#dragon quest vi

[uniguinflutist]

Currently writing the latest chapter of my upcoming fic, "Reassembly", where Hargon is reincarnated as the son of Malroth and the Builder. This scene is too hilarious NOT to share.

[video-game-jams]

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (SNES) - Another World

[beantothemax]

my dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “realms of revelation” 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

me: yeah whatever i don't feel shit

five minutes later: dude I swear I just saw murdaw turn me into stone in my dream

my buddy milly pacing back and forth: the scrimsley townspeople are lying to us

[arcadebroke]

[falconearring]

Okay maybe I'll draw them happy just this once

[arundraws]

Hero, Dragon Quest VI

This started months ago as an anatomy study and then I turned it into the hero from DQVI since it was what I played recently at the time. Might actually be one of my favorite hero designs.

[ew01z]

no one is immune to dragon quest puns .. i am like 1.5 hours into the game and six has already had enough

[incorrect-dragonquest-quotes]

[Ruff as a Youtuber]

Ruff: Hello welcome to my very first video in which I will be trying out different hair products.

Ruff: *sprays hairspray into his mouth*

Ruff: Well right of the bat I can tell you, this one isn’t very good.

Kiefer, the cameraman: Try the hair mousse next.

[slugdragoon]

RPG Role Analysis Series #10 - Dragon Quest VI

So, I just finished Dragon Quest VI, and I have some thoughts. It exhibits both good and bad class design philosophies, in my opinion, but ultimately does not work overall (to be clear, I mean the class system, which I am taking a look at, not the entire game).

DQVI has a vocation system, which means any character can be assigned any job, but each character also has inherent traits that strongly suggest a role for them. I like this generally. I liked it in Final Fantasy X when each party member had access to the same Sphere Grid, but with different starting positions such that is takes more effort to make, say, Lulu something other than a black mage.

While I tend to prefer RPGs where characters have their own role that is informed by the character, as well as RPGs with class systems where you fully define your own party and their roles, for RPGs with defined characters, I prefer it not to be completely open, even if their roles are extremely flexible, but I want their personality and design to suggest something in terms of their gameplay. This is why, as brilliant as Final Fantasy VII is, I do feel that the materia system allows you to turn any character into anything, with only minor differences regarding stats and Limit Breaks, and I prefer FFVI and FFIX where characters have a job. X felt like a great compromise, where you could jump all the way across the skill tree, but there were limited opportunities to do so.

So, in theory, I like that DQVI has party members gain abilities on level-up, distinct from their chosen vocation, that the equipment they have access to is tied to the character, not the job (also makes reorganizing equipment on a vocation change convenient), and of course their stats are different. So, the characters themselves have enough to suggest a role, and then you put another one on top of it.

My problem is this: the game's abilities are imbalanced because some really necessary abilities are spread across multiple jobs such that each character really needs to master multiple to beat the game. With the exception of Carver, who stayed my main damage dealer, I did not feel my party had distinct identities by endgame, but instead all needed access to a full-party heal spell (either Hustle Dance or Multiheal), access to revival (Kazing), and reliable damage. Also, charatcers get abilities that exist within vocations by level-up, which suggests that's their role, and their stats match, but taking the vocation is technically redundant because they do not learn the same ability twice, and barring Carver's Double Up and a plot-related spell for Ashlynn, character abilities are pretty quickly overshadowed.

The vocation tree looks like this: You have to master multiple basic jobs in order to combine them and get the corresponding advanced job. Theres's a cycle of 4 basic jobs (Warrior/Martial Artist/Priest/Mage) That each combine with two possible neighbours to make a cycle of 4 more advanced classes, but each has 1 member in the cycle it cannot combine with. There are two separate mini-trees (Gadabout + Dancer = Luminary) and (Thief + Monster Master + Merchant = Ranger) that have nothing to do with that cycle, and don't offer an easy pivot to anything within it. Hero is a special job that is accessible by anyone if they master Luminary, Ranger, Sage, and Gladiator, which means they have to master 13 jobs first (that won't happen). However, the main protagonist can become a Hero by only mastering one of these advanced jobs. You keep all of the abilities from any job, so advanced jobs are just fully combined skill lists of the previous jobs, plus whatever you get from the new class, but Hero can be a bit different depending on what path the protag took to get there. There are also two special monster classes that are accessible via an item, but have no class prerequisites.

Combining classes is really cool, but there's a few issues with doing it this way. Keeping prereq class abilities means every class in the cycle overlaps a third of it's skill list with another class, and another third with a different class. For example, for Sage, you have all the Priest skills, but so does the Paladin, and the Armamentalist has all of your Mage skills. If you master an advanced class, that's 3 (2 basic, 1 advanced done), but you can pivot within the cycle by doing less in the future, just by going around it. For example, the Sage can take Martial Artist and then Paladin and then if they master Warrior later, they unlock 2 advanced classes at once. However, switching between the cycle and either Ranger or Luminary trees, or between those two offers no contribution to their advancement. Ranger, for some reason, takes the most effort even though it's one of the worst classes. If you invest 4 vocations masterings into Ranger, there's no easy way to pivot out. Luminary is good, but you also kind of require one or two for Hustle Dance, except that you probably also want them to be Sages because that's where you get Multiheal and Kazing, (not strictly exclusive) Magic Barrier and Oomph.

Sage has so many key healing and buffing spells, 3 out of 4 of my frontline party took Sage. The exception was Carver, and he carried DPS the whole game with Double Up, which makes every other physical attack skill basically obsolete. This is one case where an inherent trait of a character gives them a distinct role. Carver doesn't need a Paladin vocation to learn Double Up, so he could use it early, and I could keep him a Gladiator, and then a Dragon later. However, Double Up, while being obscenely strong, also makes the user go first, every time, so there was no reason to use anything else for damage. If I wanted others with good Strength to use it, they had to be Paladins, But also Sages, such that all my magic users were Luminary/Sages and my more physical characters were Paladin/Sages (+1 Hero). Falcon Slash felt like a compromise, and some multi-hit abilities were interchangeable. This is in a game where party members easily get 8 pages of abilities to flip through in battle. Unfortunately, this results in very little class diversity, but it's kind of demanded by the sheer frequency of heavy mass-party attacks in the late game. There's just a set of skills that most of your party needs, and it's spread all over the tree.

I honestly thought I was going to pick apart the classes individually when I started this post, but I think I had too much to say about why the system as a whole makes them blend together. I think there's a better game in here, and I'm hoping it's DQVII, which uses the same system. Right now I've started DQIX, which has very different vocations.

[nintendometro]

Terry 'Dragon Quest VI' Super Famicom

[figurasretro]

dragon quest vi

[lubbee]

6 days!

[intothecast]

Into the Aether | 263 | Lt. Surge, Best-Selling Author

Ha ha! Great battle kid. You sure showed me! Here's your badge... and uh, if you have some extra time do you think you could give me some notes on this manuscript I wrote? It's about love and loss on the battlefield. Pikachu says a curse word in it!  Discussed: Retro handhelds, Pokemon Unbound, Tinyfolks, Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, Astral Ascent, Golden Sun, Dragon Warrior, Dragon Quest VI

Listen to the show here 😘

[saturnsnight]

A special jotchua for @icarusiswax

[m3djed]

WARRIOR CATS CANON IN THE DRAGON QUEST UNIVERSE???????

[beantothemax]