Dragon Quest 4: Chapters

Dragon Quest IV's distinguishing characteristic is its chapter-based structure. The game is split into five chapters: the first four chapters introduce most of the major controllable characters, while the fifth chapter encompasses the majority of the story. While I am still only in the fourth chapter, I think that the chapter based structure is a great idea. The four early chapters do an excellent job of setting up the central conflict in a believable manner and making a large number of characters interesting.

Establishing the history and motivations of a large supporting cast is easily the most important outcome of Dragon Quest IV's Chapter structure. Compared to most Dragon Quest games, Dragon Quest IV has a lot of characters. I have been introduced to eight permanent characters so far, and there very well may be even more yet to be introduced. With a cast this large, it is very easy for characters to end up being underdeveloped or overshadowed by other characters. However, by giving various members of the cast their own introductory chapters, most of the characters of the game are put into the limelight as the central character in their own fairly involved adventures. These chapters introduce most of the cast as adventurers and heroes in their own right, before they are ever recruited by the main hero. These chapters introduce the various characters' motivations for becoming heroes, as well as what sets them on the path to becoming part of the main party of heroes. As a result, the entire cast of characters becomes very interesting.

The four introductory chapters are also put to good use as a means of foreshadowing the central conflict of the game. While each of the first four chapters has its own self-contained story, most of them directly tie into the larger chain of events going on behind the scenes. Furthermore, each of the chapters has so far set up different facets of the plot and added various mysteries to the game. So by the time the main hero enters the action, a lot of set-up has already been done. The four chapters also flesh put a significant fraction of the game world, much of which the player will need to travel through again later on in the game.

A particular advantage of the four chapters of Dragon Quest IV is that all of them give the player different gameplay experiences. While some of the chapters are more focused on a single character, others give the player multiple characters to use. While some of the chapters are dominated by powerful physical fighters, others primarily have magic-oriented characters. The kinds of dungeons and situations the various characters come across vary wildly as well. Even the enemies that appear are pretty different. No two chapters are exactly alike, so in some way it feels like several different RPGs rolled into one. This variety keeps things plenty interesting as the player goes from one to another.

There is another game that takes advantage of the introductory chapter concept: Seiken Densetu 3. In that game, all six possible characters have their own unique starting chapter, usually consisting of a sequence of story events leading up to a short dungeon. Like in Dragon Quest IV, these prologues do an excellent job of introducing major characters and establishing their motivations for becoming heroes, as well as introducing various villains and the major countries of the game. However, I think the set-up in Seiken Densetsu 3 is not as good as in Dragon Quest IV because the player only has to play through the chosen main character's prologue, and only gets a cutscene summary of the other character's prologues. This does have the effect of marginalizing the plots of the two supporting characters, which is a trend seen elsewhere in the game.

Thinking about it, one can argue that the split-scenario section of Final Fantasy VI is more or less the same thing as Dragon Quest IV's Chapters. The scenarios too are something that occurs relatively early in the game as a means of temporarily putting the spotlight on individual characters. The scenarios in FFVI are even the time where several major characters are first introduced as well.

Personally, I love having individual chapters in an RPG. This is another device I would like to see revisited in the future.

Dragon Quest 4: Equipment and Nostalgia

When I first walked into an equipment shop in Dragon Quest IV: CHapters of the Chosen for the DS, I was greeted by a very familiar sight: a cypress stick, an oaken club, and a copper sword were for sale, along with wayfarer's clothes, leather armor, and a leather shield. For me, that simple list of weapons and armor is full of nostalgia that dates back to my earliest memories of playing console RPGs. The fact that the Dragon Quest series keeps even the list of low-level equipment more or less constant throughout is a pretty good example of how the series utilizes consistency in order to cultivate nostalgia. This is a sound strategy, since nostalgia can be a very powerful thing, since it is what drives people to become dedicated, long-term fans for a series.

The first console RPG I ever played was the original Dragon Quest, renamed Dragon Warrior in the US. By far, my strongest memory of the game is the decision the player faces at the very beginning of the game: to spend his meager amount of starting cash to buy an oaken club and a set of wayfarer's clothes, or to focus on defense and buy the cypress stick and a suit of leather armor. Since I have never put a whole lot of time into the game, I never really made it much further past that point. As a result, that early experience of shopping ended up being particularly memorable, especially since I repeated it several times to experiment with different starting equipment set-ups.

