Not sure whether I should be worried for my safety or happy that there are a lot of passionate DQ fans here.
I prefer playing in portrait too, as long as it works well. I don't think there's anything weird about the Japanese in that regard. They also made a fancier version of the game than their own for other countries. I'd imagine a localization barrier would be that the English PS2 version had a very ambitious localization, redoing the soundtrack, adding voice acting and prettying up the interface. Whatever they converted this from probably didn't include that so an English version would either have to be translated from this new iOS version, or be converted from the old English version.
Go for the glass half full, that there are a lot of passionate DQ fans here, which includes me as this is by far my favorite RPG series.
Haven't installed but I can answer the first question: 1.2 GB. Also, fwiw, app store description says iPhone 5, iPad 3rd gen and up recommended. It isn't designed for iPhone 4 you can download at your own risk. For iPhone 4s, iPad 2 and iPad mini (1st), it says the app can hang after long play times. Recommends saving a lot and kill the app from multitask list when you quit.
Thanks for the info! That helps a lot in my case, because I'd want to put it on my iPhone and right now I have a 4, so I'm out of luck. I guess it'll have to wait until I finally upgrade. Or maybe I'll try it out on an iPad 2 for a while before I upgrade. Either way, can't wait to play through it for my first time. It'll only be the second DQ game I ever played, the first being Dragon Warrior for NES!
I'm confidant this will see a stateside release, every other squeenix title has made its way over here to our app store. But... if it dosent... I will learn japanese and then download it illegally as a form of protest from their app store
This is awesome news. I still haven't finished Ni No Kuni on the PS3 (from the same dev team) because it didn't play as good as I remembered DQVIII to be. Portrait is weird but I'd still grab this in a shot
Anyone find any news out there about a possible NA release? If by some miracle it came out this week it would make my Christmas.
Ok everybody calm down! I know this is extremely nerve wracking but I have a completely logical explanation of what is gonna happen. They're done with Final Fantasy. No I don't know that for a fact, but FFVII-FFIX is hugely different from the others and again FFX to present are hugely different from all the others. So lets just assume we're getting no more Final Fantasies. They have announced Dragon Quest 1-8 to be released so more than likely that's what we're getting next. I mean from what I remember all the Final Fantasies released in Japan first (I could be wrong about that, I really didn't even start noticing the FF series on ios until FFIII was out) so why should this be any different? Anyways this explanation helped calm me down. As long as I assume that this is Square's new ios project I just have to wait. Of course if they never come out here I will probably cry...
Game Impressions Ok impressions after about 6 hours of playtime - I'm fluent in Japanese so I can play and understand what's going on One-handed gameplay: Yes, the game is portrait-mode only and was made that way so that you can play this one-handed on an iPhone. It mostly works but still feels a little awkward, especially when controlling the camera. Because your view is so vertically oriented, it's harder to get a good view of your surroundings unless you start rotating the camera. I'd say this view works well about 70% of the time. No quick saves: This really bothers me. There's a quick save option, but it's only usable in the world map. What were they thinking? There's a 'continue from autosave' mode, but if you were in a dungeon or town, you start out from the world map - why?? For a game tailored for mobile, this is truly a wtf moment. If you multi-task out, you can lose your progress. Great. Frame rate: The framerate is not super-smooth, and the frame rate drops are noticeable even on an iPhone 5S. Gameplay: I played some of the PS2 version, and I'm old-school DQ player (first DQ was DQ2 on Famicom - learned a lot of Japanese as a young teen from it) but I can't help but gripe about some of the gameplay. The game is pretty unforgiving in the beginning, requiring you to grind out some levels before completing the first dungeon. Until you hit about lvl 10-11, you feel weak and the first tier skills you get in the skills system are maddeningly useless. It does get better though, as you level more and get the alchemy pot thingie. Also not a fan of the random encounter system - the battles can get time consuming. There's this 'scare' option in the battles, which can scare off monsters if you're higher lvl, but it's totally worthless. It takes as much time to scare the monsters off than to kill them, so why waste the same amount of time scaring them off and not getting any xp?? Why not just have it a toggle so you won't get into the battles in the first place? When you're trying to get from point a to point b, these battles really become disruptive. I know it's a port from a past Dragon Quest, but I still can't get over the fact that these random battles exist. I remember when DQIX was going to do away with the random encounters, but a lot of people complained (!). I don't get it It hinders the motivation to explore the vast land - and it destroys the immersiveness of the world. You have a nicely rendered 3d world - with no one in it! (Except for some named 'rares' roaming around). Dragon Quest needs to move on from old school turn based combat and the complainers need to get over it - it's 2013 for pete's sake. Anyways /rant off. There's a lot of gameplay here though, as I've played for 6 hours and still am early on in the game. The story is actually ok, and it does keep you engaged. The battles are easier and I actually feel a little more powerful. With the internets, the crafting makes it easier to get better access to better gear, and you can game the system by buying some herbs, craft, and sell for more than 10x the price (I heard that you can't do this forever). If they fix the quick save issue, I'd say it's worth the price of admission.
digits, nice preview! Lot of usefull and new information.From what you said, it is as I feared: the gam was made (or ported) for the japanese market, if not only, mainly. I'm fine with the vertical camera. Seen some gameplay videos and it looked surprisingly fine! I wasn't expecting much from the framerate anyway but the no quick save is a bummer! Even the 2D Final Fantasy ports had some sort of resume anywhere except in battles. But what really annoy me in these kind of games are the random encounters. Gods, how I hate random encounters! That's what kept me from finishing the FF games! DQ 9 and the remake of DQ 7 for the 3DS both have ended with that. You would see monsters in the map and if they touched you you would be transported to a battle screen. I hoped they would do the same with the iOS ports! Guess not! =/ I also fear that it will take a while before this game come West. While FF is pretty popular this side of the world, DQ never really made that hit here. Even DQ 8 made a modest success back on the ps2! Still...there are 7 other DQ left to hit Japan App Store!
