Dragon Quest - Like a Dargon

[MetManMas]

The remakes of 1-3 effectively are pixel remasters already.

I would be far more interested in the Switch remasters if the top-down background art had been updated along with the sprites. It's not so much a problem with 3,* but 1 and 2 were already using stretched-out SNES assets to try to half-assedly fit the more DQ3-sized sprites the remakes based on some old cellphone remake used.

* Though speaking of 3 it's a shame that the recent versions are based on the old "compromised for cellphones" port. Really hope the upcoming Octopathy one will bring back Pachisi (née Treasures n' Trapdoors).

I'd welcome ports of the mobile versions of 4-6 to anywhere else they'd care to sell 'em to me, though.

This. Mobile DQ4 was worth it just for the restored Party Chat.

DQ7 and the added content version of DQ8** escaping 3DS jail would also be welcome. Heck, localize that mobile port of 3DS DQ7 too.

** Totally expect it to be all DraQue XI S-like if it does but I would be okay with that.

 

[Torzelbaum]

As a fan of that DSiWare tactical Dragon Quest game, I signed up for this as soon as I learned it's a thing that exists. A pile of DraQue cosmetics might not keep my interest in a gacha for long, but collectible monsters is a whole other barrel of sea slimes. The lack of a "Contains ads" notice is also more likely to get me to try a gacha.

*Steps out of a time portal.*
Hey, is anyone still playing this? I started playing it on a whim and I have unlocked guild access. Is there a TT guild (or TT adjacent one) on it?

 

[MetManMas]

Dunno if there's a Talking Time guild, and I doubt there's enough interest in the game here to maintain one. But I did start playing this again myself recently.

 

[Peklo]

Watched Your Story on a whim. I found it terrible, both as an adaptation of V's story and for its own narrative goals. It inadvertently manages to prove and argue for the storytelling merits of video games as a medium for the 90% or so of its running time that encompasses a retelling of the source material, because what is recognized as this touchstone of emotional resonance and player investment in its own medium makes for an absolutely boring and rote film narrative when rid of those interactive and long personal commitment elements of what structures a story like it. Its move at the eleventh hour is then to recontextualize its adaptation as in-narrative simulation, where it trots out a strawman computer virus man to make vague spiels about manchildren needing to grow up and put those silly video games away; we and the protagonist (who's in a Matrix of his own nostalgic desires and choosing; I guess that explains why he's written out the hero's daughter entirely despite being an ostensible V superfan) are supposed to be rallied against this menacer for daring to call into question and look down upon cherished media investment and memories. It's such a tired, self-congratulatory sentiment for something of Dragon Quest's unassailable cultural stature to make, back-patting itself for daring to make a stand for its own unquestionable self-worth, when V in particular has received nothing but constant adulation for thirty years on. To use its framework to tell a hackneyed your-nostalgic-affection-is-valid self-promotional metanarrative is so smug and detrimental to the ostensible main thrust of the story it's using as a vehicle--the one that mattered because it was about the protagonist and main character not being a destined hero. This whole enterprise just left me thematically ill.

 

[YangusKhan]

Actual gameplay is shown, finally. This looks like it's Pokemon Legends except Dragon Quest and I am totally here for that.

 

[estragon]

I'm having a craving for Dragon Quest, and I'm thinking of trying a new to me version of one of the older games.

Can anyone speak to how frustrating or not the inability to control party members is in DQIV NES/Famicom, or the 3 party member cap in DQV SNES/SFC? I'm curious to try out the originals at some point, but I'm wondering how annoying people find those limitations.

 

[Purple]

DQ4 is quick and breezy and has other weird stuff in combat out of your control like monsters that are asleep rolling off the edges of a big tower and out of the fight so don't sweat the slime that just casts heal on you not needing to be told to do that I say.

 

[YangusKhan]

I played both of those versions as my first playthroughs for each game. Of the 2, SFC DQ5 felt pretty restrictive, but only from a psychological perspective; the game is still balanced against a 3 person party after all, and it still has the wagon for swapping around people in your active, so it's more of the psychological impact of wanting to use more characters than the game lets you.

DQ4 NES is pretty much fine. The AI generally makes the right decisions, or at least doesn't make bad decisions, and it makes combat go by relatively faster too.

