Dragon Quest III（ドラゴンクエストIII そして伝説へ…）

My first reaction when I started up Dragon Quest III was OH MY GOD, it's SOOOO much better than DQ2!!!! Once again, it paid off to start the series chronologically because the graphical leap over DQ2 was huge. I mean, yeah, I'm comparing two Super Famicon remakes but it's obvious they put way more effort into the remake of the 3rd compared to the 1&2 "bargain" bundle.

Finally feels like I'm playing a SUUPA Famicon game.

Not just the graphics, the entire game feels like a breath of fresh air and restored my faith in the series after the awful previous entry. You walk way faster and the battles are fast and smooth. The killer feature is auto dismiss on the battle dialogues. Instead of having to press a button after EVERY SINGLE action, it'll just fly by based on your dialogue speed setting. Compared to DQ2 where a single turn could require up to 20 button presses, you'll only have 8 if you have four party members (attack+select enemy x4). In addition, the battle music is not absolute crap so I'm glad to be able to play this game with the sound ON this time.

Finally, battle music that's not vomit-inducing
The game starts out with an intro of your dad with some pretty awesome cut scenes and then some deity gives you a personality test and proceeds to give you some profound life tips based on your personality. I was told some deep advice that amazingly completely matched my current situation and basically saved me from a self-destructive path of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. The sex especially was tough cause you know chicks be all up in my biznass 24/7 G.

I'm now convinced that this game has deeply influenced Japanese society for us old fogeys... somebody should research that. Joking aside, it was definitely fresh and exciting to start off playing a short scenario that tests your personality. I got the one about the king but failed at getting the sexy personality. Though near the end, somehow my strongest equipment ended up being bikinis and garter belts so I ended up with a whole party of sexies anyhow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


To be featured on next BBC documentary: "Shaping the weeb generation"
Speaking of sex, another nice customization is the option to pick the gender of you and your party members. Even though you look pretty much identical in my opinion, the other character classes have more variety. A nice touch is every time somebody mentions you as Ortega's son, they have to correct themselves. I'm sure it's still an sexist and misogynist game per SJW's standards but at least now I can finally create my standard waifu party.

Disgusted by sexist pink female armor, I went with a party of all bunnies and died instantly.

However, it was only later that I found out that there is NO pafu pafu with my all waifu party. Personally, as a gender-fluid sometimes lesbian female, this is EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE toward the LGBTKFCABCDEF community and we should all boycott Nintendo NOW.

ANYWAYS, getting into the gameplay, I can quickly summarize all the changes as "everything broken in DQ2 was fixed". They added the bag that allows you to carry EVERYTHING at all times and a line of text that explains what each spell does. FINALLY! No more having to google what Behoimi and Hyadaruko fucking does. However, being a classic DQ title, the random encounters are still very much a multitask repeatedly press 'A' affair or in my case 'L' for one-handed multitasking, though thankfully not as often as DQ2. I only wish holding down 'A' went faster than mashing it. Unfortunately, it's way faster to just mash. However, to its credit, this is the first DQ game where I had to use buffs and debuffs for boss battles namely Rukani, Sukuruto, Piorimu, and Baikiruto. Yeah, I have no fucking clue what those do either, which is why the in-game descriptions are so nice. It was kinda lame that Orochi has some sort of invisible health regeneration every turn but at least it made me use more than just attack and heal.

Holy shit! Explanations? Who'da thunk it?!

So yeah, on paper, this is the best DQ and probably one of the best RPGs on the FC (based on what I've seen). The SFC version definitely has some great graphics including some awesome spell effects. Yet somehow, I just enjoyed the short and simpler days of the first DQ more. There's a TON of content here and some nice surprises near the end but man, it just got kinda boring after a while. Yeah, you could conceivably play around with more jobs but you'd have to start at level 1 again. Or you could mess about with the board games and arena or hunt all those pesky metals down (meh). For me, besides the bosses, the gameplay and world setting was just too I dunno "Dragon Quest" to keep me interested. The personality stuff was cool but as far as I could tell, it has NO effect on the story or gameplay.

Score: 3 overrated JRPG reddit rant post time! out of 5 (also -10 points for no female on female pafu pafu)

Most of the game is just the standard DQ walking around + random encounter + attack + heal affair. So while technically there is nothing wrong with the game, I thought it was just OK. Also, the short, simple dialogues kind of made the story not as impressionable as it could've been. I mean, I guess it's cool for the kids since they can't read so good. I guess I should've played this like 10 years ago... ok ok 20 years ago.. ok I'm OLD, stop pushing it! There is an optional dungeon you can play after the game but I didn't bother. The sparse dialogue just didn't make the effort worth it for me.

