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5 is my favorite too, but once you get to around 5 and "below" you start hitting a lot of very old mechanics that I think a lot of modern gamers wouldn't really have the patience for, which is why I'd be hesitant to suggest it. DQ5 is definitely the most clever game in the franchise, though, no question about that. Can't wait to pick up DQ6 and my ~slime plush~ tomorrow. I've wanted one of those drat things forever.
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Feb 16, 2011 02:52
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SpermyShermy posted:Also localization doesn't cost nearly as much when no voice-recording work is required. This. Even good localizers won't make a whole ton of money on one project, and if you threw, say, Robin and myself at one of these games the total cost for the actual text translation would be well in the lower five figures. Voicework takes up a TON of the budget in modern game translation. Anyway, re: 2, I think part of the reason 2 doesn't get much love these days is because... well, it's been outdone. Its own franchise outdid it almost immediately with 3 and 4, and a bunch of competing RPGs of the era also outdid it in terms of scope and playability. It wasn't the first title so it wasn't "groundbreaking", and it didn't really innovate in the same way later titles would. It was big in its time, but it's clear these days it was just a stepping stone game, and frankly it's a clunky play today.
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Feb 17, 2011 03:39
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Captain Rufus posted:I remember getting DQ 2 back in the NES days. Graphically it seemed like a downgrade from 1 What's interesting is that for us, it was. The Dragon Warrior we got was practically a remake, built on top of the Dragon Warrior 3 engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Warrior#North_American_localization That was a bit of a backfire on Nintendo's part, since it meant Dragon Warrior 2 ended up looking a bit pants. Also gently caress YEAH SLIME PLUSH. This thing is awesome, I've wanted one forever.
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Feb 17, 2011 07:08
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al-azad posted:I find it totally odd Dragon Quest never caught on in the West because it's literally the aesthetics of a Japanese RPG with the balls-to-the-wall-kick-your-rear end-unfairness of Western RPGs. I guess the old school WRPG market is (and was) smaller than I always thought it would be because DQ is the only JRPG series I actually look forward to because Ultima, the game that inspired its creation, was such a big thing for me as a child. This is sort of where the problem lies, though; not only was DQ having to play catch-up with Ultima in terms of design prowess (they only really started holding their own with III, and only began differentiating themselves and changing things up with IV and V) but the early DQs came out way late in the States. Remember, Dragon Warrior first came to the U.S. in mid-1989, when it was originally a 1986 release. In Japan it was basically uncontested and the only real comparison was Ultima IV. By the time it came to America, when it came to the established RPG crowd it had to go up against Ultima V (and VI soon after) which wasn't even a competition. The delayed release really killed DQ in the States. Had it somehow come out here in 1986, it might've done better. By 1989 it was already being outdone on the PC, though, so none of the existing RPG crew really cared.
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Feb 17, 2011 22:18
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LooseChanj posted:Just started a playthrough of DW1, and remembered that needing to use a "Stairs" command is the most retarded thing ever. Seriously, what were they smoking? Oh, in the original Dragon Warrior, it was worse still. You have to give menu commands to change your movement facing because there were no "facing" sprites - it worked like Ultima IV did. Seriously, DW1 is a product of a) its time and b) inexperienced developers. It is a hard game to play these days. Hell, Ultima IV, the game that inspired Dragon Quest, is basically an unplayable mess these days, despite being one of the cornerstones of the entire genre, if not the industry. SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 18, 2011 |
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Feb 18, 2011 00:21
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LooseChanj posted:That's the one I'm playing, unless there was something released before the first american NES version, and you don't have to command direction changes? I should have said in the original Japanese Dragon Quest  In some versions of the game (not the NES version), you had to enter which direction you wanted to go via a menu. It's worth remembering DQ1 wasn't exclusively an NES exclusive by a long shot.(I could be misremembering, but the point is the original version of Dragon Warrior was even more primitive than what we ended up getting.)
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Feb 18, 2011 00:50
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Here we go, here's a video of what I'm talking about. You had to direct which direction you wanted actions like talk to go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocr_Qj8EFa8 Videos of the ORIGINAL-original Dragon Quest are surprisingly hard to find, too. Most of the stuff on Youtube seems to be DQ3 or later (which is telling, really). SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 18, 2011 |
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Feb 18, 2011 01:03
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LooseChanj posted:It was so much better than 7 when it comes to stuff you can figure out without needing to look at a drat walkthrough every 2 minutes. But you know you haven't finished it until you beat the bonus boss right? And jesus christ is that one bitch of a battle, I think it took me over an HOUR. And that's on top of the hundred or so hours of grinding it took to get to the level where I could. You can't actually marry the princess without doing that, right?
