Just name him Kandar pls thxAs the guy working on the Fortune Street PS2 game, it's annoying his name is so long. I have space for 10 letter names but the apostrophes complicate things and I think Robbin Ood would look weird.
Just name him Kandar pls thxAs the guy working on the Fortune Street PS2 game, it's annoying his name is so long. I have space for 10 letter names but the apostrophes complicate things and I think Robbin Ood would look weird.
Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor. Such wonderful things surround you. . . what more is you lookin' for?
~Beneath the ocean,Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor. Such wonderful things surround you. . . what more is you lookin' for?
That just makes the crime premeditated, you glorious bastard.
Start over! Unless you're already deep into the game.I'm playing through DQ8 and thought I could respec my skills like DQ11 so I've been putting them rather haphazardly. Oops.
If you hate the idea of using a guide then when in doubt, specialize. It's better to throw your points into one skill (each) and pick up all the bonuses along the way than to spread them around. You'll miss out on the optimized builds but the game's not so difficult that that level of min-maxing feels essential. Heck, I threw all of Jessica's points into sword (not advised by any FAQ and in retrospect I see why) yet made it all the way to the 3rd or 4th postgame boss fight before my super-crappy builds were too much to overcome.Sounds like I'm going to want to look things up ahead of time skill wise when I start DQ8.
You mean knife, right?If you hate the idea of using a guide then when in doubt, specialize. It's better to throw your points into one skill (each) and pick up all the bonuses along the way than to spread them around. You'll miss out on the optimized builds but the game's not so difficult that that level of min-maxing feels essential. Heck, I threw all of Jessica's points into sword (not advised by any FAQ and in retrospect I see why) yet made it all the way to the 3rd or 4th postgame boss fight before my super-crappy builds were too much to overcome.
Oh, yeah. Eventually you can equip swords if you throw points into knife, hence my screw-up, but anyway. . . whee.
Probably the worst for everyone except Yangus. I hear that can work for him.Draconian Hard mode in DQVIII is putting skill points only on each character's worst skill tree. Which is probably Fisticuffs for most of them.
Or I guess just not utilizing skill points to begin with. Pretty boring though.
Don't forget God Morrie and Red.Hamchan, Mirage -
To recap all of that, throwing each character's points into one skill is suboptimal but rarely crippling; that said, some skills are clearly better than others. The builds I've found don't max out skills so much as avoid (or carefully ration) investment in ones with crappy growth.
I'm not far into the game myself but based on my brief research you can max out two skills by end of game or early postgame, and a third at very high levels. I'm thinking pick a weapon and at least get it to that last damage boost.
MC: (spear OR sword) + courage (90)
Yangus: axes + humanity (82)
Jessica: whip, staff (100), appeal (100). Staff is a late-blooming skill that's good for post-game, one of the few you really want to max out, but since you need to really get your levels up to max out a third skill, I'm thinking do it first, last, or not at all.
Angelo: This guy's builds are rather messy but it looks like bow (88) and charisma (81) are safe investments, with staff (65) another consideration.
I'll have to dig something up later for you later when you can recruit them (which is much later on). IIRC they aren't rocket science.I didn't forget, but they weren't in the FAQs I found. Like I said, I didn't dig all that deep, since I'm not interested in micromanaging the perfect build, myself.
Please don't do mage to martial artist.Had a prolonged hospital visit that took me away from DQXI so I decided to finally play DQIII on my phone! Liking it so far, but just now starting to get my ass kicked by Orochi. I think I could grind a bit to hit level 23/24 like I've seen advised online (I was only level 18 when I got to it).
I'm kind of stuck as to whether I want to swap a job or two and then grind back up to beat it or beat it and then do that. And I'm also not sure what to do about jobs. I honestly didn't know the job swapping system before starting. Thought you'd have to stick with what you first choose or have other characters. I've been using Soldier, Priest, and Mage. Might change Priest to Sage. Maybe Mage to Martial Artist so I have him with Oomph. Not sure what to do about Soldier, though. Maybe keep it I guess? Any advise?
Please don't do mage to martial artist.
See my post as well as a few others just before that in this thread: https://www.resetera.com/posts/11268189/
Best with what you have would probably be keeping the priest a priest until you get another book, mage to sage, and maybe just keeping soldier a soldier. If you must change the soldier, do to martial artist. If you must change the priest, do it to mage or to goof off and then sage.
