It does stir the brain in a way that no other series has demonstrated except maybe Pokemon, but the elemental weaknesses in that trivialize it
Maybe Phantasy Star II?
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The numbers in DQ go up in such small increments compared to other series, and that has to be a huge part of it, paired with just how cute and nice the whole thing is
I canât really grasp it myself
I would say that Earthbound actually does not produce the same effect although the math looks similar on the surface
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Grandia has a similar effect. I love Grandiaâs number sense
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Tabletop games usually have even smaller integers than Dragon Quest 1, to keep calculation and record-keeping burden under control. I assume itâs that small in DQ1 because the main inspiration at that point is still D&D.
Thereâs also a technical dimension to it: DQ1 used 8-bit integers (range 0-255) for many of its stats. But that was a soft constraint: the NES is capable of 16-bit math, itâs just inconvenient to program. So itâs probably still the case that the D&D model was important in making them feel they didnât need to go to the trouble of complicating their programming.
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like two weeks ago i decided to get my partner to play dragon quest 1 for a couple hours just to see what sheâd say about it (she doesnât play videogames, pretty much, has certainly never played a jrpg) and now sheâs got a level 38 party near the end of dqiii lmao
so iâve been thinking about dragon quest numbers a lot lately too is what iâm saying
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One of the most characteristic features of Dragon Questâs stat model is using very tight additive (attack minus defense) comparisons, with defense in close parity with attack and a real likelihood of negating damage. Itâs not just the simplest, first solution every new designer chooses, itâs also the first solution almost everyone rejects, because it has an intensely sharp inflection point when attack crosses over defense. Most games, seeking to have a bent curve comparison between the player and somewhat weaker and somewhat stronger enemies, use either small defense numbers (Final Fantasy), no defense stat, or a more complex multiplicative comparison to achieve that curve. By doing so, they enable the playerâs power growth to be smooth and linear against all encounters: over-levelling a zone results in, say, a stepped 5% power increase per level, just as itâs a 5% power increase against harder encounters. Itâs consistent and flexible to handle all types of encounters.
Like a lot of early '80s RPG (Hydlide is a good boatmate) Dragon Quest takes that sharp inflection point and makes a virtue of it. The world is striated into different strata and does little to communicate where the player should be beyond the beatdown they take for being in the wrong area. But thereâs a very narrow band of level-matched enemies that provides hard, balanced fights. As soon as the player gains a level or two in that area, though, the additive math makes them over-levelled and they experience a surge of power and definitively unlock the ability to move into a new zone, where the cycle repeats. Itâs very clear communication and it produces the enjoyable levelling experience of transitioning from weak to matched to strong in bite-sized increments. The downside is that the game needs to be intensely linear for this to work; the harsh math makes sequence-breaking very difficult, and any time multiple paths are opened, if a player wants to circle back to the remaining content it will be trivialized.
(the point made in the article about Dragon Questâs high random influence on damage is a good complication that keeps the player from seeing how bare this isâŚand gives them hope for a lucky break, hope the god of good gambling fortune that resides in every Dragon Quest cart is happy to give them more than enough to break even. Among other things, Dragon Quest has always wanted to be a gamblerâs fantasy and itâs the only game I know of with the pachislot chain-smoking cred to make it work)
Now, why is Dragon Quest nearly alone in making status effects powerful and consistently useful against bosses?
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Final Fantasy II would like to have a word with you
Should I traverse that long road?
SaGa doesnât strike me as terribly into status effects (Iâm conflating like 6 games) but a lot of your battle energy goes into whatever formation or secondary efficiency system youâre building towards and the enemy attempts to disrupt it; at that point, player-applied status effects arenât a core interaction.
Along the same lines of SaGa 1âs final boss, if you level up the toad spell for the entire game, you can turn the final boss into a toad and win
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This reminds me of watching someone play a DQ1 randomizer the other day (which appeared to tune the exp gain numbers so a ~2 hour run is reasonable). I caught them about an hour into their playthrough, and within less than half an hour they went from being routinely KOâd by mid/high-level random encounters to basically steamrolling all but the toughest enemies in the game.
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play Hydlide! it can have an effect on your brain like the first time you played a clicker/idle and could see through progression schemes
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shin megami tensei 1 is also like this, to an almost comical degree
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i honestly donât think this is the case and is largely a meme that comes from a couple of the most popular final fantasy titles (and maybe like a lot of things, jrpgs being bad at communicating their advanced mechanics)
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lots of jrpgs are also just bad at making their advanced mechanics relevant. honestly, for all i fuckin know you can blind and put to sleep every boss in every psx final fantasy, itâs just that you can attack four times spam bahamut and use one of your 20 megalixers every turn or whatever so who cares
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As much as I wish it werenât, itâs true in my experience - or at least, almost all JRPGs teach me that I shouldnât be using status effects, even if there are advanced tactics that prove theyâre actually balanced if used in very specific circumstances.
Itâs a tough system to make work because it communicates exceptionally poorly; a random chance of success and the associated loss-aversion psychic penalty, and no feedback on the likelihood of success, and an extremely high opportunity cost (even higher when used in a tough fight where it actually matters) combines to make the initial, most-important uses commonly failures that teach players they did it wrong.
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My own experience with jrpgs is limited to snes and psx and the appear to operate by hiding relatively easily manageable amounts of complexity behind absolutely no communication whatsoever. Thereâs a steal ability, you can make your guy steal random potions off of mobs. Okay, seems useless. But actually psyche! If you use steal on this specific 30% of bosses they give you very powerful items. Great thanks for letting me know. Itâs like some kind of inherited taste of Druaga mindset.
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game designer auto-erotic asphyxiation
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megaten (nocturne at least) does this well by letting your debuffs apply to bosses but also giving most bosses a means of dispelling them. you get into this push/pull rhythm where youâre managing your turns so part of your party can shred their defenses while the other half lands a couple big hits before the boss gets a chance to dispel
later on bosses will buff themselves too, so you have that additional wrinkle of âwhich of these buffed threats (physical damage, magic damage, higher speed, etc) can i cope with without spending a turn and which do i need to peel back immediatelyâ
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And good Dragon Quest bosses do it, too â and itâs another channel of success and failure and dramatic clench-points besides party members falling; thereâs a good game of momentum that builds up and can be crashed down.
Final Fantasy XIIIâs battle system is all about that momentum, if only it were better at communicating what it wants from and used better metaphors I would like it a lot more (to me, it sits in the baroque design world next to Diablo III, obvious touchpoints like âswordâ and âarmorâ relegated to bare DPS factory inputs)
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i also love how the optional True Final Boss of nocturne has an undispellable physical damage resistance buff that you have to specially build your party around (either relying on magic damage or building physical attackers w/ a special passive skill that allows their attacks to bypass physical resistance.)
the unique mechanic reinforces how heâs a class above every other threat youâve faced so far and makes preparing for him a little more involved than âgrind levels, spend all your cash on megalixers, and hope for the best.â it does mean thereâs less party build choice available to the player if you want to tackle him (again, optional!) but i kinda prefer that over Unfathomably Powerful Ancient Evil But It Can Be Overpowered By Getting Really Swole
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