yeah, I like the extent they’ve managed to extrapolate dragon quest’s stereotypical jRPG progress curve into dozens of small hills to climb in different little thoughtful ways. I think that’s what a lot of these games think they’re doing but they don’t usually achieve that distinct cadence of “now how do I solve this slightly new problem”
the shops at the camp are so nice too! nothing is difficult that shouldn’t be difficult! it’s light years ahead of 8 and 9 imo
playing earthbound recently has made me wish we lived in an alternate timeline where we get a new cozy mother game every handful of years instead of a new DQ and now i’m sad
i was like 30 hours into dqvii 3ds but then i kind of accidentally stopped playing for like three weeks and now i’m about to get on a plane, should i pick that back up or start xi switch please advise
it depends on how much patience you have for retreading old ground?
i feel like the 3ds would be a cozier experience for a game like DQ7 but i also know nothing of the switch release
the sand crab boss was where i had to start using my brain for fights
I finished 3DS Dragon Quest VII.
Has anyone written about how the ending is strange?
Thanks for saving the world, now you’re a fisherman.
Well, I mean, your dad was a fisherman…
Yeah, it’s not completely out of left field, but it seems strange how the hero’s life goes right back to how it was in the beginning. It’s almost an ‘it was all a dream’ ending, but not quite. In the end you’re a fisherman whose backstory includes that you saved the world one time.
Would you rather they establish a new monarchy? Mayor of your island town? Overlord? Hobbit writer?
Captain of the Sea Dragon would have worked.
The beginning and the ending don’t feel connected to the rest of the story.
The hero is a young fisherman’s son. He saves the world. He becomes a young rookie fisherman.
That middle either doesn’t belong at all, or the ending should be different, or there should be something more connecting the middle to the end.
It’s weirder still because there was a chunk of the game where Pollock was lost at sea and presumed dead, and then he’s just back. The game makes a big deal about him going missing, but just has him pop back in so the ending can happen.
All the characters you meet along the way go off to live their own lives. In the end the residents of Pilchard Bay are the only people in the hero’s life and his life outside of Pilchard Bay may as well have not happened as far as the general arc of his life’s story goes. That could be interesting if it was explored at all, but left unexplored it just feels like the story is disjointed.
Dragon Quest VII is real good. The ending didn’t really work for me.
It’s just a trope in adventure/fantasy fiction. Like The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. There’s ordinary people living ordinary lives and then they go on an extraordinary adventure but when it’s over their ordinary life is still there waiting for them to return to it.
You don’t always set off to find adventure and save the world. Sometimes adventure finds you, sometimes the world selects you to be the one to save it.
this is the first thing that has made me want to play through dq 7 actually, it makes it sound more comfy
what’s the best version?
I haven’t played the ps1 game to personally compare them, but the 3ds version is generally the version people recommend. It has a lot of improvements including in-game hint systems, visible enemy encounters, and cute graphics.
That’s the main reason I like the series.
i haven’t spent much time w/ the 3ds remake, but i really love the feel of the psx original. games like xenogears, grandia, and dq7 (chunky 3d environments w/ 2d sprites) are so unique to that era and it’s just so perfect and cozy in dq7. also, from what i understand the 3ds version’s early game is made more expedient–i rather enjoy the atmosphere and slow pace of the first few hours, free of combat, just wandering and figuring things out until you finally tip over into the game’s main rhythm. i think it’s totally an unfairly maligned game, maybe because it appeared so strangely dated in 2001, let alone alongside other psx jrpgs… but that’s just missing out on some comfy-ass dragon quest.
i’m sure the 3ds version is fantastic and you likely can’t go wrong, but psx would be my rec.
the 3ds remake is very pretty, if you have a modded system (it also emulates well) i’m pretty sure there’s a hack that restores the orchestral ost from the japanese version, it’s also streamlined to the point of cutting tens of hours off total playtime
difficulty wise the psx version is probably better balanced? i personally don’t really give a shit and was surprised difficulty came up so much itt when xi first released cos it’s you know, cosy comfy hangouty dragon quest not saga or smt but 3ds 7 is probably the easiest jarpeg i’ve ever played
on the subject of 3ds dragon quest and hacked systems, did anyone here ever play the fan translation of terry’s wonderland?
3ds VII is breezy and smooth. PS1 version is chunky and wonderful.
I have a lot of affection for the PS1 version. A ton. I wish those graphics became a lot more embraced and we were getting modern versions of them now. The DS DQ games were as far as we got. But I also know I don’t play JRPGs on non-portable systems that well any more, so there is that.
Yeah, never understood people wanting DQ to be anything other than snuggly good times.
I think I’m going to play in 2d mode, the towns are so massive and it takes too long to traverse and talk to every NPC. I already beat Blue Dragon anyway, and I feel like that was a perfectly calibrated tour through a fully realized Toriyama world. DQXI feels a bit too much in comparison. However, maybe if someone could convince me the juice is worth the squeeze then I won’t make the switch. Change My Mind!
I can’t get past the opening area in the demo because I don’t want to explore the starting village nor talk to any NPCs.