Dragon Quest IV, V, VI: The Zenithia Trilogy

[Hero-of-Time]

I started Dragon Quest VI last night, although it was just a session to set up today's adventure. I got the story started and done some level grinding for a while. This morning I cracked on with the story and have now got the main character, Carver and Milly on my team. At the moment i'm just trying to get Milly up to scratch with the other two characters.

I came across a Casino early on and was tempted to grind some tokens in order to get the armour that is on sale but, given the jump in defence it gives, I figure it would break the early part of the game if I was to get it. Plus, it hasn't been that difficult that far, so it's not really needed. I will say that I think the money seems to be much better distributed in this when compared to DQV. I haven't struggled at all to afford all the latest upgrades in each of the towns i've come across. 

I'm intrigued to see what the crack is with Carver and his parents. That whole scene was pretty weird.   

[Ike]

The Dragon Shield is really broken that early in the game, you won't need to upgrade for a while with those. They are really helpful for fighting Murdaw though.

[Hero-of-Time]

I've just defeated Murdaw and picked my first vocations. I think that's a good place to call it a day.

That dungeon before Murdaw was a bit of a long stretch, wasn't it? It was stupidly long and it didn't have a save point inside of it. Luckily my team was Adam - 22, Carver - 23, Milly - 21 and Nevan - 15, which meant I was more than ready for the fight. I mainly had Milly and Nevan on healing duty and Adam and Carver doing the damage. There was a big sigh of relief when the battle was over because I really didn't want to go through that dungeon again. 

I'm not pleased that a job system is in the game. I usually really dislike when this is in a JRPG, mainly due to me getting choice paralysis. I'm always afraid if the choice I make comes back and bites me in the butt. I much prefer a game where I don't have to worry about such things and can just concentrate on levelling up without faffing on with learning different abilities spread across different jobs. Now that this has come into play I don't think i'll be as fond of this game when compared to DQIV and V.

During my travels I visited an inn and found a woman dressed in a red dress staying in a room. She asked me this...

Well....there is one job you could have a go at.....

Never mind.  

I'm very confused with the story at the moment. So there's two worlds but one is supposed to be some kind of dream world or something? I keep forgetting which world i'm in, especially when i'm constantly switching to travel to different places. I'm finding it a bit messy, TBH. Also, do you find out why Ashlynn wanted to stay on the boat instead of joining the party for the fight against Murdaw or was it just a thing that happened in order for you to use Nevan? 

[Ike]

Eh, I wouldn't worry about which class to use, just pick one you think suits the character. Carver is good with the Martial Artist class for example. I can't remember exactly so I might be wrong, but I think the skills transfer.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, Ike said:

Eh, I wouldn't worry about which class to use, just pick one you think suits the character. Carver is good with the Martial Artist class for example. I can't remember exactly so I might be wrong, but I think the skills transfer.

Yeah, that's what I put him as. I put Adam as a Warrior, Nevan as a Priest, Milly as a Dancer and Ashlynn as a Mage.

[Glen-i]

16 minutes ago, Ike said:

I can't remember exactly so I might be wrong, but I think the skills transfer.

They do.

[Hero-of-Time]

15 hours ago, Ike said:

I can't remember exactly so I might be wrong, but I think the skills transfer.

I put some more time into the game this afternoon and skills transferring does seem to be the case. This makes it much more manageable for me. 

I've met Terry but he didn't join the team. I was gutted because I loved using him in Dragon Quest Heroes. He was easily one of my favourite characters to use. Hopefully he will join at some point soon.

I've just got the boat/island for transportation and have set up camp just grinding away at Spiegelspire. I've maxed the first choice jobs on a few of the characters already. I may hang around this area for a while and get a few jobs mastered for each of the team before I move on.

[Hero-of-Time]

It's been a couple of days since I posted my progress and that's because i'm still at the same place I was on Sunday. With me having the option to grind my vocations I have taken this opportunity just just stay where I was at and fight in loads of battles. My characters are all in the level 30+ range and now have the following jobs.