The next time I played a Dragon Quest game, it was Dragon Quest VIII, Journey of the Cursed King, for the PS2. Farebury, the very first town, had the same stick, club, copper sword, and leather armor that was available in the first shop in the original Dragon Quest. Based on some quick research on GameFAQs, it seems that this near-exact list of early equipment is available early on in pretty much every installment of the series. Even when I was playing Dragon Quest VIII, seeing a copper sword immediately brought my childhood memories of struggling to save up enough money to buy one in the original Dragon Warrior. I experience the exact same feelings of nostalgia when I started Dragon Quest IV last week. All it took was that little bit of familiarity to get me really excited about playing the game. The nostalgia value has been enhanced by the use of the same graphical representations for these pieces of equipment in both DQ IV and DQ VIII.

In the greater scheme of things, something like the names of early pieces of equipment is pretty minor. Yet, I would argue that nostalgia is built upon the familiarity of what would otherwise be inconsequential details. For that reason, I think maintaining consistency in things like monster choice, equipment choice, and so forth between different iterations of the same series is important. These things are what build recognition, familiarity, and nostalgia among fans. I believe the Dragon Quest series is a text-book example of all of this done right.

Dragon Quest 8, part 12

Just a few minutes ago, I finally cleared the main game of Dragon Quest VIII. The ending of the game was very satisfying. Unfortunately, the final boss battle itself was somewhat inferior to the incredible Dhoulmagus fight halfway through the game. Oh well. The final battle had a very epic backdrop and feel to it, and it was also sufficiently challenging. Furthermore, it had a lead in where the heroes call on the power of of the spirits of the sages of ancient times to help them. I am always a sucker for that kind of sequence.

However, the period just leading up to the final battle of the game was in many ways a lost opportunity. After clearing the final dungeon, the player is asked to run around the world to collect a set of seven magical orbs, which are required to fight the final battle. It turns out to be a simple fetch quest. All of the orbs are in obvious locations (based on the plot) and require no challenges to acquire at all. Collecting all seven orbs can be done in an hour or so, without even having to fight a single monster (not counting the ones in the one dungeon, but they can be warded off with a single cheap spell). What the townspeople are talking about in the places you have to go haven't even changed since before the final dungeon. The whole thing felt like an unnecessary time sink that did nothing for the plot.

The reason I call the quest a lost opportunity is that it could have been much more interesting. For one, it could have been a real treasure hunt (unlike some people, I don't really mind late game treasure hunts). The orbs supposedly contained the souls of the ancient sages. There were actually both a hard-to-find tablet left behind by one of the sages, and an old tapestry left behind by another in the game's last town. These two items could have been used as clues for a real treasure hunt, with the orbs hidden away in places related to the ancient sages themselves. Instead, all seven orbs can be found in the places where the seven descendants of the sages were killed. There was no guess-work involved at all, and all of the orbs are lying in plain sight. I never even really needed the echo flute, which tells you if an orb is nearby.

Alternatively, there could have been plot scenes involved in gathering the orbs. Since the quest involved traveling all over the world again, the quest could have been used as a chance to show off the fact that the whole world was in serious danger, with the Big Bad's horde of monsters about to descend on the world, or to give a chance for the heroes to interact with some of the many secondary characters introduced along the course of the game. Instead, there is nothing going at all in orb locations except for daily life.

I guess in either case, the orb quest would still have been unnecessary filler. When the final boss of the game has been revealed, the player probably just wants to get on with fighting him. It might have been best to have dropped the orb quest entirely, or to have introduced the orbs at some point earlier in the game.

Side Note:

The waves of ice ability used by most major bosses in the game got old quickly. It shut down complex strategies too easily. What is the point of the tension system if I can never get my characters to super high tension? Using alternatives, such as status spells, and conditions like shock, might have been a better design choice.

Dragon Quest 8, part 11

I am finally almost done with Dragon Quest VIII (I think). I have just clocked in over one hundred hours in the game.  And I was worried that the game would be too short when I first started. It feels like I am finally running out of thing to say about the game too. I still have a bit to say about the plot devices used in the game though.

Not too long ago, I fought a major boss battle in an attempt to save the life of the last of the descendants of the seven sages who stand at the center of the game's plot. However, my reward for beating this boss and saving the life of the sage's descendant was to be accused of being assassins by a third party and thrown in prison (again). What's worse is that the guy I tried to protect was killed of anyways off-screen while my party rotted in the worst prison in the world for a month. Some reward.

The trick is that protecting the last descendant of the sages was absolutely vital to the heroes' quest of saving the world. With no more descendants of the sages left, the Big Bad of the game would be free from his prison and begin destroying the world. On top of that, winning that boss battle gave the heroes a chance to take back the cursed scepter housing the Big Bad's soul and reseal it. Yet, the heroes let themselves be led off by a few guards to prison and left the scepter of pure evil lying around unattended near the person  they were trying to protect from it.

