Well, 3's job system didn't have much depth to it. I wouldn't go all the way back to 2. Are you talking about battle mechanics? I thought the overworld with stuff to find in it and the alchemy pot were beneficial additions to the game itself.
I forgot about the Alchemy Pot while posting. I don't think it changes the experience that drastically though. It's a nice addition no doubt, but it's kind of a superficial add on. I kinda feel the same about the overworld with the hidden items. I mean it gives you more reason to explore the overworld other than being completely lost and clueless as to where to go but I don't think it's a huge revolutionary gameplay twist. They could've done the chests thing on NES.
I'm not trying to discount DQ8 by any means. It's a solid game and provides a good experience. I just don't think it's revolutionary or a huge step ahead in terms of gameplay from the other ones. Which for DQ isn't a bad thing.
I liked the first couple Dragon Warrior games on the NES. I think the longer, 3D random battles killed the genre for me. Pokemon is about all I can play with random battles anymore.
I'm really looking forward to that new action-RPG Dragon Warrior on DS.
Do you have any idea what the three items were? I'd gladly help you find them if you try again.
bluemax said:
I forgot about the Alchemy Pot while posting. I don't think it changes the experience that drastically though. It's a nice addition no doubt, but it's kind of a superficial add on. I kinda feel the same about the overworld with the hidden items. I mean it gives you more reason to explore the overworld other than being completely lost and clueless as to where to go but I don't think it's a huge revolutionary gameplay twist. They could've done the chests thing on NES.
I really got into the alchemy pot on my 2nd+ playthroughs to try to find when I could make good stuff earlier on, that's when it became really cool and added a lot in usefullness. Now I have it completely orchestrated when I mix stuff continuously and quite a few equipments that are better than bought stuff most of the game. It added a new element in playing performance I thought.
The game is freaking horrible. Maybe people could have liked it back then, but I even tried to play it a couple of years back and I wanted to burn holes in my eyes. I'm still not a big RPG person, but I can't see how any little kid could've grown up loving RPGs after playing this game.
I'm a little puzzled. From previous RPG threads, it seems like you and I are on a similar wavelength. We value ... demand, even... interesting gameplay to drive our RPG enjoyment.
But Dragon Warrior was the first jRPG I played and although I got to the final boss, I was so bored out of my mind, I didn't want to finish it and haven't. I was about to believe that RPGs weren't for me, when Final Fantasy came along. I played it. Loved it. Turned me into a RPG fan. Since then, the FF series* has almost single-handedly killed the genre it popularized, but that's another story. (* Disclaimer: I haven't played my copy of FFXII yet.) Anyway, my experience with Dragon Warrior was enough to keep me from playing another DQ game.
Dragon Warrior was simply tedious. Yes, there are other RPGs where you do the same thing... walk around, face random encounters, level up and gain new abilities, traverse dungeons, that sort of thing. Things that people complain about in jRPGs were not unique to Dragon Warrior. But because you were a single character, your options were far more limited. Being the first, DW was extremely simplistic. Probably the thing that stood out to me most was it was missing the group dynamic and strategy that FF would later have. I spell all this out because I don't feel DW had good gameplay. It deserves credit for birthing the jRPG genre, definitely. But graded on its own merits, it was not very interesting. Am I missing something here?
I'll be honest, I didn't grow up on DW, I didn't even get to play it as a kid, I got into console RPGs through FF1 instead.
However late 90s when the emulation scene appeared, I got into dragon quest 3 remake for the SFC and loved every minute of it. Bought the cart off ebay and played it to completion on my SNES like a real gamer. Still my all time favorite RPG to date. I became a DQ series addict after that experience.
BTW as much as I like DQ8, I think DQ3-7 were better games. DQ8 was too dumbed down for FF fans.
The game is freaking horrible. Maybe people could have liked it back then, but I even tried to play it a couple of years back and I wanted to burn holes in my eyes. I'm still not a big RPG person, but I can't see how any little kid could've grown up loving RPGs after playing this game.
I used to love turn-based RPGs, especially during the days of Square on SNES and Working Designs on Sega CD and Saturn. However the older I get, the more I figure out that forced level-grinding to beat hard bosses in RPGs is just an artificial way to increase game length. It's repetitive, does not require any skill, and is not fun.
Just because you have the patience to do the same thing over and over and over again doesn't make you more intelligent than someone who doesn't. It just means you have a lot of spare time on your hands and can put up with a lot of redundancy.
