I beelined to the ruins and jumped back in time. Now I'm reading that there were sidequests I could have done before time traveling? Am I locked out of those, or do they show up later?
I beelined to the ruins and jumped back in time. Now I'm reading that there were sidequests I could have done before time traveling? Am I locked out of those, or do they show up later?
I think the only technically missable things are a few mini medals, but they're infinitely farmable from an endgame monster anyway.
I guess technically, you can miss a number of cutscenes, but they don't count for shit, and most, if not all, get kind of randomly added to the cutscene viewer anyway, even if you never saw them.
eg That unbeatable dragon boss at the very start of the game gives a special cutscene if you beat it. Which requires grinding to like, level 30 on level 5 mobs, or just added to the cutscene viewer by... going back and killing it at any future point?
I beelined to the ruins and jumped back in time. Now I'm reading that there were sidequests I could have done before time traveling? Am I locked out of those, or do they show up later?
I don't remember there being any actual sidequests or significant missables or anything. There is/was 2 little scenes you could see, but it's nothing worth fretting over. If I remember right:
Sylvando can visit his father, and Rab can visit his daughter's grave back at the castle and basically say "Yeah we did it".
This is from my memory of the original game. I don't know if the S version added new things. But this game was incredibly forgiving and virtually nothing was ever permanently missable, so I'd be surprised if that changed.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Yep. Every re-release version they put out of the game somehow is better but worse than some of their first ports.
The SNES update to the first trilogy (which I believe was ported to mobile) is the best version.
I guess they just stick 3-5 people on a team and tell them to remake this classic game, but if they did the full remaster treatment like Star Ocean, then they'd HAVE to charge $50+ for it, and I'm not sure it would make that return on investment.
So it looks like actually dq 1 and 2 mobile were based on 1 and 2 snes (or maybe some map and terrain assets from 3 snes?) but they changed the overworld sprites to some oversized versions that looked terrible. Also for some reason the general terrain and dungeon graphics look terrible on dq1 and 2 mobile like they had some issue with sampling the graphics to a different resolution or something. Then the switch version redid them again to be clearer looking but still oversized and put of place compared to the world.
For 3 the mobile was a straight port of the snes version, the switch had the redone overworld and monster graphics.
No idea why they ditched the snes 1 and 2 graphics, the sprites were pretty cute retro sprites that looked pretty good to me. 1 and 2 snes look a bit primitive and NES-y in general but still look the best by far of any version of those two games IMHO.
I played through all 3 games. For ~5-10 bucks, they're... fine. There are better versions out there, but if you want one right now and on your Switch, they do the job. I personally didn't really give a hoot about the graphics. About the only negative I could give them is that the UI is too... clean. It looks fine in handheld, but when you play on a TV, there's something about the battle menus and even the monster graphics that looks weird. It's all high def and clean looking, but... too high def and clean looking, if that makes sense.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
After finishing XI, which will be my first playthrough of a DQ game, I'm looking at playing the SNES versions of DQ1-3 if I can work out the best way to do that. I can't get on board with how the Switch versions look, and I don't want to play them on my phone.
I think I have it all figured out, I just need to try it.
IIRC the english translation of the SNES 1 and 2 is pretty old and still has a few glitches and untranslated parts. Nothing major but don’t expect the near-professional grade experience you might get from some other super famicom english fan translations.
Edit: I know it may not be the most obvious version but if I were playing dq1+2 I would seriously look at the game boy color version (dragon warrior 1+2).
Pros: professional release, 8 bit retro graphics but not as bad as original nes graphics, has most quality of life improvements present in later versions
Con: can be a bit hard to find a cart (expect to spend 50 dollars or so for an original), some gameboy era quirkyness (abbreviated monster names, etc)
I can't read Japanese so I can't say for sure to the quality of the fan translation, but I can certainly say the official GBC one reads fairly well, though be aware it was released when they were still working out how they were going to localize the series, if at all, so names and terms don't really match up with the standardized ones used now.
Just beat DQXI (true ending boss). Holy shit. What a game. Act 1 and Act 2 had me worried because Fight Wisely worked for like 99% of all the encounters. Then the final Act 2 dungeon happened. And Act 3 was great all the way. I HATE that it takes like 50 hours for the game part of the game to get real good.
So does this mean that...
*ending spoilers*
DQXI is like the first DQ? At least it happens before DQIII right?
Hmm. I do really like the localization of XI. Maybe I'll give DQ1 a try on my phone and see how I like the controls.
If you have a switch I would go with that over mobile for 1 and 2, hi-res graphics be damned. There’s some wierd resolution sampling issue with the mobile versions graphics of 1+2 (not 3, though, which is great). It looks like they scaled up the tiles but didn’t do it at an exact multiple and used some interpolation to do it instead if that makes sense. It looks really bad, and the switch version doesn’t have that problem.