Those would work.Hmm... Something like that was my other option. I was thinking of eventually changing Soldier to Martial Artist, Priest to Sage and Mage to Priest.
Probably don't want to do all of them at once or else I'd be grinding forever. Any advice on how to stagger those?
VII definitely isn't a fast paced game.I got Angelo already. This game sure is fast to let you have a complete party, not like how it was in VII.
I got Angelo already. This game sure is fast to let you have a complete party, not like how it was in VII.
I was interested going in to see what they would do with a return to a straighter hero's tale.
There is a large focus on the hero as a token, e.g. the story with Hendrik, where he offsets his burden onto the hero at the end of his act 2 story, and through this transferal, finds new purpose and courage, transporting him from his state of confusion regarding his own hero status. As another example, consider Jade literally jumping off a cliff to hold on to the hero, because his continued existence (as a hero) is precious. This also ties into people repeatedly sacrificing themselves for him, and you can tell that wears on him, e.g. when Serena and Erik agree that sacrificing Erik is okay over his objection or when he is wracked with guilt over the events at Yggdrasil, to the point he believes Mordegon's half-truths and loses his heroic powers.
I agree that the Hero gets a lot of characterization through both the way others interact with him and his own subtle cues during cutscenes or other storytelling moments, and I think it's a testament to the game's excellent writing that this silent protagonist ends up with a clear personality of his own. One which, as you've said, is a bundle of insecurities instigated by the lofty expectations applied to him, and by the extent to which others so callously throw their own well-being or even lives into jeopardy just to ensure his safety. A big chunk of this arc comes to a head in the Dundrasil Act 2 section, which is quite well done and one of the more melancholy sequences in the game.
This is particularly interesting because, ultimately, despite being a transcendent hero, and being treated as such by his companions, he is always trying to be a hero to them, trying to be a friend to them, no matter their strange relationships to him. By facing his destiny after immense failure, he becomes capable of actually doing such.
I think this humility is most evident in his own final sacrifice at the end, where he sacrifices the powers of the Luminary - and potentially this entire timeline of the world itself, depending on how you interpret the ending - to allow Serenica to return to Erdwin. His final act as Luminary isn't defeating Calasmos and saving the world; it's sacrificing his own power to save the love of one couple. The perfect close to a subtle character arc throughout the game in which he demonstrates his affinity for personal relationships and "micro-level" helping others rather than grandstanding as a legendary talisman of goodness.
Act 1 is a harrowing but adventurous prelude to his failure. It opens with loss and betrayal—the seeming destruction of Cobblestone and the treachery of King Carnelian—but the hero gathers interesting and powerful friends, has a series of adventures in strange lands, and marches, with little opposition from Mordegon, towards his destiny at Yggdrasil. Then, as he is about to seize said destiny, he stumbles and is unable to be the hero in that moment when faced with his destined foe. The result is catastrophic. His fellowship is ripped apart, cast away to unknown fates. Yggdrasil is seemingly slain and Mordegon has become the god of the world, plunging it into darkness and despair.
And I think one other interesting thing about the way in which the Hero "fails" at Yggdrasil is that it's as much Hendrik's failure as it is the Hero's. Jasper's betrayal, perhaps unfairly, is blood on Hendrik's hands, because it was precipitated by Hendrik's dysfunctional relationship with Jasper. So while the Hero had a terribly significant stumble and lost almost everything, the more subdued tragedy and failure is Hendrik realizing that he was blind to those around him because of his own self-righteousness. It's absolutely fitting that these two characters who fail most painfully are then the two characters who start Act 2 together and begin the slow climb upwards and out of this pit. I also love the timing of Hendrik's apology to the Hero, right as they uncover the secret passage to the throne room by moving the bookcase; perhaps, even subconsciously, moving this object away to reveal a hidden path reminds Hendrik that it's time to open his own heart up a bit, and expose a shame and vulnerability that he's used to bottling up and hiding away.
Act 2 has the hero wracked by guilt yet determined to fight on. The story of Hendrik and his struggles with the mantle of being the hero, namely his doubts about himself and his role, speak close to the hero's own struggles with his destiny and his seeming inability to carry it out. Despite providing an answer for Hendrik in his person as the hero, he is slower to find his own faith. He finds it in Dundrasil, putting to rest his father's guilt at failing to preserve his kingdom and family and resolving to overcome the root of their torment, Mordegon. He resolves to become the transcendent hero the world needs him to be and that he needs himself to be.
