Dragon Quest IV

Firemyst · September 2008

I have begun Dragon Quest IV at last. ?For those that follow the boards or the podcast, this comes as little surprise. ?I've never done a gaming blog, so I expect this to be a little rough around the edges. ?Feel free to make suggestions or ask questions. ?I hope I don't spoil anything for anyone.

<span style="text-decoration:underline">Entry List</span>
- The Beginning
- Chapter 1 and Done
- Please Stop Talking (Chapter 2)
- Bunny Girls (Chapter 2 & 3)
- Hoarding Gold (Chapter 3)

Firemyst · September 2008

The Beginning

As with any DQ game, I didn't bother watching any intro. ?I thought the dragon at the start might fly somewhere, but he simply continued to hover in place. ?Let's begin.

I have the option to create a character. ?I name him Myst. ?Then it asks me for my gender, so I backed up and named her Mysty. ?A female DQ heroine just sounds a little different. ?Mysty's entire story was under 25 minutes with no encounters, though I did collect some items. ?Seriously, 25 minutes? ?How am I supposed to feel attached to her at all? ?The villagers hint that I'm supposed to be special, but then backtrack on that when questioned. ?Okay...

Then the first chapter begins. ?I control a knight named Ragard. ?He leads a squad of men who disappear before he can move. ?Over an hour later and I've only seen one of them, who's perpetually lost in a cave. ?The poor soul.

I have to say the first dungeon (not the cave passage) was odd, in the fact a voice tells you where to go, but then suddenly stops and you have to figure out which path that was rejected is the right path. ?Oh it also manged to kill me in two battles. ?Just a bit of a difficulty jump there.

Death 1 @ 00:36 ?(-62 gold)

I buy a sickle and some better armor and head to the next dungeon. ?I have my first companion, a healslime. ?Makes me feel silly I bought all those herbs, but too late now. ?The descriptions of the weapons all say nothing special. ?I thought they'd have some flavor text, but I have to remember when this game was made originally. ?Oh well

That's enough for one night. ?It's 1:30am... -.-

Continue >>

Psycho Penguin · September 2008

<div></div><div class="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div class="QUOTE">Seriously, 25 minutes? How am I supposed to feel attached to her at all? The villagers hint that I'm supposed to be special, but then backtrack on that when questioned. Okay... </div>

Why would you be attached to her yet? That wasn't even in the original. Her story starts on chapter 5..

Firemyst · September 2008

<div>
(Psycho Penguin @ Sep. 25 2008,05:35)</div><div class="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div class="QUOTE">Why would you be attached to her yet? That wasn't even in the original. Her story starts on chapter 5..</div>
Which is my point. Why have this snippet of a story when it serves no purpose except that know you know who the other are looking for... which could have been accomplished in better ways. ^^

Firemyst · September 2008

Chapter 1 and Done

Chapter 1 came and went, like a blur. ?The quest is to find some children, or "bairns" as the locals put it. ?The NPC text actually takes some time to translate into understandable text. ?I can understand wanting accents, but wow; this is stretching it.

During Chapter 1 I discover the map system, which I must stop and praise. ?Not only does it have beautiful drawn map, but in town, it will list all the items and equipment available in town as their prices. ?This simply makes sense in DQ because NPC chatter typically goes something like the following:

"Have ye seen mae bairn?" ?
"uh, what?" ?... is that a quest? ?No, you just can't watch your kid. ?Got it.

Quests are given one at a time and NPCs dare not request a sidequest, so unless you need information, there's little point in conversing. ?Hence why this map system works so well.

Also, doorways that are not doorways and are actually holes in the wall to fall out of a multi-story tower, requiring a dungeon restart... not cool. Even with this, the first chapter is done in little over an hour.

Continue >>

Macstorm · September 2008

<div>
(Firemyst @ Sep. 25 2008,11:20)</div><div class="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div class="QUOTE">Also, doorways that are not doorways and are actually holes in the wall to fall out of a multi-story tower, requiring a dungeon restart... not cool.</div>
That's really funny actually.

Sundoulos · September 2008

<div>
(Macstorm @ Sep. 25 2008,12:25)</div><div class="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div class="QUOTE"><div>
(Firemyst @ Sep. 25 2008,11:20)</div><div class="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div class="QUOTE">Also, doorways that are not doorways and are actually holes in the wall to fall out of a multi-story tower, requiring a dungeon restart... not cool.</div>
That's really funny actually.</div>
I remember this from the NES version. It was pretty frustrating then, too.

Firemyst · September 2008

Please Stop Talking

I thought the accent for Chapter 1 was bad, but the natives in Chapter 2 talk broken English, like someone coming over from Eastern Europe. ?My problem with this is that they read like they are dumb. ?If they were speaking in their own language, I doubt they would sound this awkward, so the translation into English is what suffers. ?I'm sure it was intentional, but I try and skip as much NPC chatter as I can from this area.