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Feb 18, 2011 02:09
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Also JEEEEEESUUUUUUUUUUS, what the gently caress happened to the price of DQV? I didn't get a chance to pick it up when it was new and now it's like $75 on Amazon.  And Gamestop doesn't even have any used copies in stock!Does anyone have any idea where I could get a copy for a sane price?
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Feb 18, 2011 02:25
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Ornamented Death posted:DQV got an extra bride Not only that, but you actually meet Nera and Debora as a child, at least for a bit, meaning that it isn't completely out of left field to choose either of them for a bride now. Bianca's life still ends up sucking, but they made the bride thing an actual choice you have to think about, now. Especially with the party talk feature.
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Feb 18, 2011 06:22
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Speedboat Jones posted:I've been browsing online for how much copies of DQ5 sell for. And I keep coming across: "Warning: This game only works for the DS and DS Lite. It will not work with the DSi." Mmhmm. Another reason I'm not particularly sanguine about trying to buy a copy online.
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Feb 18, 2011 22:12
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Ghosts n Gopniks posted:Dragon Quest 11 good. Did not realize they also arranged lipsync for the English track, which is fine as heck. Brit voices > everything else, gently caress. That said, I watched some early footage, and... what in the hell is going on with Erik's accent? It's like they can't decide if it's A Cheeky British Lad or if he's Supah From Noo Yahwk, Y'see? It's not badly acted, it seems like (it's even quite good) but also, the game unlocks at midnight in a rolling fashion around the world right? (on ps4)
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Sep 4, 2018 03:36
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Ojetor posted:Not sure how load times on PS4 are, but on PC they're so fast I can't even read the load screen tips Big towns on the PS4 downloaded-to-hard-drive version load just long enough to have the whole team line up. Most of the time, it doesn't take that long. Meanwhile uh y'all the Harder Enemies setting gets real bad lol I want to see it through and I suspect the normal difficulty is just too easy but whoooooooof
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Sep 5, 2018 06:59
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BabyRyoga posted:But apparently they are having trouble buying it because Japan is locked out for the authorization or something. Haha gently caress, yup, that sounds about right. Bet it's in part because of Sugiyama licensing too.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:55
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ChrisBTY posted:I am really confused about The protags growing up situation. Chalkie co-raised him with Pearl until Chalkie died. On a different tack, is there any particular benefit to getting first place in the story-mandatory horse race? I can probably beat Sylv but it will take practice.
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Sep 5, 2018 09:03
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I like the systems but lmao the extra monster difficulty setting is some amazing Dragon Quest 2 horseshit love too take 70 teamwide damage (with two dazzle casts strapped on) and double confuses from four back to back actions from the Slayer
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Sep 5, 2018 10:42
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Getting +3s is mostly down to luck and having a good feel for what to hammer when, yeah, though it's not too difficult on the early stuff. I somehow lucked out into getting a whole shitload of +3s around Gallopolis so Veronica is rolling in incredibly fat loot.
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Sep 5, 2018 11:37
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Harrow posted:You folks running swords or greatswords on the hero? The hero can get dual wielding and it's generally worth it if you like auto-attacking fools for lots of numbers. Greatsword is great for AoE damage; it's dicier in boss fights though, especially on hard mode where everything just hits so drat hard and your hero is a backup healer. Swinging around a big chunk of metal feels great, though  Also, I did end up actually beating the Slayer of the Sands and probably stayed up too late doing it I'm sticking with the hard mode for now (especially since Laguna Gondolia has now introduced Goopis and so leveling in the upper teens is no longer an issue. I probably did the Slayer a bit underleveled (Serena doesn't get Midheal until 16), but that itself is a bit worrying since I actually did grind a bit looking for a gold cactball for that one quest; evidently the game wanted me to grind even harder for the boss in question. That's a bit concerning and I'm worried it's really going to start demanding some grinding, though to be fair 16 or so sees some real power spikes among your dudes.Of course, concerning the spoiler: the other thing is that the Slayer fight proves how utterly ridiculous some of the limit breaks are. By my estimation, hard mode Slayer has about as much HP as Baramos did in the original NES DW3 (so about 900, without regen), and doesn't hit as hard (25-35 melee with crit capacity, 30/35-point breath attack w/ attached dazzle, 5-hit random attack of 10-12 damage each) but you have to fight it in your mid teens, without Kabuff for sure. The best way I found to hack through that HP pool outside of LBs is putting it to sleep then having Erik backstab it (that'll do 200+ damage with Sap up)... but on my fifth try or so, I had Erik use his triple tech with Eleven and Ronnie, and it put up a sigil that did 180 damage for every turn the Slayer took (not action, mind, but turn). It was dead three turns after casting it. That's well north of double what my entire team was able to do at that moment with a focus on all-out offense barring a lucky backstab getting set up. The thing is, of course, it's still somewhat random as to if you get the pep setup for that. In previous attempts, I hadn't gotten it in time. They're really powerful but I wish they were a bit more consistent/controllable. They're just such an absurd swing when used right.