All newer DQs are localized by the best in business. The lead is Richard Honeywood, and the guy is a master.
He's been on it at least since 8, and i think since 7.
Finished XI S on Switch last night/this morning. 114h. That was a wonderful experience all the way through. I completed approximately 90-95% of the stuff in the game, including leveling to 99 before the final dungeon(s) and all non-Tickington sidequests. Ok so maybe less than 90% since I didn't touch Tickington at all.
It's interesting how much of the game is comprised of short stories, sometimes related to the larger plot, but often not at all. Of course as things move closer to the end, the stories generally become more closely tied to what's happening in the world, but the emotion wouldn't be there if you hadn't been to these places earlier and established their characters and relationships. It all feels so thoughtfully planned out and executed.
The only thing that stands out a bit is
around the beginning of act 2 when I realized you need to get the band back together. Kind of felt like running in place and slowed my momentum. But it quickly became its own thing, not just gathering party members.
I kept thinking about how Tim Rogers was able to talk about this game for 2 hours across 2 videos and not give anything away. It was his videos that reminded me there was a demo, and before the demo even ended I had ordered a copy.
I think I settled on what DQ game to play next. I have 4-6 and 9 on DS, 7 on 3DS, and I'm in the middle of finding a copy of 8 on 3DS as well. I think I'll start on 4 next. Maybe (in a few years) once I've finished all those, I'll rewind and tackle 1-3, but not right now. I've put some hours into 7 and 8 (on my phone, not recommended) in the last 5 or so years, but never got that far in either. Both of them feel like predecessors to 11 with the way their towns and short stories are structured, and to a lesser extent their approach to party development and skill allocation. But I like the presentation of 4-6 a lot, and since the DQ movie of all things is what convinced me to give DQ another shot, I figure I should play 5 soon.
Thanks for answering my questions. It's wonderful to have a group to talk with about a new game/series, and I'm glad I'm finally a DQ fan.
If you have never played 4-6 you could do a lot worse than doing 4-6. I played them back to back, and the only real complaint I had is the midgame of 6 drags a bit.
Be aware that the NA version of IV DS completely stripped the Party Chat, which removed a lot of the remake's added characterization. The mobile port restored it.
For the other two DS ports and any version of VII, be sure to press "Y" multiple times after:
- visiting a new town
- entering a new dungeon
- reaching the next floor in a dungeon
- visiting a new region of the overworld
- seeing an event, no matter how minor
- talking to an important NPC
- talking to an unimportant, but quirky NPC
- any other thing you might think your party members might have a comment about
Since Party Chat just pops up a text window in these remakes, it doesn't take much time check it out.
DQXI does something magical when you think about it. Through progression of the game, from start to final end, you end up essentially replaying the whole game three times. You go through the game. Then you go through it again in a slightly different order. And then you go through the game again but this time you have the freedom to pick the order.
Three fucking times. And yet it doesn't ever really feel like it. Or at least not to the extent of other games, like say... Bravely Default.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I knew IV DS didn't have party chat, but I didn't know it was such a big feature. I didn't use party chat that often in XI because it didn't seem to give that much extra characterization. And I didn't need it for guidance since the objective is almost always visible from the map screen.
But I'll keep it in mind for V-VII. VII has a decent recap/next goal function as well if I remember. But quick entertaining party dialogue with the current DQ localization quality is a treat either way.
Party chat in XI isn't as robust. It only really changes per area, and everybody just has the one thing to say.
Party chat in V is literally after talking to any NPC. You looked at a dog, they comment on the dog. You talked to somebody who talks about the weather, they talk about the weather. You talk to the shopkeeper, they talk about their items. You grab an item out of a barrel, they comment on the fucking barrel. And it's multiple party members. You look at the dog, you might have to go through 3 different party chats because everybody has their own frickin' comment on the dog.
This sounds like a bad thing. And truth be told, it slows the game down to a crawl if you do it. It is very much worth doing. For V at least, the main party is also your family with your wife and kids. And the extra characterization is 1000% worth it. I still remember my favourite little chat from the game.
Where you're walking through the final dungeon, with its cliche super spooky layout, and your daughter will ask if she can hold her daddy's hand while you all walk through it
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Playing DQ4 right now, almost 20 hours in. I don't think I've ever played a game where spells have a chance to miss. I often can't figure out if the element just can't hit that particular enemy type or if it just missed.
Even before the pandemic, I couldn't tell you the last time I went to any game store and physically saw amiibo for sale.
Best Buy, GameStop/EB Games, Toys'R'Us, Wal-Mart; if they did have any amiibo, it was the Animal Crossing ones for the two games on the WiiU that used it. None of the main line ones intended for Smash.
