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[Huff]

Just got to the first

Spoiler

casino

I'll probably be here a while.

 

[KarmaCow]

I'm kind of lost.

Spoiler

Where am I supposed to go for the fashion contest?

You have the harp right?

Spoiler

Go to the top left of the map in the real world and you should find a path underwater that takes you to than town near Wellshire.

 

[Oni Link 666]

I'm kind of lost. Where am I supposed to go for the fashion contest?

The Chateau de Sass. It's on the northwestern most island, south of Wellshire, by a lake. I think you have to dive to get there.

 

[ghibli99]

I think this game is one of the few RPGs where I actually want to talk to NPCs, which is great in itself.

Yeah, DQ games definitely have wonderful NPC dialogue. There are those that don't like the region-specific dialects (and they did tend to be a bit overdone in IV), but I think they're great and add so much unique flavor to these games.

 

[paranoidfortean]

This is one of my 3DS launch titles. For now it sits with my games and I occasionally sniff the manual.

 

[zoku88]

I finally beat the bonus dungeon. Unless I missed anything, it didn't really add anything significant to the story, unlike IV's extra dungeon(s).

Was V's also pretty insignificant to the story?

 

[MooMoo]

Haha, hope you enjoy it! DQ4 will be the first RPG I play on the 3DS.

Final boss spoilers/rant:

Spoiler

How the hell do you stop him from kazinging himself back to life? It's bad enough that it's a three part boss, but when his damn hands can revive him back to full life? Uhg. Party is early 40s, using Hero, Carver, Lizzie, and my last party member I switch out between Milly and Nevan. It's not so much that I'm having problems dishing out damage. It's more like by the time I reach the final phase my MP is pretty much spent. Maybe I should do some class switching.

 

[Loto]

Haha, hope you enjoy it! DQ4 will be the first RPG I play on the 3DS.

Final boss spoilers/rant:

Spoiler

How the hell do you stop him from kazinging himself back to life? It's bad enough that it's a three part boss, but when his damn hands can revive him back to full life? Uhg. Party is early 40s, using Hero, Carver, Lizzie, and my last party member I switch out between Milly and Nevan. It's not so much that I'm having problems dishing out damage. It's more like by the time I reach the final phase my MP is pretty much spent. Maybe I should do some class switching.

I had trouble with that too. I did some damage to each hand. Then I put Ashlynn in so she could use

Spoiler

Magic Burst

 

[ghibli99]

I had trouble with that too. I did some damage to each hand. Then I put Ashlynn in so she could use

Spoiler

Magic Burst

Yeah, definitely have to take out the one that can cast

Spoiler

Kazing. Even if the other one casts Zing later, you can keep up due to its lower HP.

I have to say again how amazing a job they did on his animation. So good!

 

[KarmaCow]

Knuckle Sandwich is great for the hands. It scales nicely with Oomph and is reliable.

 

[MooMoo]

Yeah, definitely have to take out the one that can cast

Spoiler

Kazing. Even if the other one casts Zing later, you can keep up due to its lower HP.

I have to say again how amazing a job they did on his animation. So good!

I'll try that. I didn't realize that only one of them casts that; I assumed they were all casting it. Ended up doing a little extra grinding/finished up the fashion show thing/played around with Slimopolis. And yes, the animation is so great! I couldn't help but wonder how a 3DS version of them would look like such as c-c-cold breath or even the end boss doing its transformations.

Knuckle Sandwich is great for the hands. It scales nicely with Oomph and is reliable.

I don't know if it's just me, but what I've noticed is that if I set the tactics to anything but 'follow orders,' Knuckle Sandwich has a high accuracy rate. But whenever I set tactics to 'follow orders,' it suddenly starts missing a lot.

 

[KarmaCow]

I don't know if it's just me, but what I've noticed is that if I set the tactics to anything but 'follow orders,' Knuckle Sandwich has a high accuracy rate. But whenever I set tactics to 'follow orders,' it suddenly starts missing a lot.

