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[Donniewahlberg]

Just finished

Spoiler

L'arca in the past

, really great segment. This is the first time where I found a lot of gear for sale though that would bump my stats up but my style way down. Is keeping style up that rewarding?

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

Maybe it's just me, but I never thought Dragon Warrior 7 looked bad. Granted, my experience with video games were much more geared towards handhelds after the SNES, so I guess I got used to graphics that were less than what they could be?

For me, like I said earlier, it's because it looks poor compared to its peers. I'm not talking about Vagrant Story or Final Fantasy IX or Skies or Arcadia, I'm talking about games with a similar graphic style like Grandia, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Xenogears.

Compare.

or even

to this

If there's anything redeeming about DQ7 visually, I'd like to know! The only thing I can think of are the bright and beautiful battles.

These games have better art direction in their pinky finger than DW7. Look at FFT's detailed sprites! Grandia looks like it has a better DQ art style than even DQ that generation. I think the main problem for me are the character sprites. They look so squat. And psx sprites generally are tall and detailed. And here's DQ7 with awful obese dwarves. DW7 has and always will look like eye cancer to me. I cannot defend it. It is one of the top 5 most ugly rpgs (or games period) I have ever played. Looks like vomit. Let's play as an obese green dude. If I were a more shallow person I'd refuse to play DW7. It is that ugly to me. I have no idea what they were thinking and I'm curious of a developer journal to explain why it looks so bad.

Reminder: this game came out the same year as the playstation 2 in Japan.

I"m convinced if DQ7 had the graphics of at least Grandia, the series would be lot more healthy than today. But there's no use crying over spilled milk, as they say.

 

[Lynx_7]

I wouldn't call it shit because that's a category reserved to some truly awful polygonal messes of the early n64/psx era, but DQ VII psx does look bland/lazy as hell. Maybe it was the price to pay for its size or the fact that it started development early but kept being pushed back, but I would call it a downgrade from VI. Which is actually in line with what I would say of a lot of early 64bit jank compared to the peak of the SNES era.

 

[rpmurphy]

Finished past Alltrades and the bandits were the first encounter in this game I was on edge of party wipe! That was an intense battle.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

You're cherry picking screenshots. There aren't great camera pans in DQ7 but there are much nicer looking environments than those two half-destroyed towns.

Also you have aspect ratio issues on the 2nd screenshot which is what makes things look squat. In general I don't agree that the sprite proportions are substantially different from either of the SNES DQ games.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

I like to throw around the idea in my head that they made VII look so poorly because of its sheer size and scope. It's a trade off. And it worked in the end.

 

[Cob32]

Do you to beat the current residents tablet before you can recruit the next?

I'm looking for

Spoiler

the chef in emberdale

and I'm quite far into the game and he isn't there.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

You're cherry picking screenshots. There aren't great camera panes in DQ7 but there are much nicer looking environments than those two half-destroyed towns.

Also you have aspect ratio issues on the 2nd screenshot which is what makes things look squat. In general I don't agree that the sprite proportions are substantially different from either of the SNES DQ games.

I'm not cherry picking at all. I'm going at random on google image search.

It's not different from SNES DQ's, but this is on the psx. I didn't play DW7 when it came out.

I played DQV and DQ1+2 sfc before DW7 and I thought DQV/DQ1+2 looked better. I didn't mind how they looked because they came out in the early 90's. I played DWIII on GBC and thought it was fine. It's a Game Boy Color game.

But then I play DW7 and I just can't stand the visuals. By that point, I had already played so many good looking sprite based games and I was just completely underwhelmed. The SFC DQ's also have the benefit of having good art design. I can't say the same for VII.

 

[Baloonatic]

I beat the boss of the first travelers tablet and thought I sent it back to the monster place but can't see it anywhere. Where do I look?

The travelers tablet thing is a bit confusing to me.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

I'm not cherry picking at all. I'm going at random on google image search.

