Epic Quest - Definitive Edition

I usually like games based on early Dragon Quest gameplay, and this one is no exception. Most of the way through the pacing/balancing was spot on, by which I mean, make a decent effort at finding everything in this dungeon, and then spend your gold on better equipment and possibly a new party member, and you should be just the right amount strong for the next dungeon. So no extra grinding needed in general, and also you probably won't get so strong it's not fun. Exceptions to the good pacing are right at the start (it would require lots of grinding at first except there's a shortcut to getting stronger at the start, kinda strange), and near the end you might get too strong if you take the time to explore well. It was a 9-hour game for me, fun spoof of Dragon Quest 1 but also a really decent game in its own right. Not quite everything works like early Dragon Quest -- You can see just fine in caves, you don't give items to specific party members to hold or have super-limited item storage capacity, attacks aimed at already beaten foes don't fail -- I am not complaining about these things. All in all I'd say it's an easy game. I very rarely had any of my characters go down all g…

After skimming the store page you might be wondering if this is perhaps just a NES emulator running dragon warrior/quest 2. It's not, however the similarities are deep enough that this could easily have been an extensive romhack of one of the dragon warrior games. It's actually an RPG maker game, with heavy homage and references to the first dragon warrior game both in terms of story, graphic design, and gameplay. While based in the same (thematic) universe, it's clearly it's own game with it's own story, world, and progression. For those wishing for a nostalgic trip that isn't just replaying the exact game of 30 years ago, this could be a reasonable choice. The thing is, you really need to be nostalgic. This game, probably intentionally, hasn't learned anything about how to make a JRPG from the 30 years that have passed since it's inspiration was released. As such, it's somewhat interesting to see how far we've come and how many quality of life changes have been made. But it's also kind of fun to play a no-apologies tough as nails JRPG with zero hand holding. Less fun to suffer though the ponderous menus, the lack of details about what you are buying, etc. etc. And if by so…

My first impression was a shot-for-shot remake of Dragon Quest; the story beats and even the layout of the world are intentionally very similar (apparently the original release was much moreso). Fortunately, the multiple party members, various large and well-decorated dungeons, and absence of any kidnapped princesses set this at least a little apart from its inspiration. Ultimately, it's no more complex and certainly less difficult than DQ1, but can still be fun to check out if you're in the mood for a DQ-like. My biggest complaint here is about the dungeons. The layouts are fine and there are a lot of placeables to give them a bit more atmosphere, but exploring them and especially buying keys to open doors is not rewarding at all. Even in the post-game dungeon, you will rarely find anything but basic consumables, trivial amounts of gold, and mimics (the developer loves this trick). This also extends to the blue and black locked doors, which are found in every dungeon but can't be unlocked until the very end of the game. Aside from one required quest item, all you'll get for trudging back through low-level dungeons (and there's no consumable to reduce encounters, by the way)…

Fun game, lot of pixels, cool story

This isn't terrible, and the definitive edition is an improvement. Still has some problems though. 1. QoL: Walking speed is very slow, and there's no run option or button. 2. Enemies hit very hard (which I like), and damage mitigation is limited... but given how easy it is to randomly die, and the old-school can't-save-anywhere setup, and the lack of signposting for dungeons that are 30 levels harder than the overworld by their entrance... the fact that dying wipes ALL progress on death (rather than eating half your gold and returning you to definitely-not-Tantegel), it's overly brutal and too easy to lose an hour of progress. 3. Minor, but the interface makes some things needlessly obscure. e.g., you have to press cancel in combat to unearth the run command. This makes sense with a party, but with 1 PC, it's not at all obvious (especially since it is such a blatant DQ1 clone that it's not even obvious other PCs exist). 4. Most of the things behind locked doors are cheapter than the keys you have to spend to open the doors. A lot of other locked doors only hide very minor shortcuts. Keys just feel very unrewarding considering how pricey they are early on. 5. Eve…