Realistically, the heroes should have put up more of a fight. After all, their entire mission and the fate of the world was at stake. Four or so guards should not have been much of a problem for the heroes who just beat down a villain who was strong enough to KO or kill most soldiers and guards in single blows throughout most of the game. The game had clearly established that the heroes were incredibly strong, by creating opportunities where the heroes could clearly outperform both regular soldiers and the elite mercenaries of the world's richest man.

The entire scene just felt like a cheap excuse for the game to continue. If left alone, the heroes could have sealed away the Big Bad again. But, the game scenario called for all of the sage's descendants to die so that the main heroes could get a shot at facing him at his full power. While I can certainly see the need to keep the game moving, the method the developers used just felt too forced. It would have been better to have used another method to keep the scepter out of the heroes' hands.

For instance, the heroes could have left the scepter on the floor where it landed, and simply convinced everyone to stay out of the room while they figured out a way to safely handle it (a smart choice, since the last time one of the heroes picked up the scepter, it ended in a boss battle). Then, someone could have simply snuck in and stolen the scepter, perhaps foolishly intending to use its power for his own gain. While still a bit cheesy, it would have resulted in making the heroes look like fools.

On another note, I am continuously baffled why both times the heroes are arrested and thrown in prison, no one ever takes their weapons off of them. It just looks weird to see four heroes sitting around a jail cell while still armed to the teeth.. Besides, dungeons where the heroes have to break out of a prison and fight off/avoid guards while searching for their equipment are a classic part of RPGs.

EDIT: My brother just reminded me of a detail I forgot about. The heroes actually received the Ultimate Key, capable of opening any locked chest or door, as part of the story earlier in the game. Getting out of that prison should have taken 5 seconds.

Dragon Quest 8, part 10

I finally acquired the power to fly in Dragon Quest 8, and it has really been a fun experience so far. The developers made exploration of the game's overworld a major part of the game's experience, and it shows in the way the game handles flight. I think the way the game handles this system has added quite a bit to the experience.

The flying system in Dragon Quest 8 is remarkably close to the system in the Square classic Secret of Mana. When the player uses the item that allows the party to fly, the game switches over to a more zoomed out and less detailed overworld. However, while this extended overworld doesn't let the player make out fine detail, it does let the player accurately see every hill, lake, house and road in the main overworld. When a player tries to land somewhere, the game drops the character off at the closest landing point available, typically near a geographic landmark. However, the number of landmarks makes it feel like the player can be dropped off anywhere on the map.

Of course, there are also plenty of areas that can only be reached by flying. What I like about the DQ8 system is that it makes it very clear where the player can and cannot land. There is a shadow made by the bird the player flies around as, and when the shadow is surrounded by a white border, the player can land at that spot. Furthermore, the special places that can only be reached by flying are visually distinctive. They often have unusually colored grass or dirt, and usually have a white cloud floating above them. These visual clues practically shout: "explore here!"

What really stands out about this system is that I have found quite a few surprises while just flying around continents I have explored already. For example, I was surprised to see a giant stone structure on top of a mountaintop while I was flying. I had passed by that mountain several times on foot earlier in the game, but I did not see it at all back then. Furthermore, the structure was not on the world map. I felt like I had suddenly stumbled across some amazing discovery. When I landed back down on the ground nearby, I was surprised to discover that it was possible to see a corner of the structure from the ground if you look at it from the right angle. RPGs rarely give that kind of feeling of sudden discovery.

Finding things like that stone structure or a ruined old house on a mountaintop near the first area of the game made flying a very fun experience in Dragon Quest 8. It really makes me disappointed that many RPGs of late, most notably the Final Fantasy series, have been limiting air travel to selecting a destination from a menu. Flying around in an airship or on the back of a bird or flying dragon can be made into a fun experience in of itself.

Dragon Quest 8, part 9

Dragon Quest 8 is turning out to be much longer than I anticipated. While the end of the game is clearly in sight now, I am more than 80 hours into the game. A bit long for my tastes, but not bad I guess. Anyways, I have a confession to make about the game: I have been relying heavily on FAQs to help me with one particular part of the game: the alchemy pot.

The alchemy pot is actually a rather brilliantly designed item creation system. It works in a very simple manner: the player chooses two items to put into the pot (up to three items after an upgrade). If the two items can be combined, then the pot begins cooking, and an item is produced after some time. The pot even dings when the item is complete. If the items cannot be combined, then the pot spits out the two items immediately, and the player loses nothing. So, the system is very easy to use, and encourages experimentation.

The alchemy pot system also produces plenty of useful items. Many of the best items at all levels of the game can be created by the alchemy pot. For example, it is possible to take basic healing herbs (which can be purchased dirt cheap at any general store), and combine them in various ways to make strong medicine, rose-miles, special medicine, lesser panaceas and even greater panaceas (the strongest single-character healing item in the game). It is also possible to create unique and very useful weapons and armor from the moment the alchemy pot becomes usable.

