there are ports of the mobile versions of 1-3 on jpsn
you actually get a free code for 1 after the end credits of jp 11
What does this mean?
VIII was co-developed by Level-5, who like to stock their games with lots of subsystems and minigames, which in VIII as I recall was the magic pot to make things and the monster raising, and neither of them worked well for me. It wasnât like Rogue Galaxy levels of egregious Level 5-ness (we didnât have to capture bugs to race them and fight them to get some specific weapon or something), but it just didnât feel right to me at the time.
At some point I want to pick up the 3ds port to see if it works better there.
Didnât the alchemy pot become a staple of the series since then? IX has it, and XI has the crafting forge thing, which is even more minigamey since you have to fill some gauges and tiles to make objects instead of just plopping down the ingredients.
damn, i fucking loved the alchemy pot and the monster raising
the negative with the dq8 alchemy pot is having to wait a few minutes in real time for your stuff to finish, they removed this in the 3ds port i believe
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Yeah, I just didnât get into the alchemy pot. There is just something about how Level 5 presents these things that I bounce off of for some reason. I have no problem with the forge so far in 11 though.
EDIT: Oh shit, yeah, the waiting for the pot was some shit I remember. Like the forge is just âdo this little thing and it is doneâ and it is nice.
Monster raising is just something I never bother with in these games, and I remember there being something in 8 where it wanted me to super care about it, and IâŚdidnât.
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i just want to say that the real-time waiting is exactly why i loved the alchemy pot, absolutely not a flaw for me. it perfectly tied into the draw of the game for me, which was slow and steady, cool and collected. go out there and explore this world while youâre waiting for the stew to simmer! a watched pot never boils!
damn, i loved that game.
alright but let me also add that as a 31 year old person i am much more amenable to not having to do that anymore lol
edit: actually, thatâs why i liked the monster collecting and raising as well. similarly tied into the feeling of wanting to explore and being rewarded for doing so by finding the rarer monsters roaming, nabbing them, training them, getting to know all the lovely creatures in the world
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there was no real raising involved, just collecting roaming boss monsters and an arena you could enter them in. i like the game-length sidequests in dragon questâ monster arena in viii felt like another branch of mini medals to me, basically
i also love alchemy pot, including timerâ hearing that ding when you were walking around!
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If the forge didnât have bashing Iâd probably find it overly convenient, but that bit of interaction and strategy (tilting RNG for the buff) goes a long way to keep it fresh.
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Oh yeah, itâs been awhile.
I heartily dislike Level 5 and failed to get into DQ8 the way Iâve failed to get into every DQ but my rationale is closer to what Astromech articulated above, I actually didnât find 8 uniquely Level 5ish
I dunno, I just bounced off of 8 in a way i didnât with basically any other series entry aside from 6.
it was definitely slow in ways that werenât strictly quaint, but I think thatâs more a commonality of PS2 JRPGs (that arenât nocturne) than anything unique about DQ8
Oh there is a definite possibility that it was ps2 jrpg problem as well, as I donât know that I really got into any jrpgs on that system (nocturne aside).
Rogue Galaxy is/was, probably a good game I bounced off quicker than pretty much any other rpg Iâve ever played. Couldnât even tell you why. Heard so much praise, I imagined Skies of Arcadia in space, and justâŚdidnât feel anything for it like two hours in.
2005-6 were heavy game years though, I couldâve just been distracted.
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I think Level 5 in their heyday in fact completely short circuited critical assessment of jRPGs â between the decline of final fantasy (due in part to the PS2âs hardware simply not providing an easy way to make games look as good or as interesting or move as quickly as Squareâs PS1 work, which I donât think has been widely enough discussed, as well as Sakaguchi flunking out) and the ascent of arch-waifu character designs post-Eva, the genre flatlined badly, and Level 5 was at least willing to cram the most rose-coloured baubles into their games to make them feel like they were the standard-bearer for whatever a jRPG was then supposed to be. theyâre all pretty rote and terrible imo.
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People have professed crazy love for the Layton games, and I once meant to check out Yokai watch for the flavor. Aside from that well theyâve got a ton of stuff, wide eyed for colorful stat grind collect-a-thons.
Early on, I think that married well with the sensibilities of DQ.
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Youkai Watch is not a particularly deep JRPG, but it is a hell of a hangout game. You can walk into stores and family homes and read a different 4koma manga in each one. Youkai Watch is Dragon Quest for the auto-attack/mobile game generation.
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