#hero DQ1

[jjinpang]

[questersrest]

so where did my boy scrungus, hero of alefgard, slayer of the dragonlord,

find

these?

he inhereted them little booties from someone.

or did he just want some shoes to go with this fit so he got some iron boots and doused them in the goop of all those slimes he slaughtered?

[sinnohborn-trainer-evan]

Together on a Quest

Courtesy of this art piece goes to Your Femboy Shapeshifter!

When the world is thrust into great peril, there needs to be a hero to deliver it to peace once again. When you think of what makes a hero, one would assume a young man clad in armor, bearing a sword brimming with light and and a shield sturdy (and yet lightweight) enough to deflect all manner of monster strikes and sinister incantations. And how far would a hero get through his long journey but without a valiant steed to share that same spirited will for justice in a world overcome by sin and despair? Most importantly, a hero must be courageous, steadfast in seeing his goals met, and above all else, be a faithful example of mankind's love for all life that lives!

I am cosplayed as the Hero, Alef, from the very first Dragon Quest, and with me is my ever loyal companion Arthur the Keldeo!

[rock-the-illuminary]

He is equal parts silly and serious and I love him

Reupload from 2021. Dragon Quest 1 fanart

[slugdragoon]

RPG Role Analysis Series #2 - Dragon Quest II

Dragon Quest II introduces a party of three, and the simplest way to describe them is one purely physical fighter, one strong mage, and a third somewhere in the middle. But, by looking at how magic was assigned to the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke specifically, I think the members of this party are designed to have specific responsibilities to each other as a group, and it's not as simple as Moonbrooke being the party healer.

Prince of Midenhall - The strongest and sturdiest of all party members, but unable to cast any spells (barring magic items), the Prince of Midenhall is the most basic warrior type.  Able to equip nearly all of the equipment (including exclusive rights to the strongest ones) in the game.  Most reliable damage dealer, the other characters will be focused on giving him an opening to attack. Of note is that Midenhall has the Flee action instead of a Spells menu in combat, making him the only one that can pull his comrades out of a fight going badly. If the other party members are allowed to die, Midenhall might be the most likely to finish a fight on his own, but has to walk back out of the dungeon alone if he's missing a revival item, making him the rescuer of the party.

Prince of Cannock - An archetypical magic knight, extremely close to the DQ1 Hero, but with additional spells Squelch (single target poison antidote), Kabuff (mass defence buff), Thwack (low chance instakill), Kazing (revival spell), and Kamikazee (self-sacrifice to destroy all enemies), and lacking Snooze and Glow.  Cannock is not as strong or hardy as Midenhall, and has less MP than Moonbrooke, emphasizing a jack of all trades style magic knight. In DQ1, the Hero's MP pool couldn't be compared to any other character, but having another mage on the party makes clear that, despite essentially being the same character transplanted here, Cannock's magic is meant to be mid-range.

Princess of Moonbrooke - The Princess starts at level 1 with Midheal and the largest MP pool, while also getting Squelch at level 2 (poison antidote) and multi-target healing midgame, which seems to set her up as the main party healer, though she notably lacks revival, which is uncommon in a white mage type.  She also has Whoosh and Kaboom, powerful multi-target damaging spells, and Kasap (multi-target defense debuff), so fits as a red mage analogue.  Offensively, Princess can only spend large amounts of MP to do multi-target damaging spells, but has a large MP pool to accommodate this.  She also has Snooze (sleep spell), Dazzle (multi-target accuracy debuff), Holy Protection (repel), Evac (dungeon escape), Safe Passage (floor hazard null) and click (door unlocking), so her utility spells all in some way, including her battle crowd control spells tend to avoid or mitigate damage or enemy encounters/attacks.  She also gets Hocus Pocus at high level, a random effect wild magic sort of spell.  In addition to having somewhat higher agility than the other party members, she could be read as a bit roguish, being rewarded not just for healing, but for avoiding fights/damage by conserving healing MP for occasional large magical attacks, and punished for allowing the party to be knocked out, as she herself cannot revive them.