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Sep 6, 2018 03:52
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Ojetor posted:Just posting to say Sylvando loving owns. There are so many ways he could've been hosed up, and so far (to Gondolia) the game's avoided all of them. He owns and his VA is in particular doing a fantastic job capturing his character.
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Sep 6, 2018 05:37
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Wiltsghost posted:For a game this good it deserves better music than what they gave it. Marogareh posted:I've been playing for a while and yeah it's good but also very forgettable. I can't even remember what the boss music is which is a drat shame considering how good the other games were. It's pretty much this. Even setting aside how much of a shitbird he's turned out to be in other areas (and part of me feeling like I'm hurting others by even remotely giving him any kind of money), the idea that other composers or music teams can produce stuff like the Octopath OST or any of the Xenoblade OSTs or the shitload of hard work Masayoshi Soken does on FFXIV, as examples, and that gets touted as a major feature, and then Sugiyama rolls in with the unremarkable bullshit and recycled tracks in this thing and the idea that somehow it's just as acceptable for a major product to be scored like that as it is the other examples frankly borders on offensive. As someone who's appreciated The Video Game Music for a long time, the tracks themselves are... unobtrusive, I suppose, but they're hugely forgettable, and they in no way measure up to the love the rest of the game has been made with. (Oh, newer folks might miss this: a lot of the game's tracks are taken from older titles. Much moreso than previous main entries.) Saigyouji posted:Hit my first notable roadblock with Stronger Enemies. The Slayer of the Sands (level ~15 boss) just completely bodied me. Didn't even get a chance to get buffs off properly. Yeah, the Slayer can be rough on Dragonian mode. First, it can be a good idea to get to 16 - Serena learns Midheal at that point, and that can help a lot. Make sure everyone has 2-3 Strong Medicines and don't be afraid to use them. Also get some Sleeping Hibiscuses from gathering spots - keeping it slept is a good idea. On that note, consider taking Erik into Knives, at least for this - with Persecutter, he can hit a Sapped Slayer for 200+ damage. It has upwards of 900 HP, so you want to be able to do real big damage. Speaking of, consider trying to build up to the Hero-Erik-Veronica triple tech - it deals a shitload of damage over multiple turns and is how I ended up killing it. The main trick is keeping Veronica alive long enough.
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Sep 8, 2018 09:55
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For my money, Sylvando is very useful in Dragonian Trial Hard Monster mode. Having Oomph out of the gate alone makes him incredibly useful, and his personal trees are stuffed with useful abilities, and he has access to three weapon types. He's very much Mr. Buffs and Status Effects, and in Hard Monster mode, that's damned useful, especially when pushing into the unknown or fighting bosses.
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Sep 8, 2018 11:45
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Gumdrop Larry posted:On the subject of goofiness, it's also good to see the series is still as on point as ever about regularly pulling 180s and having surprisingly effective emotional scenes with typically corny stuff like love and family and friends. Dragon Quest always has such a good attitude and it's genuinely heartwarming that it's still going strong with it. The whole thing with Rab and confronting the grave of your parents, and thus Rab's kids, is fantastic. I wasn't expecting it to be that affecting, but god drat. (It helps that SE broke out the mini medal pile to get Alex Pissmothering Norton to voice Rab for their video game who naturally goes on to knock it clear out of the park.)
