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At just a little under 80 hours, I finished the main story in Dragon Quest IX last night. I have completed all of the "general" quests that are available before you complete the main story and the "vocation specific" quests for each of my characters (minstrel, martial artist, priest, and mage). I have also completed the first "weapon-specific" quests for each of my characters (sword, fisticuffs, stave, and wand), and about a third of the alchenomicon.

I love the game, however, and - given the amount of post-game content - I am going to start working on the post-game "general" quests, the DLC quests, and leveling my characters to finish the second "weapon specific" quests for each one. After that...I guess that I will start changing up my characters' vocations to clear even more quests...this game is so awesome.

(My wife, however, is probably wondering why I have not yet started my brand new copies of Star Fox 64 3D and New Super Mario Bros. 2.)

EDIT: As an aside, I used the game's character creation tool to model each of the party members based on the members of my family. My three-year-old daughter is the hero/minstrel, my wife is the martial artist, my one-year-old son is the mage, and I am the priest. As a result, my daughter loves to sit on my lap and watch our family - and particularly her avatar - "fight monsters" (as long as the monsters are not "too scary"...the "happy slimes" are her favorite).

isiolia wrote:You must have used a much different build than I did, 'cause ammo for the best weapons was definitely a bit scarce, but it wasn't that dire. Just more of a "save this for the boss" type thing.

Well, I rolled out a Toreador so I created a social gunslinger. For combat I maxed out firearms and perception and added some stamina, no points went to melee so I was pretty pitiful if I had to resort to it. This also meant no healing, because sucking blood in combat is related to physical skills.

Before getting into the Kue-jin stronghold I had enough cash and spare clips to fill the Magnum, the Aug Rifle and the Flamethrower, which shouldn't be too shaby. The problem is that the stronghold is a really long part of the game and after the first 50 guards, the Magnum runs out and I start sacrificing bullets I should reserve for the boss.

And the problem is that you have to use those weapons because the others just don't have enough power for this stage of the game. I'm stuck making 16 dmg shots with the shotgun, I need a full clip to kill a guard and they kill me in three sword hits so if I want to save good ammo I need to cheese out and abuse the health regeneration system.


Now, as you say, you can normally sneak out, which I did at the hunter's hideout but the level design here doesn't really allow for it, you can't sneak through a room full of enemies unless you have a special power for it.

It just forced tactics other than running in guns blazing. Non-boss enemies are susceptible to a lot - draining them of blood, making them kill themselves, going invisible and walking by them, sneaking up and stabbing them, and so on.

That's normally true, in fact, it's one of the cool things of the game, you always have the option to talk, to murder or to sneak. But the Kue-jin stronghold isn't designed for sneaking, I could only kill one or two guards that way.

How do you get them to kill each other? I have never seen that in the game!

Plus you can pretty readily get powerful melee weapons, which don't take nearly the skill points to be effective.

I would but more bullets are better bang for my buck. A good melee weapon costs around 350$, which is enough to fill a decent weapon like the Brock pistol.


BTW, does a high humanity rating have any effect on the game itself? I got to ten pretty quickly and I did't notice it affecting the gamestate. (Other than frenzy, that is)

I liked the crossbow too, and if I remember some of the guards in that area use them (actually, the flaming crossbow) so you can get more ammo that way. Remember you can use Blood Buff to compensate for low stats, and some other disciplines to push damage up at least for some shots.

How do you get them to kill each other? I have never seen that in the game!

Clan dependent. I played a Ventrue first, and my second game is Malkavian. Ventrue get Domination, Malkavian get Dementation, both give you powers that'll make humans commit suicide or start attacking others. Both also have abilities to incapacitate humans for easy feeding in combat, provided you don't get swarmed by other enemies. Do some damage, daze, kill by draining their blood. But, those clans are otherwise a bit weaker in terms of combat, and are less effective fighting other vampires.

I would but more bullets are better bang for my buck. A good melee weapon costs around 350$, which is enough to fill a decent weapon like the Brock pistol.

Unless you count opportunity cost, the weapons I mostly used were free. The basic katana drops from the boss of a side quest that you can do very early on, and the Tal'Mahe'Ra Blade (katana with aggrevated damage, and the best melee weapon) is sitting on the ground in the Hallowbrook Hotel where you fight the boss (if you have the unofficial patch, otherwise it's on the roof).

Humanity just affects chance to frenzy, far as I know. Basically, if you make decisions like a monster, you'll run the risk of losing control, which could mean dying or breaking masquerade.
It doesn't change the story, far as I'm aware.

