Dare I propose that we start a new thread for this DQ3 remake specifcally? Unless we already have one, I didn't actually search for one.
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Dragon Quest - Like a Dargon
- Thread starter WildcatJF
- Start date
i beat gbc dq3. this game had me at least as hooked as 2 and i had a lot of time to binge it. i really haven't spent much time on other games since i started 1...
i liked 2 a lot better though.
3 builds on a lot of the concepts, and keeps plenty of the same strengths. there's a few really strong vignettes in there, and some of the little scenes are incredibly cool (especially the hatching). but it's weighed down by more things i didn't like, it's a lot longer, and the vibe of the generic party members really doesn't feel as enjoyable to me. 2 has a kind of flat difficulty curve until that cave that leads to the last area, so you end up wandering back and forth a lot trying to figure things out, while 3 is more like...it feels like you get repelled from a lot more places early on and there's some sequence you're kind of supposed to do that's a bit mysterious. i think there's advantages and disadvantages either way and i assume 2 not giving enough resistance to stop you from going to the dam town and buying pretty much the best equipment available way early is probably not totally intended. but i like that way better, haha
i've been aware for a long time that this is basically considered the cornerstone rpg for japanese developers so i really meant to play it for a while, and i'm glad i did. not all of it really landed for me but, just as much as 2, i kept feeling a little amazed at how much they put into this game that become central concepts of others for decades. i want to go onto 4 already, but i think maybe before that i'll sidestep a little and try to give a real shot at finshing final fantasy 1 and 2...
i liked 2 a lot better though.
3 builds on a lot of the concepts, and keeps plenty of the same strengths. there's a few really strong vignettes in there, and some of the little scenes are incredibly cool (especially the hatching). but it's weighed down by more things i didn't like, it's a lot longer, and the vibe of the generic party members really doesn't feel as enjoyable to me. 2 has a kind of flat difficulty curve until that cave that leads to the last area, so you end up wandering back and forth a lot trying to figure things out, while 3 is more like...it feels like you get repelled from a lot more places early on and there's some sequence you're kind of supposed to do that's a bit mysterious. i think there's advantages and disadvantages either way and i assume 2 not giving enough resistance to stop you from going to the dam town and buying pretty much the best equipment available way early is probably not totally intended. but i like that way better, haha
the vibe of having the main world map be like earth is...pretty weird. it's really clever from a game design standpoint and making the world feel memorable and navigable, but it ends up double-edged because the game also goes in on familiar caricature. which, i like other games that fall into the same things, so i'm not going to lord it over this one in particular (though it certainly doesn't make my opinion better). at the same time, it's sort of goofy that the whole world has the same castles and kings and stuff. i think this is one of those things where you can't really win unless you're ready to go way further than was possible when they originally made this.
the city that builds up is a pretty interesting usage of the fact that you keep having to wander to the same places in these games, and i'm pretty sure that similar concepts became a side thing in later dqs? but it was also kind of annoying and really one of the more baffling bits in the game storywise. i really only even found it by checking the map, which i did way more this time in general. which is kind of embarrassing considering how often i found tiny medals without using the thief search spell just because after dq2 it seemed so obvious there would be Something In That Spot. in some ways i feel like i entered the wavelength of this series pretty strongly, and some of the more non-obvious sequences have much more straightforward explanation (at least in this remake? like when you have to sneak into the england castle) but some things still kind of confounded me for what felt like a really long time.
the king who tries to sucker you into running his country is probably the most interesting bit in the game from a narrative/mechanical standpoint, along with that last big twist. which is a wild one, that concept basically became a central one in tales in particular. there's still cool and weird surprises down there even aside from all of the "foreshadowing" gags, but also the encounter rate is really high and the enemies are pretty much just as mean as the apparently infamous ending of 2? there's no self-destructs this time and the healing you get is more powerful, but there are lots of instant death guys, the reviving mages who never miss, regular encounters with super hard hitting breaths. (that baramos refight also triple turned me once. lol) and the last boss removes all the buffs and debuffs later on which is super harsh considering how important they are.