I think its accuracy enemy specific. When I tried it, Knuckle Sandwich it hit reliably on the hands, but failed most of the time on his head.

 

[MooMoo]

Ah, that would make sense. I usually let the AI handle normal battles but for bosses I tend to manually control everything, so I wouldn't know any better. Pretty ironic you can't knuckle sandwich a head...

Anyways, I am happy to report I just beat the crap out of him Once I saw that he could cast

Spoiler

Magic Burst

I was like oh shiz! But it failed haha. My hero died once though, which I'm not really happy about (I have this weird RPG rule where if it's not insane, I make my first playthroughs no death runs). Watching the end game stuffs now! Time to slowly tackle on the post game, and then push on to DQ4.

Edit: End-game spoilers

Spoiler

LOL at Nevan being able to get a girl to dance with. Also nooo Ashlynn! Even though I never used you in my party. And the credits music is so mystical...why isn't it all happy? And what was in the egg? =O

t

Second Edit: Hm, just starting up DQ4. Definitely not as smooth as 5/6. Music is still ace though.

 

[ghibli99]

And yes, the animation is so great! I couldn't help but wonder how a 3DS version of them would look like such as c-c-cold breath or even the end boss doing its transformations.

The way they do the layering on the sprites in these games would lend itself well to 3D, I think. I guess we'll see what the next Rocket Slime looks like on it, which in itself bodes well for future DQ games on the system.

Hope you're having fun w/ DQ4!

 

[Man God]

I wish you could unlearn abilities, it's the only thing keeping back the AI in this game.

I gave you the flail of destruction, AI character, use it!

 

[ElFly]

Yeah, the animation for the final boss is amazing, although I was more impressed by Necrosaro in DQ4DS, dunno why. I think they wanted to live up to the original crazy animation of Necrosaro on the NES.

I wish you could unlearn abilities, it's the only thing keeping back the AI in this game.

I gave you the flail of destruction, AI character, use it!

I think it helps when they are set to don't use magic (which really means "don't use mp").

My Terry religiously uses the orb of healing whenever is needed.

 

[hipgnosis]

Any word on PAL release? Getting pretty anxious here and thinking about importing. All the other DQ titles were released at the same time in the US and Europe. This is getting weird.

 

[Man God]

Yeah, the animation for the final boss is amazing, although I was more impressed by Necrosaro in DQ4DS, dunno why. I think they wanted to live up to the original crazy animation of Necrosaro on the NES.



I think it helps when they are set to don't use magic (which really means "don't use mp").

My Terry religiously uses the orb of healing whenever is needed.

Not using MP isn't the problem as that AI setting works almost too well.

It's using various MA/Gladiator abilities when an all out attack with the flail will do more damage overall.

 

[Notorious_Roy]

Is it me, or is the game a lot easier than IV and V on DS? When Milly joined (lvl 5) my two characters were at level 13. The boomerang also kills half of all enemies in battles. I win in two turns every time... Even bossfights up to now have been a cakewalk.

It's not that I don't like this (I'm not fond of high difficulty) but it's kinda weird.

 

[ghibli99]

I thought 4 and 5 were more difficult than 6 (the boss difficulty in 5 was rather perfect), but I also dumped a lot of time into jobs, so that skewed things a bit. I also just came off of playing DQ8 before this, which I think had some of the tougher bosses in the series.

Be careful, though... it doesn't sound like you've run into the first tough boss of the game, which can wipe you out if you go in thinking it'll be easy.

 

[BriareosGAF]

Is it me, or is the game a lot easier than IV and V on DS? When Milly joined (lvl 5) my two characters were at level 13. The boomerang also kills half of all enemies in battles. I win in two turns every time... Even bossfights up to now have been a cakewalk.

It's not that I don't like this (I'm not fond of high difficulty) but it's kinda weird.

It gets even crazier later;

Spoiler

my endgame levelling party was Hero/Hero, Carver/Dragon, Terry/Gladiator, and Liz/Dragon, so it was a non-stop boulder toss & c-c-c-cold breath aoe fest for every battle.

Final boss was pretty easy for my

Spoiler

Hero/Dragon/Sage/Armamentalist(Sage)

party at 40-42. Man that epilogue just goes on and on and on. If you think you can beat the boss with your kid just before their bedtime, it's another ten minutes or so before you'll be hauling them upstairs...

 

[Man God]

If you don't over level or worse, master too many jobs then DQ VI DS has a very nice difficulty later on.

 

[MooMoo]

It gets even crazier later;

Spoiler

my endgame levelling party was Hero/Hero, Carver/Dragon, Terry/Gladiator, and Liz/Dragon, so it was a non-stop boulder toss & c-c-c-cold breath aoe fest for every battle.

Final boss was pretty easy for my

Spoiler

Hero/Dragon/Sage/Armamentalist(Sage)

party at 40-42. Man that epilogue just goes on and on and on. If you think you can beat the boss with your kid just before their bedtime, it's another ten minutes or so before you'll be hauling them upstairs...

Yeah, the epilogue was sort of awkwardly long. Double dragon end-game party is so awesome haha. I think people who don't explore the map when your transportation methods open up will find the difficulty curve to rack up nicely. But if you take the time to explore the map/job system then the only difficult spot you should meet is the end game boss.

 

[ElFly]

Not using MP isn't the problem as that AI setting works almost too well.

It's using various MA/Gladiator abilities when an all out attack with the flail will do more damage overall.

At least early on the guys will use whatever item they have when it's opportune. Milly used the flame claw for 70% of the game. I guess it is a bug, where the item isn't marked as better than abilities or something.

MP is super useless except for resurrecting and gigaslash, since most of the useful abilities require little or no mp.

Hustle dance is super broken. It's only downside is that it heals ALL the party, which is slow when you have the wagon with you.

 

[ghibli99]

^^^ I don't even see that as a downside, especially during some battles where you're swapping in/out party members.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Some dreadstaves appear!

 

[Oxx]

Despite having Golden Sun 3, Pokemon Black, and Radiant Historia in various states of sub-3-hour-play-time limbo, I have decided to begin DQVI.

Will I be able to stick with it, or will the glut of DS RPGs continue to distract me?

 

[djtiesto]

Man, this has to be one of the most nonlinear entries in the series... the worlds are absolutely MASSIVE and I keep on gaining new vehicle upgrades before I have time to finish exploring the world with the previous upgrade! I just gained the ability to

Spoiler

go underwater

... the NPCs are some of the most charming yet in a DQ game. Only thing I don't like about this is the encounter rate is much higher than in the SFC version (I also find the fights to be a lot more challenging than much of the series)... other than that, this may end up as one of my favorite DQ entries when all is said and done.

 

[Huff]

I'm about 20 hours in and probably over leveled.

Spoiler

I just got the flying bed and am around levels 27-29

. I wouldn't consider it an overly hard game, but it hasn't been a cake walk.

I'm really enjoying the characters and art of the game, although the story is pretty meh. Nothing seems connected so far and it feels like I'm just progressing by trying to find the next area I can get to for no other reason than I can finally get to it.

 

[Oxx]

Not really feeling the constant random battles, but at least loading and animation is lightning fast.

 

[YourMaster]

Yeah, the epilogue was sort of awkwardly long.

I hate this on handheld games, the long epilogues, especially if you can only save afterwards. You've just beaten the final boss, they should have thought of the possibility that that's a moment you would want to save your game.

Also the moments where you couldn't quicksave, quite annoying, when you want to quicksave you want is quick (hence the name), and then you have to sit through a long explanation that you should be happy with sleepmode, while hoping you won't miss your stop or run out of battery life.

 

[Oxx]

A couple of hours in now and I have to say that it seems like two of the areas where IX was most deficient - music and characterisation - are better catered-for in this game.

The world map is kinda rubbish though.

