casual poster posted:Aww thats too bad. It was on sale on PSN and I wanted to play it again (to play through 'The After Years') but now.....I don't know  The After Years isn't really that great TBH. Actually that's putting it lightly, most people didn't like it at all (though at least on the PSP you wouldn't have to deal with the WiiWare's dumb pricing structure). I mean I did but I am also crazy when it comes to FFIV.
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Mar 27, 2012 03:49
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Ornamented Death posted:It's really going to depress you guys when you realize he isn't talking about running a SNES emulator on a C64, but rather that he wasn't born until 1995 or something.
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Mar 27, 2012 03:54
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So following recommendations from this thread, I picked up DQ5. I ended up taking it back three days later though.. The story, characters, and design were all AWESOME. There were a couple things that made the game just not fun to me though. Mainly, the fact that every time you had a new area unlocked you had to grind the old areas mobs for at least a half hour to continue. If the xp was doubled, I would have kept the game.. I DO NOT mind grinding your way through a dungeon, as long as you are exploring or going somewhere. I just don't like hovering around one area. With that said, is FF4 and FF6 going to be the same way? Are all the other DQ's the same way too? I remember someone saying DQ5 and earlier were the ones that were grindy..
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Mar 27, 2012 05:39
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Try playing the DQ5 remake on the PSX or whatever (you will need the fan translation). It's a cake walk of a game. About as easy as DQ9 was for me. Refer to my above post about grinding levels of the various DQs. Honestly I really don't remember having to do much grinding in the original SNES version of DQ5 except the obligatory 15 minutes at the very start (a typical DQ thing).
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Mar 27, 2012 05:41
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CheerGrrl92 posted:So following recommendations from this thread, I picked up DQ5. I ended up taking it back three days later though.. You don't have to do that. Did you ever try just going forward at your current power level? It leaves you at pretty much exactly the level you need to be. Don't upgrade all your gear in every new town; just buy what you can afford. If you really are too weak to proceed, then struggling through a few of the new area's stronger monsters will get you caught up significantly faster than walking in circles among weak monsters. CheerGrrl92 posted:With that said, is FF4 and FF6 going to be the same way? Are all the other DQ's the same way too? I remember someone saying DQ5 and earlier were the ones that were grindy.. All Dragon Quest games are balanced pretty much the same way, which is to say, you don't need to grind but you might be fooled into thinking that you do. Final Fantasy games have an even more forgiving difficulty level.
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Mar 27, 2012 05:44
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Bongo Bill posted:All Dragon Quest games are balanced pretty much the same way, which is to say, you don't need to grind but you might be fooled into thinking that you do. Final Fantasy games have an even more forgiving difficulty level. citation: personal experience, i wasn't a very patient child FF4 (SNES, not the DS remake), on the other hand, you either grind or you develop some subversive strategies and kinda cross your fingers. Them's the breaks for that one. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 05:51
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The White Dragon posted:This. FF games are incredibly forgiving about slacking off on grinding. You can easily beat FF6 with like four characters at level 40, and if you do all the sidequests and stuff, you'll end up waaaaay past that just incidentally. There is one speed bump towards the middle of the game, but as long as you can pick up on the general enemy gimmick in that area and not blindly gently caress around in there bustin' out your strongest weapons and abilities without considering how they'll interact with the enemies, you can go in there underleveled and still come out on top, though you'll be begging for that savepoint by the time you find it. see, this is what chrono trigger was like to me. I maybe had to grind out a level or two once the ENTIRE game, yet the game actually was challenging for bosses (though I rarely ever died) I played DQ5 and it wasn't like that at all. In fact, I nearly died within the first three battles of the entire game, when you have no magic or anything. So I had to buy some herbs. Rinse and repeat three times before I could make it through the first dungeon. Then the second area was the same way. I am not debating whether or not this is grinding, but if DQ5 isn't considered grinding than traditional jrpgs are just not for me. And again, I thought ct was a jrpg but that was no grind at all
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Mar 27, 2012 06:23
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Those are the only two areas with that problem. It's a shame that you sold it after the first two hours because the gameplay gets a lot better after that.
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Mar 27, 2012 07:17
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