Maybe in part because it's a neglected and not every well remembered game, but the screenshots available online for DW7 are especially poor. They're poor quality, emulated with bad aspect ratios, and are from very odd places. There are some definite highlights, like Verdham, Litorud, the Sphinx, or Estard castle that look far better than Rexwood or hellvine-attacked-Loomin. There's also the neat part where most towns have their distinct building styles, regions have their own character, and walls throughout the game are mostly non-straight lines. It all feels very organic.

Other than that I think it's fine to just disagree.

 

[aravuus]

Been hanging out in the slime forest for so long the game stopped counting my slime kills

I'll have everyone rocking that hero vocation soon enough

 

[LunarKnite]

For me, like I said earlier, it's because it looks poor compared to its peers. I'm not talking about Vagrant Story or Final Fantasy IX or Skies or Arcadia, I'm talking about games with a similar graphic style like Grandia, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Xenogears.

If there's anything redeeming about DQ7 visually, I'd like to know! The only thing I can think of are the bright and beautiful battles.

These games have better art direction in their pinky finger than DW7. Look at FFT's detailed sprites! Grandia looks like it has a better DQ art style than even DQ that generation. I think the main problem for me are the character sprites. They look so squat. And psx sprites generally are tall and detailed. And here's DQ7 with awful obese dwarves. DW7 has and always will look like eye cancer to me. I cannot defend it. It is one of the top 5 most ugly rpgs (or games period) I have ever played. Looks like vomit. Let's play as an obese green dude. If I were a more shallow person I'd refuse to play DW7. It is that ugly to me. I have no idea what they were thinking and I'm curious of a developer journal to explain why it looks so bad.

The only thing I can really concede to being even close to "eye cancer" would be the character sprites. But with the whole game based around the size of the sprites, I can't say that it ever bothered me.

And like I mentioned before, my experience with games were mainly on handhelds. I was too young to play more than a handful of SNES games, and I got the PSX a few months after the PS2 came out and only played a few games (FF7, DQ7, and maybe two or three other RPGs). Maybe because I went from playing on the GBC to playing DW7, that I didn't find anything wrong with the visuals at all.

I think as it stands on it's own, the visuals are passable. They aren't great, but they surely aren't the top 5 worse looking.

 

[-Mutsukki-]

These games have better art direction in their pinky finger than DW7. Look at FFT's detailed sprites!

No way. DQ's style is literally that, it's what people grew up with in Japan, it's a huge part of it's charm. That's why even in 2000 we still had a first person battle scene and no character animations for attacks. That's how the game's supposed to look, you can tell because they stuck at that style for all the DS remakes. I'm not saying that these other examples aren't more appealing to me. Heck, even the 3DS remake makes me want to play it much more than if I tried it on PS1, but still, the bosses and enemies have pretty good art, so you can tell where they focused their efforts.

Besides, I don't think it's fair at all to compare an insanely huge game like DQ7 with FFT

 

[rpmurphy]

Do you to beat the current residents tablet before you can recruit the next?

I'm looking for

Spoiler

the chef in emberdale

and I'm quite far into the game and he isn't there.

That shouldn't be necessary.

Spoiler

He is definitely in Emberdale, I think in the home next to the church.

 

[demonkaze]

Grinding some vocations out in the Slime Forest and was wondering if i'll end up breaking the game's difficulty completely if I unlock the advanced classes (also, how long is this likely to take)? I may just unlock the Intermediate classes (Gladiator etc.) and move on for now.

 

[djtiesto]

Man, the part before you actually unlock the job system is kinda hardcore. I really wish the system would unlock earlier - I'm practically unable to enjoy the atmosphere of this place to its fullest since I know that after this I'll finally unlock a very central gameplay system, after 21 gameplay hours, so I'm rushing quite a bit.

Hope I'll be able to get to it later today. I was supposed to be working on this shitty delightful unity project over the weekend but I kinda procrastinated and played DQ VII all weekend lol.

I actually really appreciated that dungeon, before you get the job change. Made you feel that the reward for trekking through such a dangerous place was worth it.

 

[Cob32]

That shouldn't be necessary.

Spoiler

He is definitely in Emberdale, I think in the home next to the church.