This eventually comes back to bite me when I end up backtracking a few times thinking I have completed the chapter's goals, but actually I just missed talking to someone who gives me a hint that I should keep going. ?You know, "there's a market open to the south, I wish I could go" (re-translated for readability) doesn't flag me as "oh, I should go south." ?My bad.

Walked into a town and tried the boss bottle... turns out level 3 with basic equipment wasn't quite enough to win. ?My first grind session of 20 minutes made me ample ready to defeat the boss and move on. ?However, it's a death, so here's the mark:

Death #2 @ 02:20 ?(-56 gold)

So far, I'm not finding deaths that troubling.

?I'm four hours into the game now and my current party is just hitting level 10. ?Considering the first chapter ended with a massive exp boost to reach level 15, ?I think that should be the target for finishing this chapter.

Continue >>

Firemyst · September 2008

Bunny Girls

I finished Chapter 2 with some difficulty, but I did finish. ?I wanted to save all the strength and life seeds for later, but in order to finish the chapter, your character must fight solo (where it was a trio for the entire chapter). ?Thus I decided to buff her up for an easier win. ? It would have helped if she could cure herself.

Special note for the Prima Donna sprite: very nice. ?It was almost a shame to defeat her. Bunny girls should stick to the casinos. ^^

Ahh.. the casino. ?I tried out the three games available and had little luck with any of them. ?Because I'm not one to waste gold again and again, I did reset a few times to try them out. ?I ended up winning 4 times my money in poker, but no luck in slots and breaking even betting on monster fights. ?The odd thing about poker is that once you win a hand, you can play double or nothing. ?In this a card is placed and you must pick the higher card from 4 face down cards. ?Obviously the lower the one card, the easier it is. ?I was disappointed to learn that you can have all four cards be lower, a guaranteed loss, which makes the decision to play that much riskier. ?In the end, I decided to skip the casino and work on the story. ?With such small bet amounts allowed, it would take me hours to get anything worthwhile.

Onward to Chapter 3. ?Ah, Torneko... the personality so unique that he earned his own spin-off series. ?So far, I've manged to run a store for a few days and earn level 2. ?It's pretty slow going, I have to admit.

No deaths to report, sorry

Continue >>

Unknown · October 2008

About that poker game in the casino...from what I've read, the double-up part is actually programmed so that no matter which of the four cards you pick, you'll always pick *exactly* the same card among them. <span class="spoiler">A faster way of getting a bunch of coins, by the way (and I've spoilered this part out since you don't like playing games with guides, which I'll admit I don't, either, although I only did so for the post-game stuff), is to completely fill out the monster compendium.</span>

Firemyst · October 2008

Hoarding Gold

Torneko needs a lot of gold. He needs so much gold that the casino prices are outrageous during his chapter. To obtain this gold, there are quests that give a large sum of money. An unusual amount of item drops from battles helps a great deal as well, especially since Torneko's wife is able to charge customers 50% more than the other stores. Have to wonder how she's pulling that off, though.

In the end, this chapter was mostly farming items for the quests, which wasn't very interesting. Hopefully the next chapter will be less repetitive.

Firemyst · October 2008

Quote:(Der Jermeister @ Oct. 06 2008, 6:34 AM) wrote:

About that poker game in the casino...from what I've read, the double-up part is actually programmed so that no matter which of the four cards you pick, you'll always pick *exactly* the same card among them. <span class="spoiler">A faster way of getting a bunch of coins, by the way (and I've spoilered this part out since you don't like playing games with guides, which I'll admit I don't, either, although I only did so for the post-game stuff), is to completely fill out the monster compendium.</span>

I find that so very lame. Why have four cards if it doesn't matter?

<span class="spoiler">By the time you have done that, what good is the casino?</span>

lordyuanshu · October 2008

Ya it's much harder to get the Metal Babble Shield / Liquid Metal Shield. Makes a world of a difference defensively for your top magicians namely Brey / Borya and Mara / Maya. I guess I didn't know because I didn't tool around with the casino but if they screwed with the double or nothing that's lame because that was one of the only ways to get a ton of coins. I never did the slots or the battle arena...the battle arena is much harder to manipulate, but I remember making bank off it on Dragon Warrior III

Also I would get frustrated with the all four cards lower than the chosen card thing. Sometimes all four cards are higher than said card though. Reminds me of playing on emulator...double or nothing? F5 save state

Then yes. That way if they're all lower I'll just reload and get a fair deck.

Unknown · October 2008

I think Dragon Warrior VII did the double-up part of the poker game better, where you're just given one card to guess is higher or lower than the previous.

Macstorm · November 2008

So you've finished the game. Review?

Firemyst · November 2008

I was thinking about a review, but except for a few over-discussed points, I don't think I would give a unique perspective from the reviews we already have up.

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Dragon Quest IV

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