• Adam - Gladiator but i'm working my through this job just to get the Hero vocation
• Milly - Luminary
• Carver - Gladiator
• Amos - Ranger
• Nevan - Sage
• Ashlynn - Sage

I think i'll continue to grind until I have mastered these jobs and then maybe make each of them Warrior/Martial Artist for them to get some good HP boosts. The timing of this has worked out well, what with E3 being on. It's made grinding very easy thanks to having plenty of gaming stuff to watch whilst I play. I imagine when I do eventually move the story forward I will be pretty OP.

 

[Grazza]

Reminds me very much of when I played DQ VI, working through all the jobs to get the Hero class. A lot of grinding involved, but still a good game.

[Hero-of-Time]

My vocation grinding is still going on. Every character has around 7 jobs unlocked now and my levels are close to the 40 range. Some of the moves that i've unlocked are super powerful, with most of them not using any MP. I was originally just sitting there hammering the A button and doing normal attacks but then I realised I should use the Change Tactics option and put everyone on Don't Use Magic. This meant the AI part of the team were just spamming their most powerful attacks that don't use magic. I'm getting through battles much quicker now. I also had a look at Gigaslash and Kazapple, both of which look really cool and are stupidly powerful. Yeah, i've probably broken the rest of the game from this point on.  

With today being the last day of live streaming from Nintendo, it will also be my last day grinding. I'll get back to containing the story come the weekend but it will be fun to see just how many more vocations I can unlock before the final Treehouse segment finishes....

[S.C.G]

From looking at how much fun you've been having with the Dragon Quest games in general @Hero-of-Time and due to all the footage of RPG's being shown at E3, I'm really condering getting in on the action too I'm thinking about firing my 3DS up later and maybe going back to Dragon Quest VIII or Dragon Quest VII and going from there.

I want to play Dragon Warrior I&II and III on the GB/GBC but I'll wait until I've got my GC/GBA Player setup properly again. (well mostly for DQIII being that it's a GBC exclusive port)

The Zenithia trilogy though of IV, V & VI are titles I've been meaning to play for a long time, I guess it would make more sense for me to play them in order when the time comes.

For now though, I have a feeling I'll at least be playing DQVIII for a bit later.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 hours ago, S.C.G said:

From looking at how much fun you've been having with the Dragon Quest games in general @Hero-of-Time and due to all the footage of RPG's being shown at E3, I'm really condering getting in on the action too I'm thinking about firing my 3DS up later and maybe going back to Dragon Quest VIII or Dragon Quest VII and going from there.

I want to play Dragon Warrior I&II and III on the GB/GBC but I'll wait until I've got my GC/GBA Player setup properly again. (well mostly for DQIII being that it's a GBC exclusive port)

The Zenithia trilogy though of IV, V & VI are titles I've been meaning to play for a long time, I guess it would make more sense for me to play them in order when the time comes.

For now though, I have a feeling I'll at least be playing DQVIII for a bit later.

I've been loving it. I honestly thought I would be burnt out by now but that isn't the case at all. In fact, the opposite is happening and i'm already looking forward to playing more Dragon Quest games. After I finish VI i'm toying with continuing with the DS games and jumping to IX. Like DQIV & V, I haven't played though IX since it was first released. I also managed to find a sealed copy on ebay of a DQ game that I have yet to play, so i'll be playing that at some point. Then there's Dragon Quest Builders 2 arriving in a couple of weeks. Dragon Quest overload!!!  

[Hero-of-Time]

Whoever designed the section where you have to follow some bloke through a series of caves without been seen needs a good slap. What an awful and tedious thing it was to do. 

[Hero-of-Time]

It’s been a few days since I lasted gave an update. I’ve still been playing the game and I’m currently sitting on around 48 hours played. This is definitely lengthier than the other two Dragon Quest DS games, although a lot of that time is probably down to me grinding vocations.

