In DQ1HD I am stuck at either the zombie dragons or the axe knight. In HD the Axe Knight was given resistance to sleep, so that you can’t just lame it out like in the original version. And it appears that the only way to get my stats high enough to beat the damage output of the zombie dragons is to grind out 34,000 or 68,000 gold for either a weapon upgrade, or a weapon and armor upgrade.
Meanwhile I have been bashing my head against the flour sack wizard in the wind tower in 2. Really cool how it seems like I need to keep up magic sealing to keep his damage output low enough that I can heal through it, but the seal spell seems to have 25-33% accuracy, and sometimes only lasts a single round. He can also be dazed to allegedly lower his physical accuracy, but I haven’t seen him miss while debuffed yet. I guess I could grind a bit, but I sure don’t want to.
the zombie dragons way way way outpace you if you give them any time at all but the trick is they don’t have much hp iirc… if you want my no-grinding freaks-only protip what you wanna do is quadraslash them six times on turn three lol. axe knight is a real bastard in this version though yeah, i didn’t deal with him til pretty late (though still earlier than i might have otherwise with one weird trick lol…)
if flour sack wizard in the wind tower is what i think it is i definitely did get a fizzle or two to stick, but those first few bosses i did sometimes pull over to get an extra level or, in particular, burn more a few resources than i normally would… idk if you might have any oomph powder around but that shit can let you punch above your weight early on
my favorite example of this will always be tellah in Final Fantasy iv taking forever to level up and whenever he does he loses stats because he is an old man
edit: this isn’t just a stats thing but i mentioned EarthBound and it reminded me: Ness has really low stat gains before level 15, like he’s notoriously weak in the early game while he’s by himself. he starts getting bigger gains from about level 15, where you’re probably in Twoson/Happy Happy Village and trying to save Paula. This is also when he can start getting homesick. in fact he has the highest chance to get homesick from levels 16-30, the stretch of the game where you’ll be meeting the rest of the party and seeing most of the world. after level 70 – which he’ll almost certainly hit after the climax of Magicant where, having destroyed the symbol of evil in his mind’s heart, he has achieved spiritual enlightenment – Ness no longer can get homesick. All of this fucking rules if you think about it and in conclusion EarthBound is still the best Dragon Quest game and god it’s been too long since i replayed it.
Each job modifies your stats, so you might want to think about which attributes you want to emphasize for each character. I don’t think there’s any penalty for changing jobs so you don’t have to feel like you’re making the “wrong” choice. A lot of jobs give you no mp abilities and auto battle is so smart that your teammates will start sending enemies to sleep when they know it might work. If you’re playing the Super Famicom version, Beast Master only recruits monsters if you have a party member actively in that class during battle.
Oh yeah and getting to the more advanced classes is going to be pretty nice by the end of the game.
It’s so good that after the island of sadness yuji horii sends the dq7 party to fucking pompeii for a light hearted interlude. It’s really hilarious listening to a village of people all saying “But why? I never believed fire could hurt us…!” and “Don’t be silly. Volcanoes don’t erupt!”
i dont like yantar in 8 yet (i can never remember his real name im sorry, the guy that goes OY GUV LETS CHIMNEY SWEEP THESE SLIMES WOT WOT) and so i keep just defending with him when he has like 4 hp instead of doing anything to help out of spite and can you believe it he keeps fucking dying??? im just going back and forth between the waterfall cave and the first town but this is how i start games. like i dont want to play a videogame ever again and then eventually against all my willpower i start playing how im supposed to. but i do have all my skills planned out for these two. guess im giving myself something to think about while watching yantar get his ass kicked over and over. im not gonna have thin air on polio becuase hes gonna be a boomerang boy ill give it to healer yantar instead? jessica will be sexy of course and i dont know what the fuck im gonna do with angelo. bows i guess? why not slow down the random battles, everyones favorite part of dragon quest? ntimidating bitches in random battles
i also switched from dq8 remake on 3ds to ps2 because no the graphics really are just that much better on the ps2. also the camera is SO CLOSE on the ds. its very god hand kind of claustrophobia. when i started up the ps2 version i felt like i could breathe again. minimap is overrated in ds, and hte fight fast forward really isnt that much faster
and even though im a dq soundtrack hater down to my very bones i like the orchestral tracks better because i can ignore the actual music and be like ‘wow i wonder what the room they were playing the instruments inside looked like’
i forgot about tension. tension rocks i love doing nothing and being worried that im making the wrong choices until i finally swing and do ALL the damage. even for a weak dragon quest this game rocks. veronica playing seven though really makes me wanna go backa nd that game will be such a treat after this haha. i still love it though, turns out when im not depressed i just like fucking around in 8 more than slogging through it wordlessly
ah another nice thing about the ps2 version vs the 3ds version is in the ps2 version every single barrel and pot you can pick up DOESNT have a little (!) above it indicating HELLO LOOK AT ME PICK ME UP i dont need that. im a rummager
i am willing to ride for 8 quite a bit. i think maybe i can agree with it being weak in a sort of relative sense because many DQs are all-timers; but it is honestly a really fantastic game imo. personally, it is possibly the one i resonate with the most (also love 4). w/r/t atmosphere, it elevates things a lot from 7 in that you are more embodied in the world due to the tech upgrades. the fully 3D world is very enjoyable to explore and the dungeons are especially vibey. i think it retroactively makes the earlier games better, even?
ps2 version only tho. i haven’t played the 3DS version but i dislike what i hear about it lol. i assume it is similar to the mobile version which i didn’t like
actually, i think it might seem weaker in retrospect because the upgrade in fidelity over 7 isn’t as profound as it was on release. but idk, for me it’s like an introduction to experiencing the world of dragon quest more closely than ever
8 is really good, its only weak for a dragon quest was my point yeah. i just hate yantars accent
but i mean the ROTATE CAMERA to solve puzzles is alive and well and your protag is 5 apples tall instead of one apple. theres a lot of things i like about it!!! ALCHEMY POT
the one thing i liked about the 3ds version is it shows you all future skills in the category so you can plan ahead without opening gamefaqs