which dragon quest has the most personality

plus, you can

surprised my wife with this for Christmas

she started crying with laughter

then played for 4 hours, gasping the entire time

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Well, with 8, the original team is just Level 5, who are still around and still making Level 5 games, for good or bad.

From my understanding, it has somewhat worse graphics and music, but also removes random encounters and speeds up the battles. Also adds two new playable characters, one of which has a move called “swings both ways”

goddamn

:no_mouth:

Specifically about the music, I think they had to replace the orchestral soundtrack with some kind of midi version due to space constraints and/or licensing issues

The original JP release had probably the same music they’re using on 3DS. I don’t think I’ll be replaying 8 through this version after all. Mobile/handheld ports or remakes of games sacrificing some fidelity is expected, but when they originally carried grand vistas and a majestic orchestral score like this, that’s significant loss to the experience IMO. The convenience of avoiding random battles isn’t a major boon either if that means you can just more easily stroll through muddy music and graphics.

I’ve barely played any of the remakes (aside from V for PS2 right now) but it seems like up until 7 you generally have enhancements with some streamlining. 8 though was a huge change in presentation, and part of the point, I’d think - so the compression seems admirable but also ill fitting.

something something about character design that put me off of this game


i always worry that that hair is gonna eat me

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skimmed this thread (again? have I been here before) and I’m relieved to see I wasn’t the only one who didn’t “get” DQ9. DQ9 is the reason I worried I couldn’t truly enjoy DQ, even though I have loved other games.

DQ1 is simultaneously the first “true jrpg” (as opposed to westerny stuff like black onyx) and also a jrpg in miniature? It’s the cutest dang thing there ever was.

I have stopped partway through DQ2 twice. Maybe one day I’ll finish it. I want to like it, but it’s just bigger than DQ1 enough to lose some of its pace, I think.

I played a little of DQ3 once on gameboy as a little kid and didn’t understand it at all.

I was fascinated with DQ4’s concept and structure forEVER and then finally played the DS version and the accents ruined it. I think I hate the overall western localization for DQ. I’m actually curious about replaying the NES version, even with the thees and thous.

I don’t know if it would be more marketable but I think the localizers should have considered maybe amping the “twee” of the western scripts. DQ in general thrives on its quaintness, it seems like a natural fit. The puns worked great in Rocket Slime so they can keep those.

DQV would probably be my favorite jurpeg ever if Persona 3 and Nocturne didn’t exist. It’s up there. DQV has some of the series’ best(?) examples of ludonarrative cohesion.

I haven’t even touched DQ6, and frankly I’m a little scared to since the only option is the DS version.

I stopped partway through DQ7 twice as well. Let me tell you, the early PS1 game’s localization is pain. I can never remember why, but the volcano episode grates on my every nerve. Really excited for the 3DS version, though.

I stopped partway through DQ8 and I…don’t know if I “get” it. The cast does not appeal to me at all. I hope when I return to it, it’ll just click like Nocturne did.

I got all the way to the final boss of DQ9, the whole game a slog, and I got stuck :frowning: I’ll never finish it.

So the score is:

GOOD
I
V

OKAY?
II
IV
VII
VIII
IX

???
III
VI

Save me, DQ11.

What is funny is that his game came out at the end of the ps1’s life, a week after the PS2 had been released.

That being said, I actually liked the localization a lot of it, at the time. But I also don’t mind the accents in the DS games or later, though I do kind of mind the voiced ones in PS2 8.

III is ridiculously good

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Sorry, I mean the early part of DQ7 itself, since I never got past that. I can never remember explicitly why, but I think it included NPCs either making pop culture references (which I’m not even a big hater of, necessarily) or just speaking in ways that were really inconsistent to the setting or tone or something. I was constantly groaning.

good news–the accents in 6 ds are nowhere near as bad as 4 ds!!

re: dq7, i ended up selling my copy of the 3ds version right back in the first week because of the accents. after that i scored a complete copy of the playstation version for only 30 bucks! it made me realize, one thing i really like about dq is the battles being completely first-person with those little graphical effects when your weapons hit. i hate seeing my dudes for some reason.

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Ah, OK, that makes sense. And yeah, the original version of dq7 has a notoriously long and pretty boring prologue that takes like 3 straight hours to complete and involves no fighting at all. Thankfully the 3ds version cut this in half, if not even more.

The bad news is that 6 is boring and has very little that makes me want to play it at all. The “two worlds” thing means basically two world maps that you can barely tell apart, and I remember nothing of the story at all. Just play 5.

What’s weird is how much seeing my characters bothered me in 8, but not in the 7 remake. I think part of it really just does come down to how snappy it is.

if ya’ll were gonna emulate dqi-iii today would you go with the game boy versions or the snes versions

SNES

Though i quite like the compact sprites of the DQ3 port, and it’s one of the prettiest GBC games. Still basically a downgrade of the SNES version, though.

snes dq3 is gorgeous

the only ones i kept playing past the part where battles started happening were 3 (snes remake) and 9 - i guess the party creation parts and consequent one-size-fits-all style of narrative felt like a better fit to me with that kind of gameplay and also if anything find the many little moments of goofiness more charming in seemingly generic structure than in something more conspicuously tailored? they feel more like surprises. my favourite part of dq3 was an early dungeon where you fight your way up a tower to find some old man and after three floors of ruined corridors and monsters he’s just hanging out in a very dragonquest-y study with some bookshelves, totally oblivious and with no boss fight at all.

and of course the “generic” stuff is part of the attraction too - i specifically find the snes remakes of the first three games the prettiest looking just because it was only after playing them that i realised what the RPG Maker default tilesets were specifically shooting for, that weird aura of benign indefinite reproducibility stretching out forever without losing distinctness.

i got number 9 recently while i was sick and have been having a really good time with it - it has a “character creator” / paperdoll dressup system but with goofy toriyama designs and with an incoherent scale of utility that makes like [t-shirt] give better defence than [leather plate] and [cat ears] work better than [helmet]. also you can see enemies on the map and there’s a fairly cheap item that makes you invisible to them. there’s also that goofy rotate-the-level system from dq7 but (sadly?? thankfully??) more restricted in focus. the scenarios are good as well. i sort of miss the broader/looser structure of dq3 where dungeon/town/field structures melded together more loosely (never stopped enjoying finding inns in dungeon basements) and also the book system of the 3 remake, which has been replaced by “alchemy” for new items but frankly nothing could ever top finding a [muscle book] in a deserted castle and then reading it to change your personality into JOCK. but fewer random battles is a nice trade.

is dragon quest 9 a “late work”

8 visibly having to load your characters and their animations every round is infuriating

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