Charas-Project

Off-Topic => All of all! => Topic started by: Grandy on July 26, 2010, 03:22:13 PM

Title: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Grandy on July 26, 2010, 03:22:13 PM
More puns per second than the whole last season of Two and a Half Men.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: fruckert on July 26, 2010, 03:31:31 PM
Oh god, I didn't think that that was possible.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Grandy on July 26, 2010, 05:50:27 PM
Oh god, I didn't think that that was possible.

Quoting the boss named Jack who could change classes, coming from the town of Alltrades Abey:

"I am no longer the Abbot Jack of Alltrades Abey! I have now became the Master of Nu'un!"
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Archem on July 26, 2010, 05:54:41 PM
Christ, I need this.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Bluhman on July 26, 2010, 05:55:36 PM
"I am no longer the Abbot Jack of Alltrades Abey! I have now became the Master of Nu'un!"
(http://fi.somethingawful.com/images/smilies/emot-what.gif)

Now, if only I had a DS. That wasn't in japanese.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Grandy on July 26, 2010, 06:10:59 PM
Don't get me started on monster names. A walking cucumber named 'Cruelcumber' is just the tutorial battle.

Cruelcumber:
Pocky little vegetables that often trouble travellers, but are terribly sour losers.

Then there are the wizards telling me to use the Fource.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: fruckert on July 27, 2010, 06:31:49 AM
Oh...God...
I think I'm literally in pain.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Darkfox on July 27, 2010, 10:05:33 AM
Ah, it can't be that ba- *struck by lightning*
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: zuhane on July 27, 2010, 02:54:22 PM
I've yet to play a Dragon Quest game for longer than 3 hours, due to extreme, tedious boredom setting in.

Why's this one good, then?
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Grandy on July 27, 2010, 03:42:08 PM
I've yet to play a Dragon Quest game for longer than 3 hours, due to extreme, tedious boredom setting in.

Why's this one good, then?

I'll admit this happened to me the three other times I tried DQ games, but this one feels like a winner to me.

The plot is a little more than the previous ones of "You're an adventurer, adveture away". Your (fully customizable albeit not that deep) character is an angel charged with taking care of a village, and everytime you do a good deed their gratitude generates Benevolescence, which in turn you use to feed Yggdrasil so that one day a shooting star will transform into a train and take the angels to the Almighty. Just the angels, humans be damned. Aside a few of the main group, the angels forgot over the years how to love humans and rather think of them more as cattle from where to farm Benevolescence from.

The story picks up from there, and anything more would be a spoiler.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: oooog on July 27, 2010, 04:51:34 PM
The plot wasn't all that interesting to me.  What does interest me is the fact that you have four characters that you can thoroughly customize via equipment and vocations, and can change these on whims.  In addition to this, the game differs from it's predecessors because there isn't an absolute need for grinding, what with monsters appearing on the map.  Metal Slimes are placed in well spaced out places and can easily be grinded on rather than spending hours upon hours grinding on the weaker creatures out there.  And because creatures appear on the map, it is easy to spot said metal creatures and avoid all of the useless ones.

The actual story only took me about 48 hours, and that was with about 8 hours of grinding, but the post-game is where the real game is at.  Admittedly I wasn't too fond of spending the rest of the game grotto exploring and completing side quests, but the game has another feature.  You are able to link up with up to 3 other people and explore each others worlds freely to get better equipment and recipes, or work together to fight these ridiculously powerful bosses and work through the dungeons.

All in all I give the game about an 8.  It would have been higher, but without other people to play with, the game lost it's appeal to me towards the end.  I can't even imagine doing half of the post-game stuff solo.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: Grandy on July 27, 2010, 06:48:48 PM
I? had to grind to kill the Tyrantula, tho.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: SaiKar on July 27, 2010, 10:01:24 PM
"I am no longer the Abbot Jack of Alltrades Abey! I have now became the Master of Nu'un!"

Buying this game today.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: zuhane on July 27, 2010, 10:03:13 PM
Right, so you're saying that this one's not absolutely awful? I maaaaay get it then!
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: drenrin2120 on July 28, 2010, 03:51:50 PM
Hm... Seems interesting enough and I've been looking for a new RPG to play.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: SaiKar on August 21, 2010, 05:43:09 PM
So I DID get this like I said I would, and I've been playing it off and on over the past few weeks for little bits after work, which kind of feels like how my life runs these days.

Anyway, it's an incredibly charming game. You can tell a huge amount of effort went into making all the characters and the locations and the dialog and the quests and the scenarios and the enemies seem fun and worthwhile. I mean, come on, that priest in the cave ALONE had more character than some games.

I also liked how you could customize the appearances and gears and jobs of everyone in the party, and how the other three characters you pickup are totally optional and were never even mentioned in the storyline (other than at one point when I was solo and a guy suggested I go grab my buds cuz it's gunna get rough), and how the main character was actually someone powerful rather than just being some shlub from nowhere that was destined for greatness.

Plot starts out really, really engaging. Without going into it, you're put in a fairly refreshing position in the grand good vs. evil storyline, and it felt like the stuff I was doing during the game was actually important. At least, early on. It did have a tendency to degenerate into "okay, new town and new random problem. Have fun fixing it" mode often, but just when I was wondering if it was going to stay like that forever they'd pull me back to the main, strong storyline for an update.

Battle system is simplistic yet entertaining. The game doesn't screw around giving you full heals before boss battles, so conserving MP and resources during a dungeon is really important. Boss battles tend to vary widely in difficulty, with some being skin-of-my-teeth wins. But luckily even characters dead get exp based on how much of the battle they were alive for, so if someone gets offed in the last round of combat, they'll get almost full exp and, if they would have leveled up, be at 0 exp to level up (so win any fight) when they're brought back to life. That's a feature that EVERY GAME EVERYWHERE should have. There's a lot of little polishes like that here and there but none come readily to mind.

There's a couple gripes I have with the game. I'm trying to make some more complicated alchemy recipes and it seems vital ingredients recharge in real time, so I basically have to shut the game off for a day or so if I want to finish my alchemy before moving on. And it seems that a lot of the job choices are rather throwaway - I wish I had made at least a priest at some point and my mage and thief aren't stacking up all that well as I get farther in the game. And it seemed easy to waste skill points spreading them too thin, but luckily for me I wised up and started work maxing out traits early instead of mucking around trying a bunch of weak stuff.

Still, the good far outweighs the bad, and coming from super-critical me, I think that says something. If you have a DS, and like RPGs, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: X_marks_the_ed on August 23, 2010, 03:02:13 PM
The whole moving coffin thing when a party member dies is win.
Title: Re: Dragon Quest 9
Post by: oooog on August 23, 2010, 06:47:46 PM
I am still playing this game every now and then.  Mostly to just do a QVC or a grotto run every now and then.  I have to find that fat bastard Atlas in a grotto and not only steal from him, but kill him with Zam.  Only problem is that he is not appearing in any of the grottos, and I am getting tired of fighting Shogum.
Oomph, Magic Mirror, Care Prayer, Psych Up
Egg On, Forbearance, Multiheal, Psych Up
Egg On, Forbearance, Moreheal, Falcon Slash
Shogum dies.

3 turns.  Uber Falcon Blade and Falcon Slash is a viscous combination, especially when it's at max tension and oomph'd.  If you were wondering, the format was Armamentalist, Paladin, Sage, Gladiator, and I do believe that is a balanced team.

But I digress.  I think the game has sort of fizzled for me, which is alright what with the imminent release of games I must play.