Dragon Quest

[Dai]

At least, as far as I know. And I looked around to make sure there wasn't already a topic like this, so if there is, I do apologize for missing it.

So, who here likes/loves this series? I can't be the only one. That would make me quite sad.

So, first off, how I got into the series.

Well, back when the game came out in America, I believe I got it as a birthday gift(And it was a surprise. I hadn't known about the series beforehand, so I never knew about the game, thus I couldn't have asked for it). I think, since my family knew that I liked Pokemon, and somehow they knew that this game was a monster-catching series, they knew that I would love this game. AND HOW.

I played that game to death(and yet, I have never once beaten it. I think I just wound up getting my butt kicked too much). I loved the monsters, I loved the music, I loved EVERYTHING. My favorite monster initially was DuckKite, and then MadCat(now known as GreatSabreCat). And the breeding was so fun. My favorite part was breeding a Coatal without using WingSnakes.

Then comes 2007, and I get myself Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. AND BOY HOWDY WAS THAT FUN. Not so much as the original held for me, but in a different way. I enjoyed it. The story was kinda neato, and Solitaire was pretty enjoyable(as much as a rude rival can be). And Wulfspade. Oh my gosh I love that monster so much. Especially Wildcard. I use Diamagon as a screenname more often, though.

Then comes 2008, and I get myself Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. HOLY SMOKES, MY FIRST ACTUAL DRAGON QUEST. It was pretty fun, really. I loved all the characters(particularly the twins, because they are GORGEOUS), and Psaro is just so awesome when you get him. It also featured my favorite boss, Estark(although I prefer his Psaro-brown coloration).

Then comes 2011, in which I obtain Joker 2, which is hard as balls, but features a good storyline, and a nice mechanic, size, which I enjoy a lot. Not much to say about it, though.

2012...HOLY SMOKES MY LIBRARY'S EXPLODED. I got Dragon Quest 5, 6, 9, 1, 2, AND 3! I mean, dang. So many games, so little time! I do love them all, though, 'cuz I've watched through all but nine, and as for nine, I've played the majority of it.

I want Terry's Wonderland 3D, though. I hope it comes to America.

So, does anyone else like this series?

[B00TE]

Love 'em. Though I've only played 1 (still have it on my NES, in fact!), 2, 8, 9 and DQM 1 and 2.

9 is probably my favorite DS game, so much content there in addition to having free control over your party and such. Not to mention how colorful it was. That was another high point in 8 for me, was the use of color. Oh, and Yangus.

[Dai]

Oh yeah, I remember reading about VIII in Game Informer before it came out and I really wanted it, but I never had a Playstation 2. I watched all of it on a friend's channel, and I thought it was pretty awesome.

[Tamanoir]

I started with a horrible DQVI Translation (the dialogues were all mixed up, and the guy in the Amor Cave was refered as a girl).

I also played DWM at around the same time. (I didn't even now what a slime was...)

Now I played IV,V, VI and IX (V and VI in original version and DS reamke, I began IV in NES and never finished it).

I also played all the DQM games.

As you can guess, I absolutely loves the slimes, my favourite being the Slime Knight.

[B00TE]

[Dai]

Yangus rocked, although I had a hard time keeping my eyes off of Jessica. Because DANG. What a hottie. Supposedly, she's a bit of a throwback to Ashlynn from VI, which I can see how. But, yeah. Mrowr.

[B00TE]

Oh, bonus points for 9 because it had multiplayer. Playing with my brother was awesome. Our first boss fight came down to just me and him being alive and throwing items at each other back and forth. Though since I ended up playing it quite a bit more, I'd pop into his games to tank stuff for him with my warrior.

[BrightBow]

I've only played IX so far. In fact, I'm actively playing this at the moment. I played a Monsters spinoff on the Gameboy back in the day but I got bored quickly. I don't even know which game that was. IX did a better job keeping my interest.

I think IX is a very good game but I found that it's dragged down by the incredible annoying side missions which are more a test of patience rather then anything resembling a challenge. And for some reason, you can only accept 8 of those at a time.

And handling the inventory is an absolute nightmare. Once you empty all of them, filling all the slots takes ages. And it gets automatically emptied when someone is left at the tavern.

I thought Baldur's Gate was annoying with that but this is an enitrely diffent level. I mean, does the game really need to give me an unskipable message every time I move a potion into someones inventory? You can't even move several items of the same type at once.

In fact, everything in regards to items or menus is kinda clunky and slow for some reason. It's very similar to playing the NES Fire Emblem games in that regard. Even the first-gen Pokemon games were faster with this kind of thing.