the city that builds up is a pretty interesting usage of the fact that you keep having to wander to the same places in these games, and i'm pretty sure that similar concepts became a side thing in later dqs? but it was also kind of annoying and really one of the more baffling bits in the game storywise. i really only even found it by checking the map, which i did way more this time in general. which is kind of embarrassing considering how often i found tiny medals without using the thief search spell just because after dq2 it seemed so obvious there would be Something In That Spot. in some ways i feel like i entered the wavelength of this series pretty strongly, and some of the more non-obvious sequences have much more straightforward explanation (at least in this remake? like when you have to sneak into the england castle) but some things still kind of confounded me for what felt like a really long time.
the king who tries to sucker you into running his country is probably the most interesting bit in the game from a narrative/mechanical standpoint, along with that last big twist. which is a wild one, that concept basically became a central one in tales in particular. there's still cool and weird surprises down there even aside from all of the "foreshadowing" gags, but also the encounter rate is really high and the enemies are pretty much just as mean as the apparently infamous ending of 2? there's no self-destructs this time and the healing you get is more powerful, but there are lots of instant death guys, the reviving mages who never miss, regular encounters with super hard hitting breaths. (that baramos refight also triple turned me once. lol) and the last boss removes all the buffs and debuffs later on which is super harsh considering how important they are.
i've been aware for a long time that this is basically considered the cornerstone rpg for japanese developers so i really meant to play it for a while, and i'm glad i did. not all of it really landed for me but, just as much as 2, i kept feeling a little amazed at how much they put into this game that become central concepts of others for decades. i want to go onto 4 already, but i think maybe before that i'll sidestep a little and try to give a real shot at finshing final fantasy 1 and 2...
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This is a big part of why I don't like the game that much, comparatively. RPGs of this vintage are so much built on engagement with unraveling and exploring a world that to have an intimately familiar blueprint in the brain for almost all the geography rings really hollow in how that aspect of it plays out, and yeah, the caricaturish aspects that DQ usually does also land more uncomfortably in that context. Like, there's no way I'm not going to read Baramos's Lair being located in Central Africa as either a subconscious or deliberate invocation of "darkest Africa" colonialist stereotyping. It ends up a world I don't enjoy much either structurally or thematically.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D left me pretty cold for a number of reasons discussed in its own thread, so I didn't want to stay feeling like that and jumped into something I knew I'd like better: Dragon Quest IV, the DS remake... but as a first for myself, with the party chat hacked back in. Mobile port players have had the pleasure, but that's not a context available/enjoyable to me, so I'm immensely thankful it's been restored for the DS game as well. I love the NES original and don't desire the feature existing there both for stylistic reasons and the realities of ROM storage, but the remake is really half the game it ought to be if you don't have access to it, and I couldn't be happier for having had the chance to finally experience it; interactions brought on by it having shot up the game ever higher in estimation... something that feels like riches upon riches, because returning to the DS remake format of the series reminds me what a superlative mode of play and presentation this era of the series was, and how absurdly gorgeous the spritework and especially the animations were in ArtePiazza's hands. The fluidity and kinetic elasticity present in even the smallest critter, to speak nothing of medium-crowning achievements like Psaro, is something that cannot be matched by the HD-2D approach, which boasts a larger resolution but more limited animation wholesale. Not being for widescreen aspect ratios, but the unique configuration of two conventional 4:3 screens vertically stacked together keeps the environmental design compact whilst still allowing for a larger field of vision, actively twisting and turning the viewpoint for explorational texture that's novel and engaging. Don't know whether I want to commit to V and VI too right this moment, but it's been fun to reaffirm that out of the many DQ house styles, the DS still has it.
Thanks! Conchobhar highlighting the resize feature that XenForo has is also useful if you want an alternative to spoilerpops.
Started the Famicom version of DQ3 (I've played the SFC remake before), and I can't get over how well designed the opening sequence is. The way the towns, caves, and the tower are interconnected is just a perfect vertical slice of what's good about the Dragon Quest approach to scenario design and exploration.