He achieves this goal at the end of Act 2 but is then presented with the opportunity to make things right, namely to undo his failure, to undo the ruination of the world, and, in particular, to undo the death of Veronica, his friend and companion. He is presented the opportunity to be the hero he wanted to be, now that he has become the hero he had to be. The game highlights the discrepancy between what he was back then and what he has become by sending him back, fully leveled, among companions leveled as they were when the player set off for the First Forest, upon which they comment. The hero then completely thwarts Jasper and Mordegon.
I like framing Act 3 as the Hero's wish to become the Hero he wanted to be, rather than the one that he was. And I particularly like it because it introduces a bit of juicy ambiguity into the Hero's motive. Is this really about Veronica? Or is it about him? While he undoubtedly cares about stopping Veronica from dying, there's certainly a tension, especially at the beginning of Act 3, between this noble goal and the notion that all of his friends are left behind, either in an alternate timeline without him, or else transported back into the past where all of their experiences and their growth/victories (Sylvando with his father, Erik with his sister, etc.) are undone. Whose call was this, really? Was it the party's as a whole, or was it the Hero's? Notable in this scene is that the Sword of Light that they spent a wonderful cutscene forging together is shattered into pieces when it strikes the Orb of Time; is this a blatant sacrifice of his friends and their experiences in order to pursue a white whale of "having a chance to do better"? Or all they all on the same page with this? As usual with DQ, the silence is as pregnant with meaning as the actual words are. This is suggestive, subtle writing and unfortunately it's something that I feel a lot of people brush off as basic or derivative, or else take entirely at face value without questioning any of the underlying uncertainties.
The choice to go back allows for the resurrection of the original dark lord, but the game does not dwell on this consequence as a consequence. Rather, it is framed as a final heroic confrontation to cement a better future, embracing the decision to right the past and pushing that idea further back with the story of the original band of heroes. Defeating the true final boss is a triumphant capstone to this heroic venture.
I also like how Act 3 "pushes that idea further back" of righting the past with the first set of heroes too. In the Act 2 ending, these heroes are just legends to be emulated; in Act 3, they become real people, with real flaws, insecurities, tragedies and failures, and the Hero helps them in a more personal and affecting way. Ultimately, it's only as a response to his biggest failure - allowing Calasmos to be reborn - that the Hero achieves his greatest success (setting injustices of ages past right at last). A nice symmetry that continues the theme of light and darkness coexisting, but in reverse from how it's framed earlier in the game. There, the question was whether the light of the Luminary himself begets the darkness; in Act 3, it is the supreme, cosmic darkness of Calasmos and the threat he poses, that leads to the Luminary achieving so much.
Act 1 plays out very traditionally. You are seeking the Rainbough and then the orbs ambling through expanding circuits of the world and having episodic adventures. Colorful characters join you on your journey. It is generally, despite the opening a light-hearted affair. There are suggestions of expanded character stories, e.g. Sylvando hiding when you come to Puerto Valor, but they remain as such and the vignettes are largely about the towns and townsfolk.
This more light-hearted, swashbuckling tone is fantastic too, because it lets the game set a traditional JRPG baseline before taking it completely off the rails later, both in expected and completely unexpected ways. The game feels a lot like Chrono Trigger in the beginning, and Chrono Cross at the end. Polished, meticulously crafted and paced adventure at the beginning, gradually culminating (descending?) into a more interesting, experimental affair by the end. It's not often that a game clearly establishes its own structure and then breaks it so definitively midway through; Final Fantasy VI is another standout that immediately comes to mind.
Act 2 has you revisiting the world as it lies in ruins. Generally, it also tends towards being a more personal act, with the vignettes revolving around the various characters--who they are, where they've been, and why they fight, fitting well with the hero's own position during the act. There are some exceptions to this, e.g. the Hotto vignette is about Miko and Ryu, whereas it was about Veronica and Serena in act 1. Another sort of example would be Jade's vignette failing to develop her story. Hendrik, Sylvando, the hero, Erik, Serena, and perhaps Rab all, however, have illuminating stories and these form the bulk of act 2.