On the other hand, the products of the alchemy pot are rarely unbalancing. Creating stronger weapons and armor is usually dependent on finding new components that only become available later in the game. For example, upgrading the snakeskin whip into the dragontail whip requires waiting for dragon-scales to become available in the game, So, the growth of equipment power is held in check to match the increase of challenge in the game.

Yet, I still find the alchemy pot bothersome at times. While it is a fun addition to the game, figuring out useful recipes can be a mind-numbingly hard task. While the game gives the player the recipes for numerous items, these recipes cover only a fraction of the total number in the game. Furthermore, the given recipes can be uselessly vague. While some recipes such as the Sage's Robe can be easy to figure out, others like the Magical Skirt can be very tricky. In the Magical Skirt's case, the given recipe says that the player must combine a grass skirt with two different "magical items". There are at least six different pieces of equipment with "magic" in their name, plus numerous other overtly magical items. And I would never have guessed that the actual recipe required a magic staff.

The problem is that some guidelines are necessary for the player to figure out what combinations are possible, since guess-and-check is not feasible in Dragon Quest 8. For one, there are simply too many possible combinations for a player to try them all. Second, items are too expensive for the player to have multiple spare items lying around in storage. Many combinations require combining equipment that the player might not have otherwise needed to buy. With money so tight in DQ8, buying spare equipment for the sakes of experimentation was usually not practical.

In this situation, the best possible solution is to use recognizable patterns to make item combination easier to figure out. To a certain degree, there are items in DQ8 that do follow clear patterns. Basic healing items can be made by combining store-bought herbs for example. Cheeses can be made by combining basic cheese with special mold. Cursed items can be combined with saint's ashes to create non-cursed items. Certain magic swords can be combined with accessories to make improved versions of the magic swords. Rings can be combined with status effect causing weapons to make status protection rings. Trends like these make it possible to anticipate possible item combinations and experiment along focused paths.

Unfortunately, most recipes in DQ8 do not follow such clear patterns. Instead, there are many items such as the scholar's cap, which is created by combining a pair of scholar's glasses with a magical hat. While the combination is logical, it's logic is based on the notion that the player knows that the finished product exists. There is no other pattern followed by other items that can be used to extrapolate this recipe. I only knew about it because it was one that the game gave me. Sadly, almost all armor and most weapons in the game are equally impossible to guess as this.

As a result of this, I resorted to looking at Alchemy Pot guides online to figure out recipes. Which I think is a bit of a shame.

Dragon Quest 8, part 8

I spent my time playing Dragon Quest 8 today going through a major side-quest, which finally opened up the main casino of the game. Since my brother posted about the Casino minigames themselves, I want to talk about the side-quest itself.

What I really like about the side-quests in Dragon Quest 8 is that they don't feel like side-quests at all. This last side-quest felt almost like part of the main plot of the game. To start with, the side-quest is built upon events that occurred within the central plot, and more or less involves tying up some loose ends. While the side-quest itself is a pretty straightforward dungeon dive leading up to a boss fight, the amount of scenes and plot that surround the entire side-quest is comparable to most dungeons in the game.

First off, the side-quest actually introduces two new characters who had so far been only mention in town conversations up to that point in the game. Both of these characters are fully voice-acted and appear in as many scenes as comparable NPCs in the main plot of the game. The dungeon itself has quite a few scenes that take place at the end. Furthermore, the main characters have multiple conversations available about the side-quest, and treat it as their current main goal once the player accepts the quest. All in all, the amount of dialogue, character development, cut-scenes and voice-acting are all on par with any part of the main quest of the game. And this all fairly typical for side-quests in Dragon Quest 8, which makes the whole game feel very consistent.

And at the end of the side-quest, the entire town it starts in changes more than most towns do after a major plot point, with a major overhaul of NPC placement and conversations. So completing the side-quest made me feel like I had really accomplished something, since the game world seemed much for the better afterwards. There is a lot to be said for making the player feel like his actions make a difference.

Dragon Quest 8, part 7

I like the character customization system in Dragon Quest 8 quite a bit. While every character in the game learns numerous spells naturally and possess distinct characteristics, there is a system for customizing the four characters by training in certain skills. This system allows the player to have fun customizing the characters, while maintaining the advantages of having characters with set strengths and weaknesses.

The Skill system in Dragon Quest 8 is pretty simple. Every time one of the four characters levels up, he or she acquires a few skill points, which the player immediately allocates into one of five skills. Each of the four characters has a unique list of skills, based on the weapons the character can equip with an additional skill based on a distinguishing characteristic of each character. For example, the main hero has the Swords, Spears, Boomerangs, Fisticuffs (unarmed combat, shared by all four characters), and Courage skills. Once a character put enough points into a skill, the skill levels up, and the character either acquires a new ability or spell, or the character's power with that certain weapon increases.