Things I find interesting about this party: Midenhall is the only party member who can escape a battle, either of the others can escape the dungeon, but only Cannock can cast Zoom to bring you all the way back to town. The game was really close to having you need all three alive to make the entire trip, but you can pull off a full escape with just Midenhall and Cannock. Midenhall and Moonbrooke would have to walk back to town from the dungeon. There isn't a clear cleric of white mage analogue in the Final Fantasy sense. Moonbrooke heals, but has enemy debuffs and can't recover her failure to keep HP up with a revive spell. Cannock can bring the others back and has defensive buffs, but misses the strongest heal spells. Combined, they have to keep each other alive to keep Midenhall alive to put through the most damage. I like also how Cannock can only reliably do single target offensive magic, and has to either roll the dice on an instant death spell, or sacrifice himself to hit more (really a panic button on the only character with reliable revival), and Moonbrooke can only reliably do multi-target spells at the risk of blowing through MP. Moonbrooke also lacks buffing or revival options, but can get those effects with a random chance through Hocus Pocus.

[henlp]

Dragon Quest protagonists

References down below.

.DQ1 & DQ2:

.DQ3 Male/Female:

.DQ4 Male/Female:

.DQ5:

.DQ6 & DQ7:

.DQ8 & DQ11:

[supertrainstationh]

My Nintendo Direct 6/24 Results

Mario & Luigi: Brothership - I've dreamed of Mario and Luigi being presented like this with polygonal 3d and a dynamic camera since the GameCube era, so its great to see it finally come true. First game in the series since the first one in 2003 not to have some obvious gimmick in terms of how the Mario Brothers are controlled in and out of battle, VERY happy to see that.

Super Mario Party Jamboree - Mario Party Superstars in 2021 was the first Mario Party game I purchased since Mario Party 4, (not counting Mario Party Advance) and this looks like an excellent and fun game. I find the inclusion of two retro maps odd since there isn't a focus on old material like in SuperStars.

Dragon Quest 1 + 2 2D HD Remaster - I never played and DQ games before, and I've been interested in featuring DQ1's NES version on stream so as to explore the earliest era of home console RPGs, so I'm torn as to if I'll play the NES version, or this modern remake.

Stray - It may end up being the least impressive version of the game, but Stray's hyper dense gritty high tech city setting got my attention and I was praying for a Switch version. In any game I play town and city exploration is one of my favorite aspects when towns are featured, so I'll be excited to play this one.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - The idea of Zelda exploring Hyrule from a top down perspective hasn't been explored since the CDI game "Zelda's Adventure", so It's great to see Nintendo take a swing at the concept, and do so in a way that is true to the nature of Zelda's depiction as a wise protector of Hyrule, but not a soldier or fighter in the way Link is. It feels like the "echo" system is a developer tool from the development of Link's Awakening's Switch remake that the expanded into something that defines the actual gameplay experience when fleshed out into a game mechanic. As an aside, there was a small amount of backlash against Aonuma accusing him of being sexist for not having the option for a female hero in Breath of the Wild, which was absurd, and I'm glad this proves those people wrong.

Metroid Prime 4 - SEVEN YEARS after it was first announced, we finally have screenshots and gameplay of this title. The announcement of Prime 4 should go down in history as one of the most severely mishandled strategic moves Nintendo ever executed, but the game looks great. I have a copy of Prime Remaster for Switch I've yet to play on stream, we'll see if I get to it before Prime 4 comes out.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection - I think this is the first re-release of these titles since Disney purchased Marvel, and it's amazing to see this happen, as I genuinely doubted if it would be possible. I don't care about these games but I'm glad they're being made available.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition - I will totally buy this. I love high score attack runs of Vs. Pinball and I've had the NES Remix games on my list for years. Actual speedrunning and skill challenged condensed into curated mini-game like format is fun, and I'm certainly going to get my hands on this one

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD - Doesn't look graphically impressive even for Switch, but this was one I hoped would come over, and it still looks great. I hope the forced motion controls that made me fall off the Wii version have been revamped. But from my perspective, I haven't even played and covered the first DKC on my show yet, so I'm not likely picking this one up soon.

Only game I specifically hoped for that wasn't featured was the remake/remaster of Beyond Good and Evil, which got an ESRB rating late last year, but has yet to be officially announced for whatever reason.

10/10 show for me. If for the rest of my life I could only play games on Switch, I would never ever be bored, ever.