That might have been the case in the 80s-90s but that is clearly not the case today. Today's RPGs are nothing more than interactive anime. (excluding western RPGs of course)
I haven't seen you in there for a while. This was my way of luring you out.
In all honesty, even if my OP seemed pretty trollish, it's how I feel about the game. I got the game and it had a huge ****ing dragon on the cover and I'm thinking, "Oh man, this is gonna be cool!" and then I play the game and I'm walking around and I'm in menus choosing whether to fight or run from blobs. Blobs. What the hell is that? As a 5 year old, that was more boring than homework.
To this day, I'm not a big RPG fan. Maybe it's because I got a N64 and not a PSX and I've never played a FF or DQ game. I also doubt I'll ever get into them because my attention span and time for games have only shrunk as I've gotten older.
In all honesty, even if my OP seemed pretty trollish, it's how I feel about the game. I got the game and it had a huge ****ing dragon on the cover and I'm thinking, "Oh man, this is gonna be cool!" and then I play the game and I'm walking around and I'm in menus choosing whether to fight or run from blobs. Blobs. What the hell is that? As a 5 year old, that was more boring than homework.
This is the post in the thread I mostly relate to. I know that Dragon Warrior 1 is a pretty primitive game, lacking a lot of the complexities of many RPGs even the ones that came out soon afterwards... but I liked the whole "you against the world" one on one thing, and I've got heavy nostalgia for the game, being the first RPG I've ever played. It was enough to get me to play Final Fantasy I which I thought was absolutely amazing back as a kid. In fact I would much rather play FFI than nearly all the modern FF games
I definitely find myself going back to the NES and SNES RPGs more, as they are a lot quicker to just put you into the thick of things and give you dungeons to hack your way through, loot to get, monsters to beat.... no boring cutscenes or wandering around in huge towns searching for that *one* NPC you need to talk to to advance the plot.
I never liked the first Dragon Warrior...I just couldn't get into it. I loved Shadowgate, though!
However, when I got Dragon Warrior VII I put in over 140 hours into it and loved every second of it, so maybe through the years I matured or something - helps that the characters in DWVII have a bit more personality than the protagonist of the first one, and that the story could be played in little bits and pieces.
DW1 was the first rpg I ever played and was the first time I even knew what a rpg was. I still remember how my first reaction was going out of the first town, walking around then suddnely the screen flashes, I was like what was that I didnt even see any enemy, then they show a blue slime ( thinking to myslef well ok where is my character, why dont they show my character, why cant I slash my sword at this guy, why does it say fight and defend on the side, whats all those numbers, whats HP and G, ok ill press fight screen flashes, ok what just happend, presses defend screen flashes, blue slime kills you, ok what the hell was all that I just died and it didtn even look like the slime even touched me, this is stupid) Well I pretty much stopped playing and wasso pissed that I went back and started again used common sense to figure out what was going on and have loved playing rpgs ever since. That said DW1 is kinda slow for the game that it is but still a really good series, DW3 is one my favorite rpgs.
DQ8 is mostly the same in terms of game play mechanics as every other DQ. If anything it's a step back to DQ2 because it lacks the depth of the job systems in other DQ games.
I kind of felt that way too specially after playing through almost all of them now.
Dragon Quest 8 imo brought cool things to the series the biggest of those being the alchemy pot however to me it was a step back in a couple of areas that made DQ awesome imo
the Scenario of DQ8 was SO mundane I mean after coming from the fantastic scenarios from DQ5, DQ6, DQ7 hell even DQ3 was awesome in this regard the scenario in DQ8 was like really generic and not as exciting as those I mentioned. so uh... "lets chase a bad dude around which turns out he is
being controlled by someone else!
" Horii is so much better than that, feels like he got really lazy there! the little scenarios in each town also arent as awesome as the ones in DQ7 specially when in DQ7 stuff starts coming together later on.
the overworld while being visually pleasing didnt served much puporse other than looking for monsters for the battle arena and those treasure chests that were ocasionally hidden in some places it felt very barren to me and sometimes a chore because the places were SO far away with nothing to see but montains and trees (thank god for the killer panther you get later in the game)
the linearity of DQ8 was really really apparent throughout the whole game, the old DQs did a MUCH better job at hiding the linearity nature of the DQ games how? because they didnt hand hold you throughout the game instead you talked to NPCs and they each gave clues that you'll end up putting together to progress further into the game and THAT was awesome to me. DQ8 didnt feel that way to me I kind of noticed that when I started playing DQ1 and suddenly I had to talk to a lot of NPCs to know where to go and who to find or what to look for, that game felt like an adventure which is probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed DQ1 so much. to be fair tho, DQ7 also sometimes feels like 8 too but at least in 7 you can reach part in the game in which you could do some stuff out of order like doing Loomin and Probina before getting Melvin, thing is in 7 the game helds you back and doesnt let you stray too far away because of the shards.