Oh, and why would there ever be ONLY ONE SINGLE SAVE SLOT. Seriously! With all the post game stuff, you most certainly don't want to throw all the stuff away just to start a new game.

For the positives, I really liked the visuals during battle are really well done. Once it gets going, it's appropriately chaotic instead of the usual "everyone stands in a row" thing. And it's always nice that equipment changes the look of the characters and there is a lot of equipment to hand around. And I absolutely love that you can actually attack a boss' status for a change. I wonder why it's such an iron rule in the genre that you can't do this kind of thing, considering that Dragon Quest is the JRPG series. You would think that if they have it, everyone else would copy it.

I found the party system to be a bit off a hit-miss thing. On the one hand, having a fully customizable party is awesome. On the other hand, that means that they aren't actual characters. In fact, it can be downright awkward, that the rest of the party doesn't get acknowledged. I just got past the part where you have to perform an investigation at a school. So I got a uniform to go undercover and make the other students trust me. So far, so good. But the fact that I had 3 heavy armed guys with no uniform running behind me made that whole scenario a bit unbelievable. In fact, that whole scenario was so silly that I eventually just left the team at the tavern.

Anyway, I'm really curious to play a few more games of the series. Especially one where actual characters are involved. I guess I'm going to pick up VIII next. I can't believe these games are so obscure in the west.

But please tell me that the other DS games have more then one save.

Edited January 20, 2013 by BrightBow

[Dai]

They do. It was only this one that didn't due to the alleged size of the game.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I picked up a copy of one of the second Monster series, Tara's Adventure. Haven't done anything with it, yet. =<

[StrategistPockystix]

Pretty much played them all, in weird orders. My first RPG was Dragon Warrior, and I played a lot of Dragon Warrior II as a child (and yes, it took me years to actually see that ending). I played VII next, which is how it came around in the west, then VIII. Both of those games were great, and then I found out about all of the other games, and went on a huge backlog to try and play them all. Thankfully this was made a lot easier do to the DS remakes lol

With most of the main games under my belt now, I can honestly say; I love this franchise. It's got a great thing going for it, and knows how to satisfy the traditional RPG fanatic in me. It's just kind of sad that, while DQ is doing great, Final Fantasy has been floundering about, in the midst of it's mid-life crisis.

If I had to choose favorites; I like VII>III>IV>VIII>IX (in that order) the best.

found V to be kind of overrated, which is odd, even to me.

Edited January 21, 2013 by StrategistPockystix

[BrightBow]

Btw, does anyone know, what Arnemalists in IX need their magic stat for? It's very high and class exclusive gear raises it even further. But they have no damage dealing spells so I don't see what good it does them.

Speaking of Arnemalists, I finally got the Red Mage outfit after finishing the first Arnemalist quest in IX...and it's gender locked. My female Arnemalist has to settle for a light blue version. And after all that trouble with that quest... Why restrict that awesome Red Mage suit like that?

Even weirder, considering that the accompanying hats have no gender restrictions. Oh well, it still looks cool.

Anyway, I just love how my Arnemalist totally exceeded my expectations. I mean, the game presents them as Jack-Of-All trades but they are really more of a rather unique combination of status affecting magic and high physical abilities. My Arnemalist is currently my main damage dealer with the Paladin dealing relatively little damage by comparison. And to think, that I expected the class to be nothing more but an upgrade to the Bard class.

Edited January 22, 2013 by BrightBow

[StrategistPockystix]

Btw, does anyone know, what Arnemalists in IX need their magic stat for? It's very high and class exclusive gear raises it even further. But they have no damage dealing spells so I don't see what good it does them.

Speaking of Arnemalists, I finally got the Red Mage outfit after finishing the first Arnemalist quest in IX...and it's gender locked. My female Arnemalist has to settle for a light blue version. And after all that trouble with that quest... Why restrict that awesome Red Mage suit like that?

Even weirder, considering that the accompanying hats have no gender restrictions. Oh well, it still looks cool.

Anyway, I just love how my Arnemalist totally exceeded my expectations. I mean, the game presents them as Jack-Of-All trades but they are really more of a rather unique combination of status affecting magic and high physical abilities. My Arnemalist is currently my main damage dealer with the Paladin dealing relatively little damage by comparison. And to think, that I expected the class to be nothing more but an upgrade to the Bard class.