Ok, so after a nearly 20 hour romp through the Abyss(I left it on a few times when I had to go do something) during which I was entirely unable to save, I've finally gotten all the way down and beaten what is apparently the hardest boss in Wild Arms 3. I feel a bit let down, but my party was pretty much built to withstand everything he could throw at me, and the only times it became an issue, buffs and healing were applied the next turn to make up for it.

But having accomplished that, now I've got a bunch of little crap to do to get all the EX Keys. I have to save up another million in $ to buy the EX Key in the Black Market, I've got another 45 or so battles with Arioch, and I have to take care of the two longest growing plants in the Secret Garden. And my characters level-wise are roughly 85-90, so to level, I will pretty much have to slog my way back through the Abyss. The bosses are dead, sure, but that's still a huge chunk of time during which I'm unable to save or cut off my PS2.

Great.

I really want to beat this game, but I really want to completely master it too.

isiolia wrote:I liked the crossbow too, and if I remember some of the guards in that area use them (actually, the flaming crossbow)

You remember well. Since enemies never miss in this game they were a pain in the ass, I had to cheese out the part with the idols

Remember you can use Blood Buff to compensate for low stats, and some other disciplines to push damage up at least for some shots.

Since my blood pool was very limited, using blood buff or Celerity for mooks didn't seem too attractive for me. I should have used some, though, I think one or two points would have been enough for the Kue-jin boss.

The basic katana drops from the boss of a side quest that you can do very early on, and the Tal'Mahe'Ra Blade (katana with aggrevated damage, and the best melee weapon) is sitting on the ground in the Hallowbrook Hotel where you fight the boss (if you have the unofficial patch, otherwise it's on the roof).

I didn't notice there was anything, probably because I was laughing after killing the boss in two seconds. Celerity and automatic rifles are fun

I did around 14 dmg with the normal Katana, which is pretty pitiful when mooks have 150 or so HP.

It doesn't change the story, far as I'm aware.

I ask because the advice screens say that a low humanity rating will be reflected in your dialogue options. LaCroix did scold me for a masquerade breach, though, which was pretty cool.

I was kind of dissapointed that there was no personal horror angle in the game, but given it's an electronic adaptation it would be impossible so I shouldn't complain.

I just recruited Albel in Star Ocean 3 and I'm enjoying that mid-game TriAce difficulty spike. I'm underleveled, as usual. I love how they make you get familiar with all the mechanics before you have a chance. My character hasn't died for a while, but Cliff runs straight into danger with no one to defend him, and Nel stands around doing nothing when she should be healing (and attacking when she should be standing around doing nothing). Also they both like to sidestep in circles around me

This is less of a problem in their Valkyrie games because you control the whole party at once. Why couldn't it have more AI options like in S02? You know, like "Heal your friends?"

I'm loving it though. There are some things I'd like to change but this is one enjoyable game. I spend a lot of time laughing at this game. it's a good time.

So a few days ago I picked up Soul Blazer and have been playing that on and off. Currently just reached the third level and I'm enjoying it so far. The game reminds me of a cross between Act Raiser and Illusion of Gaia, which makes sense considering that the game was released between those two titles.

Really, the moment I destroyed the first monster lair in the first stage and you have a house materialize out of nowhere my jaw just dropped.

WallCrusher wrote:So a few days ago I picked up Soul Blazer and have been playing that on and off. Currently just reached the third level and I'm enjoying it so far. The game reminds me of a cross between Act Raiser and Illusion of Gaia, which makes sense considering that the game was released between those two titles.

And more importantly, from the same developers. Quintet.

Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma make up some of kind of strangely connected trilogy of sorts. I'm not too big on Illusion of Gaia to be honest though, seems like a lot are though. None of the music was that special, and the story/characters were just beyond bad to me haha, that and some awful game design (hey you gotta push this button RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOTHING!) etc. I really wanted to like it and love Zelda-esque overhead RPG's, but yeah.

Soul Blazer was super simple in comparison, but in turn, just really fun stuff.

Terranigma is the best of them all by far though. Still some weird game design ideas and weird parts throughout the game, but yeah it's insane. Really cinematic-esque for an SNES game too... it was quite an experience.

Alundra is a lot like these games too, I never got too far myself though but from what I played it seemed pretty amazing.

Heh, yeah, I'd love to play Terranigma without resorting to emulation (I live in NA). I may just end up getting a bootleg for the SNES, but even those cost a pretty penny.

As for Illusion of Gaia, I think I understand where you are coming from. It doesn't help that the translation was real crummy, so the feel of the story and characters took a hit.

That's a good point, I could kind of figure the translation was probably super bad and edited a lot (since Quintet liked to deal with religious themes). That's a shame.

So perhaps if the translation were more accurate, I would enjoy it more.