anyway the game is still good and I liked it but as a DQ it's lacking imo. it added some cool stuff while it took away others that after playing from 1 through 7 (I still havent finished 7 tho) were what defined a DQ to me. I could also mention how blah the menu interface of 8 is but since that was because of the added stuff in the US version would be unfair to bash the game because of that.
I don't think so personally. The job system in DQ7 is far too cumbersome and has way too many useless skills to it. The system itself is a great idea but the implementation is just so sloppy. I was really glad that they went with a different system for DQ8 and I was generally pleased with it for the most part. DQ6 was a bit better than DQ7 but it's still a bit sloppy overall.
DQ8, if anything, is trimming the fat from the DQ series polishes the core gameplay to the point that it's near perfect in emphasis and execution. It could use some expansion on some of the ideas but that's what later games are for (well, DQ10 hopefully). It also steps up the presentation and characterization overall (characters and scenarios are probably the biggest attraction to DQ for me) as well which is one of the big things I love about DQ8.
DQ8 is mostly the same in terms of game play mechanics as every other DQ. If anything it's a step back to DQ2 because it lacks the depth of the job systems in other DQ games.
Aside from the skill points and tension I can't think of much DQ8 offers in terms of mechanics over DQ2.
Wow, I can't even begin to say how much I disagree. First of all, the jobs systems didn't really have all that much depth in 3, or 6, or 7. 6 and 7 were basically a straight pyramid style with a lot of meaningless crap thrown in, and there were no limiting variables whatsoever, which is one of the biggest design flaws any game can make IMO. 3 barely even had a job system, they might have well have just had a bunch of stock characters with names rather than a Soldier/Wizard/etc. for all the impact that switching between classes had on the game.
The impact of tension and skill points cannot be overstressed.
Skill points really were the job system in DQ8, only much better implimented. Each character had certain inherent classes you could choose between. For example, Yangus = Thief, Shepherd, Warrior. Jessica = Wizard, Dancer. Angelo = Priest, Fighter. That sort of thing. But because the distribution limited you to about 200-250 for the entire game, you had to pick where the abilites were most valuable to you. So the game basically struck a perfect balance between keeping the characters unique and customizable.
Tension was great because it was leveraging risk and reward. The benefits were obvious, especially when taking into consideration that it could be a massive defensive boost at the highest level. But you could also die and lose all the benefits.
Other improvements are alchemy, which was fun to screw around with and forced you to make some decisions about what particular item you wanted to go with (although I think it would have been much better had the alternative to the timbrels of tension been an echo hat). The monster team was another big improvement because it had a wide variety of practical uses in combat that you had to use within the confines of the 2 teams, 3 turns each rules. This was a dramatic improvement from 5 and 6's monsters, which were completely boring playable characters as a random drop.
What really made the game shine was the Dragovian trial, where you had the chance to use all of the above aspects of the game to their maximum potential. Proper tension management could make a huge difference, as could certain skill combinations (Jessica with Hustle Dance and Kazing), monster teams (Zingslingers), and getting proper equipment through the alchemy pot. Very hard and very rewarding!
DQ8 pretty much slaughters the rest of the series in terms of gameplay as far as I'm concerned. Much like FF5 vs the rest of the FF series, I don't even see how it's a contest.
And there's nothing wrong anyone getting bored with the original Dragon Warrior...it's a boring game by any standard. I enjoyed it when I was 8 or whatever because it was the first time I played anything like it, but it's a good thing RPGs managed to get a lot better very quickly.
The first DQ game is almost 20 years old, and probably one of the first games I beat. I actually went throught it on my Xbox recently and it was great playing it. However, if you played it 20 years ago and didn't like and never touched it till a few years ago, chances are you aren't going to like it, so bringing up playing it a few years ago is a rather moot point.
I finished Dragon Warrior at the time at was released, but I'm another one who had already played Phantasy Star first. Dragon Warrior was just seemed PRIMITIVE compared to Phantasy Star, in every way possible. What's strange is that I've been playing DQ1 on my PSP in my car before work this week.
