Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

I never even got around to using Sage in IX, not sure if I even unlocked it, I was still just trying to grind out the other classes and eventually got so overpowered I decided it was time to finish the game. Hell, I didn't even change my party's classes until I was 3/4ths of the way through.

It will always be Dharma Temple to me, not only because it sounds more mystical, but because you can't change a name after spending over twenty years knowing one name and expect people to change with it. It would be like Squenix releasing a port of VI with the accurate names and spelling of the cast.

That's been a general consensus I've seen from all the people I know playing it.

I'm almost to Dharma Temple, so I'll need to see how I want to configure my team. Since I have a far better grasp on the Personality mechanics, I've been leveling the party rather nicely. My current team is a Warrior, Cleric, and Wizard, but I really want the skills from some of the other classes and to do some prep work for the final team.

I'm thinking my Warrior will be turned into a Thief, who will benefit from the boosted attack power from the Warrior class and once I have all their skills, I'll likely change them back to a Warrior. I still need to find a few items here and there to change their personality because as it stands, she has the least useful personality of Fearless. I'm thinking of changing her to Tomboy or Agile.

Mt Cleric will get changed to a Merchant really quickly to gain their skills and to keep them in the balanced stat spread both classes have. I currently have the Garter Belt which gives the user the Sexy personality which is one of the best personality types for females and will just double down on her balanced stat spread. She started with Agile as her personality type which is a great personality for a healer.

My Wizard lucked out and started with the Smart Personality, making her have fairly high Wisdom and Luck stats. Course she's a glass cannon, so I'm thinking of making her a Fighter to boost her more physical stats before eventually making her a Jester to get both Whistle and eventually the Sage Class.

My hero wound up with the Valiant personality, which skyrockets their Attack power to absurdness but has left their other stats behind, especially Wisdom, Luck and Agility. I've been changing their personality ever so often to try and boost these stats but it might be too late for them to catch up, which is a shame cause Thordain is like one of the best spells in the game. My new goal is to find the Punk Ring (Skull Ring in the new translation) which will give him the Solitary personality which will boost all his stats since it's the closest personality type for males that's on par with Sexy Personality. This should boost his fledgling stats without sacrificing the gains Valiant has given him. It's a shame I can't reincarnate the MC like the other party members, otherwise I wouldn't bother with the Solitary setup until a third go around.

On the DQIV front, I'm at the tale end of Alena's chapter, which was more charming than I remember. I just need to grind out two more levels before the tournament, which shouldn't be too difficult since Endor has Metal Slimes in the area. Then I get to play the best part of the game.

I love Pashisi, it's my second favorite mini-game in the series behind DQVII's town building mini-game.

I feel kind of bad about doing this, but I've been save scumming in DQIII during the mini-games. I just had to cheat my way to hell and back to get one of the mini medals hidden on the second Pashishi Track. I'm only two away from getting an upgrade for the Boomerang.

Very true.

I know that feeling, I remember doing the music work for my game development class and while I felt I made a pretty good track, this other guy in my class composed something that felt like a Danny Elfman meets DeVotchka piece and blew the whole class away and he did it effortlessly.

Well to be fair to Sugiyama, he was close to fifty when he joined Enix initially and was already an established conductor and composer. He didn't really grow up with electronic media like some of these composers did. So it was likely easier for the younger guys to embrace it.

As for Mitsuda, I feel he's calmed down. He was only bad about that kind of stuff in his early years because he was trying to prove to his peers he could do the job. He does seem pretty hard on himself though. I think it;s why I like Uematsu, cause he just always seems happy and seems like the kind of guy who loves his work.

Actually, I believe Mitsuda is also more classically trained than Uematsu. He studied piano briefly in childhood, and started taking it serious again in High school. He went to a music focused college, though apparently not a very good one. So I guess he would be somewhere in the middle between Uematsu and Sugiyama. Just reading his interviews shows he takes music theory more seriously than Uematsu does, though he still gets inspiration in weird places, like when he passed out from overworking on the CT OST and dreamed the ending theme.

I don't know, the OST in the remake of DQIII is pretty good so far. Better than when I first heard it one the GBC at least. At least Mitsuda cares enough to make the MIDI work.