Of course, it is impossible for one character to max out all five of his or her skills. Right now, I am expecting to have accumulated around 200 skill points for every character by level 40 or so. Since it takes 100 skill points to max out a skill, a character can expect to only max out two skills during the game. Maybe three if the player reaches really high levels. So, I have been focusing each of my characters on only one or two skills during this go-through of the game. For example, my main hero is currently focusing on the Swords and Courage skills.

What I really like about this system is that it gives the characters some degree of flexibility. For example, if a player has Jessica (naturally the game's main attack mage) study the Knives skill, she acquires potent single-target physical attacks, and eventually gains the ability to equip high-attack power swords. If Jessica focuses on the Whips skill, she gains multi-enemy attacks that induce status conditions. If Jessica focuses on the Staves skill, her magical powers increase and she acquires healing abilities. So which skills a character focuses on can have an enormous impact on how the character fights in combat.

On of the benefits of this customization system is that the game can play very differently if a player chooses a different selection of skills. Even though I haven't even finished the game yet, I am already strongly tempted to play through Dragon Quest 8 again, just to try out a different combination of skills. Of course, this system does have a big downside: this degree of flexibility does allow a player to gimp his characters. In my first attempt at playing Dragon Quest 8, I tried to improve all of my characters' skills evenly. As a result, my characters only gained useful powers at a painfully slow pace, and they would have never acquired everything.

Finally, one of the major elements of this customization system I like is how limited in scope it is. It is not an incredibly deep customization system that lets the player give any ability to any character. Because of that, the four characters maintain a strong sense of individual identity and uniqueness. Also, because the characters always gain important powers such as healing magic regardless of which skills the individual characters take, no character is required to take any specific skill. Many of the team's bases are already covered, so it is hard to gimp the team as a whole.

Dragon Quest 8, part 6

While I have already mentioned that I really like the number of abilities my characters have in Dragon Quest 8, there are quite a few abilities and spells in the game that I simply do not use. Some of these were once useful, but have since become useless. Others have been useless from the moment I acquired them. So here, in no particular order, is my Dragon Quest 8 special attack graveyard:

Needle Shot:

Angelo's third special bow attack tops my list of "most useless attack in DQ8". Supposedly, Needle Shot is a 1 MP attack capable of killing an enemy in a single shot. However, I have never once actually seen this happen. On top of that, Needle Shot only does 1 point of damage if it fails to kill its target, which is pretty useless. In comparison, Yangus has a scythe attack called Grim Reaper that not only launches an instant death attack against an entire group of foes, it actually works and does full regular damage if it fails to kill instantly. Needle Shot is made even more useless by the fact that Angelo himself can cast a fairly reliable group instant death spell naturally. With clearly superior alternatives abound, Needle Shot is simply a poorly thought out ability.

Heart Breaker:

On paper, Yangus's first Hammer move, Heart Breaker, seems good. It is a 2 MP attack that does full attack damage to an enemy with a chance of "shocking" the enemy, causing them to lose one turn. However, like Needle Shot, Heart Breaker has been useless to me simply because it almost never does what it is supposed to do. Despite using it against every boss and strong enemy I have ever come across, Heart Breaker has only worked once or twice. Furthermore, the 2 MP cost make the move too expensive to use on a regular basis, since Yangus has very limited MP. In contrast, Jessica has a very similar move called Blow Kiss that not only can be used with any weapon, it is both free and much more reliable than Heart Breaker.

Metal Slash:

One of the hero's sword moves, Metal Slash is on this list because I haven't found a real point for it yet. Supposedly, it is effective against Metal enemies, but it doesn't do any extra damage against most enemies with Metal in their names. It seems designed to help kill Metal Slimes (rare enemies with incredibly high defenses, but only 5 HP), but the one time I cornered Metal Slimes, Metal Slash did only 1 point of damage, the same amount of damage my other characters were capable of doing. While it apparently lets the hero hit the highly evasive Metal Slimes easier, it is way too limited in scope to be useful.

Fire Slash and Dragon Slash:

Along with Metal Slash, these two moves were among the hero's first three sword abilities. These have actually been useful. While I rarely used Dragon slash due to the lack of dragon-type enemies in the early game, I found that plenty of enemies were weak to Fire Slash. Both moves could even be used for free. Unfortunately, both of these moves are on the list thanks to the existence of Falcon Slash. Falcon Slash lets the hero attack twice in one turn with slightly reduced attack power. On average though, Falcon Slash will do more damage to an enemy weak against fire than Fire Slash, and Falcon Slash is still free. If Falcon Slash actually cost MP, Fire Slash and Dragon Slash would not be on this list.