I think I got dragon warrior 1 before the special promotion that nintendo did. I can't imagine how that happened. but i remember nintendo put out a section in either the Nintendo Fun Club magazine or Nintendo power that had all of these illustrations of the game that just really got into me. There was this awesome graphic of Erdrick casting hurt on a drakee, casting sleep on a skeleton.Had drawings of the silver harp, staff of rain, stones of sunlight, Gwaylin's love, etc. I used to pore over it during recess in elementary school. Those images burned in my mind when I played the game.
So many of the elements are still left in my mind. Saving up money for the broad sword. Going down south to fight goldmen. That tense battle in the abandoned town with the axe night to get erdricks armour. And of course the language and the music.
And, the game taught me the word 'rheumatism'.
I haven't played a Dragon Warrior since IV though.
So, I hate to bump this old thread, but having beaten DQ8 recently, including a couple goes at the bonus dungeon and boss, I wanted to add in to the discussion. It's not my favorite in the series, either. I thought it started out great, and when it comes to the characters, it's my favorite DQ by far (but then again, most DQ games aren't really about the characters). However, after awhile the gameplay got pretty old, and the skill system was a bit disappointing to me. But I'm more excited with seeing what happens in the next few installments of DQ. I liked the tension and alchemy pot additions. Alchemy was great stuff that really expanded the gameplay/treasure hunting, and made items valuable beyond just their selling value when you've outgrown them. Tension added a nice bit of depth to the battles.
But I felt like characters were really limited in their abilities compared to DQ6/7. I'm not necessarily a fan of DQ7's job system since it's much more cluttered than 6's, without that many new skills, but I do think the job system at least allowed access to some more useful abilities than DQ8 did. My biggest complaint is the bosses later in DQ8 that do the "wave of ice" thing, but then you never get an equivalent. And most enemies didn't use tension, which was disappointing too. By the end of DQ8, it really reverted to the same abilities I'd been using at the end of a lot of other DQ games... just that I was building tension to make them more powerful. And it's not like I don't like the tension system, but it was really bullshit how the last few bosses operate on essentially the same tactics, but at any given time they can just pulse a wave of ice and dispel everything. I think I found that cheap, because I couldn't do the same thing back at them like I could in DQ6 and 7 (and it was even a crucial element of strategy).
I'd almost rather see them go back to the job system in 6 and 7, but refine it a lot. Or find a way to combine the job system from 6 and 7 with the skill system from 8, like allowing characters to personally specialize different aspects of the same classes.
I kind of felt that way too specially after playing through almost all of them now.
Dragon Quest 8 imo brought cool things to the series the biggest of those being the alchemy pot however to me it was a step back in a couple of areas that made DQ awesome imo
the Scenario of DQ8 was SO mundane I mean after coming from the fantastic scenarios from DQ5, DQ6, DQ7 hell even DQ3 was awesome in this regard the scenario in DQ8 was like really generic and not as exciting as those I mentioned. so uh... "lets chase a bad dude around which turns out he is
being controlled by someone else!
" Horii is so much better than that, feels like he got really lazy there! the little scenarios in each town also arent as awesome as the ones in DQ7 specially when in DQ7 stuff starts coming together later on.
the overworld while being visually pleasing didnt served much puporse other than looking for monsters for the battle arena and those treasure chests that were ocasionally hidden in some places it felt very barren to me and sometimes a chore because the places were SO far away with nothing to see but montains and trees (thank god for the killer panther you get later in the game)
the linearity of DQ8 was really really apparent throughout the whole game, the old DQs did a MUCH better job at hiding the linearity nature of the DQ games how? because they didnt hand hold you throughout the game instead you talked to NPCs and they each gave clues that you'll end up putting together to progress further into the game and THAT was awesome to me. DQ8 didnt feel that way to me I kind of noticed that when I started playing DQ1 and suddenly I had to talk to a lot of NPCs to know where to go and who to find or what to look for, that game felt like an adventure which is probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed DQ1 so much. to be fair tho, DQ7 also sometimes feels like 8 too but at least in 7 you can reach part in the game in which you could do some stuff out of order like doing Loomin and Probina before getting Melvin, thing is in 7 the game helds you back and doesnt let you stray too far away because of the shards.
anyway the game is still good and I liked it but as a DQ it's lacking imo. it added some cool stuff while it took away others that after playing from 1 through 7 (I still havent finished 7 tho) were what defined a DQ to me. I could also mention how blah the menu interface of 8 is but since that was because of the added stuff in the US version would be unfair to bash the game because of that.
