Many years ago I was big into RPG for consoles.
Now I couldn't stand them anymore ...
with one exception: Dragon Quest.
There is something in this series, might be the ingenuity or the little details that characterize the world and NPCs (scenario writings) that still appeal to me now even though I'm burnt about the genre.
I tried Dragon Quest right after Final Fantasy as a kid. Everything about it was amazing. The art and character design just seemed to catch me a lot more for some reason. I have searched far and wide and have collected every north american release game related to the Dragon Quest universe in some way.
Even bought my daughter a slime.
On a side note Aeana is the best NeoGAF mod because of the avatar.
I was always a combination of creeped out and depressed by the place. Just a totally unnerving area and the music did a great job at accentuating that brooding feeling I'd get there.
This has always been one of my favorite DQ remixes and quite different from the typical game remix I prefer. Thought it was pretty intense and emotional.
The music was definitely a big part of it. But the other part was the setting itself. Whilst other towns were upbeat and save havens, something you came to relate the town sprite on the map to, there was something dreadfully wrong with this little, out-of-the way hamlet nested faraway surrounded by hard monsters. There were skeletons strewn about, the buildings were deteriorating, with toxic mold everywhere, and people were dying off and were merely accepted it. Hell, even the priest who saves your game is on his deathbed. First time I went there, I wasn't sure I'd be safe just staying in the town.
Yeah, totally. Aktemto was just something else, one of the most memorable parts of the series for me. It having its own unique music was pretty a very effective touch.
We'll with the iOS releases, DQVII selling well and DQMT doing extremely well I'll bet well see a remastered version of eight sooner before later. If it ever makes it over is another question though.
I actually feel like VIII is the worst in the series. It looks really, really nice, but the world feels so empty and getting around especially early takes forever. Also the total lack of classes and no extra characters leave the game with little customization options, and the skill points system just feels useless and kinda tacked on.
I agree with you. I still think it's a very good game, but it has a lot of little irritants that slow the game down. I believe the NA version with the orcehstral soundtrack is part of the issue (or so I've heard, could be wrong). Longer loading transitions in and out of battle, longer battle animations (special moves in particular) that feel like they're being held back slightly by loading times, the transition from the normal world map to your ship or to empyrea.
I'd love to play a remake of the game on PC or PS4 with an SSD. Just having the ability to really cut down on the load times and speed a few things up would make this game so much better to me.
Are you talking about Dragon Warrior I, II, & III on NES?
Luckily I have all 4 of those. A cool little fact for me is that my buddy bought me Dragon Warrior II and III for NES several years ago (I previously owned III but it had been lost during my childhood). Anyways, when I opened up the gift and saw the cartridges I was extremely happy. Then when I turned them over I saw a golden stticker on each that said "Southside Video". That "Southside Video" was the exact same rental store I used to rent games from as a child and I knew I had definitely rented the ones he gifted me before. I used to live about a 2 minute walk from that store and rented from there for a good 7-8 years before they finally closed.
Just a cool little thing that make those copies of the games more special to me
Yeah, I have a number of NES, and some SNES, games with "Pleasant Street Video" stickers on them from the video store that I used to rent games from that was down the street from me.
They closed down in 2011 (they had stopped renting games after the SNES/Genesis era, but were still doing movies and such), and I was very sad.
I was introduced to a whole bunch of games through there (not Dragon Quest, but other games) that I never would have tried if not for them.
I'm going to go ahead and talk about my memories with the Dragon Quest series.
The first Dragon Quest game I recall playing was Dragon Warrior VII and to this day it remains my favorite of the series and one of my favorite games of all time. I grew very attached with Kiefer early on and in some ways today and then I could relate to him.
At the time I first played Dragon Warrior VII I don't think up to that point I've never been so moved by a character being gone forever (when Kiefer decides to stay behind in the past with the Deja tribe)
VII did so many things right. It had an amazing central story with even more amazing individual stories for all of the lands you explore throughout the game. There aren't very many playable characters but I love each and every one of them, especially Maribel and Kiefer. I first bought the game at a Movie Gallery in 2001-2003 and it became one of my favorite games back then. The world was enormous, definitely back then this was the biggest game of all time. For those who aren't aware it has more than 70,000 pages of text for the game's script alone. That is insane. I don't think even juggernaut RPGs like Skyrim best that today. VII probably has the longest main story out of any game and that always interested me. I also liked how dark VII was and took on many mature themes that none of the subsequent Dragon Quest titles ever dared to do. This game is definitely Horii's magnum opus and is one of the greatest games of all time. My only complaints about the game are the dated visuals. Even when the game was released (2000/2001) the graphics were pretty bad and it showed. There was a lot of difficulty getting the game out and I'm sure the graphical quality of the game was not high on the list. I think the game looks good even now, but it definitely is not anywhere near the quality of Final Fantasy IX, my favorite game of all time and the best-looking game released up until 2000's Shenmue. My other complaint is near the ending of the game. It just felt "rushed" and uninspiring, that is, until you get to the ending of the game. I loved the ending of the game. I don't think they could have done a better job of it.