I'm well past faraday aswell which was supposed to be a prerequisite. I think I may have triggered a progress stopping bug. I'll carry on and keep checking back regularly.

 

[Dsyndrome]

Do you to beat the current residents tablet before you can recruit the next?

I'm looking for

Spoiler

the chef in emberdale

and I'm quite far into the game and he isn't there.

He should be in

Spoiler

the bar

, picked him up yesterday after getting back from Faraday.

 

[aravuus]

Grinding some vocations out in the Slime Forest and was wondering if i'll end up breaking the game's difficulty completely if I unlock the advanced classes (also, how long is this likely to take)? I may just unlock the Intermediate classes (Gladiator etc.) and move on for now.

Really doesn't take that long to master the basic classes, like maybe 15 to 20 minutes each. Gladiator also seemed to be considerably stronger than either of the basic classes you master to unlock it, so I'd imagine unlocking one of the advanced classes for every character is more than worth it.

I think I'm really going to try and get the champion class for my hero in the forest and stick with it until I unlock the hero class just normally playing the game.

I actually really appreciated that dungeon, before you get the job change. Made you feel that the reward for trekking through such a dangerous place was worth it.

In that sense I can definitely agree.

 

[Conor_Fool]

I've never played a Dragon Quest game...is this a good one to start with? I sometimes have difficulty getting into jrps, but I LOVE Pokemon. I just hate how easy the recent entries are

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

I've never played a Dragon Quest game...is this a good one to start with?

Yes.

 

[kaioshade]

Jesus. Just got my first fragment and have no money. im having to grind for hours just to be able to buy swords and armor for everyone. Please dont tell me the entire game is like this.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

Jesus. Just got my first fragment and have no money. im having to grind for hours just to be able to buy swords and armor for everyone. Please dont tell me the entire game is like this.

First fragment as in, you're still in the intro? You're not supposed to have much money. Buy the most you can afford.

 

[darkmark1987]

Need some help gaf,unlocked haven and recruited 3 villagers, however can't find the stone tablet, do I get this later or can I find it now?

Also the story haven was amazing

Spoiler

no battles and no neat resolution, just a tale of a petrified village that couldn't saved .

loved that angle.

This may join 5 as my fave dq

 

[Lynx_7]

I've never played a Dragon Quest game...is this a good one to start with? I sometimes have difficulty getting into jrps, but I LOVE Pokemon. I just hate how easy the recent entries are

Any Dragon Quest is a good Dragon Quest to start with, I and II being the sole exceptions

Spoiler

and I'd argue III because you need to play one of the former to fully appreciate it

.
It does help to know what you value most in an RPG though. Do you like job systems, vignette styled storytelling with the main plot taking a backseat, and a generally more relaxed pace? VII is your game.
Do you prefer a more streamlined progression system with a bigger focus on the overarching story and a brisker pacing? IV and V might be more up your alley.
Want a compromise between vignettes and main plot, character progression and good presentation? I think VIII qualifies.

 

[FriendlyGoat]

Jesus. Just got my first fragment and have no money. im having to grind for hours just to be able to buy swords and armor for everyone. Please dont tell me the entire game is like this.

It'll only be like that if you think you need to upgrade your gear to the max at the earliest chance you get, which you really don't. You can easily get by buying only what you can afford.

 

[scamander]

If I want to recruit monsters do I have to actively use Monster Munchies while fighting or is it sufficient to just keep the item with me? I'm confused, because even though I tried both pretty often, it never worked for me. :/

 

[Lothar]

Jesus. Just got my first fragment and have no money. im having to grind for hours just to be able to buy swords and armor for everyone. Please dont tell me the entire game is like this.

What are you doing buying swords and armor for everyone? Why is the game so hard for you that you need to do that?

I guess if you spend hours at each town buying everything, the entire game would be like that. You would be turning a 100 hour game into a 500 hour game. That's a weird thing to do.