But I'd still rather play RCA Studio II than most modern stuff anyway.

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[rock-the-illuminary]

EIGHT CAN DO THAT OMG I’M LAUGHING SO HARD- 😂😂

Friend sent this tweet, and I desperately needed to make it into a gif 🥺

[xbuster]

I started my first Dragon Quest game last year and it was a lot of fun. I got a job and fell off of it but I still like it a lot. Dyou have a favorite game from the series? I have VIII and XI

I don’t because I love lots of them for different reasons and it’s always impossible for me to choose an absolute favorite. Maybe 5 has the most good points for me? Like it has a very small main cast following 4’s really large group of characters, but it makes it have a really personal story with lots of twists and turns. But I really do love the ensemble cast of 4 and its chapter structure and I’d say it probably has the best progression. 7 is really big in its scope and Auster, Kiefer, and Maribel make such a good, down to earth trio that they’re probably my favorites. 2 has such a cozy feel to it and I love its trio as well, especially with the whole angle of each character being a prince or princess of a different kingdom and all of them being descendants of the Hero from DQ1.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

The followup to an icon. Dragon Quest 2, would later get the subtitle Luminaries of the Legendary Line. Bigger and better is the theme here. We play in a seemly new setting only to later discover this is just the full world the first game only showed you one continent of. We're not alone anymore, this time focusing on a trio of descendants of the previous hero. The Prince of Midenhall, the Prince of Cannock, and the Princess of Moonbrook team up to defeat the evil sorcerer Hargon.

Always felt the series really comes into its own here. DQ1 keeps things focused on the main story more than later installments that get a bit more episodic. We get some memorable moments and concepts like finding the princess and breaking her curse or the absolutely cool mechanic of the illusory castle. I love hopping out of the tower with the wind cloak to get over a river and that's stuck with me for years. It's a fun edition and the new party is executed fairly well. Do the characters get a lot of rich dialogue? No, but they have personality even if it comes through more mechanically. Princess was an early blorbo for me too.

You can't talk about this game though without talking about Rhone. The late game difficulty spike. Early DQ games for RPGs are actually quite challenging and 2 is no exception. But after an absolutely brutal dungeon you come out the other side in an alien world. The icy plateau of Rhone where Hargon resides. And the regular enemies here are as tough as bosses. If you're lucky enough to make it to your safe inn/save point...you're here for good. Unless you wanna beat through that dungeon again and you don't. You'll just need to grind at least 7-8 levels to move forward and keep in mind this game up to this point only gets you to around 20. That said...never really felt it was that bad. Usually takes one good session to get there and then you have a great final act.

[megamijadeheart]

Conversation with soon to be former roommate (summarized):

R: "So we're you a Dragon Quest fan or a Final Fantasy fan first?"

Me: I played Dragon Warrior first but I was a Final Fantasy fan first.

R: <trying to understand> Oh, so you had, like. A player's guide for Final Fantasy? But not the game yet? I had the Final Fantasy I walkthrough issue of Nintendo Power and I tried to run my friends through it like a tabletop, writing everything down.

Me: That sounds like so much fun. It was essential d&d. But no, for me playing a game doesn't automatically make me a fan of it. Most of my memories of Dragon Warrior were doing the reading for my younger brother while he ran the controller, because the younger sibling always gets priority.

R: <wincing> That's rough. I used to love Dragon Warrior, I would pretend I was Erdric. I didn't really know who he was, but he had the cool sword, the cool armor.

Me: He was the legendary hero who all these other heros came from, he had to be cool.

R: Right!

Me: I was a Mario girl. And Legend of Zelda. I was scary good at Duck Hunt. My veteran grandfather said I knew things about marksmanship he didn't know until after rifle training.

R: <nervous chuckle>

Me: But when we got the Super Nintendo I got to play Final Fantasy III (actually 6) and not only was the story fantastic, but I got to play as a woman for the first time. Terra Branford was *me*. Like, you could pretend to be any of a hundred characters because boys were everywhere. But FF6 was the first time I saw a woman who got to struggle with moral issues and existentialism, not just "*simper*" (looking at you DQ1 princess) and get carried around by the hero. Not just a maguffin to rescue.

