Choice is an illusion.
>>12748808The only choice you can make fucks you over and makes you do the whole final dungeon again
>>12748808When Japs decided to create an accessible console version of roleplaying games, due to technical constraints they had to choose between "roleplaying" and "stats and whatnot".Considering the mainstream popularity of the genre, they probably made the right choice, but it's amusing how for years the genre for them was synonymous with an almost comical lack of agency and control over characterization and story progression.
>>12749119It's funny to think they needed to release Mystic Quest here because "dumb westerners" wouldn't get it, but Chrono Trigger and FF6 were just training wheels for Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2
>>12748808always wondered why nintendo would do this in ocarina of time for multiple conversations
>>12749125Well, most of those are just variations of the "do yo get all that" question that comes with key exposition.Zelda's "pleas" in OoT or ALttP are just a different flava of the same thing; adding a simple token interaction gateway helps flagging the bottom line for the player.
>>12749119What Western video games from before 1986 would you consider to have more "roleplaying" than Dragon Quest I?Dragon Quest I is a very open and freeform game. You can go anywhere in almost any order, skip large sections of the game, you can choose to save the princess or not and the ending changes, etc.
>>12748808And yet it worksSome people hate this, that you have to choose YES but I think it actually adds a lot to the game
>>12749289I like how the king bitches at you if you reach level 30.>You haven't defeated the Dragon Lord yet wtf are you doing?
>>12749367Thats the max level isnt it? I didnt know he would say that, you can beat the game around lv 20 iirc
Wrong
>>12749367>>12749372Yeah, if you're Level 30 and you talk to him, he chews you out instead of telling you how much EXP you need to get to the next level.>Thou art strong enough!>Why can thou not defeat the Dragonlord?
>>12749367Dragon Quest has some good jokes like that and the OP. Love the knights that are behind a door that requires a Magic Key, and when you talk to them they just respond "I'm busy, talk to the guy next to me".
Also intentionally choosing the bad end of siding with the Draogn Lord is seen as a joke too. Like how they sell this Dragon Lord pizza cutter in Japan. The text says "If you side with me, I'll give you half of the pizza."
>>12749413People think games like Mother were the first to do parody or 4th wall breaking, but the original Dragon Quest was already doing it back in '86Also, original FC sprites > NES redrawn sprites
>>12749424The joke is that the Dragonlord gives you a password that sets you back to the beginning of the game, but there's nothing in the treasure chests and so you're trapped in the throne room.
>>12749289>What Western video games from before 1986 would you consider to have more "roleplaying" than Dragon Quest I?
>>12749539Anon on suicide watch.
>>12749539That's the biggest illusion of choice ever made though, it's exactly like DQ, don't want to be a goody two shoes? Well fuck you you're never finishing the game or making any progress.Wow I can give money to a beggar or not but it's necessary to increase my sacrifice Stat which is necessary to progress so why the fuck shouldn't I? 1 ending, same objective, all the choice are there just for you to increase your mandatory stats to win the game.
>>12749457Why is it spelled as くえすと rather than クエスト? Is there a pun I'm not getting?
>>12749289Bard's Tale had way more freedom than Dragon Quest. You are set loose in a huge city to explore at will with very little guidance
>>12749564No, just a zany way of spelling it, Portopia is also spelled in hiragana instead of the usual katakana.Katakana is usually for foreign words and hiragana feels more homely, so to speak, so it's like she's talking about the games but disguised, in a way.Dragon was kept in katakana, I guess because Dragon is already an actual name of a monster in-game, so it makes sense game inhabitants would spell it that way.
>>12749457>It did the ching chong moonrunes first!!
>>12749993?
>>12749993U mad bro?
>>12748808This wasn't the illusion of choice it was an intentionally characterization. Princess Gwaelin is defined by this exchanged, it is arguably her enduring and endearing quality.
>>12750406This guy gets it. It was intentional and lol at anyone who didnt see this
Dost thou love me?!
Three seperate countries were formed and populated by the amount of children they had.
>>12749564The font of the original Famicom version of Dragon Quest 1 is incomplete, presumably to save space.
>>12750993No
>>12748808Why does this choice matter if it doesn’t affect the gameplay?
>>12748808I got to the part where you start sailing around fighting monkeys in DQII before I lost interest
>>12748808This is how women actually work, tho
>>12751485Weak
>>12749539The game doesn't allow you to be anyone other than "teenager trying to prove he is jesus by doing a bunch of nice things for people". The only other thing you can do is just wander the world with almost nothing to do forever because there is no story other than that. Yeah Dragon Warrior is one track but pretending that Ultima 4 isn't is delusional.
