I've been playing dragon quest 1 through 3, and I also played Final Fantasy 1. Not to say the latter isn't good but I notice a big difference in charm, fun, accessibility and levels of monotony between them. How did Final Fantasy compete when Dragon Quest already existed? What did the Japanese audience think of FF1 when it hit? I'm aware it was a different time with different time with different expectations which is why I'm asking
>>10865325I suppose it was very interesting... until DQ3 came out two months later and fucked shit up.
FF1 came out at the right moment, after DQ2 and just 1 month before DQ3 at the moment when Famicom RPG demand was high yet the market wasn't flooded with them just yet. It sold 500k copies far below the 2,4 million and 3,8 millions of DQ2 and 3; but the series grew in popularity little by little with FF2 selling 720k and FF3 managing to sell 1,4 million copies right after DQ4 and when the market was being flooded with RPGs.As for its mechanics, it managed to bring enough off its own to differentiate itself from a mere DQ clone and made efforst to be as accessible as possible. You can save anywhere on the world map, compared to other RPGs of the time grinding is extremely minimal. Another interesting mechanic is the fact that it does "one dungeon -> one boss at the end". It is easy to take this for granted nowadays, but this was NOT the standard in RPGs at the time, far from it.It also pushed story and storytelling, with each region of the world having its own small story arch that's part of a grander scheme. Kinda similar to DQ3 in fact except in DQ3, some story arcs really don't feel connected to the grand scheme. (It is also easy to take this for granted nowdays)Some Japanese comments can be found herehttps://w.atwiki.jp/famicomall/pages/330.htmlThey note how you can simply talk to people by pressing A in front of them. Another thing that is easy to take for granted, but DQ and its clones still had you open a menu before you could do that.
>>10865325Im not Japanese but I would assume FFI survived solely off the strength of DQ I & II for people that just want more. FFI felt so much worse than DQII but there was at least the class system and customization to hang its hat on, until DQIII came out 2 months later and vastly improved it.
>>10865456>You can save anywhere on the world maphow?
>>10865464By using a tent or a cabin
>>10865325it sold fantastic and was seen partly as a refined "DQ-like" that was just as accessible for younger players who weren't into Ultima yet. keep in mind most kids didn't have PCs and no access to Ultima until Exodus' famicom port in 1989 so all this stuff was completely fresh to thempeople like to shit on FF2 but that was really significant too when that came out right after a year later in 1988, only because it kind of set in stone how narrative-focused the franchise would be from that point on (setting the foundation for FF4 more than anything else wit pre-set characters joining the party and having story beats driving progress). it sort of beat DQ to the punch since the DQ didn't really get "narrative-heavy" with its unique chapter-based storytelling until DQ4 in 1990, though don't take this as an endorsement on which one is actually better
>>10865325FF1 stood out for its replayability, class selection, buying spells from stores, pressing A button once both to talk and examine, flying vehicles with no encounters, fast scrolling vehicles, smooth coastline and mountain graphics, animated characters during battle. It was sophisticated for the time.
Looking at a list of best selling Famicom games (from Famitsu records, so not 100% accurate), the only RPGs that sold better or as well as the FF games, and which aren't DQ, are licensed ones like Gegege no Kitarou 2 and some of the Dragon Ball/Z games, which had the benefit of being carried by their source material (and the DB/Z games are hybrid games anyway, not strictly RPGs)so despite the sales numbers appearing to be so low compared to DQ, it really was one of the most popular RPG franchises on the system
>probably the most-important JRPG of all time>online consensus seems to think it's just some phoned-in sequel How come?
>>10865456>compared to other RPGs of the time grinding is extremely minimali just played this for the first time.If you come without any prior knowledge, if you are exploring to find where to go next instead of just going straight, it is extremely easy to get overleveled.Grinding isn't minimal. It requires negative grinding, you need to purposefully flee battles to keep your level low if you don't want to fall into a zero challenge breeze through every fight.
>>10865537>online consusin the west*
>>10865537Because by the time the US got DQ2, they already had Final Fantasy as the big improvement over DQ1, so it ironically ended up being called the derivative knock-off.
Also FF1's story was actually fairly interesting compared to DQ1's - it involved questing to awaken a sleeping elf prince, unearthing ancient ruins, fighting pirates, doing battle with elemental fiends, time loops, etc.Even in its earliest incarnation, FF's aesthetic was firmly established as being cracked out but in a good way.