R: I guess I never really thought of that since it's better now.

Me: <laughing> The difference between boy gammers and girl gamers of our generation, in the essay I will.

R: <laughing> Yeah. Things are definitely better now, but they're not really...

Me: there will always be inequality. I want to see enough women in games that they can show weakness without being considered bad representation. That they can just be characters. I was to see a black character who's not fucking *comic relief*!

R: <wincing> Yeah... Yeah.

Me: I want to see a black female protagonist. I want her hair long and in braids. I want her to be able to express Ander and frustration without being "the angry black woman"

R: Yeah. But to get that you need to have a lot of other characters-

Me: <gesturing with wide eyes to question why that would be a bad thing>

R: which. Yes, okay, would be ideal. But unfortunately with the way young male gamers are almost curling back-

Me: They are not my target audience! They don't have to play my game! They can *cry* about how this game is not for them if they want!

R: <at least looking uncomfortable to be saying it out loud> Yeah, but to make money, as a triple A company...

Me: you have to be racist and sexist?

[questersrest]

Speaking DQB2, I read somewhere on Reddit that the novelization of DQ2 said that Hargon was 300 years old. If he's 300, and the first game took place ~100 years BEFORE the second one, where was Hargon during the first game? Was he working for the Dragonlord?

dragonlord seemed to only conquer alefgard while dq2 tells us that alefgard is just one small part of a larger world. dragonlord could be a minion of hargon sent to deal with alefgard while hargon dealt with the rest of the world, perhaps because that’s where the descendant of erdrick was so it needed special treatment (my idea here is similar to nelgel of dq10v1 who was a minion of maldragora of dq10v2 sent to the isle of ethene/tenton to murder the hero).

we also don’t how long before dq1 that dq3 happened. could be 200 years and hargon could be a surviving fragment of zoma? or hargon could be older than that?

[painted-soldier]

From the Dragon Quest 1 Guidebook

[loup-roux]

Princess..

[slugdragoon]

RPG Role Analysis Series #1 - Dragon Quest

As an exercise for myself, I've been breaking down RPG characters and classes down to understand their gameplay roles and niches. Because my game is inspired by games like Shin Megami Tensei and Pokemon where you recruit and build your team from a large pool of characters, I want to have them represent many different niches, while allowing for emergent combinations and eliminating redundancies between characters.

As I have been playing Dragon Quest 6, and as my own mini tribute to Toriyama, I thought I'd start by working through some from Dragon Quest.

Dragon Quest 1's Hero is the archetypical magic knight, and it's a common archetype for JRPG primary protagonists, due to the main character usually having high all-around stats, and needing utility to compensate for story beats where more specialized characters may be absent. Fans may argue whether FF7's Cloud feels more like a red mage or a mystic knight FF5-style, or you could call it a spellsword, but the concept is similar. I always imagine the image of Gandalf holding a sword in one hand and a staff in the other.

This is an interesting one because there is only one playable character in DQ1. There's a lot to learn from a jack-of-all trades, if I want to design to allow solo runs of my game, which is more party-based, or if I want to avoid making versatile units too powerful so they do not overshadow specialized units. The design of the Hero feels very intentional in that you have a lot of utility with the limited number of spells in the game.

Key spells are Heal/Midheal and Sizz/Sizzle (a damaging Fireball), the only spells with multiple tiers, and notably no relevance to elemental damage. Secondary spells are Snooze for single-target sleep and Fizzle for disabling spell-casting, both crowd control suitable to restrict enemies because they outnumber the solo player character in DQ1. 

He also has utility spells like Glow (cave illumination), Holy Protection (low level enemy repellant), Evac (dungeon escape), and Zoom (overworld teleportation). Hero plays like a versatile dungeoneer that can delve on his own because that's what he had to be. I think it's interesting how much of this carries over to other JRPG protagonists partly due to sensible design, partly due to tradition. For example, it's extremely common for their class identity to be "swing around a big sword, but be able to cast single-target healing, at minimum", despite not needing necessarily to self-heal like you do in DQ1.

I have thoughts on how the party design of Dragon Quest II exists in conversation with the first game, but I'll follow up in my next post.

[jibanyani]

 dragon quest lil boys! c: planning on drawing all of them