The Dragon Quest Thread

[e-mailio estevez]

This game sucks. Any newcomers to DQ reading this: skip to Dragon Quest 3.

DQ3 is the best of the series faggot. Especially the NES version. fight me

 

[LarryTyphoid]

DQ3 is the best of the series faggot. Especially the NES version. fight me

I said skip TO Dragon Quest 3, not past it. Drink less.

 

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Warrior 2 is awesome. Great exploration with a mostly open world after the first few hours, no "bosses" gating progress, good balance until the very end. DW3 improved on it in nearly every way, but they are both worth playing.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

DQ3 is the best of the series faggot. Especially the NES version. fight me

I said skip TO Dragon Quest 3, not past it. Drink less.

I am extremely defensive of DQ3 (it's the first RPG i ever played and one my top 3 games of all time) and misread your thing and tbh shouldn't be calling you a faggot, was surpised for a moment when I thought you were shitting on DQ3. Your takes have been inclined overall from what I have seen and I was deeply hurt when I thought you besmirched the best in the series.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

good balance until the very end

Yeah, but that end... man, fucking awful. I grinded for over two hours at Rhone but my party kept getting wiped anyway. And that dungeon leading to Rhone gave me cancer (those trap doors at the end!!). I had the best equipment possible - I even used an exploit to get a shit load of gold to buy all the best equipment, so I can't imagine how terrible it would've been if I had gone in with more reasonable equipment. I ended up using a game genie code to make my characters immortal to get to the end, because I just wanted to get to DQ3. Maybe I'll revisit DQ2 at some point, maybe I was doing something wrong or I missed an item that could've helped, but there's no way I'm gonna grind for 5 hours for some old JRPG when I could be doing absolutely anything else with my time.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

And I'm glad I skipped through the end of DQ2, because DQ3 on the SNES is a great game so far. The music is great and I love the QoL features, like being able to choose the town you fast travel to with the Wing of Wyvern or Zoom spell.

 

[newtmonkey]

LarryTyphoid
You seem to know what you're talking about with the game, so I assume you were using those items that cast spells in battle (Shield of Strength, Lightning Staff). Unlike most console RPGs where you need to save all your MPs for bosses, you really do need to cast spells during difficult random encounters here, so it helps to be able to conserve MP by using those items. I found that buffing/debuffing spells were generally far more useful than damage dealing spells.

As for the end, the hardest part is definitely the cave to Rhone, but it's just a matter of taking it slowly and mapping accurately. Of course, you retain EXP and anything else you've done even if you party wipe, so you can brute force it, if it comes down to it.

Rhone itself is actually not bad at all, since the only really dangerous monsters are those Gold Batboons that cast Sacrifice. However, they are scripted to only cast it at low HPs and are susceptible to Stopspell, so the trick is to just avoid attacking them until you can get Stopspell to stick to them all. You can also make suicide runs against the final gauntlet of bosses, as the minibosses stay dead unless you reset the game, so you can take down the three minibosses, suicide at Hargon/Malroth if necessary, and then only have to worry about the Hargon/Malroth battle.

I didn't find gold to be much of an issue, honestly. Some of the really expensive equipment sold in shops isn't really worth it, and most of the best equipment is found in chests. The exception is the Shield of Strength, which is almost crucial to finish the game at a reasonably low level.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

The exception is the Shield of Strength, which is almost crucial to finish the game at a reasonably low level.

I didn't find the Shield of Strength useful. The Hero is the only one who can do any damage to late-game enemies because of their high defense, so why would I waste one of his turns on healing when I can get the Princess to heal him? Maybe that's my problem there, since my Prince and Princess were doing shit for damage (I made the mistake of giving the Prince the Falcon Blade, which is useless). The Princess had the Lightning Staff but it was ineffective towards most enemies in Rhone, so I had her either healing or debuffing (and debuffing also whiffed on most enemies, besides the bosses), the sole exception being the final boss who was susceptible to the staff (perhaps this is where having the Hero use the Shield of Strength would be useful).

Rhone itself is actually not bad at all, since the only really dangerous monsters are those Gold Batboons that cast Sacrifice.

Funnily enough, in all my hours of grinding, the Batboons (referred to as Gold Devils in my version of the game) never cast Sacrifice even a single time - they usually gave me problems by casting Sleep instead. What really messed with me were the Blizzards casting Defeat/Kill - it whiffed most of the time, but sometimes it would kill my Hero which just wasted those encounters (as far as I could tell, dead party members do not gain XP from battle, but maybe I'm wrong on this).

 

[newtmonkey]

LarryTyphoid
What's useful about the Shield of Strength (and any of the items that can be used in battle to cast spells) is that anyone can use it as long as it's in their personal inventory. I had the Shield of Erdrick on the Hero (slightly better defense value than the SoS), and can't recall for sure but had the Shield of Strength either equipped to the Prince, or just sitting in the inventory of the Princess.