After VII, I later played V and VI via an emulator (ZSNES) and instantly became in love with those games. I originally preferred VI for its dual worlds and class system, however I felt that besides Carver and Milly, the other playable characters felt very bland. It is still one of my favorites of the seriers however. Recently V has overtaken VI as my number two favorite. I loved everything about V and the "generations" story line. I don't have many complaints about V except how small the world was. It is definitely one of the smallest worlds, being only a little bigger than I's world. I really loved the idea of getting and raising monsters to fight alongside with you (this was way before even Pokemon was released). V definitely introduced a lot of new and interesting things to video games.
VIII was the next game I played and it was a really amazing game although it also started many of the trends that the recent Dragon Quest games have taken. This game wasn't nearly as dark as the previous three Dragon Quest titles were and almost seems like they decided to make the game appeal more to children than adults (this is apparent in IX...) I also thought the game was considerably easier than the previous games. What I did love about the game was the amazing voice acting, graphics (one of the best-looking games of all time), and its villain Dhoulmagus.
I don't even want to start with IX. I just don't like it. The only good thing I can probably say about it is that it looks pretty, but it has introduced so many awful things to the series.
The remaining games I - IV were all great and out of these four I loved IV the most. I found the chapter system interesting, but I couldn't connect with some of the characters like I could with V, VII, and VIII and I didn't feel like the game introduced many new additions to the series like how VI and VII did.
So this is my history of the Dragon Quest series. If I were to rank them it would be..
VII
V
VI
VIII
IV
III
II
IX
I
I really want the Dragon Quest VII remake to come out here. I really do. I don't think it ever will though if it isn't announced by E3 though. By then it will be one and a half years since the release of the game in Japan and it would just probably simply be too late for Nintendo and Square-Enix to profit from.
I liked that Dragon Quest VIII's world map was seemingly bigger than it needed to be. When you reached a town you were greeted by the town wall and a massive gate, not an icon on the floor or an SD version of two houses. Even on approach you can just barely see the chimneys and roofs of some of the houses closest to the town border, so you had this sense of scale that was missing in many jRPGs.
Only DQ game I've beaten was 5 on the DS. I do want to go back and replay it but on my Super Famicom and PS2 copies since I've heard pros and cons of each version. I own 4-6 and 9 on DS, 8 on PS2, and 5 on SFC and PS2. I was always interested in this series thanks to growing up on Earthbound and RPG Maker, and of course that glorious Toriyama art as well.
Maybe I'll go check out that fan translation of 1-3 on SFC and see where this all started.
Edit: oh yeah I own Rocket Slime and Joker 1 and Joker 2. Really sad that we didn't get the 3DS Rocket Slime as the pirate motif looked charming and fun.
I've been looking forward to this one for a while, but the author hasn't posted anything new since late January. Just gotta be patient, I guess. Really want to play DQIV with that old-school font and excised 'accents' that proved to be too damn distracting.
I personally have no interest in that hack, since I have no nostalgia for English Dragon Warrior (played them all in Japanese to start with). I always kinda hated the font due to its uneven width. Not that I have a lot of love for 4's translation. I actually love the accents, but I don't like how much of a joke they made everything they could manage to turn into one. Dunplundrin' I think was the one that set me off the most.
Hmm I still need to beat DQM1 & DQM2. I got about 20% in both and then dropped them for other games. Once I finish my backlog I'll defintley make sure to finish those two.
My problem with 4's accents is that they make already vague hints completely indecipherable. Sometimes I just stare at a text box and go "The hell does this even mean?"
My problem with 4's accents is that they make already vague hints completely indecipherable. Sometimes I just stare at a text box and go "The hell does this even mean?"
Hmm I still need to beat DQM1 & DQM2. I got about 20% in both and then dropped them for other games. Once I finish my backlog I'll defintley make sure to finish those two.