So, what have I been doing?

• I've acquired all of the Hero’s armour which has been a recurring point across all of these games.
• Nabbed a flying bed from Matt Tress (hilarious pun)
• Saved my village and done the fusion dance with my other self.
• Visited Castle GraceSkull ( another hilarious reference made even funnier by the fact that my character is named Adam and is now a Prince ) 
• Rescued a mermaid
• Lifted a curse from a snowy village
• Recruited some monsters
• Kicked Duhran’s butt
• Finally recruited Terry

Both the snowy village and mermaid stories were very reminiscent of things that happen in Dragon Quest XI, especially the mermaid one. I’m not sure what the point of the monster recruits are? I mean, I already have a full squad of humans and these just seem like some weird addition. Sure, there’s some slime tournament/arena type thing but outside of that I’m not sure why I would use them over the main cast.

After doing the above list of events I then set out on raising vocation levels. Here we go.

This is the same across everyone apart from Terry ( who didn’t join up until recently ) and Carver. Carver was a little behind thanks to me forgetting to change his vocation once it was maxed but he still only 1 from being complete. I think I’ll have a team just full of the Hero vocation.  

At this point the team is kicking around the level 50 mark and that’s without any real Metal Slime grinding, which I will no doubt do before the final battle. I’m hoping to get this finished over the weekend and given the strength of my party I don’t think this should be an issue. To be fair, if I was to fight the final boss now ( I think I’m still a fair way off ) I imagine I’ll be able to blitz the fight as is.

 

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I think I’ll have a team just full of the Hero vocation.  

Spoiler

Dragon is potentially a better vocation due to it's natural fire and ice resistance and very physical based stats. Frailer characters really can benefit from that.

 

[Ike]

It's kinda spoilery so don't watch if you haven't played DQV yet.

[Hero-of-Time]

The last boss has been defeated, the credits rolled and the post game boss vanquished.

Spoiler

 

I went with my team of 4 with the Hero vocation. It made things incredibly simple due to the constant healing at the end of every round. For the last boss I was even able to just let the AI go about their business. The post game boss was a little tougher but nothing that I couldn't take care of. Given the amount of grinding I had already done I was happy that more wasn't needed to overcome this post game fight.

Out of all the trilogy I do think that this is easily the weakest entry. The story is a bit all over the place and the amount of zooming you need to do between the different worlds is very tiresome. Both IV and V seemed smaller, tighter experiences and I appreciated that approach more. VI seemed to be far too large and open for its own good and I think this is why the narrative suffers.

I have to say, it's been an amazing experience playing through the trilogy over the past few weeks. It was fun revisiting IV & V and I can finally cross VI off the backlog after sitting on my shelf all of these years. 

[Jonnas]

Do we have a similar thread for the original trilogy? I just started Dragon Quest III, and I wouldn't mind posting occasional logs of my progress. Sure, there's the Gaming Diary thread, but I don't want to clog it with talk from a single game (since I expect the playthrough to last a while).

[Hero-of-Time]

6 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Do we have a similar thread for the original trilogy? I just started Dragon Quest III, and I wouldn't mind posting occasional logs of my progress. Sure, there's the Gaming Diary thread, but I don't want to clog it with talk from a single game (since I expect the playthrough to last a while).

There's a topic that covers games 1-8 when they were released on iOS/Android. You could use that.

 

[Jonnas]

13 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

There's a topic that covers games 1-8 when they were released on iOS/Android. You could use that.

 

Thanks, but I'm playing the GBC version. Would be confusing to talk about it in the mobile thread.

I think starting a thread about the original trilogy might be a better idea.

[S.C.G]

14 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Thanks, but I'm playing the GBC version. Would be confusing to talk about it in the mobile thread.

I think starting a thread about the original trilogy might be a better idea.

I'd be up for there being a thread about the original trilogy, I have the GameBoy versions of Dragon Warrior I & II and Dragon Warrior III which I've been meaning to play.