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Dragon Quest Community Thread: Come in! Would you like a Puff-Puff?

H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
Since Dragon Quest Heroes 2 comes out later this month and looks much more interesting than DQH1 (which I still liked and cleared, but got bored near the end because of the tower defense elements), I decided to go through all DQ games, since they never clicked with me.

Earlier this week I beat DQ1 on iOS. It wasn't bad, but felt extremely basic. Mind you, I understand that with how old it is, there's no helping it, but I didn't really love it.

DQ2 (iOS) was a bit better, but the sheer number of damage floors in the game and the very hard last form of the last boss made the whole package less fun than it could've been.

Anyway, today I started playing DQ3, and aside from creating my own party members (I prefer preset NPCs with backstories), I'm already enjoying it more than the previous 2 games.

I'll probably try to get IV soon and despite Aeana and a few more people telling me on Twitter that DS is the platform to go for IV-VI, I'm still torn.
I'm playing Japanese versions, so party chat is a non-issue. Mobile versions are 2/3 of the price of DS versions - even used, DQIV-VI DS are surprisingly expensive here.
I really like how fast quick save and game restart in case things go south is in iOS versions, so I wanted to know if mobile ports are really that much inferior to DS ones.
 
C

Camjo-Z

Member
Hasemo said:
I'll probably try to get IV soon and despite Aeana and a few more people telling me on Twitter that DS is the platform to go for IV-VI, I'm still torn.
I'm playing Japanese versions, so party chat is a non-issue. Mobile versions are 2/3 of the price of DS versions - even used, DQIV-VI DS are surprisingly expensive here.
I really like how fast quick save and game restart in case things go south is in iOS versions, so I wanted to know if mobile ports are really that much inferior to DS ones.
Click to expand...

TBH unless you absolutely must use physical buttons, I don't see a downside to going with the mobile versions.
 
M

Megalosaro

Banned
Mozendo said:
Wow is it really that bad? Guess I'll play the NES version at some point.
Edit: Are the mobile versions better or not?
Click to expand...

Its better in that they actually the time to translate the party chat for the mobile version. That includes about half the games dialogue, as well as all of the party''s characterization.

Otherwise it is the same as the ds version
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Mozendo said:
Wow is it really that bad? Guess I'll play the NES version at some point.
Edit: Are the mobile versions better or not?
Click to expand...

TGQyn13.png

MHMPYlm.png

iX0gAJr.png
Click to expand...
Basically, every town in DQ4 DS has a different flavor of over-the-top accents, potentially obstructing your ability to absorb the text smoothly and easily (and text is a big part of the game), unless you enjoy the written-accents.

The American DS version also sacrificed the "party chat" which was present in the Japanese DS version (edit: and never existed in the NES/Famicom versions), because the translators didn't have the time/budget to finish their job. The mobile version uses the DS script, but they went back and finished translating the party chat.
 
G

Gloam

Member
Cheerilee said:
Basically, every town in DQ4 DS has a different flavor of over-the-top accents, potentially obstructing your ability to absorb the text smoothly and easily (and text is a big part of the game), unless you enjoy the written-accents.

The American DS version also sacrificed the "party chat" which was present in the Japanese DS version, because the translators didn't have the time/budget to finish their job. The mobile version uses the DS script, but they went back and finished translating the party chat.
Click to expand...

I liked the different accents in IV. I wonder if people have issues with the text because they're unfamiliar with the colloquialisms of Irish, Scottish speech. I found Torneko and Ragnar's sections particularly enjoyable because the dialogue sounded good to my ears. I found it really charming. The NES text is very matter of fact and isn't as humorous.
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
Gloam said:
I liked the different accents in IV. I wonder if people have issues with the text because they're unfamiliar with the colloquialisms of Irish, Scottish speech. I found Torneko and Ragnar's sections particularly enjoyable because the dialogue sounded good to my ears. I found it really charming. The NES text is very matter of fact and isn't as humorous.
Click to expand...
I agree. I was never that bothered by the accents, especially Tornekos. I will admit that Ragnars spots could occasionally require more effort to read though.

Honestly the only accent that truly annoyed me was Sancho in DQV. But he's not around that often unless you use him in the latter half of the game (and he's not that impressive so most people don't).
 
M

Megalosaro

Banned
Gloam said:
. The NES text is very matter of fact and isn't as humorous.
Click to expand...

Maybe because it's not supposed to be at that moment? The recent localizations have a huge problem of injecting humor in moments where it's really supposed to be humorous. The series does have humor, but not every moment and what their doing really causes a lot of the series charm to get lost.
 
R

Refyref

Member
Personally, I found the accents to add a lot to the charm, not take away from it. The lack of party chat sucks, though.
 
M

Mozendo

Member
Oh I've known about party chat and the accents, but are the translations still true to the original meaning?

I also like the accents, I had a fun time reading them over and over early in the game to realize what was being said hahah
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
Those bandits in the tower in DQ3 were no joke. I know it's been mentioned in this or the summer DQ thread that DQ games past 1 and maybe 2 are not grindy, but somehow I found that fight hard despite grinding quite a bit and having almost the bedt equipment I could buy (for which I also had to grind money).
Am I doing something wrong? My party cobsists of a warrior, cleric, and wizard.
 
G

Gloam

Member
Megalosaro said:
Maybe because it's not supposed to be at that moment? The recent localizations have a huge problem of injecting humor in moments where it's really supposed to be humorous. The series does have humor, but not every moment and what their doing really causes a lot of the series charm to get lost.
Click to expand...

There's nothing humorous about the screenshot above in either translations. I was speaking in a general sense. The stories are still impactful with the new translations and, for me, don't suffer from an overload of humour in the wrong places.
 
T

The n00b Avenger

Member
From what I see there's quite a few people that like Dragon Quest purely because of those new translations and the 'personality' they give the series. At the least it's probably a safe bet that the current localization style is bringing more people in than it's turning people off(Dragon Quest 4 is a bit of a special case though since it's obviously the one that went way over the top in comparison to others so I can understand the complaints there)

I mean yeah, as someone who actually likes the series as is it's a little sad to see people say things like it's the localization in particular that draws them in, but whatever. As long as they're bringing in new fans somehow. Things get adapted to appeal to a new audience. That's just the way this works. The new translation isn't going to negatively affect my opinion of the game as it originally existed.

(It did make Dragon Quest Heroes practically unplayable in English for me though... Hey, Alena can't speak English well because she's Russian and we all know Russians suck at English right? Ayyyy...)
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Mozendo said:
Oh I've known about party chat and the accents, but are the translations still true to the original meaning?

I also like the accents, I had a fun time reading them over and over early in the game to realize what was being said hahah
Click to expand...

Overall, yes. Although they tend to throw puns at anything and everything (but apparently the Japanese originals were very punny, sooo...). And they made some odd choices, like the hero of Chapter 1 of DQ4 was originally named "Ryan" in Japan, and the NES translation changed that to "Ragnar". DQ4 DS decided to call him "Ragnar McRyan".

It's nothing game-breaking (although I personally found the accents game-breaking).
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
Hasemo said:
Those bandits in the tower in DQ3 were no joke. I know it's been mentioned in this or the summer DQ thread that DQ games past 1 and maybe 2 are not grindy, but somehow I found that fight hard despite grinding quite a bit and having almost the bedt equipment I could buy (for which I also had to grind money).
Am I doing something wrong? My party cobsists of a warrior, cleric, and wizard.
Click to expand...

It's been awhile since I played 3, but what are your combat plans in fights like that like.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Hasemo said:
Those bandits in the tower in DQ3 were no joke. I know it's been mentioned in this or the summer DQ thread that DQ games past 1 and maybe 2 are not grindy, but somehow I found that fight hard despite grinding quite a bit and having almost the bedt equipment I could buy (for which I also had to grind money).
Am I doing something wrong? My party cobsists of a warrior, cleric, and wizard.
Click to expand...

Are you using sap?

And to a much lesser extent, buff/upper?
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
SheepyGuy said:
Are you using sap?

And to a much lesser extent, buff/upper?
Click to expand...
I'm playing those games in Japanese, so I don't know English skill names, but I lowered enemy def, increased my own etc. Basically I buff/debuff if I have to (couldn't clear the last boss in DQ2 if I didn't ;)

My main problem with the bandit fight was that all the enemies were ungrouped, so I couldn't batch lower their stats/AoE attack them.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Hasemo said:
Those bandits in the tower in DQ3 were no joke. I know it's been mentioned in this or the summer DQ thread that DQ games past 1 and maybe 2 are not grindy, but somehow I found that fight hard despite grinding quite a bit and having almost the bedt equipment I could buy (for which I also had to grind money).
Am I doing something wrong? My party cobsists of a warrior, cleric, and wizard.
Click to expand...