Lady's Thong:

This 2 MP Whip attack lets Jessica heal herself slightly by doing damage to a group of enemies. Unfortunately, it only heals Jessica by 13% of the damage done to the first enemy she hits. Since Jessica can only do 30-40 or so points of damage, she can only normally heal herself for 3-4 HP with this move. In comparison, Angelo can use his Cherub's Arrow attack (a 0 MP Bow move) to heal 3-4 MP with each shot, which he can then use to cast Mid-Heal or Full-Heal. Jessica is better off saving the MP for attack or status spells.

Penny Pincher:

Yangus's second hammer move, this one costs 2 MP to steal 10% of the money the enemy normally drops in addition to a regular attack. Since most enemies only drop chump change, this attack will only give the part 2 or three gold coins per hit. Once again, Yangus's MP is too low to be squandered recklessly on normal enemies. In comparison, I use Yangus's Steal Sickle a lot, despite its horribly low success rate, because it is free.

A common problem among many of these moves and other is too low of a chance of success, or too little effect. In addition, other characters often have clearly superior alternatives. So while the characters have plenty of special moves, I find myself relying on only a few (Falcon Slash, Wind Sickle, Cherub's Arrow, and Twin Dragon Lash) most of the time. I might talk about these abilities some more after I have seen the rest.

Dragon Quest 8, part 5

Okay, I have to take back some of my previous statement about Dragon Quest 8 getting easier. I just fought through what has to be the hardest boss fight I have experienced in a few years. As was befitting a major boss fight at a game turning point, the battle against Dhoulmagus was a long, brutal battle. I guess all of the advantages that come with progressing in a game, like what I talked about last time, don't mean much when going up against a really well-designed boss.

The developers were able to make the fight against Dhoulmagus hard because they understood the concept of economy of actions. I am borrowing the term from some of the talk coming out of the development of 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. Essentially, economy of actions refers to how the number of actions a character or monster can make has a huge effect on its power. Even a monster with lots of hit points and powerful attacks will be fairly easy if it can only act once in a round, since it will be up against three, four, or five characters, each with their own action. That's about 4 actions to one. So, in order to make a boss fight against a major villain interesting, it is necessary to even up the number of actions between the two sides.

Dhoulmagus was such a big threat because of two key reasons: he evened up the odds by creating two clones of himself on the first turn, and he was capable of acting twice every round. So, he had four actions of his own every turn to match my four actions. If he had only acted once every round, my character's defense and healing would have easily been able to keep up with his damage output. Furthermore, the Doppelgangers forced me to spread out my damage more and use less powerful all-enemy attacks. As it was, I spent the entire two-part battle struggling to keep my characters alive. For the first time in the entire game I had to resurrect fallen comrades mid-battle.

Another thing that made the battle particularly hard was Dhoulmagus's use of all-character attacks, particularly in the second battle. Even though he had only two actions in the second half of the battle, Dhoulmagus was able to nearly exhaust my healing resources because of his constant use of strong all-character attacks. However, this only was a serious threat because I did not have full-party healing spells, and instead had to constantly alternate between healing individual characters using both of my healers. If I had full-party healing spells, Dhoulmagus's full-party attacks would not have been nearly as big of a threat. I guess this goes to show how powerful team healing spells are.

However, Dhoulmagus also proved to be difficult thanks to his wide array of action-denying attacks. In the first phase of the battle, he used single-character sleep spells to great effect, while in the second phase, he used an all-character one-round stun attack. In addition, he used an attack which nullified my entire teams buff spells and tension (an effect where a character uses a turn increasing their attack power). This forced my characters to waste more rounds restoring buff spells and rendered the turns I spent raising tension worthless.

In other words, the developers of DQ8 were able to make the Dhoulmagus fight very difficult by significantly increasing his number of actions, giving Dhoulmagus allies to soak up attacks, and giving Dhoulmagus the ability to deny or cancel out the actions of the characters. These are all tried and true methods of improving the difficulty of a major boss battle. Many of the earlier boss battles of the game used these same tools to lesser degrees in order to make them more challenging as well.

Beyond just what made the battle hard, the battle against Dhoulmagus was fun, thanks to the showmenship that went into the fight. First off, it felt a lot like the final battle of a game (particularly since Dhoulmagus has been the main villain so far). After Dhoulmagus's first form was defeated, he underwent the stereotypical transformation into a more powerful, more monstrous form. While it is an old trope, it still works, particularly since the first form felt like a full boss battle by itself. The backgrounds of both fights were also unique and very flashy. On top of that, Dhoulmagus was given a very large number of attacks and actions in both battles. In the first battle, Dhoulmagus used a basic melee attack, the "wind sickle" spell, the "thin air" spell, a full-party thorn attack, a multi-hit attack with thrown debris, a sleep attack, his debuff spell, and a full team heal spell, while still making time to laugh at the party. This is quite a few more attacks than is typical in a boss fight, and it adds to the spectacle of the fight considerably.