I dunno, maybe I'm just not a big DQ kinda guy. I will however devour a Butterscotch dipped cone ANY day but wrong DQ.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei（デジタル・デビル物語 女神転生）

Finally, I finished my first SMT game err, I mean MT? Ugh what a stupid acronym. Anyways, what I actually played was the first half of Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei, the updated SFC remake of Megami Tensei 1+2. This is the DRPG and not the overhead action MSX/PC88/etc Nihon Telenet thing. For those new to this blog, DRPG is what we call 1st person dungeon crawlers since we don't need to waste a stupid letter to identify JRPGs (known to Jhipsters as RPGs).

The first thing you'll notice when you start up the game is all the reasons why this game was never localized. NOA was so busy trying to suck up to Congress saying THEIR games were wholesome family fun and would never have filth like Night Trap, they had to pretend this game didn't exist. Thanks to no internet, that was easy to do back in the day. I doubt this game would have helped their PR image if Shitaku was around back then.

Quick, somebody call Congress, it's time to hold to a hearing!!

I think this is the first game I've played that's actually a sequel to a bunch of books (for the kids, this is that Egyptian papyrus with words printed on it stacked on top of each other). Since the only version of the books available online are English fan-translated pirated stuff (typical), I decided to check out the OVA instead to get caught up on the lore.

Since YT has Content ID, I'm sure this is TOTALLY legal
Unfortunately, the anime only covers the first book and ends in a cliffhanger with a message from Set. However, I didn't really think the anime was so great anyways and I got enough of the gist to play the game. Maybe the books present it better but basically, you play as this asshole Nakajima who decided to make a program to summon devils cause first world problems and now you have to fix your own giant mess. You don't have to worry about how you defeated Loki and Set in the books because lo and behold, Lucifer helpfully resurrected them for you to beat again in the game.

Man Loki, I already beat you. Didn't you watch the OVA??

So the game is pretty much a standard map filler exercise. Thankfully, it does have an auto-map so no pen+paper needed. If you're obsessive compulsive, this is a great game to go fill in all the squares. If you explore every corner, you won't miss anything and should be able to get through the game without getting stuck except for the last sword which you have to go back to a random spot to find. I also looked up the map once to get through the halls on fire. It was really annoying to lose health on every step and I didn't want to wander around aimlessly constantly losing health trying to find Izanami's clothing (it's not what you think).

Umm... that's a very interesting way to decorate your walls.

The fusion stuff was pretty original for its time but man was it really skewed toward fucking Salamanders for some reason. For example, in order to fuse a level 57 Odin, you need a Sphinx and a Hanuman. To make a Sphinx, you need a Salamander and a Yasha. In order to make a Yasha, you need a Tsukuyomi and another fucking Salamander. And in order to make a Hanuman, you need a Zebec and ANOTHER FUCKING Salamander. Of course, it didn't help that I already had just finished fusing a level 55 Ganesha which also requires a Yasha and Hanuma which is TWO MORE Salamanders. So to make 5 Salamanders, I had to basically find 5 Dwarves and Pukas, the former which was annoyingly difficult to encounter.

Odin - mix 3 salamanders and a pinch of lemon for flavor

I also didn't really get the point of the moon phases and the date. There isn't any kind of time limit (thank god) and the only thing I cared about was NEW MOON because that's when you can't recruit any demons. Overall, the gameplay was just the standard attack and use magic to heal affair. You just grind away and eventually, you'll be able to get through with the handy AUTO battle. Though if you walk around with your demon friends, you will lose some MAG on every step so some resource management in necessary. I REALLY hated that enemies can sometimes knock down your level though. It made me save like a paranoid tinfoil hat crazy and if you get leveled down, you might as well restart. And for fuck's sake, could you show the stats for equipment in the equip menu?? I mean, it got so annoying going back to the item menu that it was easier to just look up the equipment list online. Lame.

Ugh, would it kill you to show some numbers here? It's a freakin' SFC remake!!

In terms of the plot, there's really nothing to spoil and it's as simple as can be. You're in there to kill some fucking demons and that's what you're going to do. Oh congrats, you killed em! Game Over. Thanks for playing! There is a floating city though so that's cool. You can fly to the final dungeon halfway through the game and die instantly just for giggles.

Dunno about the original FC version but check out dem SUPER graphics!!

Score: 2.5 Ignorant congressmen unaware kids in Japan were brainwashed into devil worship out of 5.

A dead simple game but still strangely addictive. I played while multitasking a visual novel and it was a perfect distraction while I listened to some imouto dialogue going on about oniichan, oniichan. I wish I was joking here but unfortunately, this is actually totally true.

The music was pretty good but it got far too monotonous after hours and hours of dungeon crawling. Eventually, I just turned it off to listen to my imouto in the other multitask game.

Yeah, might sound good to you now but try listening through 8 floors of Daedalos
A few more totally random screenshots just to highlight the wonderful Nintendo platform.

