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Dragon Quest I out today internationally for iOS/Android [now up in NA]

Erdrick

Erdrick

Member
I'm pretty hyped to see this new translation that combines a more modern feel with some of the older names that I grew up with. I've yet to buy a game for any mobile device but you better believe that Dragon Quest will be the first. I'm checking the Google Play store like a madman haha. The nostalgia in this is absolutely massive for me. It also helps that DQI is a perfect fit for mobile. Short, by today's standards but still plenty of substance. I wasn't a fan of the gbc translations but I was still happy that they existed for us outside of Japan. Thanks to the poster who linked that video of how it looks and sounds. Looks really solid.

I really wish the series was more prominent outside of Japan but I guess for fans like us, these days, this is what we'll have to cope with. Short of learning Japanese.

EDIT:

No way in hell is Dragon Quest III "bottom tier" in the series. It's one of the best jrpgs of all time. The improvement over I and II cannot be stated enough. Introduced a world that was utterly massive in scope for its time, the 4 character party system with the job system, the day/night cycle (That still is not used enough or as well in other games to this day.) And a great cap to the first trilogy. It's basically my favorite game of all time, and in a perfect world I'd see Square-Enix remaking the first 3 games in the mold of DQVIII. It'd be the best remake compilation ever...

At the end of the day, I hope these versions can introduce new fans to the series and they can enjoy the games as much as I have.
 
J

john tv

Member
Hmm, only messed around in the first area, but the thee/thy/thou stuff seems like it's going to get real old, real fast...
 
S

Shizuka

Member
gaKocCo.jpg
 
M

mispeled

Neo Member
I just bought it, too.

It's not bad so far, but I wish I could make the text larger or play it in portrait mode or pinch zoom in.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but everything seems really small.
 
E

eojoko

Member
john tv said:
Hmm, only messed around in the first area, but the thee/thy/thou stuff seems like it's going to get real old, real fast...
Click to expand...

What's peculiar to me, and why I set my text speed at a slow setting when setting up my game, they took the thee/thy/thou stuff out of the battle text! That was my favorite part about the original translation.

That said, some other impressions:

The new translation seems solid and has already given more clarity to our hero's purpose.

Goddess is it hard to control, but I guess I'll get used to that.

The updated music is GREAT! Worth it alone for me. Sounds great in my headphones.

I'm level 4 after two or three minutes in the field. First slime I encountered couldn't damage me (I'd bought the leather armor but still). It's much easier than the original. My recollection from the NES game was that I grinded for a good amount of time in the first area before going East, but I'm afraid I'm going to be overlevelled. The money comes a little quicker, but I feel like the exp is outpacing gold. This makes me nervous because I'm used to saving up for better equipment, but I'm not sure if that'll overlevel me too much in this version.

Reiterating that the music sounds great!
 
J

john tv

Member
Aeana said:
Did it not when you played the original Dragon Warrior?
Click to expand...
Seems like it's way more here than in DW? I'd have to play it again but I don't recall it being that heavy. Still, way better than a jank-ass translation. :) I've always been more in favor of the more natural speaking DQ localizations tho (that's how the Japanese feels, after all), which is why DQ5 and DQ9 are my favs (localization-wise, I mean).
 
A

Aeana

Member
john tv said:
Seems like it's way more here than in DW? I'd have to play it again but I don't recall it being that heavy. Still, way better than a jank-ass translation. :) I've always been more in favor of the more natural speaking DQ localizations tho (that's how the Japanese feels, after all), which is why DQ5 and DQ9 are my favs (localization-wise, I mean).
Click to expand...

I personally think 8 hit the sweet spot. It doesn't go over the top with the silly stuff, and it doesn't get too punny. I really wish they'd stayed with that tone for the other translations.
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
Why are all DQ smartphone ports in vertical perspective? :S
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
I just bought it on a whim. I really like how much faster it feels than VIII. No lag between menus and no loading between maps and battles. Shame really. I love VIII and the iOS port but damn, the lag and slowness of the UI is a bummer. I don't know whether to blame Enix or Unity for it though. Also, I don't know why the text in VIII doesn't look as nice as in the others, or why it doesn't "type" itself in like them. It just pops into the text box with no animation at all. Sad.

I really hope one day to own every single DQ game up until at least VIII on my phone. I will play through every single one.

I need to pull the trigger on IV.

Aeana said:
The only thing that's really "wrong" with this port is how it looks so grotesquely unevenly scaled, on every device I've tried it on (a multitude of different Android devices with different resolutions and screen sizes). And of course you can still see it in the screenshots in the OP. Won't be a problem for everyone, though.
Click to expand...
It does look odd, but I can get used to it. I don't know why they couldn't just redraw all the sprites and tiles to be slightly bigger. A better idea though would have been to modify the IV engine and use that. I think all the pre-VIII DQ games should have the engine IV has. It looks amazing in every way.

borghe said:
Searched and can only find IV and VIII right now. Is IV any good on iOS?
Click to expand...
I haven't bought it yet, but IV looks amazing. Better than all the others. In some respects it even has a better style than VIII. Though VIII is the most advanced. Somehow I suspect IV has a much faster UI than VIII too.
 
H

Hyrule Warrior

Member
Hm, I've never finished a Dragon Quest game before...I've tried playing VIII on PS2 and IV on DS before, but I just wasn't at a point where I could devote time to them. Having this on my phone would be cool though, and I'd like to finally say I've finished one of these games.

