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Dragon Quest IV, V, VI: The Zenithia Trilogy

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After just doing the intro of the game on Tuesday, I started playing Dragon Quest V properly last night. I didn't get that far into the game due to me wanting to do a spot of level grinding. I just hung around the starting area with myself and Bianca until I reached level 9 with each of them. This also allowed me to buy the best equipment in the starting town which made the Uptaten Towers a pushover. Having both characters equipped with the boomerang and whip allowed me to sweep through any of the encounters thanks to them both hitting multiple enemies. I ended the session once I had gotten Saber as a travelling buddy.

I like the nice little touches added to this game when compared to IV. For example, when in a battle in DQIV you had to constantly be pressing a button to scroll through the battle dialogue, whereas on DQV you can just hit the button to attack and then the game automatically goes through everything up until your next move. I also enjoy using the banter button. Hearing what Bianca was saying about was often hilarious. :D 

I've brought my 3DS to work with me so I can do some grinding during my lunch break. This should leave me ready to continue the adventure when I get home.

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5 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

After just doing the intro of the game on Tuesday, I started playing Dragon Quest V properly last night. I didn't get that far into the game due to me wanting to do a spot of level grinding. I just hung around the starting area with myself and Bianca until I reached level 9 with each of them. This also allowed me to buy the best equipment in the starting town which made the Uptaten Towers a pushover. Having both characters equipped with the boomerang and whip allowed me to sweep through any of the encounters thanks to them both hitting multiple enemies. I ended the session once I had gotten Saber as a travelling buddy.

 

Yeah, that  is a feature of these older Dragon Quests, come to think of it.  From DQ VIII onwards, I feel it's important to have a spear or axe, but in any game before that, you can really appreciate something like the boomerang.

 

You're making me really want to play these again, by the way.  Let's have 'em on Switch, Square-Enix! :hehe:

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I completely forgot how dark the start of this game is. Your father gets killed in front of you, your pet sabertooth is left for dead and you get sent to be a slave for the next 10 years. Bear in mind your character is only a small child at this point in the game. What a rough start to life! :( 

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1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I completely forgot how dark the start of this game is. Your father gets killed in front of you, your pet sabertooth is left for dead and you get sent to be a slave for the next 10 years. Bear in mind your character is only a small child at this point in the game. What a rough start to life! :( 

And that's not even the half of it.

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I've just recruited my first monsters. I picked up a Slime Knight and a Brownie. I'm pretty sure I had both of these on my team when I played it all those years ago. They served me well then and hopefully that will be the case again.

I really do hate Harry's character picture on the top screen. He looks like a right idiot. :D 

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I continued my journey yesterday and made some great progress. My team did consist of myself, a Slime Knight, a Rotten Apple and a Brownie. This has now been rearranged, with the Brownie being cut due to the wife joining the team.

When choosing a wife I once again went with Bianca. This seems like the only reasonable choice. She's a childhood friend and her father asks you to take care of her. Simple choice really, I mean who was I going to pick? Debora? Not likely. :D 

I've now got my own ship and have done a bit of levelling so my team are kicking around the level 25 mark.

I'm around the 12 hours played marked and have noticed just how few boss encounters I've had so far. It feels like I had fought a fair few more in DQIV during the same amount of time played. 

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Debora is the mouthy one who criticises you at every opportunity, isn't she?

Yeah, I chose her. She was a constant source of comedy, so that was the correct choice.

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I just finished my session for the day. I was hoping to reach the 3rd generation before the weekend was over and I've just managed to achieve that.

On May 31, 2019 at 7:16 PM, Ike said:

And that's not even the half of it.

You weren't wrong. I totally forgot about getting turned to stone, being sold and then being separated from Bianca! This game certainly pulls at the heart strings.

I had a good laugh earlier. Again, I forgot why Bianca was fainting, so when it turned out she was pregnant I was shocked. This was mainly because about 5 mins later she went into labour. Did the main character just not notice his wife getting larger or did he just think she was piling the weight on and was too polite to say anything? :D 

I loved the scene where you became king.

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It felt epic once the DQ main theme kicked. :yay:

I've now got Parry and Madchen in the lineup. It's going to take some level grinding to get them up to scratch but I'll certainly be using them over the monsters. 

A lot of this feels like a new game. I've played both DQIV and DQV only the once but for some reason DQIV has clearly stuck with me more. I find this bizarre because after playing them back then, I thought that DQV was the better game, had the better story and out of the both of them DQV was the last one I played, so it should be fresher in my mind. Weird. ::shrug:

 

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46 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

A lot of this feels like a new game. I've played both DQIV and DQV only the once but for some reason DQIV has clearly stuck with me more. I find this bizarre because after playing them back then, I thought that DQV was the better game, had the better story and out of the both of them DQV was the last one I played, so it should be fresher in my mind. Weird. ::shrug:

 

Yes, that's odd actually.  DQ IV was the first "classic" DQ I played after being drawn to the series with VIII.  I've always had the sense I underappreciated it and would like to play it again.  Seeing your screenshots, I really feel like these are ripe for a remaster with better textures etc.

