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Topic: Dragon Quest XI + I, II, III & Beyond

Posts 241 to 260 of 705

NEStalgia

@Ralizah Huh, interesting. That's weird rationale, but does suite S-E. I always thought it was about the game's obvious homages to it's past (the 8-bit sound effects etc inclusive.)

Where did the modders get the suite then? Or did they just take the soundtrack or a bootleg of a concert?

Eewww, if that bad gamma is legit, not sure what S-E did. Does it have an "adjust this slider until you barely see both images" adjustment screen or something in the settings? I mean it doesn't look like they botched the graphics, it just looks like they set the curve wrong. That feels patch-worthy to include a slider if one doesn't exist.

EDIT: Actually I take that back, watching it again there are other locations where it seems the other way around. Switch got the proper curve and PS4 got the botched one. Maybe they didn't set it wrong one one platform, maybe it's just totally messed up from the start.

At first it was reminding me of what happened in the PS3/360 era when games on PS3 would have bad gamma curves because 360 had a weird non-standard curve, but was the lead platform for most multiplats and companies didn't correct for Sony's standard curve.

Edited on by NEStalgia

NEStalgia

RR529

@NEStalgia, from what I understand, SE doesn't actually own DQ's music.

Somehow, the composer was able to get the rights all to himself, and he rarely let's SE use the orchestrated soundtracks so the fans will be more likely to shell out for the concerts & CDs, which he exclusively profits from. It's just that, like Toriyama's art style, his music is so synonymous with the series that SE wouldn't dare go with anything else.

I remember reading an article or two on it over on Digitally Downloaded some time ago.

Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)

NEStalgia

@RR529 That's messed up! Fascinating, but messed up! That explains a lot. It really wouldn't be the same without his music. Personally I think of the music as more iconic than Toriyama's art (for this series). Plus the dialogue writing style is uniquely childishly-innocent yet serious in just the right balance.

That makes me wonder why he allowed it on Switch....including orchestrated forms of prior games.

Edited on by NEStalgia

NEStalgia

RR529

@NEStalgia, I guess SE simply paid him a lot, lol.

But yeah, despite his talent he's apparently a pretty polarizing figure in Japan, as he's openly been on record criticizing the Japanese government on apologizing for some of the things it did during WWII (such as the recent developments of them recognizing the Korean "comfort women" it held during the war).

Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)

Ryu_Niiyama

Yeah I can't imagine a DQ game without that opening. You hear those horns and you know something amazing is about to happen.

I don't know what it is about DQ. It still feels like a jrpg from the late 90's (environment is very corridor based, interactions are funneled to certain objects) and yet I adore it in a way that I just can't with more free/open game franchises like Assassins' creed (even with the entries that I love the most I would still pick DQ all day). It's like comfort food; never really changes but always fills you up.

Taiko is good for the soul, Hoisa!
Japanese NNID:RyuNiiyamajp
Team Cupcake! 11/15/14
Team Spree! 4/17/19
I'm a Dream Fighter. Perfume is Love, Perfume is Life.

3DS Friend Code: 3737-9849-8413 | Nintendo Network ID: RyuNiiyama

NEStalgia

@RR529 Not a bad budget for a game that was silenced "for adult reasons" for a year Also interesting about his public personality. I don't even know his name without checking the credits, but I sure know his music!

@Ryu_Niiyama Comfort food is the best way to describe it. Even the "victory" and "level up" sounds are almost obnoxiously retro and more delightful for it. The theme music sounds a mixture of an Austrian WWI march and a Strauss waltz. Immediately familiar, inspiring, yet playful. The dialogue is very unique. It's at the same time Peanuts-esque and deadly serious. I don't know how they've kept the peculiar balance going so consistently without cracking.

I'm currently steeping in DQB2 and loving every single morsel of it.

NEStalgia

Ryu_Niiyama

@NEStalgia I have a habit of saying "Victoly" over some of the bad translations in the past whenever I see "Victory" pop up. I may hate the current localization but I still can't walk away. (I just buy them in jpn to play and english to support my region) I think it's because they have kept certain pillars in the franchise and that shows the game's Enix roots versus squaresoft. I think the day that Yuji Horii retires is the day I stop playing DQ. He sets up a very specific style of scenario that doesn't feel over the top the way Old School FF did (imo of course) but is still very epic and focused on saving the world. I also like that sense of camaraderie; modern rpgs and wrpgs in general, like to show all the nuance and ugliness of humanity, nobody gets along, everybody has an agenda...and I'm like "I live that, I know humanity sucks. Can we just have a story where we stand together...where the evil isn't human intentions?" so maybe that is part of the reason that DQ sticks with me. You have bad people sure, but the overall tone of the world is positive but it is being eroded by the big bad that you will defeat by the game's end.

