Games Beaten 2017

[PartridgeSenpai]

Well, most of them were less than 30 hours, anyway. I do know, though, that most of the 8-bit ones required a lot of grinding. That's what makes them a lot less fun these days. Interestingly, though, the best ones had their grinding up front. The original Final Fantasy, for instance, really smoothed out once you were past the Marsh Cave. Dragon Quest III and IV only had a few major chokepoints that required grinding beyond the start. The best 16-bit RPGs didn't really require much grinding at all; Chrono Trigger is one (but it is pretty easy overall), and I think Final Fantasy III falls into that as well unless you want to outfit your entire team with Ultima (which I did).

I'd say even the DS remakes of DQ games have some pretty mean choke-points at times. Thankfully it's usually just the final boss who will absolutely destroy you, more often than not Xp

[Sarge]

I must be really weird, then, because I absolutely rolled through the DS versions. That being said, I'm sure prior knowledge from the NES games and others in the series helped with that. Really, winning towards the end of most Dragon Quest games is about having one person with the Sage's Stone healing every single round, and having someone else supplement as needed. Before you get that, MP management can be dicey at times.

Also, Oomph/Bikill and Sap/Decrease are your friends.

That being said, if you're not stopping at least for a little bit in areas where you encounter the various Metal enemies, I can see things getting rough at points.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I must be really weird, then, because I absolutely rolled through the DS versions. That being said, I'm sure prior knowledge from the NES games and others in the series helped with that. Really, winning towards the end of most Dragon Quest games is about having one person with the Sage's Stone healing every single round, and having someone else supplement as needed. Before you get that, MP management can be dicey at times.

Also, Oomph/Bikill and Sap/Decrease are your friends.

That being said, if you're not stopping at least for a little bit in areas where you encounter the various Metal enemies, I can see things getting rough at points.

I mean I'm fairly certain I remember beating the final bosses of the ones I've played (4-6) on my first try; they were just REALLY hard battles to the death that made for a fantastic ending to the game, so I didn't really mind them

I also really tried to do all the possible sidequests in all of them, so I wasn't under-geared or under-stat'd. I have to imagine it just came down to never didicatedly grinding and/or not knowing the best possible tactics

Note to Future Partridge: When you hack your SNES classic, throw the SFC remake of DQ3 on that bad boy. Need to play it some day.

[Sarge]

Well, now that is absolutely true. Those battles are always touch-and-go. I remember getting owned in Dragon Warrior IV, but I was admittedly underleveled the first time I went in by that point, because it took me three or four shots at it. I also think my strategy might have been a little non-optimal back then. That game is a lot easier when you can control all of your party's actions, although sometimes having an AI bail you out with a heal is pretty darn cool.

And an absolute yes to the SFC remake. I played it not terribly long ago, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The next time, though, I'm dropping back to the NES version for pure nostalgia reasons.

[marurun]

I have read that some folks consider the Gameboy Color DQIII to be pretty darn good

[Sarge]

I have read that some folks consider the Gameboy Color DQIII to be pretty darn good

Count me one of them. Despite the reduced color and resolution, it brings pretty much every aspect over from the SFC version (including animated monster sprites!), and adds an addictive (depending on your point of view) monster medal system and a new dungeon associated with it. It also ends up being slightly more polished than the fan translation out there, which is good but definitely has a few rough edges.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I have read that some folks consider the Gameboy Color DQIII to be pretty darn good

Count me one of them. Despite the reduced color and resolution, it brings pretty much every aspect over from the SFC version (including animated monster sprites!), and adds an addictive (depending on your point of view) monster medal system and a new dungeon associated with it. It also ends up being slightly more polished than the fan translation out there, which is good but definitely has a few rough edges.

+1

DQIII on GBC is one of the best RPGs on any console. It is old-fashioned JRPG perfection. I cannot recommend that game highly enough.

[Nemoide]

^Agreed. It's really an absolutely fantastic game. It's the only version of DQIII I've played, but I'd probably say it's even my favorite DQ game, even though I love almost all of the games in the series pretty deeply.

[Exhuminator]

I think DQIII GBC is being over-represented aesthetically here. The GBC version's graphical disparity is a bit more stark than just "reduced color and resolution". The amount of detail from SFC to GBC is significantly reduced. There's a loss of special effects like transparencies and scaling, no battle backgrounds, and animated backdrop elements are mostly absent. A few image contrasts for example's sake:

When it comes to music, the GBC chiptunes do sound great, but they can't match the orchestral audio of the SFC (those strings!).

Town theme GBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hhk1bO1eEw

Town theme SFC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev3fq39 ... O9&index=5

Now I'm not saying that DQIII on GBC isn't fantastic. It is fantastic for its platform. But I am saying that the GBC doesn't begin to match the SFC version when it comes to graphics and audio. The difference is night and day.

[Xeogred]

That looks very awesome. Someday I'll surprise you guys and actually play one.

DQ5 SFC never looked appealing, but I guess the other SNES games look good. Why did DQ3 get an SNES remake? One of the most popular ones?

DQ4 NES looks sublime.

DQ11 is sounding amazing by the way. I'm actually really excited for the PS4 version, those Toriyama aesthetics!