Anarchic Fox on 15/5/2020 at 20:52
I'm starting a thread so I can burble.
I purchased Dragon Quest Builders 2 before finishing its predecessor, a casualty of the burglary. But I realized I would rather finish the first game first. After all, it takes place in Alefgard, the world of Dragon Warrior. I have (
http://speeddemosarchive.com/DragonWarrior.html) a bit of history with that game. Yesterday I started up DQB1 on the Switch. When I emerged from my tomb, I felt joy welling up inside me, a joy more pure than I usually feel.
The first time I played DBQ (to about 2/3 completion), I did so in my usual compulsive way, accepting quests and turning them in one after another with only the occasional pause for exploration and creativity. This robbed the game of its joy, and I set it aside when I realized that had happened. The second time I played (prior to the burglary), I tried to do so in a more thoughtful way, and discovered hidden depths to the game. For example, the second area of the game is populated by red slimes, moles and skeletons. The first time I played, I would plow through all monsters, and all monsters attacked me on sight. The second time, I knew that the moles had a primitive civilization, so I spared them and ran from their aggression instead of fighting... and they eventually stopped attacking me. However, I continued to destroy the skeletons, and eventually they stopped spawning in the vicinity of the mole village. So this game appears to track the character's reputation in a sense, and also monster populations.
This time around (my third) I'm playing as myself, which is to say that quest givers can fuck right off, I'll get to their demands when I damn well feel like it. Instead, I'm playing slowly and meditatively, thinking about what brings me joy in gaming, and what merely triggers compulsion. I'm also trying to practice
ahimsa, which I interpret as nuanced nonviolence. So I'm allowed to kill a monster that attacks me, not otherwise; and even when attacked I must think before killing. In previous plays the starting monsters, drakees and slimes, would attack me unprovoked; however, they have yet to do so, presumably because I have yet to kill any of them. I also vividly remember something that would happen in previous plays: occasionally a slime would outright panic, anime sweat leaping from it as it fled rapidly. Originally I thought this was just a cute detail, but perhaps it was a result of the aforementioned reputation system. Right now, I'm serenely walking through the nearby forest, unharmed by its monsters, gathering sticks, berries and mushrooms while learning the lay of the land. I feel happy.
It's a postapocalyptic fantasy game, without ever rubbing your face in the devastation. When you find skeletons in the ruins of a house, you can sometimes piece together the circumstances of their deaths. I plan to build tombstones for each of them. I've already begun excavating my tomb, which was partially buried by the passing of centuries.
Renzatic on 15/5/2020 at 20:58
The only problem I have with Dragon Quest Builders is that the sequel is so objective better in every conceivable way, it's hard to justify playing the original anymore.
I mean comeon, DQB2 lets you build toilets, and your little people will use the toilets, and you can harvest their poop.
..plus, they're a lot more autonomous, cooking food for you to eat if you leave ingredients out for them, and even helping you build on occasion, but the poop thing's just hilarious.
Pyrian on 15/5/2020 at 21:02
Sounds kind of shitty.
Renzatic on 15/5/2020 at 21:03
At the very least, we now know what all those pots in the DQ games are for.
Anarchic Fox on 15/5/2020 at 21:08
Then it's a good thing I haven't tried the sequel yet!
...You may be right about the pot. In Dragon Warrior IV, there are pots that contain an item called "Gum Pod" in the English translation. These items have no use and sell for 1G. When you mentioned it, it occurred to me they might be the gummy residue of an ancient spitoon or chamberpot. The early DW games have subtle details like that, my favorite being the "Fighter's Ring" of DW1, found on the corpse of a warrior at the bottom of a cave. Its sole effect in the game is to make that warrior's widow sad.
Renzatic on 15/5/2020 at 21:18
It's funny that I still love the DQ games as much as I do, despite the fact that they've all been pretty much the exact same game for the last 35 odd years.
Anarchic Fox on 15/5/2020 at 21:58
To be fair, they don't come out very often. The entire Assassin's Creed franchise fits into the time it took Armor Project to make two Dragon Quest games.
The last one I tried in the main series was DQIX, which I felt to be too self-congratulatory. I also hated the fact that, aside from the hero, all the party members were generics.
Renzatic on 16/5/2020 at 00:26
I never got a chance to play through IX, since I didn't have a DS anymore. I did play through XI. I thought it was good fun, especially when you play with the difficulty and experience restriction modifiers, though I still consider VIII the strongest of the series thus far.
Anarchic Fox on 17/5/2020 at 14:04
The monsters attacked our settlement again. Rollo, Kenelm and I fought them off. Afterward, Pippa asked me to build her a private room, to replace her alcove in our shared dormitory. The others were making too much noise, she claimed. Rollo snores at night, you see, and Larouche screams. I built a room that met her specifications. When I finished it Pippa rushed there, applauded what she saw, thanked me for making her a room of her own, and shoved two chimera wings into my hands. I told her to get the fuck out of my room.
There is exactly one person in this town who has earned some privacy, and it isn't you, Pippa.