It's like why I can go back and watch Disney movies from my child hood. Half of them I don't agree with or think are asinine if I analyze the plot, but they are such feel good and iconic movies that I can numb that for a little while. DQ feels like that.

Edited on by Ryu_Niiyama

Taiko is good for the soul, Hoisa!
Japanese NNID:RyuNiiyamajp
Team Cupcake! 11/15/14
Team Spree! 4/17/19
I'm a Dream Fighter. Perfume is Love, Perfume is Life.

3DS Friend Code: 3737-9849-8413 | Nintendo Network ID: RyuNiiyama

NEStalgia

@Ryu_Niiyama Victoly, haha! I forgot that one!

When you combine it with the art style i have a habit of thinking of all the characters as young children, almost like they're all playing pretend. It's almost a school play or something.

There's a simplicity "we all live in perfect harmony, but then bad monsters poison the world and things get dark" (meanwhile cheery music is still playing and people are fussing about their dinners...)

Yet when it goes dark, it goes very dark...plagues, and famines, surprisingly graphic-ish depictions of entire towns and families being ripped apart and everyone dying, and the destruction of everything in places that are exceedingly desolate and hopeless. And yet it still all has the happy tone of a school play at some level where you know it'll all be find and your team will win through sheer cheeriness.

And yet I always find myself gripped by the mystery!

It's such a unique mix that just doesn't exist anywhere else at all. I mean there's nothing remotely similar in feel and tone.

NEStalgia

BruceCM

Well, I've finished the demo now....

SW-4357-9287-0699
Steam: Bruce_CM

Ryu_Niiyama

@NEStalgia You know I hadn't considered them as children but I was just thinking yesterday as I looked at the demo for XI (and started thinking about builders/builders 2) I noted that it reminded me of Dragonball (not Z or GT or whatever else is out/won't die) and the lighthearted but still very serious tone of that show. Dragonball and DQ are the only Toriyama works that I enjoy (I actively detest Z and beyond mainly because it takes itself too seriously.) So I think we get similar feelings from the artstyle.

Agreed, DQ is it's own breed. I'm glad that it survived the merger especially since it feels like the only thing from Enix that did.

Taiko is good for the soul, Hoisa!
Japanese NNID:RyuNiiyamajp
Team Cupcake! 11/15/14
Team Spree! 4/17/19
I'm a Dream Fighter. Perfume is Love, Perfume is Life.

3DS Friend Code: 3737-9849-8413 | Nintendo Network ID: RyuNiiyama

NEStalgia

@Ryu_Niiyama Yeah, while I don't really follow much anime in general, I know that DBZ is just gross... The fighting games are great... but the actual art and "feel "of the IP is just pretty annoying. I had never realized DQ was the same artist, actually, until recently. Looking at original Dragon Ball, I now see the resemblance. I always compared to DBZ and thought everyone was nuts. DQ, Blue Dragon, Chrono Trigger style, I love. DBZ...definitely not. It reminds me of those 90's action flicks for tweens, cartoons from the original TMNT era and so on. But the bad ones....

In hindsight, now that I think about it Chrono had a very similar feel to the characters and dialogue as DQ in terms of that childlike innocence, yet heavy somehow at the same time. No wonder I loved it. I didn't know about DQ back then.

Well, there wasn't much from Enix that was terribly noteworthy outside DQ I suppose...so that's probably really the expected outcome.

NEStalgia

Ryu_Niiyama

NEStalgia wrote:

Well, there wasn't much from Enix that was terribly noteworthy outside DQ I suppose...so that's probably really the expected outcome.

WAAAAAT?