>>12751232VRAM too, text sucks up staggering amounts of VRAM on older systems which is why RPG graphics were often lackluster compared to platformers.
>>12748808>>12751707You can actually never rescue the princess if you don't want to.When I played the game for the first time I never realized that the princess's item worked a radar, so I actually got to the hidden spot using only the NPC's clue (about the step distance between the item and the castle) and found it myself by just calculating tiles. I could have beaten the game without rescuing the princess.
>>12751476It's her character and a joke. When you beat the game she says "Will you take me on your next adventure?" and if you say no she goes "But thou must!"
>>12750993>act sarcastic once>everyone thinks you are an irredeemable psychopath forever>almost no one even gives you the chance to talk because some shitposters on the internetFucking brutal
>>12751721You can also beat the game carrying the princess and never putting her down.
>>12749623>player agency = going in circle doing nothing for hours until you figure out how to progress in the linear story
>>12751739>Dragonlord will sarcastically complement you for bringing the Princess back to him if you go the whole game with her in your arms
>>12749671>spelling a foreign word in hiragana rather than katakana is considered cRaAaZyyDo the Japanese really?
>>12751859Not crazy, but it's like "different". But in reality, it's because of what this anon said >>12751232I was partly right that "dragon" was in katakana because it was already in the game for an enemy.
>>12751785>Dragonlord will sarcastically complement you for bringing the Princess back to him if you go the whole game with her in your armsOn NES? I never get any special text when I bring her to him.
>>12748808Say what you will about the DQ HD remakes, but one of my favorite bits is that they turned the requisite, pointless YES/NO dialogue choices into thoughtful exposition, especially in DQ 2; your cousins have distinct personalities and basically cover the opposing viewpoints on any given scenario, while the silent hero is depicted as a stoic hardass who grew up too fast, but gradually softens due to proper socialization. A "correct" answer shows how you've grown to become more invested in those around you, while a "wrong" answer is framed as either being in jest, or playing devil's advocate for the benefit of your cousins, all of which are things the Prince of Midenhall would not have done from the start of the adventure.
>>12748810>The only choice you can make fucks you over and makes you do the whole final dungeon againWhich is absolutely based. The whole point of old JRPGs like this was not to tell a story, but to make you feel like a hero on an adventure. You spend the whole game going forward with little motivation beyond being a righteous; showing up to every city and righting wrongs just because you have the power to. If you spend all the time and effort it took to do so and were willing to toss it all away for some easy power at the last minute, then you are a BAD hero and deserve to be punished. Simple as.I definitely did enjoy how DQ Builders was effectively a spin-off from this bad ending, though. And that version of the "hero" didn't get any pathos or chance for redemption. He was just portrayed as a dolt who you fucking killed. DQ games are fucking goat at exploring morality.
>>12751485>sailing aroundI was filtered for a while in the original DQ2 at the same point. It's because I didn't know where to go next. I took notes for my next playthrough and managed to find everything. Even the fake wall stuff.
Getting lost in DQ2 is definitely part of the adventure.However, using the big ass map that came as a folded poster with the physical game helps a lot.
>>12751634You will never be a woman toxotranny
>>12748808>>12748810Just having these interactions immerses you into the story more, even if they don't matter. Interactivity in games doesn't have to be functional, it's a good way to make a player experience a story in a more personal way than they could in any other medium.
My cause is just
>>12749562>don't want to be a goody two shoes? Well fuck you you're never finishing the game or making any progress.The quest you are given at the outset of the game is to become the ultimate goody two shoes. You literally just stated a tautology and basically it's amazing you don't realize how colossally retarded you are.>don't want to progress towards the goal??? then you won't progress towards the goal!!!!wowzoomers on death row
>>12748808well that's every wizardry game and the nipponese loved to copy wizardry
>>12759458Yes; however, in many later RPGs, you have the ability to abandon your original assigned goal in favor of something else, leading to a different branch of the story or a different ending.Despite the fact that Ultima 4 presents many decisions to the player, most of them are not any different from the one the princess gives to the player in the OP image. The only real decision the player has the agency to make is whether they want to keep playing the game or not.I don't personally have a problem with this from a game design perspective, but as an example cited of how Western RPGs had much deeper roleplaying than DQ1, I don't find it very compelling.
>>12749478That's pretty cool actually
>>12748808Do you take the red queen or the blue knight?
>>12759458Not much roleplaying when you can only roleplay as one thing
>>12751702Love this image. Old school DQ was so cozy.
>>12749564>>12751232This is also why the spell names are the way they are. Chances are they probably weren't going to call a heal spell a boring ヒール anyway but it's hilarious to think that a huge part of the series' identity came from not being able to fit a ヒ into the cartridge.