I am now really looking forward to the real final boss of the game, whatever that is.

Side note: I really hate how dead characters don't get experience in most RPGs. Jessica died mere moments before the final blow was struck against Dhoulmagus, and missed out on 12000 experience points. This is particularly a problem in DQ8, where boss battles give huge xp gains, but have a high chance of killing off a character or two. This causes really bothersome level discrepancies that are hard to close.

Dragon Quest 8, part 4

I am really surprised how easy of a time I have been having in Dragon Quest 8 right now. While there has been a recent sudden increase in the power of the monsters I am fighting in the last dungeon I went through, I had no trouble clearing the dungeon at all. This is particularly surprising considering how hard the early part of the game was. However, I guess that it reflects a general tendency of RPGs to become easier as the game progresses.

In the early stages of Dragon Quest 8, particularly before I recruited the full party, I was running into stretches of serious difficulty on a regular basis. For example, this go-through of the game stalled after I had my team wiped out by the second boss of the game multiple times. While I managed to defeat the game's third boss on my first try, I lost two out of my three characters in the attempt. I even lost a character to a rare monster I encountered while exploring around the overworld soon after the third boss battle. During those early parts of the game, I also found that I could only handle four or five consecutive battles in a new region of the overworld before I ran out of disposable resources.

Now though, I can run through brand new dungeons and overworld regions without much fear. I can even encounter enemies somewhat earlier than I am meant to and still have a fair chance of victory. I haven't even lost a party member since my run in with the rare monster I described above. The game just doesn't feel as hard anymore.

The reason the game isn't as difficult is due to the vastly increased options I now have over those early days. Thanks to higher levels, my characters have a lot more options when it comes to healing and defensive spells. Whereas early in the game, I only had one healer with limited MP (the main hero), few healing items, and no way to resurrect dead characters, I now have two healers (one of whom can regenerate his MP), a resurrection spell, and the ability to mass-produce healing items using the game's alchemy system. Furthermore, three of my four characters have special moves that can potentially prevent enemies from attacking. The addition of all of these things has made my team of heroes nearly impossible to kill in a game that I had pegged as extremely lethal when I first started playing it.

While this trend towards the game becoming easier as the player progresses is a fairly common element of RPGs due to this effect caused by increasing player options, I still don't like seeing the difficulty of a game change. The beginning of a game should not be the hardest part, since undue frustration might put off a new player. It also creates false expectations in the player about what the play experience of the game is going to be like. On the other hand, introducing more complexity and options to the player as he becomes familiar with the game isn't necessarily a bad idea, particularly since new character options, items, and abilities are all a kind of reward. So I am not really sure what can be done to tweak Dragon Quest 8's difficulty curve. Maybe I will get some ideas after playing it some more.

Dragon Quest 8, part 3

I am now more than forty hours into Dragon Quest 8 now. I am impressed, there has not yet been a drop off in story pacing or the like at all so far. The game has been maintaining a pretty good balance between plot progression and giving the player plenty of side-quests and optional things to do.

The root of this is good balance has to do with how the game world is compartmentalized. The game is broken down into explicit regions, each of which has a single main town, a unique monster list built around a specific level range, plenty of open space filled with chests and rare monsters, and sometimes a major side-quest or mini-game. It creates a very clear measure of progress in the game, since the player can focus on clearing one region of the game at a time. Since every region offers both plot events (usually including a dungeon) and quite a bit of optional area to explore, both of which are level appropriate, the player is given a fair amount of choice between going onward and side-questing at every point in the game. By the time a player has cleaned out everything to do in a particular area, a new region has already become available to explore.

Furthermore, sidequests are introduced gradually, and are often intertwined with the player's progress through the main plot. For example, the biggest side-quest/mini-game in Dragon Quest 8 is the Monster Arena. The Monster Arena is where the player can challenge battles against various monster teams using a team of monster he captured himself. These enemy teams are divided into various ranks, going from A through G. In order to win battles in higher ranks, the player needs to acquire a stronger line-up of monsters. However, the player usually needs to progress farther into the game to find these stronger monsters. Since the challenge and rewards for low-level ranks are appropriate for early in the game, and higher ranks are appropriate for later in the game, the Monster Arena is well designed to be challenged on and off across the entire length of the game.