 

[SpoonyBard]

How to win in DQ4:

1. Have Alena in your party.

2. Point Alena in the general direction of whatever you're fighting.

3. ?????

4. Roll credits.

Ok I'm exaggerating but also not really? Endgame Alena is an absolute beast. Sure you can have someone cast a damaging magic spell that costs MP. Or, for the cost of no MP, Alena can cast Fist.

She is the best princess that ever punched a demon in the face.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I’ve been slowly making my way through DQ11 for almost two months. I just went back in time halfway through the game and pulled a Future Trunks on Jasper. Veronica is still alive, Heliodor is still standing and the king is still possessed by Mordegon. I’ve never seen a game do something like this, let alone a main entry in a huge legacy series.

 

[estragon]

Thank you all for the responses. Neither sounds like a real deal breaker for me. I'll start with IV.

How to win in DQ4:

1. Have Alena in your party.

2. Point Alena in the general direction of whatever you're fighting.

3. ?????

4. Roll credits.

Ok I'm exaggerating but also not really? Endgame Alena is an absolute beast. Sure you can have someone cast a damaging magic spell that costs MP. Or, for the cost of no MP, Alena can cast Fist.

She is the best princess that ever punched a demon in the face.

That's good to know. I kind of figured using the melee characters (and especially Alena, who you should be using anyway because she's cool) would mostly avoid the problem, but I was curious about people's perceptions of how it's balanced for AI.

 

[YangusKhan]

Alena was also in my final party and she rocks, yes.

 

[Peklo]

I think mechanically both versions are absolutely fine but there was a disparity in my takeaways in that I enjoyed NES IV greatly and not so much with SFC V. A three-person Dragon Quest can work, such as with II (my favourite)... but that's because it's about that trio and nothing else. V puts such a high emphasis on a larger playable cast than any other game in the series with its monsters and extended family members that the most conservative active party size possible runs severely counter to what its strengths are thematically and as the supposed party-builder you could treat it as, if it would let you. Neither of these original versions has the since-implemented party talk function, but again I felt its absence stronger in V where the ostensible intimacy of the story and party dynamics had no venue to really be elaborated on when the game is reduced to its primary plot points. Presentational factors also affected my read on it, where SFC V is probably the least aesthetically pleasing game in the series; a kind of stretched-beyond-its-limits Famicom game in appearance but with shaky understanding of the differences in the new hardware or the potential it could yet harness. I just found the whole thing uniquely unsatisfying in a way no other original version has felt to me, since I usually tend to enjoy them as much or more with this series when I go back to them.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Part of the appeal for Alena on the NES version is that she didn’t need to worry about wasting turns with the AI; her options were “Punch the Hell Put Of What’s In Front Of Her” and “Punch the Crap Put of What’s In Front of Her”.

She didn’t waste time casting Thwack, Kiryl

 

[Sarge]

How to win in DQ4:

1. Have Alena in your party.

2. Point Alena in the general direction of whatever you're fighting.

3. ?????

4. Roll credits.

Ok I'm exaggerating but also not really? Endgame Alena is an absolute beast. Sure you can have someone cast a damaging magic spell that costs MP. Or, for the cost of no MP, Alena can cast Fist.

She is the best princess that ever punched a demon in the face.

Truth. Her critical rate tops out at 25%. It's insane, especially paired with the Stiletto Earrings, which are weak but double-attack (like the Falcon Sword). Her strength by the endgame is likely close to max, as is her speed. She's nuts and should never ever leave your party.

As for the AI, it's mostly fine, I just recommend leaving Cristo out of the party. Watching him try to cast Beat/Defeat on a boss is maddening. He'd be a great character otherwise. I generally rolled heavy melee, though, either going Hero, Ragnar, Alena, and either of Mara or Nara, depending on whether I needed more healing or magic attack. I believe Brey has Bikill, though, which is useful for your melee guys.

 

[Bongo]

Part of the appeal for Alena on the NES version is that she didn’t need to worry about wasting turns with the AI; her options were “Punch the Hell Put Of What’s In Front Of Her” and “Punch the Crap Put of What’s In Front of Her”.

She didn’t waste time casting Thwack, Kiryl

You can just set her to AI control in the remakes, too. I played through most of DQVII with everyone but the party leader fighting autonomously most of the time and it worked out great.