Jade's Act 2 vignette is one of the more interesting ones in the game precisely because of how out of place it feels. To be honest, I had considered this the weakest sequence in the game, just because I didn't find any particular way where it advanced our understanding either of the main plot or of Jade. I'm partial towards giving the game the benefit of the doubt though, considering the rest of the game is well-written, as is much of the series as a whole; so, generously, I'd maybe interpret her vignette as being so shallow because, well, she has no story. Like the Hero, she lost everything the night Dundrasil fell; unlike the Hero, she isn't the Luminary. The Hero was raised in a rustic little town, and by all accounts had a normal life; Jade was a wanderer with Rab, searching endlessly as a stowaway and vagrant for a Luminary that was like a needle in a haystack. Her Act 2 vignette is a sort of final capstone to that lack of roots; where the others receive touching vignettes centered on their families, friends, or places of origin, she is instead reduced to a seductress at the only place that meant anything to her, a town with a fighting arena where she could lose herself in combat. That arena is now a casino, and she is now a part of that casino, a cruel analogy to how the whims of fate had always dealt her a bad hand. She has nothing, and is found in a place where she has no roots or real history, hypnotized into subservience and waiting for the Luminary again. While her beating up Booga at the end of the vignette is mostly played for laughs, there's another side to that scene; maybe there really is a lot of pain and resentment pent up in those punches and kicks.
Act 3 is interesting. The story content largely revolves around revelations about the original heroes. It seems very obviously an intended continuation of the main story--I think such is obvious from my above observations on the hero's tale alone but it is in other ways too, e.g. the spirits of lost time being omnipresent but unexplained until the post-game. At the same time, the trials of Durstan are very much classic DQ post-game material. Similarly, while the content in the world provides new endings and new variations on stories, it is again reusing and remixing old content by-and-large. I found this somewhat fatiguing at first--I had just revisited everything, albeit in a much altered state, in act 2 but it grew on me. It is interesting to see the different takes on things. The surprise that starts act 2, for example, precludes the sort of events that happen in Heliodor at the start of the post-game and you get more of a Carnelian story after the main game is already finished.
I played the game with Draconian monsters. I also, for the majority of the game, played the game trying to fight battles only to accomplish goals or to get the monster in my bestiary. I fought more battles in later dungeons, particularly the last dungeon of act 2, where I grew several levels (I also got lucky with Metal King Slimes). Similarly, act 3 is quite open-ended and the content/level curve is less straightforward.
I eventually ended up playing the game with essentially boss encounters only, and the dungeons were more like stealth sequences where I avoided as many enemies as possible. This arrangement is certainly a far cry from one of the traditional strengths of the series, the resource management dungeon crawling. But it's a structure I like, even if it's perhaps too forgiving (I think a good visible enemy design is somewhere balanced exactly between this game's "I can avoid everything" approach, and DQVII 3DS's "these are basically random encounters anyway because they're unavoidable" approach). Act 3's structure is fantastic in how open-ended it is, and was my favorite part of the game.
As my playstyle perhaps highlights, there is very little focus on dungeon crawling and resource management--things I enjoy in RPGs--but their absence did not particularly get in my way here. Fights were routinely scary and tense, particularly early on, both boss and non-boss, and this kept me engaged.
In any case, this was a game very much focused on bosses for me with this playstyle. Act 1 had notable difficulty spikes, particularly the Slayer of the Sands for me but Dora-in-Grey also comes to mind. Act 2 was much smoother and most bosses were killed the first time I fought them. This was down to a) ability accrual, particularly things like Zing and Hustle Dance, which also smoothed out the latter Act 1 bosses; b) similarly stat accrual; and c) Hendrik. Hendrik as a tank completely changes the game. It shelters the hero, allowing him to play a deeper damage and support role, at both of which he excels tremendously. Hendrik is also just a better front man than the hero and the result is damage is generally smoother across the board. Act 3 was a shock to the system: suddenly attack-all was king but the characters grow into it fairly quickly and you can work your way around the more serious road-blocks until they are more manageable without running out of things to achieve.
I love how useful Hendrik is, and how he has an entirely unique role that really can't be filled adequately by anyone else (compare this to, say, Jade and Erik who are both physical attackers, or Serena and Rab who are both healers). Holding Hendrik until the beginning of Act 2, and then giving him such a crucial and unique role in the party's composition, really creates a sense of power and utility that perfectly communicates his in-universe reputation as a legendary knight. I also like that, unlike every other member of the team, Hendrik covers both weapon types that the Hero has skill trees for (i.e. Swords and Greatswords); potentially a neat little gameplay-as-storytelling touch to indicate that Hendrik has the Hero covered, and he can really focus on that third skill tree - being the Luminary!