As a result of these game elements, I have always had two or three different choices I could make whenever I asked myself: "So what do I do in the game now?". This has kept my interest in the game going quite well this time around.

Other notes:

1)I guess I underestimated attack magic last time around. I am using a healthy variety of attack spells at this point in the game. However, I still think that they don't scale as well as some of the weapon abilities in the game. This is probably the result of having three upgrading versions of every attack spell.

2)There are some weapon abilities in the game that upgrade into more powerful versions later one. Many of the lower level versions of these abilities are very bad, to the point of being useless. This should not be the case.

Dragon Quest 8: Part 2

One of my favorite features of Dragon Quest 8 is the ability to talk to my teammates at any time. By pressing the start button, I can open a screen that lets me talk to King Trode, Yangus, Jessica, and Angelo. Usually, each one of the main characters has something to say about the current events of the game (except for the silent main hero, of course).

This kind of system appears in quite a few games as a means of helping to remind the player of what his next goal is. The most famous examples are the fairies and Midna from the 3-D Legend of Zelda games. The player can talk to these characters at any time with the press of a button, and get either helpful advice or a pointer in the direction of the next plot event. However, the characters in Dragon Quest 8 are much more interesting than is typical because they do more than just give the player generic reminders of where his next destination is.

What makes the conversation system in DQ 8 interesting is that it is both event-sensitive and location-sensitive, in a addition to the typical plot-sensitive nature of these interactions. The other characters change what they depending on where the party is and what just happened. For example, if the player takes an optional detour to visit a fortuneteller, the other characters will talk specifically about the advice that fortuneteller gave. If the player wins a victory in the monster arena side-quest, the party will talk about how good victory feels, and so forth. The characters even say different things on the overworld than they do in towns. The system is remarkably responsive to changing situations in the game.

Unfortunately, a problem with this is that sometimes, the other characters don't have anything to say at all, and all four of them just say ".........". In other words, the characters were not given any written dialogue. It happens surprisingly often, including an entire dungeon relatively early in the game. This lack of consistency is glaringly obvious when otherwise the game rewards the player for talking to his team with lots of witty dialogue.

At least the ability to talk with my comrades at any time helps alleviate the problem that some of them very rarely have speaking roles in cut-scenes. At the point I am at in the game, Jessica and Angelo in particular have barely said a voice-acted word since Angelo was recruited. While they have been developed somewhat through the optional conversations, it has left those two characters woefully under-developed and somewhat one-dimensional so far. It is also making me wonder if it is possible to completely skip recruiting Angelo or turn down Jessica's request to join.

Dragon Quest 8

After a long hiatus (two years maybe?), I finally started playing Dragon Quest 8 again, and I have managed to get pretty deep into the game over the last couple of days. So far, I am enjoying it quite a bit. In particular, I am finding that I am enjoying the game's battle system quite a bit, thanks to the number of interesting choices that are available during combat.

It is very rare to see RPGs where the characters have multiple different abilities they can choose from that have no cost. In Dragon Quest 8 though, three of my four characters currently have such abilities. For example, Yangus has both Steal Sickle and Wind Sickle, neither of which cost any MP. Steal Sickle is a regular attack with a minute chance of stealing an enemy's item, while WInd Sickle is simply a potent attack. The nameless hero has Dragon Slash, Flame Slash, and Metal Slash, all regular attacks that are effective against certain opponents. These attacks are functionally replacements for the basic attack command, but they significantly increase the tactical options for the player.

A good example is with my current setup for Jessica. Her main weapon is a whip, so she can attack a group of enemies with her basic attack. However, I also gave her the Blow Kiss attack, which does damage equal to her normal attack against a single enemy, but with an added chance of charming the enemy so that it doesn't attack. So, there is a trade-off to made when choosing either attack. Her basic attack is good against groups of weak enemies, while her Blow Kiss attack works well against single strong enemies. I think it allows for much more interesting combat choices than a system where only basic attacks are free.

Other notes on the combat system so far:

Attack magic seems somewhat weak so far. Spells seem to only remain useful for a short time after I acquire them, then quickly fall behind physical attacks in effectiveness. For example, the Boom spell was very useful when I got it, since it did comparable damage to a normal physical attack against all enemies in a battle. However, it currently only does about half of the damage most of my characters do. Only one of my attack mage's spells can do comparable damage to my main fighter's attacks.

On the other hand, status spells are surprisingly effective. Group confusion spells are particularly effective, and DQ8 actually has an instant death spell that consistently works. I like this very much, since it increases my tactical options significantly, so I am doing more than just using basic attacks every turn when fighting regular enemies.

I will probably have more to report as I get deeper in the game. Right now, I am neck deep in gambling in the game, so I might talk about that a bit some time soon.