Dragon Warrior/Quest

[Lamia]

A series I am only just now getting into. I can't believe I've missed out on it all these years! I want to be 7 for the Playstation... I hear it's 120 hours of gameplay and has 160 job classes!

Right now I am playing through DQ5... After I beat that I will go play DQ6 and then go buy 7...

Let me tell you, V rocks. The battle system is awesome. I love being able to recruit monsters in your party in a non pokemon way. They're not my pets, they're my allies, soldiers fighting with me.

Anyway, it's said that DQ rivals Final Fantasy in importance in RPG history. DQ being Enix's big RPG game... There's a law passed in Japan saying that DQ games can only be released during the holiday or weekends because kids have been known to skip school to purchase these games!

In short, I'm very enthusiastic about this series. What do you think of it?

[DJZen]

Well I've only recently gotten into DW/Q myself, and I've started with the first one. I'm liking it even though the levelling up can be painful. I thought it would be different from FF but it's actually very similar, only the battle system is first person perspective.

As far as its importance in RPG history, it's VERY important. Dragon Quest was the first real console RPG. It defined the whole genre. Final Fantasy took the concept and made it much broader. This is why these are the best selling RPG series. In fact, in Japan, Dragon Quest has always outsold Final Fantasy. In fact, it sells so wildly that there ARE laws in place about when they're allowed to release DQ games. However, in America, it sells fairly poorly these days. This wasn't always the case. In the earlier days of the series (DW I-IV) it was fairly popular, and the animated series even made its way to American television.

There are many ways in which this series is very significant that frequently get overlooked.

It was the first real definitive console RPG.
It was the first RPG with an animated series (not counting Dungeons & Dragons, which isn't a video game).
It was the first game series with the feature of enemies becoming playable characters, which predates pokemon by several years, and is possibly a contributing factor to that game (which sells faster than ritalin in a highschool).
the entire series has outsold the FF series worldwide, even with fewer installments.
Part of the resaon it has sold more is because it has a lot more remakes than FF.
It also has more spinoffs than FF including Torneco: Last Hope, Slime Mori Mori, and Dragon Quest/Warrior Monsters.
So far it is the only RPG to have a playTV spinoff.

I'd come up with some more, but my gums are bleeding pretty heavily and my cats are fighting, and I need to decide which to take care of first.

[Lord Chainsaw]

I'm a bit biased towards the old Dragon Warrior games because those are the games I grew up with.

People could say Dragon Warrior I was better, or Final Fantasy I was better, but I think it's all a matter of which game you grew up with. Myself, I believe Dragon Warrior I runs circles around Final Fantasy I, but I'm sure my opinion would be different had I played Final Fantasy I when I was younger.

I loved the characters. Even if there were only two real characters in the game (Gwaelin and the Dragon Lord) they were still damn well developed for being the first console RPG. Gwaelin's perseverance in trying to win the heart of the hero "Do you love me? Oh but thou must!" Or something along those lines.

Then of course there was the scene at the bottom of Charlock Castle that to this day is one of my favorite scenes in a video game. That is of course Dragon Lord's proposal, which reveals a good deal about his character.

Dragon Warrior II was damn hard. III was my favorite. The party controlling AI from IV rubbed me the wrong way. Haven't played V and VI, VII turned me off due to the fact that it was two and a half hours before I got into my first battle with some slimes.

Dragon Warrior Monsters is an awesome game. Addicting as hell. I didn't play some of these Japanese DW games, so it was cool to see exactly how the final bosses in those games looked. We got gipped on DWM 1 though. Apparently there was supposed to be a 99 floor dungeon where the boss would be Dark Dream (The Darkdrium) but it was cut for some unknown reason. Instead the game's hardest dungeon is the Dragon Dungeon, which is pitifully easy. Monsters 2 is good too, but I didn't get into it as much as I got into the first. I liked the idea of the keys, that was really neat.

All in all I'd like to see the Dragon Warrior series continue, but they've really got to do something about that battle system. I'm sorry but it's atrocious. Times change. It worked back in the day but it is time to evolve.