Draconian reminded me of tougher DQ bosses where you maybe came in a bit under-leveled, particularly early on. I appreciate that it pushed me to explore the litany of my ability lists, to try out things like dazzle or snooze, and to set up my buffs and debuffs.
DQXI is also strange in just how much it lets you set up your party. I did not suffer Disruptive Wave until Jasper. The bosses of act 2 and act 3 had access to it but used it sparingly. DQXI is much more of a game where you set up your damage dealing method and try and keep that wedge alive and digging in. It is a game that pushes a focus on gearing for damage, with characters commonly running without shields and either two-handed or dual weapons. I don't think this approach is better, so much as it is distinct and fun in its own way. That said, it is also a game that makes Hendrik's shield immensely useful.
Part of the reason why his shield is so immensely useful is because of how offensively you're encouraged to play with the rest of the party members. It's a nice change of pace from earlier entries, where my own strategy was often to focus on turtling up and dishing out moderate, but consistent damage while running a well-oiled buff/heal machine. Here, in DQ11, I felt like there was more variety in how I approached boss fights in the later acts, because of how many build options each character had, with Hendrik as a perfect defensive foundation for building hyper aggressive builds for the other three active members.
Moreover, that shield is something, with which you are actively engaged. I find character growth and character ability profiles extremely pleasing in DQXI. Every character feels they have a role they can fill and good options, with which to fill it. Skill points are rewarded liberally but not to the point where you are investing in things towards no end wrt fleshing out your character. For example, I originally wrote off Jade's allure branch. I think I was right to do this early in the game but going back to it after achieving my ambitions elsewhere netted me Pink Tornado, which is amazing.
Another thing I enjoyed were the one-on-one duels. Parry + counter really came into play in those circumstances.
I also really liked the crafting and hardly shopped throughout the game except for crafting materials. I like that the system develops to mimic the battle system, with the randomness element but also the targeted choices and efficiency considerations. I was expecting something more like alchemy--and was expecting to craft items too--but this was a more engaging alternative, even if I might prefer the material aspect of alchemy--I like the items being associated with each other. I spent a lot of time crafting.
That's an interesting observation that the crafting system emulates the design elements of the battle system, because it's definitely true, and it definitely explains why the crafting activated the same puzzle-like, risk/reward feelings that the combat does. I also liked the way Perfectionist Pearls worked, as they provided a means of fixing mistakes rather than just living with them. Funnily enough, even in a mechanic as small and isolated from the rest of the game as this, you have a sort of consideration of some of the game's main themes right there.
Best way to structure this was just putting all my responses in-line with the quotes, I used yellow text.
notbad.jpgDQXI came in at #11 overall and #7 on the PS4 chart for the monthly NPD.
Of course with the NPD cops patrolling we'll never get a number, but I guess that's decent. At the very least it didn't totally bomb.
A guy in the NPD is saying that DQXI made more than twice as much $ as DQIX.
DQIX did 132K in it's first month at roughly half the price of DQXI, so at the bare minimum DQXI sold more than that, probably somewhere in the 150-200K range.
DQXI is also at around ~150K on steam, so looking at somewhere between 300-400K, plus whatever it did in Europe (probably a nominal amount). Don't think it'll get to a million western sales until the Switch version, but >300K is not a bad first month.
All dealers and/or goof offs. No goof off to sage.What's a fun/weird challenge run for DQ III? XI has put me in the mood to replay it. I'll probably go SFC version for a change (GBC is my preference).
Solo Hero run. Or no Advanced Classes run.What's a fun/weird challenge run for DQ III? XI has put me in the mood to replay it. I'll probably go SFC version for a change (GBC is my preference).
I'd only do this with an emulator so you can frame skip; otherwise it'll be a slog. The game won't hold back on encounter sizes so with only one turn per round and limited group attack options, it's a lot of eating hits in combat. I did reduced party (3 members) and that was still a slog. All goof-offs is essentially solo-ing with a bit more going on, but that could get old.
NESI have tried, and tried, and tried, but I just cannot game on an iPhone.
I really like DQ III, but the platform is preventing me from enioying it. Just doesn't feel natural.
No other way to play III elsewhere besides the gameboy color release?
Dont ge twhy Squar ehasn't ported the mobile versions to steam.