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Sep 9, 2018 03:50
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On the subject of DQB2... god help me, but at this point I'm so enamored with it I'm thinking of LPing it once the waiting period is over. I haven't even tried to LP a game in years and years, so this cannot possibly go poorly
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Aug 23, 2019 10:56
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Yinlock posted:it should always echo unless you're checked everything off the list On later islands, it CAN indeed not spawn every single thing you need for credit. I've had that happen once or twice. The flute will give a unique no-echoes message if this is the case, though, which isn't its usual "no echoes can be heard" message. Unrelated: I recruited my first starwyvern on my new playthrough and I found out you can use wyverns to fly by holding onto their tails  it's amazing.
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Aug 28, 2019 07:24
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Personally I don't really care too much since they appear to the be the PS4 versions, and those are kind of ugly (they up-rez some things but leave the maps at SNES quality) and don't really bring anything new to the table, so  It'll be nice not having to wrestle with a phone interface if new folks want to try them, at least.
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Sep 6, 2019 09:52
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Evil Fluffy posted:I forget the combo but Erik + others can do a much stronger version of his DoT pep power and I'm pretty sure anyone who has access to it can use it to just wreck the Slayer too because even at low levels it's like 100+ damage per round for 5-6 rounds or so. Yep, this is how I beat it the first time. I did it at 15, though, and Hard Slayer is rough at that level. It's got Baramos-scale HP and you more or less need a damage source like the combo pep to get through the HP pool in time without access to Midheal. You really should get to 16 for Midheal, it makes the fight far easier.
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Sep 28, 2019 05:05
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Did they include a system that allows you to wear some of the alt outfits if you own them or have worn them previously, ala what Builders 2 allows? I felt like that was kind of missing from the OG version of XI.
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Sep 28, 2019 10:55
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:So having just finished 11 I am craving more DQ and want to play the 4-6 trilogy. Are the phone versions the best because the sprites look like they're smeared in vaseline. Get the DS versions or wait for a Switch port which seems likely enough? Sadly, feature-wise the phone version of 4 is the superior version right now because yeah, it restores content that was cut in the DS English release of 4. 5 and 6 are basically identical to the DS releases, so whichever floats your boat there; I think the phone versions look fine, but
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Jan 5, 2020 00:36
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A Sometimes Food posted:Yeah I'm probably gonna go with the Killing Machine as well. Compared to most of the Erdrick-era classic monsters, though, that's practically still a kid. :vv: (next year is going to be the 35th anniversary of dq1 and i am prepared to crumble to dust)
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Jan 10, 2020 11:57
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Bongo Bill posted:Best version is the mobile remake. The game is the same as the DS remake, but the party chat feature in the DS version was cut rather than translated due to budget constraints, and later completed for the mobile release. Either is better than the NES version. Well, the only caveat I'll add here is that the DQ4 DS translation had Shloc making some...questionable choices concerning character regional accents and speaking patterns. While they had previously used certain "ethnic" speech patterns to greater or lesser effect in some previous titles, for their DQ4 script they got a bit happy with it even with the major characters, and the result can frankly come across as a bit racist. (Meena and Maya suffer the worst from it; their speech in DQH was in fact adjusted to be less caricature-like, but the later DQ4 releases didn't get corresponding revision.) For all that it's a far older version of the game with its own problems as a result, Dragon Warrior IV doesn't have any of that going on and the translation largely avoids regional accents (which weren't really present in the Japanese version). In terms of features, though, the modern DS/Phone version is blatantly superior.
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Oct 31, 2020 09:06
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Ofecks posted:Your second statement is factually incorrect. There might be some here and there (like Sancho) but nowhere near as saturated as in IV. Sancho is the other one I can think of in the Shloc Zenithia set where it just becomes scaldingly racist, when it isn't so at all in the JP. Mercifully they haven't ever done something like that again, but it'd be nice to get the phone version of 5 updated to make that better.