Any word if 2 and 3 are coming as well?

Also, I notice the version of DQIV on the app store looks the same as the DS version, any word if V and VI are also coming to iOS? V has gotten pretty pricey from what I've seen.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Hyrule Warrior said:
Hm, I've never finished a Dragon Quest game before...I've tried playing VIII on PS2 and IV on DS before, but I just wasn't at a point where I could devote time to them. Having this on my phone would be cool though, and I'd like to finally say I've finished one of these games.

Any word if 2 and 3 are coming as well?

Also, I notice the version of DQIV on the app store looks the same as the DS version, any word if V and VI are also coming to iOS? V has gotten pretty pricey from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

DQ1-8 are announced for smartphones. So far, 1, 2, 4, and 8 are available in Japan, and 1, 4, and 8 are available in English.
 
H

hongcha

Member
I bought it and tried it out on my ipad 2 just now. The framerate is pretty bad, feels like about 20fps. This is disappointing as DQIV runs very smoothly at 30fps or so. Is the framerate better on the newer ipads?
 
H

Hyrule Warrior

Member
hongcha said:
I bought it and tried it out on my ipad 2 just now. The framerate is pretty bad, feels like about 20fps. This is disappointing as DQIV runs very smoothly at 30fps or so. Is the framerate better on the newer ipads?
Click to expand...

What the hell? With a game like this, we're talking about a graphical update of a famicom game, that doesn't look like it's pushing more than what a SNES/PS1 era game could handle... I'd think even a friggin iPad 1 should be able to handle it in terms of hardware specs. This is why I don't like this mobile future at times, they make apps that are optimized like shit on anything but the latest hardware so people are always forced to upgrade.
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
Framerate seems fine on my 5C. Also on my iPad mini, which is basically the same as the iPad 2.

Interesting there's no cloud saving in this one though. Not that I find myself playing on my iPad. Still. Does IV have cloud saving?
 
G

Gloam

Member
Bought the Android version just after waking up. Was walking the dog and tinkering around with the game a little and almost walked us both into a street lamp. Thumbs up even if it is ugly as heck.
 
W

wrowa

Member
Graphically it's pretty disappointing compared to other SNES-ish SE games on the appstore. The scaling is bad and the framerate is worse than it should be for a game like this on my iPhone 4S.
 
S

sphinx

the piano man
JinjoUnchained said:
DQ 1 is pretty hard by today's standards, I don't know how well it will do with a modern audience.
Click to expand...

I remember some colored dragons in the later part of the game, holy shit those were hard, I'd heal like crazy to stay alive.

that was the NES dragon warrior game, I liked it but way to slow for today's standards.
 
B

Bjoern the Smexy

Member
Will buy for both Android and iOS.
My quest for beating all versions of Dragon Quest I is never over.

EDIT: Wait, does it actually have the NES Dragon Warrior translation? If so, that's pretty awesome.
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Aeana said:
DQ1-8 are announced for smartphones. So far, 1, 2, 4, and 8 are available in Japan, and 1, 4, and 8 are available in English.
Click to expand...
I wonder why they skipped ahead to 4 without releasing 3 first...?
 
F

Femmeworth

Banned
Something is not right. 50% of my taps don't register when talking. The framerate is janky too.

Edit: Playing on a Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4.
 
terrisus

terrisus

Member
Femmeworth said:
Something is not right. 50% of my taps don't register when talking. The framerate is janky too.

Edit: Playing on a Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4.
Click to expand...

Are you tapping on the person, or in the center of the movement circle?
Since, you can do either.

I've found tapping in the center of the movement circle to be easier.
 
F

Femmeworth

Banned
terrisus said:
Are you tapping on the person, or in the center of the movement circle?
Since, you can do either.

I've found tapping in the center of the movement circle to be easier.
Click to expand...
Just tapping on the screen. I tap a few times in roughly the same spot and it finally reacts.

I found a video on Youtube of someone playing the Japanese version. I guess the framerate is inherently unsmooth when the screen scrolls.
 
T

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
I don't think it's 60FPS, but it doesn't feel terrible. I do still wish they'd made higher resolution artwork and scaled it down instead of taking the SFC sprites and tiles and upscaling them at decimal values. They just look terrible, even on an iPad.
 
P

Palette Swap

Member
After playing a bit:
- they nailed the music with the HQ synth. Great job. III is going to sound so awesome.
- I like that they reused the DQIII SNES assets. For some time, I hoped DS or 3DS would get a I-III compilation where every game looked like III, this seems to go in that direction to an extent.
- I'm writing "to an extent" because the most jarring issue is the portrait mode and bad scaling that goes along. I tried it on an iPhone 4S and the scaling was obvious but not terrible. I can't imagine how this would look on a longer device such as an iPhone 5 or 6. Conversely, I have yet to try it on my iPad which has a squarer aspect ratio. Intuitively, the stretching should be less prominent. I know all the mobile DQ games were designed with playing one handed in portrait mode in mind, but a properly scaled landscape mode for the non-DS games would be perfect.
- the controls are serviceable but not great. That was to be expected and isn't so much of an issue to me as the scaling in the sense that this one would have been harder to avoid.

At the end of the day, I still love this game and it's great to always have it with me. I'm just annoyed by the scaling issue as I feel it could have been avoided altogether with more work.
 
R

Rubius

Member
Is this the NES version or the GBC version? The GBC version is way easier and faster, giving you more XP and gold for each fight making the grind way simpler.
 
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