The appeal of Dragon Quest to the Japanse

[Kupek]

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=899 ... Id=5725436

I understand this. I played DQ8 and loved it. I'm playing through DQ4 right now on the DS, and it's not as fun as DQ8, but I still enjoy it. Something I've liked about both is the sense that the game isn't conspiring against me; you're penalized for dying, but you don't lose. Because of that, I find myself playing looser, willing to take more risks.

[Don]

I can't get myself to play any of the DQ for more than 5 minutes, but one of the sites I go to mentioned that it's one of the few RPGs that gets the difficulty right. The game appears hard enough where it is actually possible to die without getting hit by some gimmick (like say, status effects that totally knock out your party), but not so hard you got to just go in a circle and keep on level up before you have a chance to do anything. I don't know if this is the best way to handle difficulty, but it sure is better than most RPGs where you have no possibilty to die the entire game.

[SineSwiper]

I don't understand any RPG that doesn't focus on story or gameplay. The story and gameplay must be somewhat fresh and original. Dragon Quest is another example that follows the "MegaMan School of Printing Money".

[RentCavalier]

Whatever happened to gameplay and story being, uh, integrated?

[Don]

I think most RPG just have very poor combat engines. Let's say leveling up is not necesary at all, most people would choose to avoid 100% of the encounters if given the chance. That indicates there is absolutely nothing worthwhile about your gameplay when people would rather go through the entire game without any random encounters. While random encounters are by nature somewhat tedious, they should not be so pointless that you'd rather never fight them.

At least FF8 and FF10 give you the option of never fighting any random encounters, so I guess it's acknowledging the problem.

[Kupek]

I don't understand any RPG that doesn't focus on story or gameplay.

Luckily, Dragon Quest does both, huh?

[Zeus]

I don't understand any RPG that doesn't focus on story or gameplay.

Luckily, Dragon Quest does both, huh?

He said "focus" not "contain"

[Kupek]

I think there is a focus on story. DQ8's story is not novel, but it's told well, and it is certainly a focus of the game - it drives the game forward and provides the basis for something I like most about it, which is the character interaction. I like how DQ4 breaks up the beginning of the game into separate stories with loose connections, then ties them together in the end. And I haven't played DQ5, but I know the entire game is focused on the life of the protagonist: you play them as a child, as a young adult, and later as a father. DQ games usually do something unique with the story.

And while I don't think the battle system would be enough to keep Don happy, I found myself using more strategy than FF4-9.

[Julius Seeker]

While simple, I do find the general DQ battle system to be more fun than Final Fantasy. A lot of RPGs have complex battle systems that ultimately end up being used for simple strategy. Dragon Quest games have a simple battle system which actually have more complex strategy involved. It is one of the very few series' where I find it fun to fight and advance.

I would say the main drawing points though are sites to see and explore, story, and characters.

[SineSwiper]

I think there is a focus on story. DQ8's story is not novel, but it's told well, and it is certainly a focus of the game - it drives the game forward and provides the basis for something I like most about it, which is the character interaction. I like how DQ4 breaks up the beginning of the game into separate stories with loose connections, then ties them together in the end. And I haven't played DQ5, but I know the entire game is focused on the life of the protagonist: you play them as a child, as a young adult, and later as a father. DQ games usually do something unique with the story.

And while I don't think the battle system would be enough to keep Don happy, I found myself using more strategy than FF4-9.

Tell me what is in DQ8 that isn't in just about 90% of the RPGs that are churned out.

[Don]

As far as I can tell, DQ's battle system involves resource management. It does not appear that you just have a convenient save point that restores everything before the boss, and just using 'attack' on every fight you run into isn't going to be enough to get you to the end point alive, so you got to use some of your special stuff but not too much. This has been a system since the NES days so I'm not particularly impressed by it, but compared to a system like Final Fantasy where you can basically use whatever super attack you want every fight because you know you get 100% of everything back before a boss, I suppose it's some kind of improvement, but that's not really saying much.

Having 100 options doesn't mean much when only 1 is the best one. In FF10 you pretty much always use Quick Hit over any other possible action. Also given the excessive animation time on most spells, often the normal attack is the best attack after considering the time-to-damage ratio.

[Kupek]

Tell me what is in DQ8 that isn't in just about 90% of the RPGs that are churned out.

I really can't, because I haven't played many games - let alone RPGs - in the past six years.

What I can tell you is why it appealed to me so much. As I said before, the story is standard fare, but it's well told. The characters, though, have good writing with consistent personalities.

The world is beautiful. It was a joy to explore. I don't know what kind of an impression the graphics will make on someone used to 360 HD visuals, but they made an impression on me. Not just for technical quality, but for the style and what they were able to do with it. They allowed me to feel I was exploring a world.

Which is perhaps what I enjoyed most about the game: exploration. Exploration is encouraged but not required. You can find equipment and gold bonuses strewn about the landscape if you take the time to poke around. I loved this, since I love the exploration aspect of RPGs.

It all comes together to be a charming game.