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Nov 7, 2020 00:18
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Bongo Bill posted:I could go for a remake of IX. There has been a nonzero amount of still-pretty-low-key hinting that it's up next. At this point, every single DQ game is available on some kind of modern platform (well, not X outside of Japan, but ) and in a fashion that will likely be durable for a decade or more, except for IX. IX is trapped on the OG DS and no longer has any of its online functions. It is extremely obviously in need of an update and re-release and there's no way Hori & co. are not working on it.This coming year, the 35th anniversary, is probably going to have some bombshell announcements. EDIT: Also I'm replaying DQB2 and god fuckin' drat but I love every single thing about this game. SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Dec 18, 2020 |
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Dec 18, 2020 11:04
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Skwirl posted:9 is also the only one where almost every piece of armor changed your appearance and had the most in depth class system. 9 with the graphics of 11 would be loving amazing. In fact as I was posting I started thinking "man I never beat DQIX. I should do that. But what if they're making an updated version that looks better...?  "
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Dec 18, 2020 11:16
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whydirt posted:I want a IX rerelease to have costume slots on top of regular equipment slots so I can min/max my stats and my aesthetics. Like this is the exact thing that I keep remembering whenever I try to boot up IX again: the lack of aesthetic control (in a game that otherwise goes all in on customization) combined with some other missing QoL stuff and general performance issues (the DS struggles-at-best to run the game in a lot of places) are real turn-offs. The normal NPCs being DQVII-style sprites when "major" NPCs and the party are polygonal is also shockingly ugly now, if I'm being absolutely honest. IX is definitely in the greatest need of a remake at this point. There's a lot of areas where it just needs help and the benefit of stronger hardware and an additional decade of lessons learned in design. Ofecks posted:WoW and Diablo 3 have this very thing (via the Transmog systems) and it's awesome. As does XI S and Builders 2. It's swiftly become something of a standard feature and I couldn't be happier. And IX needs it badly. Edmund Lava posted:Recettear. IIRC it was localized by a goon. Two goons, actually (Robin is another longtime goon). But, yeah. 
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Dec 19, 2020 00:28
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Hmm. Do I want to buy DQB2, one of my favorite games ever, on Steam for better performance and the potential of co-oping with Steamfriends... 
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Jan 3, 2021 20:25
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Framboise posted:IV - Mobile (I heard it's the only version with complete party chat and I like that kinda thing) It's true that Mobile has party chat restored in English, but I do want to point out that IV and V have some genuine-rear end problems with some of the "accents" ending up descending into outright racist caricature. And I do mean seethingly racist. (No, I am never going to shut up about what was done to Maya, Meena and Sancho in those games. It was an absolutely shocking misstep in what were otherwise reasonably well-done localizations. Alena and her crew are only very marginally less worse, and it's still Not Great and not what I would want to do.) So if that factors in at all, well, there you go. That said, the DS/mobile editions of the games are also the most QoL-friendly of the bunch by a lot.
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Jan 3, 2021 20:48
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YggiDee posted:So I'm replaying DQB2, (because replaying old games is inexplicably superior to starting any of the new one I own) and I looked up the weird slang the Goodybag Jules uses in Khrumbul-Dun, and apparently it's Polari, an obscure English cant used by parts of the LGBT community in the 60's. That was a real weird Online Research Journey let me tell you. The game has some incredibly deep cuts of this sort. I too have been replaying B2 and remembering all over again why I love this game so much. (Now if only the Steam version wasn't fundamentally broken, but alas.)
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Jan 9, 2021 08:32
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FanaticalMilk posted:What's broken about the Steam version? The saving is broken for a lot of people. I tried everything to make it work, but it appears to be a configuration issue with Steam Cloud and there's ultimately no real way to correct it. It's a shame; it's a game I would really like to play on PC, but it's just not to be.
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Jan 17, 2021 09:30
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kirbysuperstar posted:The entirety of chapter 2 being a set up for one loving pun is still incredible I loving howled when I got there. I couldn't believe they did it and I was a fool to not have faith. And yeah, Skellketraz is the only truly questionable gameplay choice in all of Builders 2. The entire rest of the game is an utter masterpiece and actually makes me sad that Kazuya Niinou has moved on, even if most of the rest of the team is still there. That was clearly a team effort and losing any bit of the team that made that game happen hurts.
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Mar 20, 2021 06:15
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Ofecks posted:I've always liked DQ music, including the chiptunes and SFC titles The chiptune stuff is actually Racist Piece of poo poo's best work for the series; especially given how young the technology was at the time, he had an incredible understanding of how to make melody with only a few sound channels. I agree that the more recent stuff is often kind of forgettable, but I can recall a lot of the chiptune stuff perfectly in part because it's good. (It also happens to be when he still actually put effort into DQ soundtracks.) A shame he just swallowed Tojo-era imperialist bullshit wholeheartedly as a teenager and never, ever grew beyond it.
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Apr 11, 2021 07:06
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