100% agreement with this post. I liked DQ8 and think it's better than the majority of jRPGs, but it felt more like an FF game than a DQ game because of its execution. One of my favorite parts of the DQ games was the way they didn't hold your hand (like a western RPG) and you actually had to talk to NPCs to figure out what to do. There weren't even any cut-scenes in previous DQ games (except for a few speech-less FMV scenes in DQ7 that shouldn't even count). DQ8 added all this non-interactive hand holding and cinematic scenes and made the progression the most linear to date in the series. It may have had a fantastic battle system, but the change in presentation still de-DQ'ed the game for me.
As much hate as DQ7 gets for its SNES era graphics, to me it's an example of what a DQ game should be, as it had all of the classic DQ feel to it, and it was just freakin' huge. The individual stories were very much DQ-like as well. And you gotta get brownie points for having a game that takes a minimum of 100 hours to beat (and most of that is NOT spent in random battles, but rather in exploration and adventuring). Even if the battle system had a lot of extra stuff to it that may be deemed useless, I fail to see how that negatively affects the game.
Interesting. You touch on nearly all the major gripes I had with DQ8 which eventually lead to me giving up on it - and that doesn't happen too often with RPGs. DQ8 was actually the first entry in the series that I tried (yeah, I also don't know how that happend) and after the first 20 hours it got awefully boring and repetitive. In both gameplay and story/setting, but the latter is even more damning to me. It basically made me decide to refrain from trying any of the other entries.
Your post about it being the worst scenario in the recent history of the series, and all the people agreeing to that - together with the promised change in gameplay mechanics - gives me new hope and fills me with some anticipation for DQ9. Good thing my shiny new DSL arrived 3 days ago.
Honestly? Start with the remake of the original, give it a little slack and see if you want to give 2 remake, 3 remake and other games a try.
:lol I like how Error's "DQVIII is okay, but not the best" post gets a rally of "OMG THAT IS WHY I HATE THIS GAME" behind it.
Hint#2: The game (ie: everything excluding the graphics engine) was designed by Yuji Horii and Armor Project. Nothing to do with Level5, who are, essentially, glorified graphic monkeys.
The graphics in DQ8 are the main thing that seperates it from the rest of the series and graphics is the area that gave it more mainstream appeal and made it a special game.
I grinded through most of Dragon Warrior and didn't like it. I can't remember if I beat it or watched my Dad beat the last dungeon. So dang boring even though the concept sounded like great fun.
I love FFIV... that's the game that got me into RPGs.
I dig what I've played of the DQ3 GBC remake so far, but I've been derailed by TP and FFVI Advance/Hotel Dusk.
Skill points really were the job system in DQ8, only much better implimented. Each character had certain inherent classes you could choose between. For example, Yangus = Thief, Shepherd, Warrior. Jessica = Wizard, Dancer. Angelo = Priest, Fighter. That sort of thing. But because the distribution limited you to about 200-250 for the entire game, you had to pick where the abilites were most valuable to you. So the game basically struck a perfect balance between keeping the characters unique and customizable.
not really I think the skill system has it shares of flaws too and more annoying than the ones in the job system of 6 or 7
first why should skills be attached to weapons? I didnt really understand this... so I have this awesome skill for a bow BUT I cant use it because I have sword equipped? lame. that never happens in 6 or 7
another flaw is what firex mentioned the Tension is nice but when bosses start using icy pulse every 2 or 3 turns boss battles become REALLY annoying.
By the end of DQ8, it really reverted to the same abilities I'd been using at the end of a lot of other DQ games... just that I was building tension to make them more powerful. And it's not like I don't like the tension system, but it was really bullshit how the last few bosses operate on essentially the same tactics, but at any given time they can just pulse a wave of ice and dispel everything
In complete agreement here, I felt the boss battles in 8 are really blah because (after a few in the beginning which dont use icy pulse) they all resort to the same crap (icy pulse, icy pulse!)
I dont really see how DQ8 "slaughters" the other DQs in gameplay gruco.
Does anyone know why they finally switched from "Warrior" to "Quest" for the 8th installment? Did they get the rights to the name back, or did the previous rights' holder's name expire, or did they have the rights all along but just prefer to use the DW name?