 

[estragon]

I'm sure this observation has been made countless times, but the way DQIV slowly teaches the basics across chapters 1 & 2 is so well done. It's basically the perfect tutorial, without ever feeling dull or you're being condescended to.

 

[estragon]

The transition from the twins being a kind of awkward duo being carried by NPC Orin in Chapter IV to becoming NPCs protecting the very vulnerable protagonist at the start of Chapter V is also great, and something that didn't come across quite as well for me in the revisions where you get full party control. This isn't to say they shouldn't have introduced full party control in the revisions, but that maybe something was lost with it. A compromise might be something like, you get full party control once you recruit all of the party members from the earlier chapters (or some other turning point, I forget the flow of things in Chapter V), so it represents something like increasing unity of the group, etc.

DQIV is just a wonderfully structured game. I feel like it should have been ripped off more often.

 

[estragon]

How to win in DQ4:

1. Have Alena in your party.

2. Point Alena in the general direction of whatever you're fighting.

3. ?????

4. Roll credits.

Ok I'm exaggerating but also not really?

You really weren't exaggerating! I think original DQIV may honestly be the easiest game in the series, as long as you are using Alena with a double attack build. I threw myself at the final boss last night after muddling through the dungeon before it just to see whether or not it would work, and it went down extremely effortlessly. I feel like they went extremely gentle on the balance to make up for the lack of control. The all party healing of the Philosopher's Stone found in the dungeon before the final boss is also overpowered relative to the damage even the final boss can deal. Once you have that, the game is basically over. This isn't a complaint, just an observation. I think this was probably the choice for a game without direct party control.

I was worried about the AI party members because I'd heard so many people mention frustration Clift casting instant death spells against bosses instead of healing, but I never had any real problems with the AI. Yes, this does happen, but it's not as bad as I've heard, because the game does implement a simple per enemy AI learning system.

I was looking at the JPN instruction book to see what information a person buying the game with no information at release would have, and I was surprised to see this mentioned, both because it seemed like it would be hard to implement at the time and also because I hadn't heard of it before. Apparently, party members learn enemy resistances and start to act accordingly based on how many rounds of combat they've had with that enemy. So, it's not that Clift will learn to stop casting instant death spells on an enemy once it's failed enough times, but rather simply that Clift will stop casting instant death spells on an enemy once X rounds have passed. (Maybe it's not so much that he'll stop 100%, but that the probability will become extremely low...) This AI training is retained, so if a boss is hard, dying to it once with your preferred party will make the next try easier, because your companies will go in with more optimized actions from the start.

I'll also say, for all the memes about his useless instant death spells I've seen over the years, in practice I found Clift to be extremely useful, because he can cast instant death spells, very few enemies resist them, and because of the AI learning system eventually he starts to consistently instantly erase any enemy that he can.

In some of the long Japanese articles talking about this, I also saw a funny explanation for why Minea basically never heals: her AI for healing prioritizing is bugged to reference Alena's value on the table, and Alena was given a value that told her only to heal in absolute emergencies.

Another funny quirk of this system: In an encounter designated as boss fight, the tactic to tell your party to take a balanced approach and the tactic to tell your party to go all out offensively both secretly default to a "Boss Fight" tactic. So, switching between those does nothing. If you want to be more defensive, you have to switch to the defensive/healing tactic.

 

[Sarge]

Very interesting! I wonder if the Nara/Minea quirk held over to the US release? It's been so long since I've observed her AI behavior that I'm not sure.

 

[estragon]

Very interesting! I wonder if the Nara/Minea quirk held over to the US release? It's been so long since I've observed her AI behavior that I'm not sure.

The title of the main source I found about this says it's about both the NES and FC versions and didn't mention any differences, so presumably it's the same, unless they're wrong or unaware of the differences.

For reference, I'll link the two blogs for anyone interested. One is really long and really gets into the weeds of how the system works. The other cites the first article as a source and draws conclusions from it. Looking at the second one to link it, I noticed I misremembered a detail the bug: Minea draws from Manya's table, although the result is more or less the same, which is that Minea is healing/support character who is unfortunately healing averse because she's drawing on the healing value meant for a DPS character.

 

[gorha]

Nara has really low stats in the NES version; I'm not sure whether that reflects how she is in the FC version, but I usually don't use her except for out of battle healing because of it, so never noticed that AI quirk. I've always found Cristo very helpful, and never really experienced the instant kill spam I've read about. The only time I saw him attempt it on a boss was that guy who splits into four, and it actually worked on one of him.