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Hilarious enemy name. :D 

Anyway, I haven't progressed the story much this evening. I spent most of my time just level grinding. Luckily I came across a cave that spawns lots of LMS and pretty much camped in that area.

My team is looking like this now.

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I love the character portraits of the kids. I find both of them amusing, especially Madchen.

The main character seems to level up slower than the rest of the characters/monsters. Pretty annoying when he's the one you mainly use.

The amount of money dished out in battles seems to be far less than in DQIV. Lots of the weapons and armour I'm now coming across costs a small fortune. Considering the amount of grinding I've done I really should be able to afford everything on sale but this isn't the case.

I think I'm a decent enough level now and have pretty good equipment to move on with the story tomorrow evening.

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Misses an umlaut though.

Edited by Sméagol

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I had another good session on DQV yesterday evening. I started off by trying to obtain the Ultimate Key and taking on Bjorn. This was a tough fight. I done the usual setup of casting Sap/Kasap on the enemy, Oomph on my attackers and building up my defence with Kabuff. I was doing fine until Bjorn started taking 2 turns instead of one. I then had to switch using Parry from being an attacker to putting him on healing duty using Multiheal. This helped for a while but he eventually ran out of magic. Having him use Multiheal and Kabuff really drained his MP. This left me pretty open and I decided to just going all in. Bjorn did kill the main character and my Slime Knight but luckily Parry and Madchen brought home the victory. Phew!

After that, I decided to go in search of the Pallium Regale. This mini dungeon wasn't that bad and things were going quite smoothly until I got into a battle with some monsters that cast Hocus Pocus and completely drained the MP from every character. I did have a Prayer Ring so I had to constantly use that to replenish my MP. Sadly, this eventually broke and I refused to leave the dungeon because I was one the final floor and I didn't want to have to return and move all of those stones again. I did manage to scrape though using some Medicinal Herbs to heal me whenever I needed it. Thankfully I hadn't used any so far so I had a large amount just waiting to be used in my bag.

Next up, I decided to move the story on a bit and I got through a fair bit of it. I went to Zenithia, went back in time and met my younger self (as well as nicking his orb :p ), got to ride around in a giant castle and turned a bloke into a dragon. It's a bit weird how long you go in the game not being able to fly around the overworld and then you get 2 modes of transport within an hour or so of each other. Sure, you get the magic carpet a bit earlier but that is pretty much useless for the most part.

The final dungeon I tackled last night was where all of the slaves/cult were hiding. The dungeon itself wasn't too much of an issue and neither was the battle with Queen Ferz. The battle afterwards that involved fighting Korol was a pain in the backside though. I managed to beat him but man did it take a while. The dude kept defending, getting rid of all of my buffs and regular attacks done very little damage to him, even with Sap being cast. It was a very drawn out battle and things were looking pretty tight towards the end of it, with a couple of characters having little to no MP left. There was probably a better strategy to use against him but I just went with brute force. After a long fight I got the win and finally got Bianca back into my party! The family is back together! :hug:

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I've done a bit of level grinding in order to get Bianca up to scratch with the rest of my party. She's currently sitting on level 33 and the others are 40+ now. This will be my final team going into the final battle. I've read that you are at a bit of a disadvantage if you choose not to use any monsters but I'll give it a whirl. I'll do some more levelling ( trying to get to at least level 45 with the main character ) before I try and tackle the final area. 

During the course of my adventure last night I was using the party chat feature quite a bit. It was great listening to Bianca reminisce about areas they had been in when they were younger. Some of the things the kids say are quite adorable, although one of the things they said was really sad. Madchen mentioned how she was upset that there were no other kids around to play with but was happy she was a twin so she could at least play with her brother. 

 

 

 

 

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I got a bit bored of level grinding and decided to have a crack at the final dungeon. I thought I may have been under levelled but I ended up beating the bosses, finishing the game and watching the end credits roll.

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The boss wasn't that difficult but the fight was pretty drawn out. The SOB kept using Distruptive Wave on my team which meant I had to keep putting all my buffs back on. Very annoying. I had the main character and Parry on attacking duties, Madchen was there just to cast Oomph and Bianca was the Sage Stone user.  The only real issue I had was the amount of MP I was going through  but luckily I had a few Elfin Exliers on hand (only needed the 1) to top up when I needed it.

You know what? I'm not so sure if I even beat this game all those years ago. I swear I couldn't remember a thing about the last boss or most of the final part of the game, yet I could remember the final boss in DQIV. I'll have to have a look through this thread tomorrow and see if I mentioned finishing it or not.

