The GWJ JRPG Club 2018 - Dragon Quest VII

I had no idea what you were talking about but I checked and it's Dharma Temple on PS1. Yup, that dragged on. But new classes! I didn't have too much trouble but the latest boss totally kicked my ass. The Monster Prince. Needed a level up and a class switch. Also, if I hadn't recruited the non mandatory 4th member I would have been screwed.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just finished the lengthy sequence in Alltrades Abbey. What a miserable slog, and the Rashers/Stripes battle was nearly insurmountable for me. The rest of the storyline wasn't too difficult, but that fight... woof.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just finished the lengthy sequence in Alltrades Abbey. What a miserable slog, and the Rashers/Stripes battle was nearly insurmountable for me. The rest of the storyline wasn't too difficult, but that fight... woof.

I think my biggest issue with that part was the limited healing capabilities. All through the dungeon before Rashers/Stripes, I had to spend a few extra turns with Maribel and Ruff defending while my main character was using the healing item to get the party's HP up. Part of it is probably my fault for not keeping them maxed out from the get go, and then having to catch up on healing.

And yes, the Rashers/Stripes battle was a pain in the ass. I have to say I kinda liked the whole Alltrades quest so far (I think I'm almost done).

I finally saved the cursed village and now I'm back up to 4 party members.

And now I'm stuck on the four-man boss battle just after Alltrades. After coasting through the first part of the game without any trouble, I'm admittedly pretty frustrated by all this.

Don't actually remember that one. Will have to check later.

I also recently had my most frustrating point. At the winged valley, first boss run attempt, no problem, was back in the village talking to NPCs and had a random crash before I'd saved. Second attempt, got to the boss, was winning comfortably and put my PSP into sleep mode by mistake crashing the game. Third attempt, got inexplicably crushed by the boss. Fourth attempt, barely scraped through, rushed back and saved first thing.

If I'd failed again I was seriously contemplating putting the game down for some time.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

And now I'm stuck on the four-man boss battle just after Alltrades. After coasting through the first part of the game without any trouble, I'm admittedly pretty frustrated by all this.

Is that in the big statue that the villagers are building?

Been doing the Coastal City bit. Pretty smooth sailing (pun intended). Mid boss beat me but I tweaked some classes, bought some armour and came back and did the business. They warned me how much scarier and badder the main boss was but I obliterated them in a handful of rounds. Perhaps some NPC stuff to clean up but then back to the present.

It's the priest who you find beat up in the arena ruins near Alltrade Abbey/Dharma Temple, but it turns out to be a trap. (spoilers, I guess)

I can't manage to beat him and his three buddies.

Got it! Yes, I remember I scraped through that one on my first try. Possibly I was higher level but I don't remember exactly what. I think we had iron axes equipped. Just to check, I googled "Brigand, ShrubMage, Bandit, and Epong" and it has links to some strategy discussion if you're interested (for PS1 but presumably mostly applicable).

When do I actually get to do classes? Combat is getting pretty stale with really high respawn rate and low leveling rate.
I'm currently

Spoiler:

I got Ruff and doing the area with all the automotons, most of the party around level 14

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Got it! Yes, I remember I scraped through that one on my first try. Possibly I was higher level but I don't remember exactly what. I think we had iron axes equipped. Just to check, I googled "Brigand, ShrubMage, Bandit, and Epong" and it has links to some strategy discussion if you're interested (for PS1 but presumably mostly applicable).

Thanks!

In the 3DS version, they've been renamed Brigand, Rogue, Swagman, and Putric Stinkenheimer.

Putric Stinkenheimer is the best name.

Fastmav347 wrote:

When do I actually get to do classes? Combat is getting pretty stale with really high respawn rate and low leveling rate.
I'm currently

Spoiler:

I got Ruff and doing the area with all the automotons, most of the party around level 14

Not for a while unfortunately. On the plus side, those automotons (mechs?) drop iron axes which is your best equip for the MC and Ruff for the next 4-5 islands, which is a lot of time to bank gold. Plus, any extras sell for 2000g which is also a lot of money at that stage in the game.

I will keep that in mind.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Mr GT Chris wrote:

Got it! Yes, I remember I scraped through that one on my first try. Possibly I was higher level but I don't remember exactly what. I think we had iron axes equipped. Just to check, I googled "Brigand, ShrubMage, Bandit, and Epong" and it has links to some strategy discussion if you're interested (for PS1 but presumably mostly applicable).

Thanks!

In the 3DS version, they've been renamed Brigand, Rogue, Swagman, and Putric Stinkenheimer.

Putric Stinkenheimer is the best name.

It sure is. And (minor spoilers, I guess), that battle is not the last you will see of Putric Stinkenheimer!

Fastmav347 wrote:

When do I actually get to do classes? Combat is getting pretty stale with really high respawn rate and low leveling rate.
I'm currently

Spoiler:

I got Ruff and doing the area with all the automotons, most of the party around level 14

If you're on 3DS, it's not that far until you can GET to Alltrades Abbey (four/five hours maybe?), but you have to go through a long quest before you get to use its services.

Am I the only one finding the music repetitive and not that interesting? Each troubled town has the same, each happy town has the same, and neither of them is that great. I think the only music I actually like in the game is the castle theme.

I'm pretty sure a few DQ XI reviews pointed out the same problem with that game...

I'm not big on DQ music generally but the PS1 absolutely suffers from this. Feels like there are 5 tracks at most. And only one battle theme after 30-40 hours?

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of the music, none of it is catchy or pleasant to me. Sad to hear that it will be another 5 hours before something exciting happens in combat.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

And now I'm stuck on the four-man boss battle just after Alltrades. After coasting through the first part of the game without any trouble, I'm admittedly pretty frustrated by all this.

Problem solved! My 4.5 year old daughter wanted to play, so I let her run around Alltrades Abbey for awhile and kill a bunch of monsters. I maxed out one profession each on my characters, got enough money for upgraded equipment, and gained a few levels.

I should outsource more often.

I forgot to charge my 3ds, lost about an hour of progress, this might actually kill this play through as it was already a slog.

That sucks!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Problem solved! My 4.5 year old daughter wanted to play, so I let her run around Alltrades Abbey for awhile and kill a bunch of monsters. I maxed out one profession each on my characters, got enough money for upgraded equipment, and gained a few levels.

I should outsource more often.

I ran into a similar problem but no one to outsource to unfortunately. Ran into a big bad and got whipped fairly soundly. I have an item that allows you to reset the battle (as long as the person carrying it isn't dead!) so I was able to reset enough to confirm that I wasn't going to be able to do it. A quick check online showed I was missing at least one pretty key skill (Magic wall). Also, too many of my party members were set to low HP classes so they were dying too quickly. I did the old JRPG grind for a bit, unlocked some better classes, bought out all the shiny equipment and I was good to go after that.

Now I'm into what starts out as a kind of epilogue but evolves after that.

Was that the Envoy, by any chance? I ran into a similar problem with him.

LastSurprise wrote:

Was that the Envoy, by any chance? I ran into a similar problem with him.

That was:

Spoiler:

Orgodemir, or Demon Lord - Round 1 the faq says.

Wait, I'm confused:

Spoiler:

Are you saying the Envoy is Orgodemir? Or that you were fighting Orgodemir (and not the Envoy)? If it's the former, that's a very good preview for how difficult that fight will be.

No, the boss I mentioned is well after the one you referred to.

It's after you finished collecting all the shards, and unlock all the lands/islands.

From what I remember of Envoy (had a different name on PS1, Geomage or something) it was pretty straightforward.

Gold slimes drop 3k gold, yay!

I am having trouble transitioning from a "there's no need to grind" to "you can grind forever if you want" with regard to the professions.

Like... my dumb brain just wants me to do nothing but grind. That's not fun for anyone.

I'd "grind" for Sword Dance (Warrior/Dancer) for every character and that will pretty much carry you through most of the game. The other time I did some class grinding was when most of my party was in the middle of classes that had very low HP and I was getting slaughtered by a boss. Hustle (group heal skill, no MP cost) from TeenIdol is pretty good too.

I made sure to grind someone up to mastery of the Priest profession so that they could have Zing. I was taken aback by how rare and how expensive resurrection is in this game.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I'd "grind" for Sword Dance (Warrior/Dancer) for every character and that will pretty much carry you through most of the game. The other time I did some class grinding was when most of my party was in the middle of classes that had very low HP and I was getting slaughtered by a boss. Hustle (group heal skill, no MP cost) from TeenIdol is pretty good too.

So I wondered why this post didn't make any sense to me, and it's because the 3DS version of the game overhauled the vocation system. Fused skills across vocations like Sword Dance don't exist anymore.

Thanks, that clears that up!

Some news, the 3DS version is on sale for a few more days, 19.99. Should probably cross post to the main thread. And I bought it!

Some background, I hit a game stopping glitch on the PSP, quite frustrating because I'd say I was 70-80% through the game. Was thinking of trying my luck with an emulator (no PS1) but that would have left me stuck playing on the desktop, even if it had worked. So I'll see how I go on 3DS. Impressions later.

Pity this sale wasn't earlier. Last month Nintendo offered me a birthday discount on Dragon Quest.......8. Whoops!

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Some background, I hit a game stopping glitch on the PSP, quite frustrating because I'd say I was 70-80% through the game. Was thinking of trying my luck with an emulator (no PS1) but that would have left me stuck playing on the desktop, even if it had worked. So I'll see how I go on 3DS. Impressions later.

Can't you move your save game to the PC to get past the glitch, and then move back to the PSP?

As for me, I made the mistake of starting Undertale instead of continuing my playthrough. The good news is that it's pretty short, and I'm hoping to finish Undertale this weekend or in the middle of next week. (I also started Nier Automata this week, but I will just take the disc out of my PS4, put it in a closet, and restart playing it once I beat DQ VII).

This has led me to realize that I actually prefer to play on TV than on handheld. (Which explains why my Switch, so far, has been used in dock mode nearly 100% of the time.)