I remember seeing some posts on GameFAQs a long time ago from people who were aware of the AI "learning", but they made it sound like the characters had to use their skills or items and would then prioritize them higher or lower depending on whether they were effective earlier. It sounds like it's actually simpler than that?

 

[estragon]

She definitely has really low stats in the FC version as well. Between that, the AI bug that makes her unlikely to perform a key role, and having a worse spell list than the other healing/support character, she's the only character without a real niche. That being said, a second Cleric type character is still really useful, even with those problems, just to have a second pool of MP. I know the DS version improves her, but I'm not sure to what degree and played it too long ago to remember.

I remember seeing some posts on GameFAQs a long time ago from people who were aware of the AI "learning", but they made it sound like the characters had to use their skills or items and would then prioritize them higher or lower depending on whether they were effective earlier. It sounds like it's actually simpler than that?

Yeah, my guess would be that that is how contemporaneous guides and the manual made it into a compelling narrative, and as an observer that's what it looks like: characters use the wrong thing until they figure out it doesn't work. But in reality the game is just noting how many rounds of combat have passed, and once enough rounds pass, they're more likely to do things that are effective. It's a pretty smart way of faking it, honestly.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I started Dragon Quest 11 back in December. I am now done with it. Mostly.

I can honestly say that I have spent more time with these characters than I have many members of my family. It is a wonderful videogame that took over most of my free time. Just really, really good stuff.

God, I hope this series doesn’t lay fallow for too much longer.

 

[Sarge]

Very interesting, I made at least some heads or tails of that with some machine translation.

Now I'm curious as to what my stats are in the NES version. I still have my old save backed up from back in the day thanks to the wonders of cart dumpers.

Hmm... not quite apples to oranges, Cristo's got a six-level lead. Hopefully those images are actually showing up. Really surprised at the max agility for Cristo, though! Derp, Meteorite Armband. And I guess I used him a lot more than I thought, too.

No Armband.

 

[estragon]

Coming to it right off of DQIV, Dragon Quest V is a feast for the senses and a massive improvement in user experience. Visually it tends to be overshadowed by the best-of-the-generation level achievements of DQVI and the remake of DQIII, but the introduction of more elaborate spell and attack animations (that are still quick and breezy) and the return of backgrounds that had been missing during DQII-IV does a lot to enhance the experience. The game also takes some time to show off the new scope of the visuals, with some cinematic panning across the boat early on. Also, more obviously but worth mentioning, vertical scrolling is smooth here, which is a huge improvement over DQIV which was still doing one of those common for the hardware scrolling workarounds that always made moving up or down a bit awkward.

In terms of user experience, this is where shops start to tell you how a piece of equipment affects a characters' stats relative to what they currently have, and it's also where they introduced the one-press "interact" button instead of having you go through the advanture-game style menu for everything. It also feels better to move around, because although there are still only four directions, if you're slightly off target it will nudge you slightly up or down to line you up properly with a wall instead of just bumping into a corner.

It's very possible that at some point I'll be annoyed with the three person party limit and it will sour me on the original version, but in the early goings when even the remakes don't allow for a four person party, it's a really impressive generation leap in its own right.

 

[Issun]

I played DQV SFC a few years ago and found it pretty playable up until I got air travel, which was clunky and I discovered the world map was not designed for easy air navigation. This is easily a point In Final Fantasy's favor, which had world map navigation by air nailed down in the very first installment.

 

[Lokii]

Can you expand by what you mean? Is it that there's not enough landing spaces by late game locations, or what?

 

[Issun]

I mean that, in Final Fantasy games each area is distinct enough that you generally have an idea of where you are and can quickly figure out where all the locations are in relation to each other. In DQ 5 (the SFC version anyways, haven't played much of the DS one so it may be different there) much of the areas are kind of samey looking so I had more trouble figuring out where I was and where I was going.

This was my experience, it may be different for other people I dunno.

 

[Sarge]

This is where I confess that I didn't love Dragon Quest V. It was fun, yes, but I've played through both the SNES and DS versions, and they were disappointing compared to DQIV for me. But I also love Dragon Quest VI more than most, so maybe my judgment is in question, ha.

(And to clarify, I still like it. Just not love.)