>>10865537Same with FF2 which Famitsu called the 5th best NES game in 1991
And the only reason anybody in the US cared about Dragon Quest is because they made too many copies that nobody would buy and so they gave them away to Nintendo Power subscribers (it was either that or joining Atari E.T. in the landfill). It was enough to get the rest of the Famicom sequels localized, but Final Fantasy was faster at reaching the SNES fanbase and so Dragon Quest was left behind in the dust.
>>10865456>Another interesting mechanic is the fact that it does "one dungeon -> one boss at the end". It is easy to take this for granted nowadays, but this was NOT the standard in RPGs at the time, far from it.Interesting. What WAS the standard back then, then?
>>10865619>And the only reason anybody in the US cared about Dragon Quest is because they made too many copies that nobody would buy and so they gave them away to Nintendo Power subscribersSources say the game sold 500k copies in the US. That's not bad by any margin, it's just that they probably excepted to sell a million so they gave away a ton.>>10865626Well for instance Wizardry games basically only have bosses at the end of the games or they're scattered here and there like in 2 and not necesarilly guarding the end of a floor. DQ1 basically only has 4 bosses, and outside of the final one, they're not at the end of a dungeon but scattered here and there. Same with DQ2 which even has 3 boss-like encounters in towns. The "boss rush" at the end of DQ2 was pretty neat however. It's actually kinda sad how the "gamey" "one dungeon->one boss at the end" system has become such a standard, I really like the way DQ2 did it, it feels a lot more orgarnic.
>>10865456> As for its mechanics, it managed to bring enough off its own to differentiate itself from a mere DQ cloneYeah, I can see this with the job system in final fantasy 3
>>10865626I'm not them but most video games were like ASS before the SNES. Took time to find out how to make anything good
>>10865657>>10865619> Sources say the game sold 500k copies in the US. I personally blame this on the North American marketing. They replaced the covers with charmless generic 80s pulp art, the commercials were awful, and they didn't seem to have confidence in it.
>>10865538Yeah there's a random encounter every couple of steps. Dragon Quest 1 seemed to have at least 40 seconds or a minute in between encounters. It's also less consistent
>>10865325each game is it's own thing,none of them are connected in any way,the coincidence in names is just reusing names and nothing else.>in one game you have the classic can copy of draquest.>in other the game is broken beyond repair because stats are build up through damage,so you end up with immunity to elements,venom and so on early on the game.>other is just drive with bros on open worldso you see is not the same and shouldn't be compared to a superior product like draquest.
>>10865690This art was cool as fuck when I was a kid. It was the reason I begged my mom to buy it for me. The only way I finished was because my friend gave me the cool Nintendo power guide that had awesome art as well
>>10865325Sakaguchi was quoted in 1989 as saying the game was "His final fantasy" as he expected the game to flop and didn't expect to remain long at Square. The game was an unexpected success and now we have a long legacy of games as a result.
>>10865626Mostly dungeon diving that stressed your resources. Phantasy Star II is old school with three bosses in the whole game, two of them in the final dungeon.
>>10865690>new!What a miserable lie. It was 3 years old.
>>10865818not to be mean but young you had questionable taste in art
>>10865626To compare, Dragon Quest only has 3 real bosses in the entire game. One is in a random cave that can hardly be called a dungeon, one is the final boss, and the last just guards a town. Two of those are skippable, and of the dungeons in the game, counting caves as well I suppose, there are 5. The titular Dragon guards the smallest dungeon, and of course the Dragonlord guards the biggest.
>>10865537The average person you talk to online about older games has likely not even played most of what they discuss and have no real background in older games beyond the most superficial. It's why you don't see this kind of shit when you get people to actually discuss historically significant PC games or Sega games (that aren't fucking Sonic).
>>10867046>The average person you talk to online about older games has likely not even played most of what they discuss Don't think that's it. Games aren't like books where you get street cred for consuming them, and anyone can emulate literally anything. The real culprit is millennial YouTubers influencing what people play + think is important. They even managed to trick people into thinking N64 was more relevant than it was
>>10867085>They even managed to trick people into thinking N64 was more relevant than it wasIn ten or so years you'll be hearing the same things about the WiiU, if not sooner.
>>10865537I dunno about the English version or any remakes, but the original Japanese version of this game feels like they didn't have time to play test the second half, which may be why people would call it "phoned in".I really enjoyed the first half and it doesn't really deserve to be called phoned in because it added a lot to the series, multiple party members, multiple enemies in battle, bigger world where you travel continents with a boat etc. But man, the second half once you do get that boat feels like a different game as it simultaneously loses direction and spikes in difficulty. I still enjoyed it enough to get to the final boss, before quitting there as I realised it basically comes down to luck whether the final boss just endlessly alternates between the 50/50 full heals and attacks until you run out of items/MP, or just attacks without healing for enough consecutive turns to let you actually kill him.