Once again I forgot to use any of the seeds that I had collected during my adventure. :D I suppose they'll come in handy if I choose to do the post game boss. 

I'm at odds at which was better-Dragon Quest IV or Dragon Quest V? I liked the story better in V but I enjoyed the setup (separate stories then all coming together) more IV. I think the final boss in IV is more satisfying. At least you've seen him and have been perusing him most of the game, whereas with V don't get to see him until right at the end. Hmmmm...tough call.

Anyway, with the final boss defeated, the credits rolled on yet another Dragon Quest adventure.

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That's two games in the trilogy finished and now just the one to go. I can finally start Dragon Quest VI, which was the whole point of this Dragon Quest marathon. :) 

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Well, it turns out that I did finish the game back in the day. It also turns out that I enjoyed Dragon Quest IV more than V.

On 7/21/2010 at 11:47 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

I took a stab at the boss last night as I couldn't be bothered to level up anymore and he was such a pushover. Oh, and what the hell is up with the font they decided to use for him?

The first form I just kept casting Insulate with my son and then Oomph with my daughter. Once that was done I had everyone attacking apart from my daughter who I had keep using the Sage Stone.

The second form was a little more tricky. It was pointless casting my stat raising spells as he kept throwing disruptive wave at me so I just left my daughter for healing duty. Again I kept my son casting Insulate whenever it got took of us and then just basically attacked with everyone else. I cast the lightning spell with my son at times as it took off a good chuck of his health. It was a very disappointing end battle TBH.

I wasn't keen of the cutscene at the end either as I like to sit back and enjoy the end sequences but I had to move around from town to town myself. :(

Overall I enjoyed the game but I think I liked IV better than this one. I wasn't keen on the monster taming aspect of the game and there seemed to be A LOT more grinding involved in this one aswell, especially if you wanted some decent equipment.

Bring on IX!!

It's hilarious how similar the situation was. Nine years ago I got sick of grinding and took a stab at taking on the final boss. Fast forward to yesterday and the exact same thing happened. :DThe strategy I used seems to be pretty similar, as well. I still find it pretty weird that I don't remember much of the end game though. Very strange.

I'm debating whether to take on the post game dungeon and boss or just go straight on with Dragon Quest VI. I've read Estark is a bit a ball buster in this game and it will probably take more grinding and getting a certain set of monsters on my team to take him on.

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I know for sure I 100% completed V and VI, but not IV.  Don't know why, really, because I really want to do it now.

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I've almost 100% V myself, I should get back on that. Pretty sure it's just one boss in a certain amount of turns.

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2 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I've almost 100% V myself, I should get back on that. Pretty sure it's just one boss in a certain amount of turns.

 

Yeah, you get a particular item to display in the museum, if I recall correctly.  Little touches like this are part of what makes Dragon Quest great.

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I decided to have a go at taking on Estark. I've yet to tackle the boss but I done some leg work for the battle last night. I spent over 2 hours just trying to get a King Cureslime on my team. It was a very painful process of running from battles and hoping that when it did show up the thing would actually join my team. I then spent some time level grinding and continued doing that this morning when I awoke at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep. My team for the battle will be this...

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I did go into the post game dungeon just to do a clean up of treasure but I didn't want to face the boss yet until I have some better equipment. I've got enough medals for either a Falcon Sword or a Metal King Shield and i'll probably go with the shield. I saved my game at Fortuna Casino as i'm going to attempt to get enough coins to nab a couple of Metal King Swords before going into battle. Once again I brought my 3DS to work with me so that I can try and get some of this process over and done with while on my break. Methinks this is going to be a tedious affair... 

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Yeah, Golems are great.  I remember from many years ago, another post said that equipping them with Falcon Swords is one of the best strategies.

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8 minutes ago, Grazza said:

Yeah, Golems are great.  I remember from many years ago, another post said that equipping them with Falcon Swords is one of the best strategies.

Yeah, it was Killer Kirby who kept mentioning it. :D 

Did you ever battle and beat Estark it DQV? Just wondering how hard of a fight it actually is.

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25 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, it was Killer Kirby who kept mentioning it. :D 

Did you ever battle and beat Estark it DQV? Just wondering how hard of a fight it actually is.

 

Yes indeed.  I can't recall much about it, but I just remember it took a lot of grinding.  If I recall correctly, I recruited a couple of Gigantes (or whatever the toughest "cyclops" are called) and I don't know if I was level 99, but I was certainly high enough that level progression was very slow.

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Success!

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My prep for the fight paid off and he was an absolute pushover. I got a couple of Metal King Swords from the casino and gave them to the Golem and the main character. During the battle the King Cureslime used the Wardrum and Omniheal and the rest of the team just concentrated on attacking, with, Parry occasionally casting Insulate. I was never in any danger of dying. 

I've now achieved everything I wanted to in the game and it's time to move on to Dragon Quest VI! :yay:

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