Even before the pandemic, I couldn't tell you the last time I went to any game store and physically saw amiibo for sale.
Best Buy, GameStop/EB Games, Toys'R'Us, Wal-Mart; if they did have any amiibo, it was the Animal Crossing ones for the two games on the WiiU that used it. None of the main line ones intended for Smash.
I've seen them semi-recently at Best Buy and Gamestop, but yeah, Walmart seems to have stopped carrying them. Nintendo's even trickled out some reprints of the more recent ones.
Though if you're really jonesing for Hero, the best bet is to follow Amiibo Alerts on twitter and pre-order as soon as the link goes live.
New fun personal challenge: beat every game ever released with the word "dragon" in the title.
That's like a thousand hours for the Dragon's quest series alone.
At least you'll see a lot of cute slimes
I beat DQ1 last week. I started this weekend.
Does it hold up in any way?
Unfortunately I'm going to have to go with no:
While the version I played is much more approachable than the original (it does not have the interaction menu the original does, and has a more standard interface), they story is very rudimentary and is heavily padded out with grinding for money and levels.
I spent a bit of time grinding for gold just so I would have the absolute best equipment available each time new inventory was available to me, and I managed to get to the last boss at level 16. However, the last boss is pretty much impossible sub level 20. Grinding out those last 4 levels took ages, even fighting the most powerful random encounters in the game.
Even with that padding, the game is very short. A spoiler free recount of the plot:
Find a key item, talk to an NPC to trade it for a different key item.
Find a another key item.
Find a third key item.
Talk to an NPC that will take your key items and give you a key item.
Walk to the last (and only) boss and kill him.
There are some things you can do in addition to this (like the optional rescuing of the princess), and a few detours you have to take (you have to find a town that has an NPC that will sell you literal 'key' items to unlock some mandatory locked doors).
I don't regret playing it (I was interested in it in a more historical or academic sense), but I couldn't recommend it in good faith to anyone else.
One thing that I did find interesting (actual plot spoilers for DQ1 and DQ Builders):
Upon approaching the final boss, he will give you the option of joining him rather than confronting him. Nothing really happens if you choose to end the game this way (you just wake up at the inn and have to walk back to his castle and try again), but this 'join the dragonlord' ending is what sets the stage for DQ Builders 1.
I've started (and nearly finished) 2 this weekend. I think it is both better and worse than 1. The gameplay is an improvement (especially with having a party rather than a single character), but man there is a shitton of bullshit pixel hunting and obtuse quest progress.
Ok so I beat 2. Right at the end of the game you are given control of your character separate from the other prince and princess. You can talk to the princess of Moonbrooke, and if you do she flirts with you. Bro, we are related. That's like the whole point of the game.
Posts
Steam: TheArcadeBear
pls god no
I think the only technically missable things are a few mini medals, but they're infinitely farmable from an endgame monster anyway.
I guess technically, you can miss a number of cutscenes, but they don't count for shit, and most, if not all, get kind of randomly added to the cutscene viewer anyway, even if you never saw them.
eg That unbeatable dragon boss at the very start of the game gives a special cutscene if you beat it. Which requires grinding to like, level 30 on level 5 mobs, or just added to the cutscene viewer by... going back and killing it at any future point?
This is from my memory of the original game. I don't know if the S version added new things. But this game was incredibly forgiving and virtually nothing was ever permanently missable, so I'd be surprised if that changed.
I wouldn’t lump 3 into that, 1-2 were poorly done new graphics but 3 was a straight up port of the super famicom graphics.
I thought they still changed the overworld sprites and replaced the animated monster sprites with higher res but unanimated artwork in III?
The SNES update to the first trilogy (which I believe was ported to mobile) is the best version.
I guess they just stick 3-5 people on a team and tell them to remake this classic game, but if they did the full remaster treatment like Star Ocean, then they'd HAVE to charge $50+ for it, and I'm not sure it would make that return on investment.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
For 3 the mobile was a straight port of the snes version, the switch had the redone overworld and monster graphics.
No idea why they ditched the snes 1 and 2 graphics, the sprites were pretty cute retro sprites that looked pretty good to me. 1 and 2 snes look a bit primitive and NES-y in general but still look the best by far of any version of those two games IMHO.
I think I have it all figured out, I just need to try it.
Edit: I know it may not be the most obvious version but if I were playing dq1+2 I would seriously look at the game boy color version (dragon warrior 1+2).
Pros: professional release, 8 bit retro graphics but not as bad as original nes graphics, has most quality of life improvements present in later versions
Con: can be a bit hard to find a cart (expect to spend 50 dollars or so for an original), some gameboy era quirkyness (abbreviated monster names, etc)
I can't read Japanese so I can't say for sure to the quality of the fan translation, but I can certainly say the official GBC one reads fairly well, though be aware it was released when they were still working out how they were going to localize the series, if at all, so names and terms don't really match up with the standardized ones used now.