The Armamentalists magic might stat is probably meant for the accuracy of their debuffs, though don't take my word for it. I was an Armamentalist for the longest time, but switched to Sage with a sword for post game content. Having access to a lot of spells and healing, while being able to use Uber Falcon Sword Falcon slashing was great~.

Too bad you can't stock up on skill points in DQX, but I think the spell load out for the Armamentalist is overall better. 2 Oomph type spells, sleep spells, MP stealing spell, and a spell that boosts the speed of the entire party. Nice.

As for the Paladin, if you want a damage build for them, be prepared to multiclass. Spears are great, hammers are ok, but the more you can slap some stat boosts on them from the Warrior or Gladiator, the better.

[Diortem]

I originally wanted to create a topic about DQ because of my getting V, but I never got around to it. Oh well.

Anyway, unlike most people, I actually started out with DQMJ, which, looking back, was kinda bad. It was playable, and enjoyable, it's just... it isn't really special, to be honest. After DQMJ, I started getting a bit more into the games themselves, despite not getting any until IX. I kinda enjoyed IX, although the sheer amount of content, how tedious getting some of it is, and how ridiculous the quests are (not to mention the lack of balance) really didn't strike my fancy, all too much. I didn't really get any games up until DQMJ2 and DQVI. Joker 2 was VASTLY improved from Joker 1, if I had to say so myself. I wish I could get back into VI, it was decent, but that's more my own fault.

Then, I came upon Dragon Quest V. Oh god, DRAGON QUEST V. That was easily my favorite out of all the one's I've seen. I mean, considering how the story goes

which includes getting your father incinerated at the age of 6, after getting to witness a kidnapping of a prince about your age, getting sold off to slavery for 10 YEARS, traveling back to the prince's kingdom with said prince, only to find an imposter of his mother controlling his brother (when they all though he was dead), finding the Zenithian equipment from IV only to find out you can't equip it (so you aren't the legendary hero), finding a childhood friend of yours after all this time, when you were planning to marry another girl, and marry her instead (assuming you take Bianca), and then finding not only YOUR HOME KINGDOM (and that the protagonist is really a prince), but that your wife is pregnant with twins, the fact that she gets kidnapped soon after they are born, then once you find her, both of you get TURNED TO STONE AND SOLD in an auction, you get to watch another kid grow up instead of your own, only to have your own kids save you after 8 YEARS of them growing up, and to find out your son was the legendary hero, not you. Plus, the implications of how Madason (the protagonist) reacts to some things like meeting the bishop who incinerated his father, while his kids were there, seeing a higher-up in a cult IMPERSONATE HIS MOTHER (who he's been searching for since he was SIX), and MUCH more, really shows how much Madason is hurt by watching this. Then he FINALLY rescues his wife, who has seen her kids for the first time, after 10 YEARS, and then they have to stop the villain of the game from there.

is really interesting, and it makes you feel for the protagonist (also, don't open that spoiler, because it contains about 90% of the plot in the game).

I've also gotten IV, and it was pretty good. Wish they didn't take out the party talk feature of that game for the localization, but eh. I do plan on getting the Dragon Quest VII remake for the 3DS (assuming that gets localized) and maybe the Monsters game that was announced (I think it was a remake of the first). I also hope I get the chance to get VIII, because I really like it from what I have seen.

Overall, I like Dragon Quest a lot. It's a nice JRPG series, for what it is.

[veetasoy]

Good lord, get DQVIII. It's such a joy to play, and is totally the definitive immersive JRPG experience. I've played IV, V, VI, and IX, but none were able to captivate me quite like VIII. V admittedly has better storytelling though (seriously, playing as a kid growing up to being a father is amazing), but VIII is just such a huge experience, and a fun one at that. The voice acting is absolutely top-notch, and let's not even get started on the grandness that is the soundtrack.

[Diortem]

Good lord, get DQVIII. It's such a joy to play, and is totally the definitive immersive JRPG experience. I've played IV, V, VI, and IX, but none were able to captivate me quite like VIII. V admittedly has better storytelling though (seriously, playing as a kid growing up to being a father is amazing), but VIII is just such a huge experience, and a fun one at that. The voice acting is absolutely top-notch, and let's not even get started on the grandness that is the soundtrack.

I do plan to, even if I need to get a PS2 or a working PS3, which would be possible soon. Like I said, I really do wish to get it, since I've seen a lot of it, and I like what I've seen. Hopefully I can get it with Valkyria Chronicles amongst others.

[Xeroix]

I've completed Dragon Quest IV, and IX so far but i got to Dragon Quest V is my personal favorite but don't like the Monster system where u use monsters as party members and collecting them