My party plan is:
Martial Artist-->Sage via book
Priest-->Fighter after getting the 50% revive spell
Gadabout-->Sage
My party plan is:
Martial Artist-->Sage via book
Priest-->Fighter after getting the 50% revive spell
Gadabout-->Sage
credits rolled on dq4 ds. interesting game, if 3 had me thinking "i've seen this game dozens of times"...well, i'm definitely inclined to read connections to games like romancing saga 3 and trails in the sky out of the game structure and the way the characters are set up, but there are a lot fewer that come to mind. actually, the final boss going through a bunch of grotesque body reveals is kind of like rs2 too. hmm. after i died the first time almost immediately after the final transformation, i ground up a few levels and nailed it the second time, so it didn't cause that much grief, but it's a little over the top for him to deal so much damage (since he can crit on attacks it's possible for him to one-shot party members even through defense buffs)...i wasn't feeling quite as much like "ok, i'm ready for this to be over" as i was by the time i got near the end of 3 (which was a longer game for me) but i'm definitely glad i didn't really get stuck at the end for long.
the introductory act of this game is pretty long too, and kind of results in "playing the beginning of a dragon quest game multiple times in a row" with differing twists and party dynamics. in that sense ragnar's story kinda feels like the tutorial. equip things, attack, use items, healy joins and shows how healing spells work. then you get a party with the dq2 style trifecta for most of the second chapter so you kinda get used to all those dynamics (before alena has to close things out on her own, which is kind of annoying). torneko's chapter wasn't my favorite, but i can't hate "role playing an npc" type quests in games and it seems like it'd be pretty hard to balance it more cleanly, so the clunkier elements weren't too frustrating. it's fun to see the world-state update through chapters and scenes, that's something that really doesn't happen much in the previous games, and is one of the game's main expressions of the "recontextualizing parts of the game through revisiting them" concept that seems to me like something horii really likes doing.
overall...this game doesn't totally escape the same things that made me less thrilled with 3, though i think some of them are mitigated a bit more. particularly, the broad shape of the world still is reminiscent of earth continents, but in a bit more fantastical and abstract way. at least in this translation, the correlations between real world references and map location have been scrambled up a lot more, so even if i still found myself thinking "oh yeah, time to go back to south america" it feels a bit more like a cute shorthand than like "oh this is actually supposed to be south america." and i think similarly the plot beats late in the game have obvious similarities, assembling the lengendary equipment of a heroine and descending underground and things like that, but (again, at least in this remake) it feels like there's a bit more whimsical fantasy behind it, with the long climb up to the heavens and such. that dungeon was my favorite, and definitely got me with that "this is so cool!" feeling that makes me excited to go on in the series.
like 2 i found a lot of the "jokes about playing a dragon quest game" very funny and appealing. the old guy in rosehill, the guy in bath who offers tours to try and get you to use his inn, the "scarecrow" which just straight up uses a human sprite, etc. i think these are some of the most unique and clever moments in the series, and they're certainly something i keep looking forward to a lot. and i got to spend plenty of time finding myself lost and seeing things in the world i wondered where they'd come up. a lot of interesting stuff happens at night, too...the game really does build on 2 and 3 with new kinds of ambitious ideas i mostly liked a lot. it was cool!
i have had like a dozen people say to me, "oh, you're playing dragon quest? you should play 5" in the past few months, so now that that will be soon...i hope it's also cool
the introductory act of this game is pretty long too, and kind of results in "playing the beginning of a dragon quest game multiple times in a row" with differing twists and party dynamics. in that sense ragnar's story kinda feels like the tutorial. equip things, attack, use items, healy joins and shows how healing spells work. then you get a party with the dq2 style trifecta for most of the second chapter so you kinda get used to all those dynamics (before alena has to close things out on her own, which is kind of annoying). torneko's chapter wasn't my favorite, but i can't hate "role playing an npc" type quests in games and it seems like it'd be pretty hard to balance it more cleanly, so the clunkier elements weren't too frustrating. it's fun to see the world-state update through chapters and scenes, that's something that really doesn't happen much in the previous games, and is one of the game's main expressions of the "recontextualizing parts of the game through revisiting them" concept that seems to me like something horii really likes doing.
overall...this game doesn't totally escape the same things that made me less thrilled with 3, though i think some of them are mitigated a bit more. particularly, the broad shape of the world still is reminiscent of earth continents, but in a bit more fantastical and abstract way. at least in this translation, the correlations between real world references and map location have been scrambled up a lot more, so even if i still found myself thinking "oh yeah, time to go back to south america" it feels a bit more like a cute shorthand than like "oh this is actually supposed to be south america." and i think similarly the plot beats late in the game have obvious similarities, assembling the lengendary equipment of a heroine and descending underground and things like that, but (again, at least in this remake) it feels like there's a bit more whimsical fantasy behind it, with the long climb up to the heavens and such. that dungeon was my favorite, and definitely got me with that "this is so cool!" feeling that makes me excited to go on in the series.
like 2 i found a lot of the "jokes about playing a dragon quest game" very funny and appealing. the old guy in rosehill, the guy in bath who offers tours to try and get you to use his inn, the "scarecrow" which just straight up uses a human sprite, etc. i think these are some of the most unique and clever moments in the series, and they're certainly something i keep looking forward to a lot. and i got to spend plenty of time finding myself lost and seeing things in the world i wondered where they'd come up. a lot of interesting stuff happens at night, too...the game really does build on 2 and 3 with new kinds of ambitious ideas i mostly liked a lot. it was cool!
i have had like a dozen people say to me, "oh, you're playing dragon quest? you should play 5" in the past few months, so now that that will be soon...i hope it's also cool
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
DQ5 is very good. One of the highlights of the series.
ok yeah. cool game
the opening act is really an all-timer. for one thing, you get some of that dq4 mechanical buildup but in a different way. pankraz is teaching you how to play the game, asking "did you check all the drawers?" before you get off the boat, before he leads you around and heals you after battles. then you get those little adventures, which are a bit more whimsical and supernatural than usual, with ghosts and faeries, sneaking out at night and returning in your dreams. you wonder what he's hiding in the cave and have a couple of other strange encounters before getting to coburg, where you're asked to befriend an unruly prince, finding his secret hiding spots and getting tricked. i did, of course, buy plenty into the story in its own right, but it's hard for me not to look at things in this way when this game is horii flexing the kinds of clever discoveries used for jokes, tricks, and secrets in the older games for a more direct thematic and narrative purpose. (there's still a bunch of the jokes, too.)
and then, y'know, a bunch of stuff happens and the main character turns into some kind of pilgrim...or shepherd for monsters for a while as the game doesn't really have a bunch of proper party members floating around. i truly think this is pretty cool, although also weird and jank. i love that the zoom spell in this game comes from a quest instead of leveling up. there's still some real charms in this middle act of the story, too, with the tower containing the mirror as one of my favorite dungeons and really just the process of encountering the world again in general. you explore that cave, encounter bianca again, see everything that's changed in other places. i chose debora to get more debora on screen. she's pretty fun, although that lasted quite a bit shorter than i was hoping...some more stuff happens and you're off to a proper final act, which, much like in 4, is more than half the game. the game strikes a bit more of a modern balance of this kind of exploration phase, where your get several travel upgrades in sequence that open up your traversal abilities in weirdly specific ways. it feels rewarding to pay attention still, but you also don't really get the same kind of dq2/3 experience of visiting towns repeatedly to see if anything useful has happened for you since last time. instead it's just like "what does it mean that i can float over water but not mountains? (also, what the flying vehicles are is pretty wild this time conceptually. love em.)
the best part of this game is when you go to coburg again and the game puts you into a true role reversal from the start of the game. obviously this is meant to be the entire tone of this act, really. but now...you're teaching the kids what you learned at the start of the game. they get tricked the same way you did, and you show them the hidden staircase before another scene which seems at first like it might be similar to the one much earlier. although closing the loop with the fairy painting is also a really good gag. so is prince albert changing from a king sprite to a chancellor 8 years later. the passage of time in this one really sets up some good punchlines and also makes it pretty funny when it does the romancing saga 2 with some people who never seem to change all game. it's easy to imagine how eager horii was to do an even more time travel-focused story a few years later...
overall this game kind of remixes and one-ups a lot of the big concepts from 3 and 4...the search for a legendary hero (who isn't the "you" character this time), the major father figure seeking peace for the world, finding the legendary equipment and divine power to fight evil. it feels like the staples of the series really taking root and that's fine, it's actually pretty funny after the decades of seeing remarks about "killing god," that i'm finally really absorbing that the probably most popular and influential series in the genre literally has all this church imagery and stuff as it builds up to fighting goofy toriyama demons. (nimzo pretty much being a namekian is SO funny, also.) that stuff's not lighting my heart up to the max, but fighting silly monsters who love being evil is a fun enough vibe.
i did like the combat design/balance more than the past couple games too. except for the last boss. i guess a lot of people regard him as fairly easy, and i can see it since the power level in this game (due to the huge access you have to party swaps and healing that hits safe members) is really high? but it wasn't fun. not that i've really loved any of the other last bosses either, since they pretty much all come down to super heavy physical hits and spells you either can't bounce or don't feel great about trying to, but since he also removes buffs SO often it really just feels like such a sisyphean process having to recast them so often while also nullifying damage virtually every turn with gradual healing. whatever. after such a long dungeon i hated having to try even twice,
but it's not really gonna ruin my impression of the rest of the game, which is very strong. i really wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being a game that was as fun and easy to play a bunch as 3 while also being a lot more enjoyable to me in other ways. so overall i'd rate i liked it about as much as 2, it's nice to get really excited playing one again instead of feeling like i'm appreciating the cleverness of the adventure design but being left a bit whelmed by the game as a whole. and it made me think about other things, like how for a long time 8 was the one i really wanted to play because of the voice work and the way it looked, but now i really wonder if i'm going to be a bit less charmed once i start getting into more cutscene type of games because i feel like the ways that these games play with taking away control and options has been so clever and interesting. although that's not really a major worry overall because if i keep going in order i'm pretty sure i'm gonna be read for a real break between checking out 6 and trying to really finish 7, which i understand is about as long as all the dq i've finished so far cumulatively. so then there'd be another break. and any time i expect to do something in a year it takes about 3 or 5 or 10, so...
actually i'm really not sure i'll even go onto 6 right away, 5 was already my "goal" for this year. but...i'll probably peek at the intro, which will probably make me want to play a while. lol. i've seen this pattern before
the opening act is really an all-timer. for one thing, you get some of that dq4 mechanical buildup but in a different way. pankraz is teaching you how to play the game, asking "did you check all the drawers?" before you get off the boat, before he leads you around and heals you after battles. then you get those little adventures, which are a bit more whimsical and supernatural than usual, with ghosts and faeries, sneaking out at night and returning in your dreams. you wonder what he's hiding in the cave and have a couple of other strange encounters before getting to coburg, where you're asked to befriend an unruly prince, finding his secret hiding spots and getting tricked. i did, of course, buy plenty into the story in its own right, but it's hard for me not to look at things in this way when this game is horii flexing the kinds of clever discoveries used for jokes, tricks, and secrets in the older games for a more direct thematic and narrative purpose. (there's still a bunch of the jokes, too.)
and then, y'know, a bunch of stuff happens and the main character turns into some kind of pilgrim...or shepherd for monsters for a while as the game doesn't really have a bunch of proper party members floating around. i truly think this is pretty cool, although also weird and jank. i love that the zoom spell in this game comes from a quest instead of leveling up. there's still some real charms in this middle act of the story, too, with the tower containing the mirror as one of my favorite dungeons and really just the process of encountering the world again in general. you explore that cave, encounter bianca again, see everything that's changed in other places. i chose debora to get more debora on screen. she's pretty fun, although that lasted quite a bit shorter than i was hoping...some more stuff happens and you're off to a proper final act, which, much like in 4, is more than half the game. the game strikes a bit more of a modern balance of this kind of exploration phase, where your get several travel upgrades in sequence that open up your traversal abilities in weirdly specific ways. it feels rewarding to pay attention still, but you also don't really get the same kind of dq2/3 experience of visiting towns repeatedly to see if anything useful has happened for you since last time. instead it's just like "what does it mean that i can float over water but not mountains? (also, what the flying vehicles are is pretty wild this time conceptually. love em.)