ActRaiser
SoulBlaizer
EVO: Search for Eden (I still say nobody has topped this for an evolution game)
Illusion of Gaia
Ogre Battle
Brain Lord
Itadaki Street (ok they kept this one too)
Wonder Project J (and the sequel)
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice (it wasn't a bad licensed title and I loved that series growing up)

I don't know how much of that they owned but they published it (they didn't dev DQ either so I'm tying it all together). Perhaps because I wasn't into Squaresoft growing up (VI is the only FF I really like other than XIII) and once Square went sony I never caught the wave since I didn't get a Sony system until I was 18. They weren't critically acclaimed but they all did something unique that nobody else was doing at the time really while Square was trying to make FF into a formula by then.

Edited on by Ryu_Niiyama

Taiko is good for the soul, Hoisa!
Japanese NNID:RyuNiiyamajp
Team Cupcake! 11/15/14
Team Spree! 4/17/19
I'm a Dream Fighter. Perfume is Love, Perfume is Life.

3DS Friend Code: 3737-9849-8413 | Nintendo Network ID: RyuNiiyama

rallydefault

I've been saying for years that it's time for ActRaiser to come back.

rallydefault

Grumblevolcano

I finished the DQXI S demo and it's very good. My only major problem with it is the approach to saving is archaic, you should be able to save anywhere in a RPG or adventure game nowadays.

Edited on by Grumblevolcano

Grumblevolcano

Switch Friend Code: SW-2595-6790-2897 | 3DS Friend Code: 3926-6300-7087 | Nintendo Network ID: GrumbleVolcano

Harmonie

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, I really dislike that, too. I see no reason whatsoever for save spots instead of having the option to save whenever and wherever you want. It's just pointlessly frustrating at this point.

Harmonie

Nintendo Network ID: WoodwindsRock

Dezzy

Grumblevolcano wrote:

I finished the DQXI S demo and it's very good. My only major problem with it is the approach to saving is archaic, you should be able to save anywhere in a RPG or adventure game nowadays.

I think they like to stick with the traditional RPG tropes no matter what.

It is kinda cool that there's one series that basically ignores modern trends completely (except with graphics)

It's dangerous to go alone! Stay at home.

Dezzy

I think this is one of the games that actually looks better when docked. The undocked mode seems to just be really low resolution. Docked looks like 720p.

It's dangerous to go alone! Stay at home.

rallydefault

Loved the demo - totally convinced me to buy a game I otherwise would have overlooked.

On the save point thing, I'm glad they're keeping it old school. Games are becoming too easy and too convenient these days. It's fine for a handful of games to keep older mechanics. Having specific save points adds much-needed tension to the game. If you're in the middle of the field, low on HP/mana, and a save point is still far away, you're gonna be forced to evaluate whatever spells/healing items you have to survive until you can save again. You're gonna be forced to try and avoid combats, and if you can't, combat is going to become all the more intense.

If you can just pop up a menu and save anywhere at any time, it completely robs the game of any consequence whatsoever. You can just save after every step, knowing you can reload and try a different tactic if something goes wrong.

rallydefault

Tasuki

So finally sat down and played this game for a few hours today and I say I am in love with this game.

I have been putting the PS4 version off for this version and I am glad I did, so Infant compare it tonthe PS4 gameplay wise and graphic wise but it looks gorgeousness and plays well to me. My biggest little niggle is how he jumps granted I don't think jumping games into play into this game compared to something like Mario Odyssey or a FPS but he just feels stiff and jumping straight up is so annoying. Other then that it plays very well. So far I haven't done to much just made it out of down and just wonder the country side before going to the big town then my Switch battery died.

Voice acting is great although I am not quite sure what's up with the British accents, but ok and I am kinda disappointed with the silent hero bit (I would think companies would be pass that) but other then that, as I said voice acting is great.

It seems to me there's crafting in this game which I like and the open world will keep me busy. I all probably the best RPG I have played since Octopath.

I will probably end up playing this game once in 3D and then in 2D mode.

But yeah going to be busy with this for awhile.

RetiredPush Square Moderator and all around retro gamer.

My Backlog

Nintendo Network ID: Tasuki311

Grumblevolcano

To those who have played the PS4 version, how much of the game is completed by the end of the demo (I'm looking for a an approximate percentage, ratio or full game length?

Edited on by Grumblevolcano

Grumblevolcano

Switch Friend Code: SW-2595-6790-2897 | 3DS Friend Code: 3926-6300-7087 | Nintendo Network ID: GrumbleVolcano

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