Did you have スクルト on your Mage yet? That's a big boon for that fight. ピオリム from priest is also very helpful. Otherwise just using ルカニ to lower defense is the way to go. It can be tough. ラリホー (sleep) does work on Kandata but not with a high success rate.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
Aeana said:
Did you have スクルト on your Mage yet? That's a big boon for that fight. ピオリム from priest is also very helpful. Otherwise just using ルカニ to lower defense is the way to go. It can be tough. ラリホー (sleep) does work on Kandata but not with a high success rate.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I used those. Sleep didn't want to stick, so I ended up going for damage instead. Glad to say that I'm about to get the ship and nothing after that battle came even close to being hard. That includes killing metal slimes.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
I was able to finish DQ3 yesterday. Clearing DQ1-3 during Golden Week was a fun experience.

I liked 2 and 3 more than I expected, since I was never able to get into the series.
Final bosses of both 2 and 3 were more annoying than anything, with multiple attacks etc.
One thing that I really hated was that the first resurrection spell you get has only a 50% chance of success (the spell explanation doesn't mention it). I tried fighting the last boss ~10 times before leveling up a bit more and I think I was able to resurrect a dead character maybe twice in 10+ tries.

Anyway, since I'm not interested in post-game stuff in DQ3 I went straight to DQ4. Got the mobile version, since I usually can only use one hand while on a train. Hope it's good.
 
A

Agent Unknown

Member
I wish NOA would announce release dates already for DQ 7&8, especially 7 because that was going to be my big summer game. Have a feeling both have been delayed.
 
P

PreyingShark

Member
Just beat the last boss of DQMJ3 by just clicking Defend on my two Kaizer Dragons and having most of its attacks be reflected back at it. In hindsight I could've had my dragons attack most turns and still be just fine and it would've ended much faster, but doing it without attacking was oddly very satisfying. I was actually chuckling like a preteen boy saying the word "penis" for the first time it was so damn good.
 
A

Agent Unknown

Member
PreyingShark said:
Just beat the last boss of DQMJ3 by just clicking Defend on my two Kaizer Dragons and having most of its attacks be reflected back at it. In hindsight I could've had my dragons attack most turns and still be just fine and it would've ended much faster, but doing it without attacking was oddly very satisfying. I was actually chuckling like a preteen boy saying the word "penis" for the first time it was so damn good.
Click to expand...

Wat??
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
Hasemo said:
Anyway, since I'm not interested in post-game stuff in DQ3 I went straight to DQ4. Got the mobile version, since I usually can only use one hand while on a train. Hope it's good.
Click to expand...
One handed mobile works exactly as it should for the DQ games. Enjoy all that stable train and simultaneous eating gaming that you can do.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
Barrylocke said:
One handed mobile works exactly as it should for the DQ games. Enjoy all that stable train and simultaneous eating gaming that you can do.
Click to expand...
Aside from weird sprites in 1 and 2, I don't really have any complaints. Still, I think I'll switch to the 3DS for 7 and 8 if I get that far.
 
L

Lynx_7

Member
After a year long hiatus I finally decided to go back to my DQ II playthrough and beat it for good. itsbeenthreethousandyears.gif
I've already kinda said my thoughts on it. I can see how it was a step forwatd at the time and why some consider it a better game than the first, but from the perspective of someone playing this today I thought the first game offered a more unique experience while II was like "been there, done that in better games", which isn't very fair to it but that's just how I feel. Besides, the dungeon/quest design in this game can get far too labyrinthic and cryptic for its own good, and the zoomed in camera of the gbc remake certainly didn't help matters. And those encounter rates...
Overall, it's a good game but it's my least favorite of the franchise and I don't see myself ever revisiting it.

I was planning on playing III next but I kinda wanna go with a more plot focused entry now, so maybe it's time for me to finally jump to IV.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
Just out of curiosity, how long is the Mobile/DS version of DQIV?
I checked HLTB, but so far numbers for 1-3 have been much longer than my playthroughs.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
DQ4 done! I have 0 interest in the post game chapter 6, especially since it wasn't there in the first version, so I'm moving straight to DQ5. I hope it's good!
 
A

Aters

Member
No one is making a new thread for the new stream? Guess people are really salty about the last one huh? I know I'm still salty.


Hasemo said:
DQ4 done! I have 0 interest in the post game chapter 6, especially since it wasn't there in the first version, so I'm moving straight to DQ5. I hope it's good!
Click to expand...

