As someone who went through each game on a grand dragon quest adventure and ended up loving each one, this one always ranked lowest for me and I always wondered why since so many love it so much.
I think I've pinpointed it to a few things. I guess it feels really vanilla compared to the other games in the series. It plays like a really well polished adventure-exploration simulator. But it feels less funny than other games, less unique than say 4, less heartwrenching than 5, less expansive than 6 or 2, and less timeless than 1.
For one, I hate that the battles have a terribly low run rate. It gets easier to run in a single battle the more times you attempt but the first attempt almost always fails, so you just get hit a lot. The encounter rate is almost as high as dq2, but that game let you run really easily from many encounters, so it feels really free wheeling. But this game makes encounters kind of a chore a lot of the time, especially if you don't have much choice of strategy in the early game.
The dialogue isn't as charming as 1 or 2, though not terrible. The earth-style world is cool, but not enough to buy me over.
The game is technically non-linear, but not as open as 2 or totally open to nonlinear travel as enemies are stronger in some areas and it's so hard to run, so it's near unsurvivable to encounter a strong foe. It felt more hintbased than 2. Not a bad thing but not as interesting for me.
The choices in this game are more plentiful than previous games but they feel kinda lackluster to me when if I can't fight a boss, I have no choice but to grind. I could swap a party member but that takes grinding too. Compare this to final fantasy 1, which came out a few months earlier, which gave you options of magic shops and builds changing between evasion and armor, even with rigid class choices are the start. Dragon quest 3s class change system allows for a few big choices but not frequent minute choices, and I guess I prefer the latter.
Dq3 is interesting as a declaration of the series for games that would be adventure simulators where adventure and exploration is the message, and the story heightens that, compared to final fantasy where adventure and exploration is a vehicle for a separate message, and the adventure aspects are tailored to heighten that message. The exploration is more linear in ff, where unlike dq3, the different paths available lead to the same destinations along a linear plotline. The two games build a divergence in the history of grand storytelling and narrative structure in games.
I think I've pinpointed it to a few things. I guess it feels really vanilla compared to the other games in the series. It plays like a really well polished adventure-exploration simulator. But it feels less funny than other games, less unique than say 4, less heartwrenching than 5, less expansive than 6 or 2, and less timeless than 1.
For one, I hate that the battles have a terribly low run rate. It gets easier to run in a single battle the more times you attempt but the first attempt almost always fails, so you just get hit a lot. The encounter rate is almost as high as dq2, but that game let you run really easily from many encounters, so it feels really free wheeling. But this game makes encounters kind of a chore a lot of the time, especially if you don't have much choice of strategy in the early game.
The dialogue isn't as charming as 1 or 2, though not terrible. The earth-style world is cool, but not enough to buy me over.
The game is technically non-linear, but not as open as 2 or totally open to nonlinear travel as enemies are stronger in some areas and it's so hard to run, so it's near unsurvivable to encounter a strong foe. It felt more hintbased than 2. Not a bad thing but not as interesting for me.
The choices in this game are more plentiful than previous games but they feel kinda lackluster to me when if I can't fight a boss, I have no choice but to grind. I could swap a party member but that takes grinding too. Compare this to final fantasy 1, which came out a few months earlier, which gave you options of magic shops and builds changing between evasion and armor, even with rigid class choices are the start. Dragon quest 3s class change system allows for a few big choices but not frequent minute choices, and I guess I prefer the latter.
Dq3 is interesting as a declaration of the series for games that would be adventure simulators where adventure and exploration is the message, and the story heightens that, compared to final fantasy where adventure and exploration is a vehicle for a separate message, and the adventure aspects are tailored to heighten that message. The exploration is more linear in ff, where unlike dq3, the different paths available lead to the same destinations along a linear plotline. The two games build a divergence in the history of grand storytelling and narrative structure in games.
5 Comments
@ranrannerson I can enjoy both character-driven games and more mechanically active world-exploration based games, but I feel like dq3 compromises on some of those exploration and NPC development fronts for the sake of a class and progression system that feels a little underwhelming.
Even though it was one of the first class system games on consoles, interesting class-based progression had been a thing in a number of pc rpgs, although those were for more of a niche audience than the console market. I think DQ 6, 7, and 9 did a great job advancing ideas in 3 and making interesting/unique fleshed out worlds to explore at the same time.
Even though it was one of the first class system games on consoles, interesting class-based progression had been a thing in a number of pc rpgs, although those were for more of a niche audience than the console market. I think DQ 6, 7, and 9 did a great job advancing ideas in 3 and making interesting/unique fleshed out worlds to explore at the same time.
I agree, and I'm pretty excited to get to 6 and 7 to see how those play. I've heard a lot less about them compared to a lot of the other games so I'm sure there are some fun surprises in store.
@ranrannerson I would highly recommend playing the remake of 6 (either DS or Mobile depending on your preference), and the original version of 7. The original SNES version of 6 was a little rough and had a crazy high encounter rate and was generally rebalanced for the remake (plus the translation is much better). However the remake of 7 had a system overhaul that was poorly planned in my opinion and is really easy/boring, missing parts of its script and some features, and has a really unrecognizably altered atmosphere and style. The original 7 is one of the darkest and most mysterious entries in the series and you wouldn't know at all playing the remake.
I see! I was pretty set on the remake of 7 just because it's the most easily accessible legally to me, but I figure it couldn't hurt to go ahead and mess around with the Playstation version since it seems bizarrely difficult to find US physical copies of the 7 and 8 3ds releases. One of the biggest criticisms I've heard is its length, but I mean... I love me some long JRPGs...
ranrannerson
3 years ago