I'm Playing Four Dragon Quest Games at Once.

[Fox]

So let's talk about them.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Which ones?

[Fox]

IV, V (DS remakes), VII, VIII. Roman numerals.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

How far in VIII?

[Fox]

How far in VIII?

I more or less just started. To be a little more precise, I just got the crystal ball from the waterfall cave. Given that it's advertised as being a hundred-plus hour game, I figure that places me at .001% completion.

[Ϲharlie]

Dragon Quest is one of those series that never caught my attention. I played the first three and VIII. I'd say III was my favorite out of those. I didn't particularly care for VIII.

[Hero]

How far in VIII?

I more or less just started. To be a little more precise, I just got the crystal ball from the waterfall cave. Given that it's advertised as being a hundred-plus hour game, I figure that places me at .001% completion.

Expect more like 40 hours from DQVIII. 60-80 if you go for full completion.

Dragon Warrior VII is the famously long one. Expect that one to take you 70-80 hours on an emulator if you use a guide for everything, 100 or so if you try to figure things out on your own and don't abuse save states too much, 115-160 if you go for full completion (depending on what that means to you and how efficient you are.)

Dragon Quest IV should take between 24 and 40 hours if you want to defeat the optional bosses, maybe 45-50 if you also want to complete the bestiary and aren't lucky. I forget how long I took on DQV, it was the SNES version on an emulator and it's been awhile.

One thing I would suggest that will dramatically increase your immersion and understanding is to use the party talk option whenever you encounter a new boss or enter a new area. You can get hints, background information and there are also a lot of funny lines. This is especially important for DWVII where it's pretty much required if you want to fully understand the other dialog and character development. DWVII in general references itself a lot, and it's possible to miss a lot of these references.

Try to play the games slowly and comfortably. I would argue that these games are better-designed than Final Fantasy even though the lower production values are obvious, and a good playthrough of them should get at least as much attention as you would give to, say, Fianl Fantas VI. Talk to everyone not just once, but every time their dialog changes, try to find all the enemies, things like that. If you rush through you'll leave feeling less satisfied than you should.

My last advice is to play only one of these games at a time, not four. They're well-crafted enough to deserve the individual attention, and playing four games at a time is a recipe for confusion no matter what they are. I'd suggest starting with DQIV, since it's easily the shortest game in your list and also the most straightforward. Hold off on Dragon Warrior VII, since you don't really get anywhere for the first 15-20 hours of the game and it will annoy you.

Understand that if you're serious about completing all of these games and you don't play for more than one or two hours a day on average, you could easily have your gaming plate full for a year or more. If you have a girlfriend or close friends that expect to see you all the time, tell them that you got a new job, or are getting a ton of homework. :)

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

So...how does this work? Were you multitasking or something?

[Aitherion]

Shit, I knew I was forgetting to put something on my flash cart...

Are Dragon Quest games like FF or FE games where they're usually not connected, or do I need to play them in something resembling an order for them to make sense?

[Fox]

Shit, I knew I was forgetting to put something on my flash cart...

Are Dragon Quest games like FF or FE games where they're usually not connected, or do I need to play them in something resembling an order for them to make sense?

IV, V and VI are vaguely connected, but not in a way that demands you play them sequentially.

Shit, I take that back, I guess the first three are connected as well.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Fox

[Ein]

Have fun job grinding in DQ 7.

Well that's if you want to make the game somewhat easier since you'll be getting certain attack skills that can decimate random encounters quickly as well as bosses. I'd recommend looking up which jobs to level up if already haven't done so.

[Hero]

Dragon Warrior I, II and III are connected. They all take place in the same world, though the map is different for reasons that are explained in the game. The connections aren't that important, but you might want to play Dragon Warrior I first just so you understand everything. II and III don't have any relation to each other, just to the first game.

IV, V and VI are connected even less strongly, there are just a couple lines of text about it in game.

I would suggest playing the first three games first, and then starting with IV before moving on to the more recent offerings of the series, just because the SNES generation and onward tend to provide slightly more sophisticated gameplay and it can be hard to appreciate the first games for all they're worth if you're always expecting to find one or two more options than you have. It's like moving from a house into an apartment, albeit a very nice apartment in a good location.

[Fox]

Yes, attempting to tackle four at once was a terrible idea.

[lolDeath]

How does it feel to be reminded of your limits?

[Fox]

Well, I did spend most of last night weeping in a dark corner.

[Original Alear]

Have fun job grinding in DQ 7.

Well that's if you want to make the game somewhat easier since you'll be getting certain attack skills that can decimate random encounters quickly as well as bosses. I'd recommend looking up which jobs to level up if already haven't done so.

I <3 shepherd by the way. Stampede may be unreliable but it is such a cool skill.

Has anyone here ever messed w/ the monster classes? I usually don't get anywhere near enough monster hearts from enemies to move towards the good monster classes.

[Hero]

Have fun job grinding in DQ 7.

Well that's if you want to make the game somewhat easier since you'll be getting certain attack skills that can decimate random encounters quickly as well as bosses. I'd recommend looking up which jobs to level up if already haven't done so.

I <3 shepherd by the way. Stampede may be unreliable but it is such a cool skill.

Shepherd is good for Antidote and Increase (Shepherd/Cleric hybrid skill), but not much else. Stampede has its uses if you get it as soon as possible, but I think its success rate goes down pretty dramatically once you get a few islands past Dharma, like Howl after Dharma or Bark after Falrish.

I think that the game's pacing is done in such a way to encourage players to get skills like BlazeMore, HealAll, SwordDanc and Stampede right after they get classes, since the boss and enemy difficulty spikes up right around that time if you don't. You might as well take SwordDanc instead of Stampede, it's much more reliable and therefore satisfying, and you'll keep using it for almost the rest of the game.

Has anyone here ever messed w/ the monster classes? I usually don't get anywhere near enough monster hearts from enemies to move towards the good monster classes.

I have some. I haven't gotten to Esterk, but I have gotten far enough to tell you that you don't need many monster hearts to reach him, if you're willing to do job grinding.

The only hearts you actually need are BombCrag, BoltRat, Berserker, and LizardMan. None of these are too hard to find, unless you like to do a whole bunch of class grinding before you get to the end of disc 1 in which case you can get stuck with a character who has nowhere to go. Though even in this case you still have options, like giving them the healer heart for HealUs or going for SwordDanc.

The thing about monster classes, though, is that you have to do a lot more job grinding to get the best ones than you have to do to get the best human classes. I'd advise you to ignore them if you don't want to job grind, unless you randomly get a cool heart or something and want to try it out.

[Tangerine]

Expect more like 40 hours from DQVIII. 60-80 if you go for full completion.

Really? DQVIII was more like 70~ hours for me on my first playthrough. It should take any DQ fan that amount of time, 'cause we're all crazy about exploring! I would hope so anyway, ESPECIALLY in DQ8, considering how much better the world map in DQ8 is than any other RPG I've played. Seriously, I dare anyone to find a prettier, better designed world map <_<.

That said, I love Dragon Quest :o. VIII is my favorite, which is a pretty big accomplishment; it beat my nostalgia for the older games!

[Original Alear]

I think that the game's pacing is done in such a way to encourage players to get skills like BlazeMore, HealAll, SwordDanc and Stampede right after they get classes, since the boss and enemy difficulty spikes up right around that time if you don't. You might as well take SwordDanc instead of Stampede, it's much more reliable and therefore satisfying, and you'll keep using it for almost the rest of the game.

I dunno about that, I made it without healall and blazemore until that genie boss you fight in the wind-themed area. I don't remember exactly when maribel becomes unavailable, but I'm pretty sure that's why I missed out on it (she was a sage when she left me IIRC). I can't remember having problems against any of the other bosses besides that fish dude in the present. Never even got sworddanc, didn't know much about hybrid skills.