It was always better and more polished than DQ. The DQ devs gave up after the first game
>>10866859How the fuck is that questionable your east vs west answer doesn't work when any RPG fan of that time only knew realistic art like that.
>>10867392>loses direction NPCs always point you in the next logical direction. Not to mention that the world map is laid out in such a way that the next logical direction is almost always close and the easiest to find. (also you're supposed to have a world map, the game came out with one, even on Famicom). And I hate people usually say this while at the same time praising DQ3. DQ3 is so much worse in that regards, if you listen to NPCs when you get the boat they send you almost straight to fucking Jipang (first the ghost town, then Jipang), which has a dungeon and a boss (whom you have to fight twice) which are WAY above the player's level at that point, even though there are other places to go to which are actually easier, and guess what, those aren't actually the next logical place for you to find, unlike DQ2. Also DQ2 lets you home basses from which you can save and which are located in ways that make it easy to just go anywhere with the boat... What convenient base does DQ3 have for the boat? None. > it basically comes down to luck whether the final boss just endlessly alternates between the 50/50 full heals and attacks until you run out of items/MP, or just attacks without healing for enough consecutive turns to let you actually kill him.He doesn't reset buffs/debuffs though. And if do that enough time, you can kill him in 3 turns even at level 30.
also Malroth's heal isn't 50/50, it's 25/75. 1 chance out of 4 for him to use it.
>>10867404I felt DQ3 got weaker too when I got the boat, but at least the balance wasn't as fucked as 2 was.>>10867410I actually didn't know this. It sure felt like 50/50 when I fought him, but I must have just been unlucky.
>>10867204Unsure if that's possible, the nicest thing I hear about it is it's home screen UI was comfy. I can't think of any notable games it had that weren't ported to switch
>>10867398DQ3 was like one of the most polished and well paced RPGs of that era
>>10867403>any RPG fan of that time only knew realistic art like that.The only art RPG fans look at is RPG covers? Bro...
>>10865325>Not to say the latter isn't good but I notice a big difference in charm, fun, accessibility and levels of monotony between themMe too. Final Fantasy 1 is way, way better. I have so much fun in this game it's unreal. I've probably done 10 solid complete playthroughs in my life.
>>10865690You absolutely were not born in that period of time. Your opinions are beyond retarded.
>>10867813Nigga tried to do a gotcha and didn't understand what "latter" meant.
>>10867913Sorry you missed the point because you're so fixated on tribalism.
>>10865690>>10867814What people do forget is that cover was fairly unique for video games, especially among the NES library at the time, and gave a decent variety on the NES in regards to covers when stuff like Golden Axe and Phantasy Star II were spicing up Sega's library, and if you compare it to the covers on the NES from the same year (Mega Man 2, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, way too many licensed games that just used film covers), Dragon Warrior stood out.But, the issue with Dragon Warrior wasn't the cover, I doubt a Toriyama cover would've changed much. If anything, it might've made people expect a Mario or Alex Kidd with the cartoon-y aesthetics, only to be tricked into baby's first D&D like game. I also wouldn't blame the marketing, they hyped this shit up and the three sequels got even better marketing because DW1 was fucking FREE for anyone who got a Nintendo Power subscription. I'm not even sure if the game would've done well had it miraculously managed to release in 1986 or 1987. I feel it would've just fallen with the likes of Hydlide in the western consensus even then, there's probably a reason Dragon Quest has never truly succeeded in the west without some massive asterisks appended onto the word "success".
>>10865456FF1 had a little more advanced cartridge hardware because it was 256k MMC1 and had a battery save while the Famicom DQ1 and 2 had weaker cartridge hardware and password saves.
>>108673923 is boring once you've completed most of the world.
>>10868160Once you've completed most of the world the games over, thats usually how RPGs go
>>10867814>It's retarded to think a cover looks assThere is no meaningful content in this statement. They gave them generic 80s pulp covers, eventually they stopped trying and it was just a sword or chalice or whatever. The last non toriyama cover looked like a bad vsmile game. DQ2's NA cover is kind of allright, I think cause of the colors
>>10868160>3 is boring once you've completed most of the world.Really..odd criticism? any game is boring once you've completed most of the world. It feels like the skyrim of its time