The Blizzards casting Defeat are indeed annoying, so whenever I encountered them I'd either take them down first or run. With rare exceptions (those green fireflies in one of the towers that spam fire magic, "wizard" enemies), enemies typically won't use powerful spells in the first couple of rounds, and your chance of running increases each time you attempt... I found you could usually run on the second round, or if not, almost definitely on the third round.

[EDIT] BTW, which party have you made for DW3?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

What's useful about the Shield of Strength (and any of the items that can be used in battle to cast spells) is that anyone can use it as long as it's in their personal inventory.

Never thought of that. Guess I'll have to try that whenever I play the game again. I seem to recall that the Prince couldn't equip it, so I didn't think to give it to anybody but the Hero.

BTW, which party have you made for DW3?

A warrior, thief (since I'm playing the SNES version), and mage. I know it's not recommended to go without a priest, but I wanted a thief for his lower encounter rate spell and other unique abilities, so it was between a mage and a priest for the spellcaster, and the priest doesn't get the utility spells that the mage does (like Evac and Zoom). I figure that I can rely on the Hero and herbs for healing at the moment, and later in the game when I'll need heavier healing during combat, I can turn either the thief or mage into a sage, who can cast both mage and priest spells from what I've read. I plan on changing the warrior to a fighter/martial artist when I get the chance - I've heard that doing it in reverse (fighter>warrior) is effective. I don't know if it's true the other way around, since fighters can't equip armor, but I kinda just want a fighter because I like how they look like Yamcha from Dragon Ball.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I'm surprised at some of the story elements in Jipang of DQ3. There's a priest in town who's trying to convert the populace. Typically a priest like this would be negatively portrayed, especially since priests in DQ are obviously modeled after Catholics, but instead he's a force for good in the town who comforts the parents of children chosen for sacrifice. He expresses frustration at the natives' devotion to the local faith, and he is actually proven right in this, because the object of their devotion, the queen, is proven to be an evil monster. It's actually kind of shocking that a Christian-like religion is portrayed as a force of good in a JRPG, especially in this context where it's a Christian priest in a Japanese-style setting trying to convert people and undermine the local religion. The real world comparisons there are hard to miss. I wonder what Japanese nationalists (like the series's late composer Koichi Sugiyama) thought of this segment.

 

[Rahdulan]

As someone pointed out it's almost funny how much they don't want westerners playing this one for some reason.
https://www.siliconera.com/dragon-quest-x-offline-demo-on-switch-ps4-ps5-and-pc-now/

The Dragon Quest X Offline PS4, PS5, and PC demo is live now in Japan. While the Steam product page is region-locked, people PlayStation Store accounts can access the trial outside the country. This comes over a month after the RPG’s debut on September 15, 2022. The demo doesn’t appear to be live in the Switch Japanese eShop yet. [Thanks, Gematsu!]

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Does Dragon Quest X Offline have the same scenario/story as Dragon Quest X? Or is it more of a Gaiden-game to DQ X?

 

[Amurada]

What shader are you using?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

What shader are you using?

crt-aperture, on Retroarch.

 

[Modron]

That is the only crt shader whose screenshots (on the codex) haven't made my eyes bleed.

 

[flyingjohn]

For anybody playing DQ8 3ds,here is a handy save editor:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/3ds-dragon-quest-viii-save-editor.611392/

It is better to get monster drops this way instead of dealing with the game horrible drop rate.Also might be the only jrpg in existence where steal looses to just forcing the enemies to run away,it is quicker.

 

[Sentinel]

That is the only crt shader whose screenshots (on the codex) haven't made my eyes bleed.

https://forums.libretro.com/t/mega-bezel-reflection-shader-feedback-and-updates/25512

 

[Derringer]

That is the only crt shader whose screenshots (on the codex) haven't made my eyes bleed.

I like gtuv50 and the yee64 one made from Sonic Mania. Gtuv50 is nice since you can turn off the scanlines and adjust the blur for pixels with the resolution settings.

 

[flyingjohn]

Found a hard hack for dq8 ps2( not worth it because the 3ds changes are way too good to pass up):
http://www.mediafire.com/file/2xhhiigozhvll62/DQVIIIHTv1.3.7z/file
Here is the thread with some more hardhacks:
http://ngplus.net/index.php?/forums/topic/1129-mod-updates/&

 

[deuxhero]

Does Dragon Quest X Offline have the same scenario/story as Dragon Quest X? Or is it more of a Gaiden-game to DQ X?

It's an offline version of the story with tranny "style" options in the character creator instead of the ability to play as a girl.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Heroes get free passes for titty grabbing.

 

[turkishronin]

There's an achievement for finding your way into ladies' section at onsen...

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I'm at the pyramid in the NES version of DQ3. Any vets got tips for preparing for the mid-to-late game? I read somewhere that you shouldn't waste the stat seeds you get. My party consists of a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard, and I plan on changing the cleric into a sage when I get the chance.

 

[LarryTyphoid]