[DJZen]

Well, fortunately, there will be a DQVIII. Unfortunately, I'm very out of the loop about news on that series. I have yet to find an DQ/W equivalent to EoFF.

[Del Murder]

VII was a snoozefest and too hard. I don't mind a challenge, but this wasn't a fun challenge, it was a 'why am I playing this crap?' challenge.

I like the rest though. I (1) was cool because of the history there, II was ok, III was the best and very worthwhile, IV was good too but like Chainsaw I was a little turned off by the AI party controlling. I've started a game on V and the monster thing is pretty neat, though I prefer characters.

The main gripe I have is there is too much leveling up time involved and the battles aren't innovative enough that it doesn't get boring (unlike the FF games). I can't wait to see what Square's influence can do with the series.

[DJZen]

I'm guessing more diversity in the class abilities, but they may not change the battle system. Some people don't like to muck with classics. Then again, Enix's remakes of the DQ games were even more mucked with than Square's remakes of FFI, II and IV.

[Deri]

I'm still a newbee in the RPG genre in general. I used to have an NES and a Sega Genesis back in the day, but I was playing mostly games like Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, and sports games like Madden '95. A friend of mine tried getting me into RPGs on his Commodore 64 but every game he showed be sucked. (Bard's Tale, Times of Lore, etc) It wasn't until like two years ago when I bought a Gameboy Color and the only games that I had to choose from was Dragon Warrior I & 2, and Dragon Warrior III. I've been hooked on RPGs ever since. I tried playing DW I on the NES later on but wasn't impressed with it. I liked the GBC's graphics a little better. A few months later I bought a GBA, because they lowered the price, and I'm currently playing I and III as well as Golden Sun I. I'm also playing FFVII, and FFX. But the whole point I'm trying to make is the Dragon Warrior series is what got me hooked on the RPG genre. (and now I'm also hooked on the FF series as well.)

[DJZen]

Considering the GBC version came out like 10 years later, I would HOPE it had better graphics. It's also a redone version with lots and lots of new things. This is why I decided to play the NES version first

[theundeadhero]

You mention playing 5 and 6. Is there anywhere I can get an English copy?

[DJZen]

Illegally on the intermanet.

[theundeadhero]

Can you provide a link?

[theundeadhero]

For a translation patch for 5
http://www.dejap.com/so.php

For 6
http://www.geocities.com/noprgress/

For a rom
http://sportandgame.cscoms.com/dq/dqrom.html

gee, thanks

[Chzn8r]

Yay, those links will be here until a mod gets here :P Don't worry I support DQ/DW like you wouldn't believe

Anyways... the first thing Lord Chainsaw says (about being biased) totally describes and prefaces everything I could say about this series (I started the last big topic about this in this forum). Between DW and FF, I prefer the consistent goodness of DW as a whole. It's the perefect RPG formula and feeling for me. I have liked every one I've played (beaten all but 5 and 7). Of course I haven't even graced the Slime, Torneko, or DW Monsters series yet.

I'm currently playing through 7, I've clocked about 33 hours and I've still got a ways to go on the first disc. I don't plan to do a completist game, though (all zoo stuff, immigrants w/ different towns, monster book, all job classes, casinos, style competitions, etc...), just beat it a bit above average or so (probably take me 80 hours I'm looking at).

[theundeadhero]

Ahhh, they have no reason to delete them. It's on topic, Dragon Warrior in an Enix game so it fits in the forum, and what can they say about linking to roms? EOFF has links to FF Roms on it so that would be hypocritical. Maybe they should put links up for the games.

[Lord Chainsaw]

I hear some pretty weird stuff about 7.

Supposedly there's an optional boss you can fight named God, and you have to beat him in a specified amount of turns. Sounds fun. Too bad I'll never actually have to time to sit through 50 hours of leveling to really enjoy the game.

And it's funny when I say that, because I've clocked in at least 2000+ hours of leveling collectively over all the MMORPGs I play. Maybe grindin' is just one of those things that is better done when you've got buddies to talk to while you're doing it.