The Good:Didn't notice that right off the bat!
- Nice naming scheme for 3rd person characters. Celestrians are all named after constellations (Aquila, Columba, Tucana, Cygnus, Corvus, etc.); the Alchemy Pot is named Krak Pot; and the master of Alltrades Abbey is, naturally, Jack of Alltrades.
- Battles done on a 3D field with selection-to-action rendering. Characters now run around the field and jump to the enemy to attack (think Crono Trigger), which is an improvement over the classic "your guys in a line vs the enemy line" setup still used as late as DQ8, but not as well done as some other titles like Skies of Arcadia.I like how this makes battles seem more dynamic, but to be honest I think fighting enemies on a line is part of what makes a Dragon Quest game.
The Bad:I like how with some of the options you can make characters from earlier games and even some other Toriyama designed characters. I wish they'd allow for more saves though. You don't get the option to uses the character customization much with only one save.
- The character customization ain't all its cracked up to be. Theres only 8 to 10 choices for all features and many of them look too much alike. Some features like height are imperceptible differences, and others, like hair, get covered up by helmets and such.
- Lack of humor. Unlike the King from DQ8, your "conscience/battle records" tag-along character Stella is more annoying than funny.I'm not that far in, but I'm missing party dialogues already. The NPC dialogue seems up to par so far though.
- Ability to hire and fire team members. I find this disrupts the game flow and prevents quests that deal with one of your team member's backstory. Your team members basically become mercenaries and only the main character is important. RPG games aren't as fun that way. This is why 4, 5, and 8 are the best in the series.Do you think this was added because of Wi-Fi play? I can understand SQ-E wanting to downplay NPC parties if they'd rather you play with friends.
- For a DS game, there's been absolutely no need to use the stylus so far 10+ hours in. You "can" use it to navigate and select menu options, but its easier to use the d-pad and buttons. I hoped game features or miniquests would have relied on some kind of stylus or microphone use by now.I actually like how they omitted stylus use completely from DQV(save for the slime minigame). Here it feels a little tacked on, but moving with the stylus feels a little more intuitive once you get the hang of it. However, for more intensive parts the d-pad's much more reliable.
The Ugly:Ugh! Funny how they always still remember how to fight.
- Playing the amnesia card for the main character again.
It may be coincidence but so far both characters were released on a Friday, Alena 3 weeks ago, Angelo a week ago. Presumably, someone new will show up this Friday. They may be releasing the guests in alphabetical order too (which would be very unexciting as everyone could guess the next character out.) If DQ6's Ashlynn shows up next we'll know its being done alphabetically.
Just confirmed that you can get an extra item from cameo NPCs with just a level 1 job. Managed to get an extra item from Ashlynn by switching main character to mage, then I went to Angelo as level 1 priest and also received an item. I think it's restricted to main character's job, though with Jack's Knack it's easy enough to switch to the appropriate job as you're standing next to them and switch back.
I talked to a friend about it, and they told me that you can get additional items from them by talking to them on your birthday and by talking to them on theirs(Not sure when some character's birthdays would be, I assume it's listed on a wiki somewhere).
Looks like we lost some posts during the transition...It's because you posted while we were in maintenance mode.
Yo Hyperguy, your gal Debora is today's new special guest at the Quester's Rest.When I logged in on Friday to see this, I did air punch IRL. Three times. Then I contemplated posting up a big announcment and changing everyone's avatars to Debora. Then I just quietly received the cosplay items from the Debora NPC to add the finishing touches to the Debora I made for my party. Joy!
Plus, Dragonlord Claws if you're lucky enough to draw them in DQVC. Its the first Rank 10 equipment I've gotten ahold of.The ones sold in the postgame shop in Stornway have higher attack power. Actually, a lot of the dragon items are already sold in Upover.
And for an update, my characters are now 88 Minstrel, 92 Martial Artist, and two 78 Sages (Cobra Cardinals run away from me on sight, so that's telling you something). Wearing Sacrosant armour, a life bracer, and pair of Celestria's Raiments to regenerate health I've been knocking out Fowleye and Sir Sanguinus without the need for normal healing. My treasure maps go up to level 66 Gold now. I topped 1 million gold for a few days but have since sunk back under.Goldwise I'm close to broke now, as I've only been logging in to check DQVC exclusives and check if Debora's arrived. Now that she has, I'm going to try to level my Debora character to 100.
Hyperguy has moved on to a better (worse?) place: Final Fantasy XIVI have stopped playing Final Fantasy XIV. For good. I'm not going to pick it up again until after they fix the game's issues and until after they switch the game's engine to utilize DirectX 11. The game's in such shambles right now that as a way of apology Square Enix has actually given players an additional free 30 days of game time as an apology, but in the game's current state I'm not sure who'd want to play for another 30 days. Seriously, fuck FFXIV.
Actually, a lot of the dragon items are already sold in Upover.
I haven't tried any of the downloadable quests yet, but I should. I'm starting to get tired of nonstory quests, or quests where you get a lesser item than the one you give away to complete the quest. Those types of quests are the most annoying, since sometimes an NPC will want an item that's difficult to acquire or alchemize, and they'll give you something common in return. Makes me wary of completing all of the quests.
Ah, JG, I got you a copy of Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 on Steam(The gift code was sent to your gmail address). Please consider installing it so we could play some time. I know your computer can handle it as we have the same motherboard in our rigs. My SteamID is jpsantiago.