Just beat DQXI (true ending boss). Holy shit. What a game. Act 1 and Act 2 had me worried because Fight Wisely worked for like 99% of all the encounters. Then the final Act 2 dungeon happened. And Act 3 was great all the way. I HATE that it takes like 50 hours for the game part of the game to get real good.
So does this mean that...
*ending spoilers*
If you have a switch I would go with that over mobile for 1 and 2, hi-res graphics be damned. There’s some wierd resolution sampling issue with the mobile versions graphics of 1+2 (not 3, though, which is great). It looks like they scaled up the tiles but didn’t do it at an exact multiple and used some interpolation to do it instead if that makes sense. It looks really bad, and the switch version doesn’t have that problem.
He's been on it at least since 8, and i think since 7.
It's interesting how much of the game is comprised of short stories, sometimes related to the larger plot, but often not at all. Of course as things move closer to the end, the stories generally become more closely tied to what's happening in the world, but the emotion wouldn't be there if you hadn't been to these places earlier and established their characters and relationships. It all feels so thoughtfully planned out and executed.
The only thing that stands out a bit is
I kept thinking about how Tim Rogers was able to talk about this game for 2 hours across 2 videos and not give anything away. It was his videos that reminded me there was a demo, and before the demo even ended I had ordered a copy.
I think I settled on what DQ game to play next. I have 4-6 and 9 on DS, 7 on 3DS, and I'm in the middle of finding a copy of 8 on 3DS as well. I think I'll start on 4 next. Maybe (in a few years) once I've finished all those, I'll rewind and tackle 1-3, but not right now. I've put some hours into 7 and 8 (on my phone, not recommended) in the last 5 or so years, but never got that far in either. Both of them feel like predecessors to 11 with the way their towns and short stories are structured, and to a lesser extent their approach to party development and skill allocation. But I like the presentation of 4-6 a lot, and since the DQ movie of all things is what convinced me to give DQ another shot, I figure I should play 5 soon.
Thanks for answering my questions. It's wonderful to have a group to talk with about a new game/series, and I'm glad I'm finally a DQ fan.
For the other two DS ports and any version of VII, be sure to press "Y" multiple times after:
- visiting a new town
- entering a new dungeon
- reaching the next floor in a dungeon
- visiting a new region of the overworld
- seeing an event, no matter how minor
- talking to an important NPC
- talking to an unimportant, but quirky NPC
- any other thing you might think your party members might have a comment about
Since Party Chat just pops up a text window in these remakes, it doesn't take much time check it out.
Three fucking times. And yet it doesn't ever really feel like it. Or at least not to the extent of other games, like say... Bravely Default.
But I'll keep it in mind for V-VII. VII has a decent recap/next goal function as well if I remember. But quick entertaining party dialogue with the current DQ localization quality is a treat either way.
Party chat in V is literally after talking to any NPC. You looked at a dog, they comment on the dog. You talked to somebody who talks about the weather, they talk about the weather. You talk to the shopkeeper, they talk about their items. You grab an item out of a barrel, they comment on the fucking barrel. And it's multiple party members. You look at the dog, you might have to go through 3 different party chats because everybody has their own frickin' comment on the dog.
This sounds like a bad thing. And truth be told, it slows the game down to a crawl if you do it. It is very much worth doing. For V at least, the main party is also your family with your wife and kids. And the extra characterization is 1000% worth it. I still remember my favourite little chat from the game.
Uh, okay.
And an arcade game.
If we somehow get Infinity's Trash Infinity Strash, there is a more than 10% chance we could get the mobile game ported globally.
That arcade game is 0% however, unless you have an arcade nearby that loves Japanese games. There is definitely nothing like that in Toronto anymore.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Best Buy, GameStop/EB Games, Toys'R'Us, Wal-Mart; if they did have any amiibo, it was the Animal Crossing ones for the two games on the WiiU that used it. None of the main line ones intended for Smash.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
I've seen them semi-recently at Best Buy and Gamestop, but yeah, Walmart seems to have stopped carrying them. Nintendo's even trickled out some reprints of the more recent ones.
Though if you're really jonesing for Hero, the best bet is to follow Amiibo Alerts on twitter and pre-order as soon as the link goes live.
Revealed during today's Smash Direct.
I started with DQ 1, which I wrote a small bit about in the Switch thread:
I've started (and nearly finished) 2 this weekend. I think it is both better and worse than 1. The gameplay is an improvement (especially with having a party rather than a single character), but man there is a shitton of bullshit pixel hunting and obtuse quest progress.