[Don]

The only game I've played where I explored without consulting a guide was Skies of Arcadia and Terranigma (I don't play the DQ games).

It seems to be very hard for game developers to figure out how to make a RPG where you can move around for fun. I remember in FF10 they have an arrow telling you where you're supposed to go, and my brother always went the direction opposite of the arrow because that the wrong direction means there must be a treasure chest on the wrong way. That's not the kind of mentality you want people to be playing the game under.

[RentCavalier]

My one complaint with DQVIII is that it is a HUGE time sink. Until you can effectively power-level (And I say "effectively" very sarcastically), trying to level up and get the skills you need takes a LONG time. Once you're at around the mid-30's in terms of levels, you NEED to find Metal Slimes if you at all want to level up in under an hour. Getting the neccessary exp of regular encounters at that point takes forever, and is often not worth it, since the monsters suddenly become twice as powerful, and are loaded with high level spells, status effects, immunities, and loads of HP.

By the time I'd finished the game (FINALLY beat the damn thing) I'd clocked in so many hours that I could only make one half-hearted attempt at the Dragovian Trials before losing all will to play.

It's VERY fun, but god DAMN can it get grindy.

And, BTW, Power-Leveling is fucking annoying because Metal King Slimes take FOREVER to appear, even with whistling, and even when they do appear, they'll run away immediately fifty percent of the time. UGH. And worse yet, the "running from battle" thing is horribly broken. I could easily outrun a bunch of king slimes, but somehow I could not run away from a REGULAR SLIME, the WEAKEST ENEMY IN THE GAME? Which meant I was forced to fight through dozens of 1-exp, 3-gold yielding battles on that GOD DAMNED HILL in order to get lucky and encounter maybe ONE Metal King Slime, which would run away half of the time. GRRRR.

[SineSwiper]

My one complaint with DQVIII is that it is a HUGE time sink. Until you can effectively power-level (And I say "effectively" very sarcastically), trying to level up and get the skills you need takes a LONG time. Once you're at around the mid-30's in terms of levels, you NEED to find Metal Slimes if you at all want to level up in under an hour. Getting the neccessary exp of regular encounters at that point takes forever, and is often not worth it, since the monsters suddenly become twice as powerful, and are loaded with high level spells, status effects, immunities, and loads of HP.

Is it 7th Saga grindy?

[Zeus]

Is it 7th Saga grindy?

7th Saga is a game for masochists. The game punishes you for attempting to walk from one town to the next. You basically have to level the hell up just to be able to survive the journey to the next town/location. It's grindy as hell.

[Kupek]

In DQ8, mid-30s is enough to beat the game with both the original and improved endings. There's little need to level once you hit 35. If you want to do the full Dragovian Trials, it's necessary, but that's bonus content. I saw no reason to do it.

In DQ8, if you spend an inordinate amount of time leveling, you're playing it wrong. The only penalty for dying is losing half your gold; you still retain all of your experience, items and equipment. Hence, there's less reason to conservatively level before or during a dungeon. You just enter, no matter how prepared you are, try to get as far as you can, and if you die, no biggie. You can try again, but with your progress intact. Dying is still something you don't want to do since gold is a limited resource the whole game, but you can still progress.

I leveled four times in the game. First, before the first dungeon, when I hadn't realized this yet and I was playing too conservatively. Second, when I accidentally visited towns and areas out of sequence and just figured the difficulty was artificially increased; if I had done them in the right order I wouldn't have needed to. Third, before a pivotal boss battle that's an inflection point of the story. Fourth and finally, before the end of the game.

Unrelated to my above point, I also liked that in DQ8, money and magic were resources I had to manage the entire game. In most FFs, after a certain point both are essentially infinite.

[Don]

From what I understand DQ series have a wide range of randomness in difficulty. If you fight an enemy it might like hit you for 25, do some status effect, cast some magic that hits everyone for 50 damage, or do something that hits everyone for 50 damage + status effect. So if all the enemies decide to use their strong attack you'd be in a lot of trouble. It is a good example of a poorly tuned offensive engine for the enemy. Final Fantasy at least generally makes the enemy rotate their attacks, especially bosses, so you don't have to worry about the possibility of a boss that just uses strongest attack back to back.

Grandia 3 has a pretty well balanced offensive system for the enemy. The enemy more or less rotates attacks at random, but it'd honestly be to their detriment if they used their strongest attack every turn because strong attacks have a huge recharge time and you'll just either interrupt them or block them. For example one of the Minotaur type enemies at the final dungeon has an attack called Buster Horn, which does so much damage that it will basically kill a character in a party that can clear the game in one hit. In most RPGs you'd be pretty screwed if you run into 3 Minotaurs that just did Buster Horn each turn.

But in Grandia you just defend 3 times and then kill them while they're recovering. In fact since you can see Buster Horn from a mile away and stop it, that actually makes their normal attacks far more dangerous because you don't want to get greedy and use an interrupt on a weak attack and leave yourself unavailable to interrupt/defend against a Buster Horn.