Dragon Quest

Is this a good series to get into for a JRPG casual? What's the best game to start with?

start with whatever man. people will tell you to go for like, 4, 5, 6, or 8 but 1 is really short and gives you a good idea of where it all began, 3 is much bigger, and sort of the backstory to 1 and 2. 9 is new player friendly, and so is the 3ds version of 7 that just came out outside of japan even though its a little slow-seeming (because it's long as fuck. seriously, its a massive game)

So they're mostly pretty classic-style RPGs right?

What're the stories like?

Dragon Quest established JRPGs and after 30 years, its the only JRPG series to not fall apart. So yes, its worth playing.

Rockin, this is handy. Thanks user, I think I'll just start with the 1+2 fan translation.

2 is probably the weakest game in the series, but it isn't bad by any stretch

This. The 'worst' DQ game is still a good game.

Dragon Quest love bittersweet stories. Seriously they tend to all fall into "save the day but man that's still sad"

DQ also is more about the world around you than character driven. DQ5 is the only one is a focus on the main character while the rest is you going to places and slowly building up to the main bad guy while helping people around.

hey son,
you like grinding?
you like generic "A ancient evil has awaken" plotline?
you like turn based combat with some slight dificulty?
you like hot varied anime gurls?
you like adventures?

then DQ is the game for you.

DQ2 is only bad because they were trying to iron out how a big world would work. And didn't really get level balance yet. It's not bad if you think of what Horii was trying to do but DQ3 took all the ideas of DQ2 and made it damn near perfect.

yeah. dq3 was definitely worth it.

Agreed. But honestly the reason most people hate it is the difficulty and hidden crests. While I actually enjoy the game for its difficulty. You feel a major sense of accomplishment when you beat the game.

This is why I actually think Dragon Quest IX is the weakest DQ game. Because I never felt like I accomplished anything. Grind classes and follow the linear story. With no real exploration or character development. Its still not a bad game by any means. But even DQII was more engaging to me.

DQ9 is perfect if you 2-man it with a buddy. I suppose if you can get together with 3 others it would be fun too, but I didn't have that many friends who even owned a DS. 2 man was perfect, the difficulty was spot on. My friend was the host, and didn't hire any followers, so it was just us two. We took classes that had some heals, so we weren't completely gimped.

>9 on par with 6
Haha, no.

dont bother playing, the best thing to come out of DQ is porn

Those two brown girls are the shit, brah

I honestly never felt enjoyment with DQ2. There's not enough clues on the crests to make me feel like "yeah I sliced it!" Like DQ3 had. DQ9 was just a raiding paradise. Just get some friends and just go to a dungeon and have a blast. DQ9 (and guessing 10) are not really the same as the single player games. Not bad but for people that enjoy single player games 9 might not be up your ally.

The problem is your friends don't gain any EXP. So you really can't play the whole game coop. This was fixed with Dragon Quest X and your party members do gain EXP (both online and offline). Along with DQX fixing pretty much every other flaw DQIX has. But we can't play it so...

That's not true. I leveled up just the same as he did when we played. In fact, in my world I was overleveled since I didn't play the story past getting to the first inn.

You must have always been behind his level then.

I don't remember suffering any sort of xp penalty by being his party member. If there was, it didn't seem to affect me.

>So they're mostly pretty classic-style RPGs right?
Yep. 90% of the game is grinding.
>What're the stories like?
Paper thin.

>90% of the game is grinding.
I didn't have to grind in DQ4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. I just played the game normally and didn't run from any fights. Seriously as long as you don't run and explore the dungeons and overworlds a bit, then you don't have to grind at all.

A work friend of mine started with Heroes, instantly fell in love with the artstyle and is currently enjoying VII. I feel like as long as it isn't II or III (not to say III wasn't great) you'll be fine

Oh I also didn't grind in DQ9.

He's just a weak troll. Ignore him.

DQ is full of grinding is a misconception new players got when they want to buy the best equipment in a new town but they don't have the funds, thus leading them to grind for money. In truth, you shouldn't be buying every new equipments in new towns. Just buy the ones that give more than 10 points difference than the old ones. That will saves you money and lessen the needs of grinding. The other way is to take advantages of casino. While it is indeed a luck based mini game, but you can 'cheat' it by savescumming. Some games even have really easy casino mini game like VII's lucky panel which can net you huge amount of gold in few tries.

it's a decent series, i'd recommend skipping 1 and 2 since they are terrible though.