 

[Oxx]

Ten hours on the clock and I'm remembering just how much I enjoy early-game Dragon Quest. It's just much more enjoyable exploring new parts of the map, entering new towns, and finding new items, than it is grinding the DQ9 post-game.

Buying a Cautery sword is more exciting than obtaining a Hypernova sword.

 

[vagabondarts]

I'll be picking this up tomorrow or Tuesday. I don't know why I've waited so long to get it, I've loved Dragon Quest all my life.

 

[fates]

Gamekyo's reporting a release date of May 20th for Europe

 

[Man God]

I hate this on handheld games, the long epilogues, especially if you can only save afterwards. You've just beaten the final boss, they should have thought of the possibility that that's a moment you would want to save your game.

Also the moments where you couldn't quicksave, quite annoying, when you want to quicksave you want is quick (hence the name), and then you have to sit through a long explanation that you should be happy with sleepmode, while hoping you won't miss your stop or run out of battery life.

I once had a DSi XL on blinking red last four days in sleep mode.

 

[Almyn]

Gamekyo's reporting a release date of May 20th for Europe

At least it hasn't been forgotten about. Still it's been a long wait, When the previous DS Dragon Quest games were released within a few weeks of the US. I'm glad I imported.

 

[djtiesto]

Looking for the

Spoiler

Hero's equipment

now... unfortunately this part of the game is rather directionless - had to look in the guide to figure out where to go. I love how you have 2 massive (plus

Spoiler

underwater!

) words to explore, but also wish you'd get a bit more direction.

 

[YourMaster]

Looking for the

Spoiler

Hero's equipment

now... unfortunately this part of the game is rather directionless - had to look in the guide to figure out where to go. I love how you have 2 massive (plus

Spoiler

underwater!

) words to explore, but also wish you'd get a bit more direction.

You could always get direction in game from the fortune teller.

 

[PataHikari]

Oh man.

I've been enjoying this game a ton.

I reached

Spoiler

Weavers Peak in the real world

And it is the saddest thing in the game.

 

[ghibli99]

Ten hours on the clock and I'm remembering just how much I enjoy early-game Dragon Quest. It's just much more enjoyable exploring new parts of the map, entering new towns, and finding new items, than it is grinding the DQ9 post-game.

Buying a Cautery sword is more exciting than obtaining a Hypernova sword.

Yep, and I hope that core feeling never goes away... not in my lifetime, anyway.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

May 20th for Europe is confirmed for sure. Here is the EU boxart:

For the first time*, its more like the JP one (really though its got its differences) with stuff moved round to accommodate the "obligatory text" (which I think is there as a space filler to be honest).

*-Well actually, early EU DQIV boxart was like the Japanese PS1 version but of course, the final release was not...

Now I twiddle my thumb and wait for some more pre-orders to open up and hopefully price competition.

 

[Oxx]

Did the previous EU DQs have the number in the title?

 

[jRPG]

Did the previous EU DQs have the number in the title?

IV, V and VIII didn't. Just IX I believe.

 

[john tv]

Still called Realms of Reverie in Europe.

 

[Magicpaint]

Still called Realms of Reverie in Europe.

I prefer that name

 

[Chinese Electric Batman]

I'm at the part about 8 hours in where

Spoiler

you fight Murdaw for the second time

and I have absolutely no idea what is going on in terms of story.

 

[Huff]

I'm at the part about 8 hours in where

Spoiler

you fight Murdaw for the second time

and I have absolutely no idea what is going on in terms of story.

I'm about 20 hours in, but haven't played in a while due to exams and interviews. I still don't really understand the main storyline.

 

[YourMaster]

I'm at the part about 8 hours in where

Spoiler

you fight Murdaw for the second time

and I have absolutely no idea what is going on in terms of story.

This is the point where things will be made clear. After that it's a sandbox until you've done enough to face the final boss.

 

[Apenheul]

Good to know that the European release for DQ6 isn't far away. From the impressions in this thread I get that this might become my favorite DQ on the DS.