HD-2D remakes draws near! Command?Travel through vast worlds and discover where the legendary DRAGON QUEST franchise began with the stunning DRAGON QUEST III...
I own and have played the Gameboy remakes a few times. I would say going 1-2-3 shows the progression of game mechanic development really well - each feels like a refinement of the previous with some fresh new ideas added in. Additionally, though it’s a fairly loose tie , the story across the 3 of them is related. That being said, though, I believe 2 is pretty widely considered to be the worst game in the entire franchise, so… Your mileage may vary. It is admittedly the one I’ve played least, and I probably haven’t picked it up in the better part of 2 decades, so it’s a bit vague for me anymore.
For what it’s worth, I played the NES release of DQ1, and then a translation of the japan-only SNES release of DQ2 recently (I actually beat DQ2 last week) and I found DQ2 to be a much better game than DQ1 overall. DQ1 was… interesting, but it was very much a game that did not respect the player’s time in the least, to the point of expecting the player to fight literally hundreds of battles in order to grind up enough money and experience to afford the gear. The most charitable thing I can say about it is that the battle system was so rudimentary and so grindy that the gameplay felt more like it was focused on resource management–there was a tension in deciding whether you could afford to take another fight, or if you needed to return to town and spend money sleeping at an inn to heal (setting your grind back at least 1-2 fights with how piddly gold and XP drops were), optimizing efficiency in spending your MP to heal vs. the risk of dying to the next monster, etc.
DQ2 meanwhile was a much more robust and much less grindy game–the simple addition of multiple party members and multiple enemies in a single battle meant that your gold and XP gains were multiplied over the first game. While it still demanded grinding, it was much more reasonable about it, and it felt much more like a “modern” JRPG like you’re used to seeing.
Hmm… interesting. It makes sense that they improved some stuff in the sequel, but everyone has different taste, and what one finds interesting, others can find boring.
I recently read that DQ-III remake will have quality of life improvements, like recall functionality from DQ-VI (just what I have read, haven’t played either of those games), so they probably modernized some other things too, and will probably do the same for DQ-I and II. Would just have to wait and see.
I own and have played the Gameboy remakes a few times. I would say going 1-2-3 shows the progression of game mechanic development really well - each feels like a refinement of the previous with some fresh new ideas added in. Additionally, though it’s a fairly loose tie , the story across the 3 of them is related. That being said, though, I believe 2 is pretty widely considered to be the worst game in the entire franchise, so… Your mileage may vary. It is admittedly the one I’ve played least, and I probably haven’t picked it up in the better part of 2 decades, so it’s a bit vague for me anymore.
Thanks for the input. Will just wait for all of them to release and then decide based on reviews.
For what it’s worth, I played the NES release of DQ1, and then a translation of the japan-only SNES release of DQ2 recently (I actually beat DQ2 last week) and I found DQ2 to be a much better game than DQ1 overall. DQ1 was… interesting, but it was very much a game that did not respect the player’s time in the least, to the point of expecting the player to fight literally hundreds of battles in order to grind up enough money and experience to afford the gear. The most charitable thing I can say about it is that the battle system was so rudimentary and so grindy that the gameplay felt more like it was focused on resource management–there was a tension in deciding whether you could afford to take another fight, or if you needed to return to town and spend money sleeping at an inn to heal (setting your grind back at least 1-2 fights with how piddly gold and XP drops were), optimizing efficiency in spending your MP to heal vs. the risk of dying to the next monster, etc.
DQ2 meanwhile was a much more robust and much less grindy game–the simple addition of multiple party members and multiple enemies in a single battle meant that your gold and XP gains were multiplied over the first game. While it still demanded grinding, it was much more reasonable about it, and it felt much more like a “modern” JRPG like you’re used to seeing.
Hmm… interesting. It makes sense that they improved some stuff in the sequel, but everyone has different taste, and what one finds interesting, others can find boring.
I recently read that DQ-III remake will have quality of life improvements, like recall functionality from DQ-VI (just what I have read, haven’t played either of those games), so they probably modernized some other things too, and will probably do the same for DQ-I and II. Would just have to wait and see.