Prolly need to play the game more though.

[Hero]

Really? DQVIII was more like 70~ hours for me on my first playthrough. It should take any DQ fan that amount of time, 'cause we're all crazy about exploring! I would hope so anyway, ESPECIALLY in DQ8, considering how much better the world map in DQ8 is than any other RPG I've played. Seriously, I dare anyone to find a prettier, better designed world map <_<.

That said, I love Dragon Quest :o. VIII is my favorite, which is a pretty big accomplishment; it beat my nostalgia for the older games!

When I went through DQVIII I never really returned to earlier areas and always used a walkthrough so I would get all the hidden treasure the first time around and not have to do any unnecessary wandering--something I've since learned to avoid in order to fully experience a game. I was the same with DQVI. Someday I want to play these two over again more closely so I can appreciate all they have to offer.

Hopefully DQVI's long-awaited DS remake will be finished and localized before I die.

DQVIII had a beautiful world map, certainly, but I think the best-designed was DWVII's. Every place was where it was for a reason, and every place had something to do. It would be near perfection if they did it in the PS2 style and paid a bit more attention to how the geology and climate of the world would work (though it did already get more attention in this regard than most RPGs.)

I think that the game's pacing is done in such a way to encourage players to get skills like BlazeMore, HealAll, SwordDanc and Stampede right after they get classes, since the boss and enemy difficulty spikes up right around that time if you don't. You might as well take SwordDanc instead of Stampede, it's much more reliable and therefore satisfying, and you'll keep using it for almost the rest of the game.

I dunno about that, I made it without healall and blazemore until that genie boss you fight in the wind-themed area. I don't remember exactly when maribel becomes unavailable, but I'm pretty sure that's why I missed out on it (she was a sage when she left me IIRC). I can't remember having problems against any of the other bosses besides that fish dude in the present. Never even got sworddanc, didn't know much about hybrid skills.

Prolly need to play the game more though.

If Maribel was a Sage, she already had BlazeMore and HealAll since you get those two spells by leveling Mage and Cleric, which you're required to master for Sage in the first place.

Both incarnations of Kratos and the HellGenie and HellCloud can be tough if you aren't prepared. I'll bet even if you didn't get SwordDanc you had some other powerful attacking skill like Stampede, as well as good attack spells like BlazeMore.

Maribel leaves

just after the three islands that you can save or doom in any order, just before you get Aira. It's because you recently lost Maribel and might not have gotten good skills on Aira yet that the two Hell- bosses in Gorges seem so tough.

You get Maribel back later, though.

Edited November 12, 2009 by EvilWell

[Original Alear]

If Maribel was a Sage, she already had BlazeMore and HealAll since you get those two spells by leveling Mage and Cleric, which you're required to master for Sage in the first place.

Both incarnations of Kratos and the HellGenie and HellCloud can be tough if you aren't prepared. I'll bet even if you didn't get SwordDanc you had some other powerful attacking skill like Stampede, as well as good attack spells like BlazeMore.

Maribel leaves

just after the three islands that you can save or doom in any order, just before you get Aira. It's because you recently lost Maribel and might not have gotten good skills on Aira yet that the two Hell- bosses in Gorges seem so tough.

You get Maribel back later, though.

Oops. I got healall confused with healus. I don't think I had healall for gorges, but don't you get a "better" version of the wonderock that has the effects of healall by then?

[Hero]

Oops. I got healall confused with healus. I don't think I had healall for gorges, but don't you get a "better" version of the wonderock that has the effects of healall by then?

The Bless Staff. It has the same effect as HealMore, actually.

Gorges is the point in the game where not having HealAll starts to become a real pain as you get bosses that can deal more than a hundred damage to more than one character a round. It's also where it gets really annoying if you only have one character with Vivify, at least if you have bad luck with the spell like I do.