 

[Cob32]

If I want to recruit monsters do I have to actively use Monster Munchies while fighting or is it sufficient to just keep the item with me? I'm confused, because even though I tried both pretty often, it never worked for me. :/

Just have the item. after a battle you get asked if you want to send the monster but it's pretty rare tbh.

 

[ElephantShell]

Weird question but is this game playable without the stylus? Mine fell out of my rarely used 3DS a while ago and I could get another one relatively easily but if I don't have to then I won't bother, seeing as how this would be the only 3DS game I want to play anytime soon.

 

[Lynx_7]

Weird question but is this game playable without the stylus? Mine fell out of my rarely used 3DS a while ago and I could get another one relatively easily but if I don't have to then I won't bother, seeing as how this would be the only 3DS game I want to play anytime soon.

It doesn't use the touch screen at all as far as I know. The bottom screen is just your map.

 

[scamander]

Just have the item. after a battle you get asked if you want to send the monster but it's pretty rare tbh.

Thanks! I'll keep trying then.

 

[Elaugaufein]

What are you doing buying swords and armor for everyone? Why is the game so hard for you that you need to do that?

I guess if you spend hours at each town buying everything, the entire game would be like that. You would be turning a 100 hour game into a 500 hour game. That's a weird thing to do.

The First island is actually pretty hard if you don't use the guest to level up a bit before visiting any of the locations that make her leave.

But it's more about levels than equipment (and once you get the first dungeon done you should be in a pretty good place).

 

[Eusis]

Re DQVII PS1: I think the game looks OK, that there's a certain charm to it. It definitely doesn't match the other 2D/3D games out at the time though, but it came out after the PS2 launched in NA and the smoothing feature on textures does help a decent amount.

 

[NolbertoS]

For me, like I said earlier, it's because it looks poor compared to its peers. I'm not talking about Vagrant Story or Final Fantasy IX or Skies or Arcadia, I'm talking about games with a similar graphic style like Grandia, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Xenogears.

If there's anything redeeming about DQ7 visually, I'd like to know! The only thing I can think of are the bright and beautiful battles.

These games have better art direction in their pinky finger than DW7. Look at FFT's detailed sprites! Grandia looks like it has a better DQ art style than even DQ that generation. I think the main problem for me are the character sprites. They look so squat. And psx sprites generally are tall and detailed. And here's DQ7 with awful obese dwarves. DW7 has and always will look like eye cancer to me. I cannot defend it. It is one of the top 5 most ugly rpgs (or games period) I have ever played. Looks like vomit. Let's play as an obese green dude. If I were a more shallow person I'd refuse to play DW7. It is that ugly to me. I have no idea what they were thinking and I'm curious of a developer journal to explain why it looks so bad.

Reminder: this game came out the same year as the playstation 2 in Japan.

I"m convinced if DQ7 had the graphics of at least Grandia, the series would be lot more healthy than today. But there's no use crying over spilled milk, as they say.

To be fair to DQ, VII was commissioned during the PS1 era. Hears that Heartbeat and Arte Piazza were taking too long making the game, could be because of its sheer size. Think of it as this game was commissioned in the halfway lifecycle of tge PS1 and was releases when the PS2 was releases out West. I believe FFIX was released around that timeframe and people were already seeing the dirextion JRPGs were going with realism. Enix couldn't abort thr projext and released it anyway and it was a success in Japan but had very low sales here. I was probably one of the few that pre-ordered the game and atrategy guide when it came out. Also the DQ games have alwys been chibi models and rarely have gone away from that formula barring DQVIII. I think you're judging DQVII too harshly as thr original game stayed to its roots, only in the last few years with 3-D midelling being decent to make can games in 3-D be more visual.

 

[Amiibro]

Did anyone buy digital that isn't going to use the theme? Willing to PayPal. Just shoot me a PM please. Anyone.