Oh it is more than just good.
 
C

Confusatron

Member
I know there have been problems reported in the past for some of the Android DQ games on certain versions of Android. Anyone have any problems with DQ2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 on Android 6?
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
Hasemo said:
DQ4 done! I have 0 interest in the post game chapter 6, especially since it wasn't there in the first version, so I'm moving straight to DQ5. I hope it's good!
Click to expand...
Dragon Quest V is my fave, but I agree with going back and doing the bonus chapter. I really enjoyed it.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
I'm currently trying to get as much Dragon Quest in me as possible, because of Dragon Quest Heroes 2 coming out here in a week.
While I enjoyed 1, not knowing any characters who appeared and were supposed to basically be fanservice, kind of soured the experience.
I didn't delete 4 from my phone, so I'll probably get back to it later. By the way, how long is the 6th chapter if I just want to see the story? I remember reading that you could farm one of the bosses for additional equipment or something.
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
Hasemo said:
I'm currently trying to get as much Dragon Quest in me as possible, because of Dragon Quest Heroes 2 coming out here in a week.
While I enjoyed 1, not knowing any characters who appeared and were supposed to basically be fanservice, kind of soured the experience.
I didn't delete 4 from my phone, so I'll probably get back to it later. By the way, how long is the 6th chapter if I just want to see the story? I remember reading that you could farm one of the bosses for additional equipment or something.
Click to expand...
Not that long. The bulk of the action is the bonus dungeon plus another boss. The bonus dungeons boss fight is what lets you farm special equipment for the final character.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
I just unlocked the ability to put monsters in my party and DQV and wanted to ask for a suggested team.

I've heard that Slime Knight is by far the best party member - is making humans occupy the other 3 slots the best way to go?
I don't really want to bother with catching everything in every area like in Pokemon, especially since some catch rates seem to be crazy low.

If Slime Knight is pretty much enough as far as monsters go, I think I might put some time into catching Orc King, Great Dragon, and Archdemon later in the game and that would be it.
 
R

randomkid

Member
Hasemo said:
I just unlocked the ability to put monsters in my party and DQV and wanted to ask for a suggested team.

I've heard that Slime Knight is by far the best party member - is making humans occupy the other 3 slots the best way to go?
I don't really want to bother with catching everything in every area like in Pokemon, especially since some catch rates seem to be crazy low.

If Slime Knight is pretty much enough as far as monsters go, I think I might put some time into catching Orc King, Great Dragon, and Archdemon later in the game and that would be it.
Click to expand...

yeah I went with Slime Knight and humans for most of it. the nice thing about mostly using your family and friends is constant party chat, which results in some of my favorite moments in the game.
 
J

john tv

Member
Monsters are cool but you don't really need 'em all that much - they're more for just if you want to have fun collecting them IMO. You'll have enough human party members soon enough to cover all necessary roles, I think.
 
H

Hasemo

(；・∀・)ﾊｯ?
john tv said:
Monsters are cool but you don't really need 'em all that much - they're more for just if you want to have fun collecting them IMO. You'll have enough human party members soon enough to cover all necessary roles, I think.
Click to expand...
Oh, that's good to know. While I appreciate the feature and imagine that some people might really enjoy it, I vastly prefer playing with human characters.
 
A

Aarglefarg

Member
I didn't realise for a very large part of the game (mobile version) that I could recruit monsters since I didn't go into the building to start that, thinking from the symbol on the building it was for a slime mini-game or something.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Hasemo said:
I just unlocked the ability to put monsters in my party and DQV and wanted to ask for a suggested team.

I've heard that Slime Knight is by far the best party member - is making humans occupy the other 3 slots the best way to go?
I don't really want to bother with catching everything in every area like in Pokemon, especially since some catch rates seem to be crazy low.

If Slime Knight is pretty much enough as far as monsters go, I think I might put some time into catching Orc King, Great Dragon, and Archdemon later in the game and that would be it.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, the only monsters I recruit when I play DQ5 now are a slime knight and a slime at the start of the game, and a golem much later in the game. If a chimera offers to join, I take it and let it sit in the wagon to heal people. And I let an orc king join if it offers to help revive people. but yeah, that's all these days. Not that monsters aren't good, they're very good, but just not necessary to finish the game. The only monster I take all the way to the very end is a golem.

Now, if I'm aiming for the bonus dungeon, I try to catch a king cureslime (slime behomazun), because they're the best healers in the game.
 
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