the best part of this game is when you go to coburg again and the game puts you into a true role reversal from the start of the game. obviously this is meant to be the entire tone of this act, really. but now...you're teaching the kids what you learned at the start of the game. they get tricked the same way you did, and you show them the hidden staircase before another scene which seems at first like it might be similar to the one much earlier. although closing the loop with the fairy painting is also a really good gag. so is prince albert changing from a king sprite to a chancellor 8 years later. the passage of time in this one really sets up some good punchlines and also makes it pretty funny when it does the romancing saga 2 with some people who never seem to change all game. it's easy to imagine how eager horii was to do an even more time travel-focused story a few years later...
overall this game kind of remixes and one-ups a lot of the big concepts from 3 and 4...the search for a legendary hero (who isn't the "you" character this time), the major father figure seeking peace for the world, finding the legendary equipment and divine power to fight evil. it feels like the staples of the series really taking root and that's fine, it's actually pretty funny after the decades of seeing remarks about "killing god," that i'm finally really absorbing that the probably most popular and influential series in the genre literally has all this church imagery and stuff as it builds up to fighting goofy toriyama demons. (nimzo pretty much being a namekian is SO funny, also.) that stuff's not lighting my heart up to the max, but fighting silly monsters who love being evil is a fun enough vibe.
i did like the combat design/balance more than the past couple games too. except for the last boss. i guess a lot of people regard him as fairly easy, and i can see it since the power level in this game (due to the huge access you have to party swaps and healing that hits safe members) is really high? but it wasn't fun. not that i've really loved any of the other last bosses either, since they pretty much all come down to super heavy physical hits and spells you either can't bounce or don't feel great about trying to, but since he also removes buffs SO often it really just feels like such a sisyphean process having to recast them so often while also nullifying damage virtually every turn with gradual healing. whatever. after such a long dungeon i hated having to try even twice,
but it's not really gonna ruin my impression of the rest of the game, which is very strong. i really wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being a game that was as fun and easy to play a bunch as 3 while also being a lot more enjoyable to me in other ways. so overall i'd rate i liked it about as much as 2, it's nice to get really excited playing one again instead of feeling like i'm appreciating the cleverness of the adventure design but being left a bit whelmed by the game as a whole. and it made me think about other things, like how for a long time 8 was the one i really wanted to play because of the voice work and the way it looked, but now i really wonder if i'm going to be a bit less charmed once i start getting into more cutscene type of games because i feel like the ways that these games play with taking away control and options has been so clever and interesting. although that's not really a major worry overall because if i keep going in order i'm pretty sure i'm gonna be read for a real break between checking out 6 and trying to really finish 7, which i understand is about as long as all the dq i've finished so far cumulatively. so then there'd be another break. and any time i expect to do something in a year it takes about 3 or 5 or 10, so...
actually i'm really not sure i'll even go onto 6 right away, 5 was already my "goal" for this year. but...i'll probably peek at the intro, which will probably make me want to play a while. lol. i've seen this pattern before
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Agreed, don't roll with them back to back. Pretty easy to get burned out on that long an experience.
That all being said... I decided to finally jump into Dragon Quest XI. Me, a huge fan, somehow not having played through it? What gives? I think I might have been slightly salty about snagging it right about the time they announced the expanded version, and I didn't want to double dip. (Of course, I eventually did, so I'm playing the PS4 version on a PS5 Pro. I get 60 FPS out of it, anyway!)
That all being said... I decided to finally jump into Dragon Quest XI. Me, a huge fan, somehow not having played through it? What gives? I think I might have been slightly salty about snagging it right about the time they announced the expanded version, and I didn't want to double dip. (Of course, I eventually did, so I'm playing the PS4 version on a PS5 Pro. I get 60 FPS out of it, anyway!)
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Welp, I did finally roll credits (twice!) in DQXI. Fun time, much better than DQIX for me, but there's a fair bit of asset reuse that I didn't care for that pulls it down a bit. I'd put it under my personal favorites of DQIII/IV/VI/VIII, and just ahead of DQV. As a numerical score, I'd say it's an 8.5/10. And it's nice to actually get it under the belt.
I will not, however, be jumping straight back into DQIII HD-2D. I need a break, haha, I'm not wired for 80-hour games as much anymore.
I will not, however, be jumping straight back into DQIII HD-2D. I need a break, haha, I'm not wired for 80-hour games as much anymore.