 

[Eusis]

To be fair to DQ, VII was commissioned during the PS1 era. Hears that Heartbeat and Arte Piazza were taking too long making the game, could be because of its sheer size. Think of it as this game was commissioned in the halfway lifecycle of tge PS1 and was releases when the PS2 was releases out West. I believe FFIX was released around that timeframe and people were already seeing the dirextion JRPGs were going with realism. Enix couldn't abort thr projext and released it anyway and it was a success in Japan but had very low sales here. I was probably one of the few that pre-ordered the game and atrategy guide when it came out. Also the DQ games have alwys been chibi models and rarely have gone away from that formula barring DQVIII. I think you're judging DQVII too harshly as thr original game stayed to its roots, only in the last few years with 3-D midelling being decent to make can games in 3-D be more visual.

I didn't pre-order, but I did get it pretty close to release as I recall. Within a year at an extreme, but probably same week or same month. Was huge into JRPGs and wanted to give the legendary series another shot since this was the first new entry since the NES days.

I really dug it, though some of the people I talked online with at the time thought I was nuts. DQVIII later won at least one of them around though.

 

[magnetic]

Edit: solved itself!

 

[Reknoc]

okay FINE i'm done fighting you game... maribel can just stay 2nd in the party line up, sick of constantly changing it.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

To be fair to DQ, VII was commissioned during the PS1 era. Hears that Heartbeat and Arte Piazza were taking too long making the game, could be because of its sheer size. Think of it as this game was commissioned in the halfway lifecycle of tge PS1 and was releases when the PS2 was releases out West. I believe FFIX was released around that timeframe and people were already seeing the dirextion JRPGs were going with realism. Enix couldn't abort thr projext and released it anyway and it was a success in Japan but had very low sales here. I was probably one of the few that pre-ordered the game and atrategy guide when it came out. Also the DQ games have alwys been chibi models and rarely have gone away from that formula barring DQVIII. I think you're judging DQVII too harshly as thr original game stayed to its roots, only in the last few years with 3-D midelling being decent to make can games in 3-D be more visual.

Eh.

I mean, sure, it stayed to its roots to be true. But I still find it the ugliest rpg on the ps1. Actually, I only put Shadow Madness below it in terms of looks. And while it stuck to its roots I also don't think that makes it a good looking game for its time. DQVI looks amazing for example and I'd say the same for DQ1-3 on SFC.

But apples and oranges. If I'm being harsh it's because it's how I feel.

As for me, I wanted DW7 when it came out but couldn't find it. Read review of DW1-3 for GBC in EGM, wanted that bad. But didn't have a GBC. 8 ended up being my first.

 

[Eusis]

DQ1 was actually kind of hideous, even if DW1 looked alright. But then DQ1's role model were PC RPGs like Ultima, they still had the same battle portraits as I recall, and they stepped their game up with 2 onwards anyway.

 

[R0ckman]

I actually really appreciated that dungeon, before you get the job change. Made you feel that the reward for trekking through such a dangerous place was worth it.

Because I was a bit overleveled I could see the cheese they needed for some of the boss battles

Spoiler

you were "suppose to lose". Like the enemies all of a sudden having god like speed and attacking twice.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Finally completing the set:

 

[QisTopTier]

Any tips for seed usage been holding on to all of mine x.x

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Any tips for seed usage been holding on to all of mine x.x

Use them ASAP on your Hero. The 1-5 points you get aren't very significant later in the game but a big boost early on.

 

[QisTopTier]

Use them ASAP on your Hero. The 1-5 points you get aren't very significant later in the game but a big boost early on.

All on one character? that seems a bit redundant >.>

 

[SuperSah]

Took a nice break, time to smash that Mecha stronghold!

 

[PumpkinSpice]

All on one character? that seems a bit redundant >.>

There are (minor spoiler)

Spoiler

some characters that leave your party

, and the Hero is a good as an all rounder that would benefit from (I think) all of them.

 

[Flying Toaster]

There are (minor spoiler)

Spoiler

some characters that leave your party

, and the Hero is a good as an all rounder that would benefit from (I think) all of them.

That has been my take on it. Seems heavy handed but it has worked out so far.

 

[Kinsei]

Does the

Spoiler

Slaughtomaton

boss not give any EXP or was I robbed of it because the boss died from recoil damage?