Dragon Quest thread

[Gaagaagiins]

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies was… pretty okay.

It smacks of a game that, in 2009, probably came off as a bit of a marvel. Visually, mechanically, narratively, there’s nothing wrong with the game per se, but I have a hard time saying that it’s an excellent game without having to weigh it through the lens of having been a “real” Dragon Quest game, but on a handheld console, which was probably still a pretty novel concept in 2009…

…actually, wait, what am I saying? The PlayStation Portable was released in 2004! Even taking into account Dragon Quest’s penchant for anachronistic stubbornness I feel at least a little less impressed by the game, overall. That being said I have a poor recollection of the technical capabilities and sense of scope of games from that period of handheld consoles. I have also at no point ever owned a Sony handheld, much to my regret, so maybe all of this is just talking out of my ass.

Most of it is, well, stock Dragon Quest, which is to say it’s tooled beautifully, it’s straightforward, it’s approachable, it’s fun, it’s relaxing, and so on. Perhaps where it falls short in a noticeable way is that it feels lightweight in comparison to even the mainline Dragon Quest games that came before it. I would describe Dragon Quests VIII, VII, and even VI as ‘long winded,’ more to benefit than detriment overall, but let’s just say it’s not entirely to their benefit. Yet, Dragon Quest IX feels like it’s over fast. I can’t decide if this makes it unfulfilling or if it means it was a breezy experience that felt lighter than it was.

…looking at total playtime on my Adventure Log, it seems trucking through main story - some save state shenanigans + some self-indulgent power leveling and min maxing (Dragon Quest IX is #1 in one category, that being having the most exploitable metal slime farming trick thanks to its baffling easy methods for manipulating RNG in combination with a little bit of luck) took me just under 60 hours. Okay, I’m being a bit too harsh on the game, then. It’s kind of impressive that a 60 hour RPG did feel a bit lightweight.

And, of course, this all comes with the caveat that I played without even a facsimile or approximation of any of the multiplayer features. Perhaps this was where the game was most fun, but, I feel it’s probably safe to assume the moment is forever lost. The idea of semi-randomly generated dungeon crawling, which is what I understand is the main draw of the postgame, doesn’t sound exceptionally appealing in either single player or multiplayer, though.

At any rate, I would highly recommend picking up Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies if it is 2009 and you need something to play on the bullet train to and from work. Otherwise, it’s for people like myself who have a completionist inclination towards Dragon Quest.

Oh, and lastly, the crafting economy is fucked, or at the very least, the amount of materials you need to craft complicated stuff seems to be balanced as if it expects you to be able to flit to and from multiplayer worlds and gather stuff with friends. Maybe not, I mean, I’m not sure how it works.

[sabertoothalex]

link because embeds with images are broken

[marxseny]

[tomjonjon]

DIY reversible cover for the Americans.

[Irishninja]

i hate this, so much
would’ve cost them like nothing to leave that dope art in there

[kyleprocrastinations]

I surprised myself, I’m enjoying the Draconic Quest difficulty. I think I was running into more battles now that there’s more stuff to find in the overworld so I was a little more leveled than I like on normal difficulty. Having the looming threat of a party wipe is making me use more systems, for example, the seeds. I came upon a difficulty spike in the desert and spent all the seeds I was sitting on to give my guys a little help. I was in the habit in the other games of storing up seeds like elixirs in final fantasy and just never using them. I like having a bit more friction so I can use more of the tools available and play more of the game. Ya know?

I was a tiny bit skeptical of how they would integrate the monster collecting, but I like how they did it. The way you find monsters is cute and the monster arena is some good light side content. I guess this means there’s no pachisi, though? I’m curious to try the monster master; I think I’ll change one of my guys to that when I can. Maybe my priest? Oh, and does anybody know how to level up your monsters? Do you just grind through lower level matches or do they level up with your party?

[kyleprocrastinations]

@kyleprocrastinations

Oh, and does anybody know how to level up your monsters?

Nevermind, I figured it out. It’s neat and not what I was expecting!

[LeFish]

I rolled credits last night on Dragon Quest Monsters 3, the new one centred around Dragon Quest 4.

Lots to like about this game. It’s a DQ monsters game! The biomes are nice and imaginative, if one or two of them are perhaps a little jarring within the confines of what I imagine DQ to be, and everything has the twee charm that very few games outside of DQ seem to have - and I’ll never tire of hearing characters greet you with a northern “ay oop”.

My only real criticisms of it are that biomes feel like they have too few monsters in them in terms of their variety, and that there are perhaps too many biomes too. I often felt that the game could have done with fewer biomes and stuffed a wider variety of monsters in them - there are over 500 in the game after all. By the end of the game I felt relieved to have beaten the final boss rather than encouraged to pursue the post game and filling out the monsterpedia to completion.

[chazumaru]

Finished Dragon Quest III HD-2D on January 1st. Good stuff. My core memory of DQ3 is the Game Boy Color version and I like that it feels very close to that one (I guess playing on a portable machine helped).

The new quality of life options are great, even if I do not understand the point of keeping Evac now that Zoom doesn’t bump into ceilings (which feels sacrilegious, but I get it). Maybe they could have turned the objectives radar off by default, as the default option doesn’t even give newbies the chance to get lost in the World of DQ3 (which is part of the charm), but I am sure this is more helpful than harmful in the grand scheme of things. The monster tamer class is busted but that whole sidequest makes the monster coliseum more engaging.

I gotta say, now that I have DQ3 fresh in my mind again, the jump in quality of the storytelling from DQ3 to DQ4 is quite staggering. I have always preferred DQ4 but now I get exactly why. Much more colorful characters and better story vignettes all around, and a much better villain.

I don’t think it is a sinful spoiler to share that DQ3 ends with a tease for the remake of DQ1•2. I hope they space the release out properly because I worry that it’s gonna be FF7 Remake → Rebirth again in terms of people dropping out after this “first” remake which will likely have satisfied many players’ nostalgia or curiosity.

I am also a bit apprehensive how they are going to handle a primitive solo JRPG (I guess it will be presented as the prologue to the game) followed up by possibly the hardest and tersest DQ challenge in the entire series (in standard settings), unless they significantly change the difficulty balance this time.

[KennyL]

I’m playing DQ3 gbc on emulator on dsi xl and when my hero leveled up to 11, game got bugged and continuously leveled up to 52!! Got super beefed and learned a bunch of high level spells. Game is nice and breezy now. I like it!

[Punzai]

I started this (DQ III -2D HD) last week after I got a cheap physical copy come my way. It’s been the breezy, comfort food game I’ve needed. Lovely stuff.