Ahh, fucking RICK. Man, what a great character and what a great story!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Final Fantasy III（ファイナルファンタジーIII）

Every new Final Fantasy game I buy seems to require several hours of research to determine which version is best. I really only want to buy one copy of each game, as strange as that may sound to the "pro" game hoarders... err I mean collectors. I usually just go for the latest version that uses real buttons and not on a goddamn phone. With Final Fantasy III, given my unabashed bias and love for the PSP aka the best console of all time, it seemed natural to give my yen offerings to the Amazon Japan Gods and get me some of that UMD love.

This filtered washed out mobile shitfest graphics is not exactly the same as the PSP version (impartial opinion)

Now, I'm sure you 2D purists are already scoffing at me for going for the 3D remake but if anybody can explain why the original version is better in terms of gameplay, please do let me know what I'm supposedly missing out on. As for personal preference, I really don't care about 2D or 3D as long as the game plays fine. I will say that zooming in to find hidden items was kinda annoying and pointless. I'm not sure how that mechanic worked if at all in the original Famicon version. In addition, the load times was just a few seconds too long. Even using an ISO without all the UMD grinding, the load time was juuuust long enough to be annoying but the 2x speed in auto battle mode made up for it a bit.

3D? Pffft, you must be one of those people that liked FF13 *scoff*

Besides the 3D changes, I found FF3 interesting because you get an airship within the first hour of the game. Of course, this airship doesn't go over mountains so you can't go much farther than what you could easily walk anyway but I still thought it was a nice twist. What's even more interesting is less than 10 hours into the game, an NPC gave me an item for going around the world map on a Chocobo and it didn't take more than a couple minutes, the world map was so small, I assumed there was more to explore than just this tiny world (you'll need to play the game to find out).

Don't get too excited, you ain't gonna get too far with that.

This is the first FF game that uses the job system like Bravely Default (comparison for the new kids). I'm not going to guess at who or how the job system was invented but after playing FF2, it feels like a natural progression from the crazy everything has a level chaos. If you consolidate the disjointed parts of FF2 and wrap it in a neat logical package called a job... voila! Job system!

Out of the first 3 games, the combat in this one is definitely the best so far. While FF1 was 99% holding down circle and FF2 a crazy albeit unique mess, FF3 is the first game in the franchise that has any sense of strategy. Though when you open up 4 chests with equipment for the scholar, you can tell the game is trying to tell you something. You need to play around with the jobs somewhat to see what works at different parts of the game. However, the system definitely did have some flaws including the fact that you'll never have the time to really level up and try out all the various jobs. The game balance near the end seemed to kind of break down as well as bosses took only about 6-10 hits of 6000-9999 damage to defeat.

Character designs were kinda meh but Refia twin tails with glasses was a winner

I liked the fact that you need to actually buy and use items in the beginning as Esuna is a 7(!) level spell. Phoenix downs are also not sold in stores so you need to use what you can find until you unlock Revive much later in the game (though earlier than Esuna). It was really annoying to have to find a spring to revive party members as sleeping at an inn doesn't work so I usually just reset instead.

The setting of the story is very similar to FF1 with the 4 warriors of light again, which feels like a step backward from FF2 in terms of character development. This time, you're trying to restore balance with light or something via talking crystals. I was never a big fan of the crystal stuff in Final Fantasy but I guess this is where it kinda starts to become an FF theme. You know what kind of game would be really cool? What if, in a unique twist, you are actually warriors of dark fighting against light?! That would be pretty darn cool!!!

GOD DAMMIT SQUARE!!! You made the boring part of the story! (DS version)

As I mentioned, I'm not sure why they went back to the generic FF1 character style (is this an early example of FF9 retro throwback??) They tried to give the characters some back stories in the 3D remake but even so the character development is non-existent and they end up feeling almost as generic as the FF1 warriors of light anyway. You can see snippets of personality and interaction in short bits of story and by talking to the 5th character that joins your party now and then. But at the end of the day, you can change all the characters to cross-dressing harpies and the main plot of restoring light to the balance or whatever would work exactly the same. At least this time, the 5th character isn't actually in your party as an under-powered, dragging wet towel that you are constantly switching like in FF2.

It's too bad the characters are so boring because the world setting and story events are arguably the most interesting in the series so far. However, it all falls flat as the events unfold around the generic characters that you're not really invested in and the final villian was too abstract to really interest me. I guess we'll have to wait for FF4 for the Parom/Palom level feels. Well, at least we can enjoy the fancy new intro vid.

Character interactions not as rich as intro suggests
Score: 3 "I may be cute but I'm fucking warning you, this book is pretty darn heavy!" out of 5 (31 hours to beat)

I thought the game was just average on all counts. Oh well, at least FF3 brought us Moogles... and it has twin tails... and a cat suit so... mission accomplished! Now I hear the final dungeon in the original version is hella difficult but it was pretty tame in the remake and thank goodness for that cause I was ready to be done with this game.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely