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It's been great following through these LP's and letting me relive my childhood of renting these games all the time. Thanks Frank! The great writing is a cherry on top. Also, I seem to remember that even though the materials that came with the game are huge spoilers, I used the paper map a lot for this game and they actually cunningly held something back. They covered up the final island with a sea monster. It forces you to actually explore or spot the tiny island on the in-game map. I thought it was pretty cool at the time Squibbles fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Apr 12, 2019 |
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Apr 12, 2019 16:06
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This was an amazing LP, and I teared up multiple times while reading it, both from Frank's writing and--sometimes--even the end-game stuff. Francois' return to his town and planting flowers there hit me hard for whatever reason. Thanks so much for doing these. As I may have mentioned before, I bought an account on this forum basically just so I could keep following these LPs. A worthwhile investment, to be sure.
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Apr 12, 2019 16:27
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Leofish posted:It was a lot of fun reliving my childhood through this LP, Frank, and I loved your writing and characterization of the protagonists. Thanks so much for doing this. He gets bored enough to start a monster arena team, which means that he remained adventurous enough to go out, find the monsters that he wanted, and pummel them into joining his team.
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Apr 12, 2019 17:22
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There's also the Mystery Dungeon games
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Apr 12, 2019 18:02
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Thanks for the fun read Frank! I really enjoyed all of your Dragon Warrior LP's.
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Apr 12, 2019 18:37
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Zeroisanumber posted:He gets bored enough to start a monster arena team, which means that he remained adventurous enough to go out, find the monsters that he wanted, and pummel them into joining his team. Pummel? Please, Master of Persuasion Taloon the Merchant King doesn't need to pummel monsters to sell them on the advantages of his monster arena.
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Apr 12, 2019 21:10
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Some of the best LPs I’ve ever read. Selfishly craving DQ5
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Apr 13, 2019 01:50
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Apparently it's possible to glitch your way into exploring the world map post-victory and uh...the game goes nuts. It's not glitching General Leo into your FFVI party or getting Mew in RBY without using a Gameshark levels of goodness but still. The zaniness starts around 8:42, for anyone who's interested.
Shitenshi fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 03:09
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Frank, I have great personal animosity to this one game, which simultaneously sparked quite a lot of positive imagination during my childhood, and absolutely crushed me later on with the dumb AI poo poo. More than just being annoyed, this was a game that kind of broke my heart by failing to live up to what I wanted in it. I've had a negative overall opinion on it for almost three decades. (Eventually tried the remake, but... eh. It overcompensates a lot. In the end, just disappointment.) The way you've presented things here, with the little completely made up dialogue is exactly how I always played games like these when I was little, and seeing the care you've put into those bits, and seeing how much enjoyment you can get out of it, well, it's been sublime. Thank you for doing this. You've captured what I daydreamed about when I was eight years old, and it feels like finally getting the adventure I wanted.
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Apr 13, 2019 08:32
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Thanks for the LP Frank! This whole series has been really great.
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Apr 13, 2019 16:59
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I remember playing this at my friends house in grade school. I don't think I was around for the final boss on the NES. I beat 1-6 on the DS though. Never finished 9 and never played 7. Beat 8 on PS2. Beat Builders and going to play the sequel for that. This has always been one of my favorite series of games. Thanks for the great LPs!
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Apr 13, 2019 19:05
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Thanks for the LPs! These have been great fun and a welcome distraction at times. DQ4 was and still is a wonderful game, and it was nice to see it get the attention it deserves. You deserve a long, hard fought break after all of that Dragon Questin'.
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Apr 13, 2019 19:22
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It's been a blast to retread my favorite games from when I was like 6-12 years old with everyone- I've only ever replayed 3 all the way through as an adult, because I had a boring sit-here job and a GameBoy Color, it was super neat to see the last half of DW4 for the first time in a little over twenty years also idk if this is just my experience, but the Dragon Warrior games are really unfamiliar both to my peers in the early 90s, as well as my friends nowadays- and they're mostly fellow huge dorks who play CRPGs and enjoy wizards and stuff. My guess is that it had to do with how dang expensive these games were, aside from the $5 DW1 that honestly doesn't hold a candle to the similarly-priced used Final Fantasy cart. I remember FuncoLand prices on DW4 being ~$80- I only got to play it thanks to game rentals, and only got to finish it thanks to NESticle anyway it kind of rules because I can crib stuff for my D&D game and they're none the wiser e: still remember the first time I saw Dragon Warrior- it was at my parents' friends' house, I was five or six, and their teenage son was playing it. I was taken in immediately- I loved to read, and I had no idea a Nintendo game could have so many words in it, or a story more complicated than 'go right and kill the guy/get the thing'. I'm pretty sure I irritated the bejesus out of the older kid with my verbose wonder Peanut Butler fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 20:44
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chairface posted:Pummel? Please, Master of Persuasion Taloon the Merchant King doesn't need to pummel monsters to sell them on the advantages of his monster arena. FrankZP: That was a wonderful LP. Will Cristo ever reveal his feelings? HA! No.
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Apr 14, 2019 17:46
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Straight White Shark posted:Taloon holding up his kid is the most Yes! That was amazing. Just caught up with the final few updates, and I just have to say, amazing job Frank. You clearly love this game, play it well, and write about it with such heart. Saro down on the first try is impressive! Looking forward to the next adventures of our dimension-hopping heroes.
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Apr 15, 2019 05:37
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thing I've ever seen on a NES
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Welp, I'm officially overwhelmed here, heheh. All the kind words are much appreciated, as always. I knew these games meant a lot to me in many ways, but after spending most of my free time for eleven months on this series, I suspect I've underestimated by how much! Pratan posted:Please do DQ5! Regarding DQ5, there's a fair chance I'll get to it at some point, but if I do, it probably won't be very soon. I've had a couple writing projects I've had inspiration for a while back but didn't really have time and energy to get to, and I'd like to see if I can make anything happen with my own stories for a bit. That and I've got DQ11 downloading as we speak. :3 Straight White Shark posted:Taloon holding up his kid is the most Oh definitely. I'm so glad they found space in the sprite sheets for both Taloon and his son, and Celia's hug at the end. So simple, but so effective, dang. Blaze Dragon posted:Talking about that, great job in all the LPs, FrankZP! This was highly enjoyable, both from the gameplay perspective and from your own writing. I enjoyed this cast a lot. On the game itself, though...it sure dropped the "Alena's people disappeared" plot, huh. I guess we must just accept it got fixed off-screen. Yeah, the whole Santeem thing feels like a section of the story got cut at some point, considering how pretty much every other narrative element feels complete and wrapped up by the end. There could have been maybe an extra dungeon somewhere with the castle residents trapped inside, but I'm not sure there would have been cart space for even just one more dungeon. Zurai posted:They really did push the limits of the NES hard and showed the benefits of sticking to more or less the same basic gameplay loop rather than trying to experiment like Final Fantasy. It's a lot easier to iterate on things like graphics, story, and party mechanics when your core gameplay is already well-established. Right. A point can be made for reinventing the wheel in new and interesting ways, and FF has certainly taken that philosophy to heart for better and for worse, but it's still fascinating to think about how so many of the fundamentals were present even in DW1, and ever since the series has been adding more layers to it instead of rebuilding from the ground up every time. thetruegentleman posted:Necrosaro apparently didn't love his elf-girlfriend enough for her to come back from the dead. There's the moral folks: don't be an evil jerk, or else your elf girlfriend will die horribly and forever, and the same will happen to you. We don't get much in the way of details regarding Saro and Rosa's relationship, and though I'm inclined to be charitable and assume that at some point they had a reasonably healthy thing going on, it's pretty clear by the end that she had grown terrified of him (and for good reason). I think that when you truly love someone, you want them to be happy, safe and free, and it seems that Saro went overboard on safety at the expense of the other two notions. Remember kids: good guys don't lock their girlfriends up in magic towers! SatansOnion posted:This Let's Play was great, and I particularly dig your balance of the lighthearted and the poignant, which suits this series just perfectly Oof, "suiting the series" is a heck of a compliment! I always do my best to match the tone of what's going on, because I trust the game to know its own emotional pace. I think that's one subtle accomplishment of the series: sometimes it's silly and fun, sometimes it's dark and heavy, and there's something that feels natural and realistic about that, because that's how life is a lot of the time. And it can be done poorly too. If you switch tones in a clumsy way, it ends up feeling inconsistent, like mood whiplash. But here, you can have Taloon's chapter sandwiched between the end of Alena's chapter and Nara and Mara's entire headlong rush into tragedy and exile, and none of it feels out of place. That's quite expertly put together. JustJeff88 posted:I'm glad that you were able to take the series all that way to the end. You're going to hate me for this, but I can't resist... Vive le François! Ha, no hate there, I'll take it!  