Random Battle

As I said in my last post, I recently finished playing through the remake of Dragon Quest IV for the Nintendo DS. There was one thing that annoyed me more than anything else in the game. It’s how much the main character sucked (stat wise).

Normally, the main character is a powerful character that is a must to your party. If you could only have one member in your group, it would be him. Well not in Dragon Quest IV, the main character was not the strongest, not the fastest, didn’t have the best spells, he wasn’t the best at anything. He was not the worst in any either (except speed). He was in the top 4 characters, but he was not especially helpful. He had 2 things going for him. He was the strongest character that could equip the best armor (making him a tank) and he had the best healing spell which was only useful in the final boss battle (and the bonus quests after the game). So he was pretty much the dumb tank while a physical attacker, a healer and a powerful mage took care of things.

I did not like that my main character was the tank which is usually reserved to beefy but stupid characters.

I recently finished playing through the remake of Dragon Quest IV for the Nintendo DS. It’s a fairly standard jRPG (4 characters group, grinding, turn-based battles, …) which is a genre I enjoy playing from time to time.

As I said, this is game that requires grinding, however in the last few years grinding has become less and less useful to finish a game. So when playing DQ4, I did not grind too much, I battled for money, not so much for experience. I managed to get through most of the game just fine, with many battles being hard fought which made them quite more enjoyable. I did die once or twice though which is perfectly fine (since the deaths were not due to cheap tricks by the game developer to make the game artificially difficult).

Battle preparation

Back to the topic, I went into the final battle with relatively good equipment, my four best characters and my HP/MP were mostly full. I forgot one important thing to do before engaging the battle. I did not use the item that would allow me to switch party members during the fight, I was not stuck with my four main characters.

Fight!

The battle started, I used my boss-fight routine and it worked well most of the fight. Boost defense of the party, reduce defense of the boss, hack away and heal when necessary (with the occasional omniheal which refills all the HP for every party member). The boss went through plenty of stages (it has 7 stages!!). At one point in the fight, my healer’s MP was getting low (my MP ring – Prayer Ring – broke during the fight) and my HP was not as high as I wanted it. I couldn’t cast omniheal anymore, my healer died before he managed to heal the party. My caster died, my main attacker died too. I was left with my main character, the hero, with no mana and without enough HP to survive any attack. I could have casted one tiny healing spell, but that wouldn’t have helped me.

I decided to give up the fight, I told my hero to attack one last time before dying. I got lucky, my hero attacked before the boss and the damage dealt was enough to kill the final stage of the boss. I was victorious!!

Victory is mine

The win was so rewarding considering I was so dead. I had really given up and I was thinking of what to do to be able to win next time. The victory felt really good. I’d love it if more games could reproduce that feeling, I don’t remember the last modern game where the final fight was close.

I have not played a lot of Dragon Warrior/Quest games. I don’t know why because I loved all the games I tried. I say tried because the only game in the series I ever completed is Dragon Quest VIII.

However, my first experience was with Dragon Warrior I on the NES and I have yet to finish it. The first time I saw that game, I was way too young to be able to finish it. I tried more than a few times to get back to the game and play it to the end, but I was never able to. I tried to play it with an emulator a few times but I don’t like to play with an emulator, the experience is not the same. I played it in the remake for the Gameboy Color, but I was not the owner of the cartridge and it was taken back from me before I could do much.

Dragon Warrior I for me

There are a few things that really define Dragon Warrior for me.

A slime draws near!

I remember grinding in those trees and hills for many hours more than a few times.

Stairs

The second thing I remember from those days is the way you were supposed to use the Stairs command to walk up and down the stairs in the game.

I had played the first Final Fantasy before this so it was a shock to me that when I walked onto the stair tiles, my character would do nothing except wait for me to actively choose to walk up or down the stairs.

Dark dungeons

The third thing I remember are the dark dungeons where you see nothing but your sprite and keep on hitting the walls unless you bring a torch. That was truly unique and still gives the game its charm in my opinion.

Last try

I recently bought the Dragon Quest I & II game for the Gameboy Color and I plan to play both to completion. I’m thrilled to play these two games and my quest will probably continue with Dragon Quest IV and V on the Nintendo DS after I’m done with those.