I heard they toned down the roguelike elements of DQM2, or locked them into the postgame. I hope not. DQM and DQM2's roguelike elements were amazing and added so much replay.
Blasphemy time: I think they should find a new composer and let Sugiyama only write a few pieces.
The quality of his compositions has nose-dived since VII to the point I'm almost tempted to turn off the volume. (It's not like he'll be able to compose for many years anyway...)
Blasphemy time: I think they should find a new composer and let Sugiyama only write a few pieces.
The quality of his compositions has nose-dived since VII to the point I'm almost tempted to turn off the volume. (It's not like he'll be able to compose for many years anyway...)
One of the fundamentals to realize about the series is that the monsters will beat your characters by wearing them down. You should pretty much always be able to crush any pathetic slime you come upon, but when you're traveling from one town to the next and there are mazes and caves and dungeons in-between, you'll get into fight after fight after fight until you eventually die from a million cuts. Your wizards will run out of MP, and your item bag will run out of herbs.
The best tip (IMO) is to prepare for a long journey. Spend all of your money on weapons and armor to wipe out your foes just a little bit faster, or protect against just a few more hits. Fill your bag with herbs. Before you set out for real, step outside of town and whack a few enemies, just to get a feel for it. Consider "grinding" a bit to get another level, or earn enough cash for another weapon. Then sleep and save before you head out.
While you're traveling, try to keep your head in the game. It's never just "push 'A' to win" (although it sometimes feels like it), there are always ways to shut down your foes just a little bit quicker, like attacking the weak guys first, or maybe ignoring the weaklings and taking out the bigger threat first. Maybe you can slash a monster with your Warrior and it doesn't quite kill them, but one more kick from your Wizard's pointy shoes will finish the job, freeing up your Warrior to go attack someone else. These insignificant little efficiencies add up to significant endurance over a long slog, and can ensure that you'll have enough gas left in the tank by the time a boss appears.
And if you fail, you'll just get kicked back to town with a 1/2 gold penalty. That should always be more gold than you left town with (because you spent it all on weapons and armor before leaving town... right?), and you even get to keep all the experience points you built up on the way. Combine that with the real-world experience of you knowing what to expect, and your second attempt should be significantly easier.
I really love Dragon Quest's approach to a self-correcting difficulty level. You can make it as hard or as easy as you want it to be. Do you rush forward or take your time? Depending on how you want to approach it, the game can be incredibly cruel or incredibly forgiving.
No. Manami Matsumae helped him compose Dragon Quest Swords, that's it. He really needs help, though. After DQ9 and DQ10, he's shown that he can't even fill out an original score anymore.
No. Manami Matsumae helped him compose Dragon Quest Swords, that's it. He really needs help, though. After DQ9 and DQ10, he's shown that he can't even fill out an original score anymore.
Ah, well that's that then. I never listened to DQX's OST, but I wasn't a big fan of IX's outside of certain pieces. I wholeheartedly agree that he could use some more assistance.
Ah, well that's that then. I never listened to DQX's OST, but I wasn't a big fan of IX's outside of certain pieces. I wholeheartedly agree that he could use some more assistance.
If you're playing Chrono Trigger, concentrate on that for now. Take your time with that and then enjoy it.
When you're done, Dragon Quest will be there waiting for you.
DQX's score was probably the most disappointing thing about the game for me. I was hoping for a grand, new OST and was instead met with rehashes all over the place.
No. Manami Matsumae helped him compose Dragon Quest Swords, that's it. He really needs help, though. After DQ9 and DQ10, he's shown that he can't even fill out an original score anymore.
Yeah, Sugiyama's soundtrack for DQ9 (and I guess 10, but that one was rehash central) have just seemed so lacking so far, and it's really disappointing to me that we haven't gotten a full original score in ages. I mean, I know why, but I think it's about time that someone else joined the fray when it comes to DQ. Preferably someone who knows the sound really well and can emulate the standard 'soundscape' that's fairly unique to DQ. If there were a composer changeover, I don't think I'd rush in for a change in style and sound at all.
So has there been any news of a DQVII 3DS English port yet?? I have the Japanese version, but having a sloowww time getting through it, with language barriers Square Enix defintely doesn't want my money for DQVII 3DS in North America
I gave up and started replaying it on PS1. Just as awesome as I remembered it, part of me was afraid it would be too ugly or it wouldn't have aged well, but I'm still having a blast with it.