Leofish posted:It didn't strike as much of chord with me when I was young, but I absolutely love that Taloon is a main character of an RPG, who is a dad, with a family, and his family doesn't get murdered or have anything terrible happen. He goes off on his adventure and comes home to a wife and kid and a business and presumably lives a normal life after that. Oh yeah, Taloon is such a refreshing touch of normalcy, not just in this game but in games in general. He's also functionally a civilian, without special combat training or any kind of legendary bloodline. He's just this guy who quits his dead end job only to fall rear end-backwards into king-grade diplomacy and general saving-the-world business. And he rises to the occasion because dangit, he's got heart! Shitenshi posted:Apparently it's possible to glitch your way into exploring the world map post-victory and uh...the game goes nuts. It's not glitching General Leo into your FFVI party or getting Mew in RBY without using a Gameshark levels of goodness but still. The zaniness starts around 8:42, for anyone who's interested. Huh, that's interesting. It looks like the game pretty much loads alternate versions of the towns, which are probably stored like the day and night versions are, and controls character moment with the same kinds of scripting as it does its regular NPCs with defined routines. It's neat to see how completely unprepared it is with having characters who aren't controlled by the player going to a different map too; I wonder if trying to load in the Santeem throne room but not being strictly able to unload the ground floor is what caused it to lose its marbles there. Veryslightlymad posted:Frank, I have great personal animosity to this one game, which simultaneously sparked quite a lot of positive imagination during my childhood, and absolutely crushed me later on with the dumb AI poo poo. More than just being annoyed, this was a game that kind of broke my heart by failing to live up to what I wanted in it. I've had a negative overall opinion on it for almost three decades. (Eventually tried the remake, but... eh. It overcompensates a lot. In the end, just disappointment.) Dang, that's high praise, thank you. Sometimes, there's a small voice inside me that tells me my enthusiasm puts me in danger of giving these games too much credit and that I should be more objective, but... how I see my LPs is that I'm sharing my experience with a game as much as I'm exploring and sharing the game itself, and well, this is what my experience has been, and you all get to see it through my eyes first. And in the end, If there's more of any kind of enjoyment once I'm done than there was before, I couldn't be more pleased. Peanut Butler posted:My guess is that it had to do with how dang expensive these games were, aside from the $5 DW1 that honestly doesn't hold a candle to the similarly-priced used Final Fantasy cart. I remember FuncoLand prices on DW4 being ~$80- I only got to play it thanks to game rentals, and only got to finish it thanks to NESticle Gah, yeah, that's gotta be a factor. I do own 1 and 4, but back then I only completed 2 and 3 on rentals! Also, I suppose the series has a reputation for being same-y, which, I'm sure you can guess I heartily disagree with at this point considering how downright bold I feel it is on so many levels, but in a very very superficial way I can see where it's coming from. I mean, if you only show some rando the back-of-the-box screenshots for all four NES games, one might wonder how anyone could tell them apart. It's just... that's missing the point pretty hard. CannonFodder posted:FrankZP: That was a wonderful LP. Will Cristo ever reveal his feelings? HA! No. Heh, I haven't had time to get super far into Dragon Quest Heroes yet, but it looks like being unable to open up to Alena is basically Cristo's entire characterization in that game. I did flirt with the notion of having him make any kind of move or admission, but it looks like his taking Ragnar's stoic-yet-questionable advice ends up being canon after all!
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Apr 16, 2019 03:52
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Peanut Butler posted:e: still remember the first time I saw Dragon Warrior- it was at my parents' friends' house, I was five or six, and their teenage son was playing it. I was taken in immediately- I loved to read, and I had no idea a Nintendo game could have so many words in it, or a story more complicated than 'go right and kill the guy/get the thing'. I'm pretty sure I irritated the bejesus out of the older kid with my verbose wonder I think that's really a good way to think about this game. It told a story, and it actually had the artistry to sell just about everything in it. We go right in the epilogue from Taloon having a happy reunion with his family to Mara and Nara paying respects at their father's grave and everything has been set up so well we don't even need words anymore.
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Apr 16, 2019 05:32
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This was easily the best Let's Play I've ever read. I played Dragon Warrior I and II as a kid, beat both, but never got far in III or touched IV. Eagerly awaiting DQ5 whenever it arrives!
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Apr 24, 2019 21:09
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IIRC the state of DQV is still very much up in the air. I'd sure love to see it, but there's no denying it doesn't fit in the same... space as the first four. Three incremental upgrades showing real growth, and then a final capstone that brings it all home. DQV is fantastic, and I personally like it a smidge more than IV, but we'll see how it goes, eh?
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Apr 26, 2019 04:55
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My theory was always that Celia faked her death; maybe even let Saro know where the village was to give the Hero a motive to fight him. Master Dragon was really a dick in this game with Hero's parents. There was no guarantee that learning the truth wouldn't alienate the Hero. It had to be personal.
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May 7, 2019 04:26
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