This topic is for discussing the Dragon Warrior 1 LP.

I've done 4 test runs for this LP, in addition to however many times I've played the game in my life. For the way I'll be playing the game, I'll be using a name that promotes the best Str/Agi growth, as opposed to the best HP/Str growth.

I'll be taking some time off before starting this LP, so I can catch up on some things irl, or until I get bored, which probably means I'll start it this weekend, but I don't plan on it.

Thanks for the discussion.

How exactly do you plan to lets play this game? I'm curious because there isn't much plot or anything like that. It's very basic. The encounters get very annoying too, especially with the grinding, so I'd imagine that this LP would actually be pretty short with a lot of edits.

I may have hated this game, but it will still be interesting to see you play it.

Sweet! the Roto Trilogy!!

I thought you were doing Seasons/Ages first?

*shrugs*

Anyhow, looking forward to it! Never did get around to playing the main Dragon Warrior games, just the /Monsters

This LP is going to be a bit of an experiment for me. I have tons of childhood stories and lesser-known information to keep the LP entertaining, hopefully. You are right that it will certainly be short while editing out the grinding.

One thing I plan to do to keep it entertaining is not editing out a lot of the battles while traveling. Particularly in DW1, I will be doing a lot of low level runs to get specific items, then leave quickly. One of the appeals of this LP is to also show instances where I'm getting my ass kicked, which I'm sure many are eager to see.

Is it the best idea for an LP? Certainly not, but it holds a special place in my heart, and I want to share my experiences with it.

Childhood stories? Awesome! <33

I always hated the high encounter rate, and the way you can get to the hgher level monsters while at a low level. But it is good if you know what you are doin, if you can use the herbs before you can die. Does anyone have any suggestions for a gamer that is thinkin of re-visting the game.

I'll be honest, considering how you've destroyed most of the games you play in your other Let's Plays, watching you get your ass kicked a bit would be at least a bit enjoyable. After all, all of us have suffered some ass-kicking in our gaming experience.

HCBailly's gonna do his best impression of the AVGN on this LP... involuntarily...

While I've never played this game, I'm guessing it's short and sweet and lighthearted, right? Well, being from the 80s', I guess there's really nothing else it could be. That's good. It'd be difficult to go from an epic and heartfelt game like Terranigma to another game that also has epic and heartfelt moments like Link's Awakening. It's best to have something "small" to lighten the mood beforehand.

HC, I didn't even know about the fact that your name affects your stat growth. How does it work?

Here's a link to a calculator DaddyNick17 posted on GameFAQs awhile ago. It does many things, including determining your long-term stat growth, depending on the first four letters of your name (case sensitive). It's quite amazing.

http://dw.freewebsites.com/calc.htm

I've found a lot of such documents on GameFAQs that I'll be listing in the video descriptions of many videos.

I've been fooling around with the culculator and i like how they put something like that in a NES game. That is what i like about the older generation of RPGs they put more thought in the stat building than the graphics and FMVs.

Can't wait to see your take on Dragon Warrior. That was the first RPG game that I really got into, and beat.

Oh boy, here we go. I love the Erdrick/Loto trilogy of DQ. One of the few times I do, I prefer the English Erdrick to the Japanese Loto. Erdrick sounds a bit better in this case.

As for the LP style, that sounds like a good idea. Keep out the grinding, or if you want to put it with a speedy musical montage...I hate to suggest it but I'd like to see at least one grinding session with "Live to Win"

Either way, how you suggest it sounds good

I also expect one or more bonus episodes where you get throughly owned by some monsters.

Actually, that sounds very entertaining. Looking forward to it!

Interesting. I didn't realise that's how it worked. I suppose it's similar in Dragon Warrior II, in addition to determining what the names of the Prince of Cannock and Princess of Moonbrooke are, eh?

I also like the name Erdrick more than Loto. And even the developers' attempt ar archaic English in the dialogue has a charm for me, too.

Anyhow, that plan sounds good, HC. Even though you won't be showing the grinding, are you going to show some level-ups, though, especially when you learn new spells?

I really like DQ 1 it was first RPG after all. but here are things that piss me off about the game

1.Excessive grinding
2.Door and Stairs command
3.PASSWORD SAVE!!!
4.Tough enemies early on
5.You have to choose the direction you wanna talk because your character is always facing foward looks like he's walking sideways

I hope there's loads of bonus footage of seeing HC suffer. My favorite episode of all time from you was the Mages guarding the chest in FF1 :)

I can't wait for this I have always liked this game as a kid but it was too hard for me and I never beat it and I have never went back to beat it yet.

I'll probably show the first level of grinding, just to demonstrate it and because it only takes a few minutes. There will be ample opportunities to show me getting my ass kicked. Worry not. Especially in the Cave to Rhone in DW2.

Out of curiosity, how many of you guys have the experience table memorized? Anybody? What do you mean, I'm the only one?

*Laugh* You may very well be the only one with the exp table memorized.

Are you going to point out the little peninsula of power at the beginning of the game? Extremely handy with the "Light shine upon thee" guy just a short run for your life to the North for early grinding.

My last several runs in every incarnation of the first game had me at Level 19 when going up against the Dragonlord. To me, that's the best way to make the battle exciting, while still winnable. That's heavily dependant upon getting through the castle with plenty of herbs and lots of MP, though. Too many tremendous blows/sleep spells on the final assault of Charlock can throw a monkey wrench into that plan.

I think low-level assaults and desperate fights are the best way to handle this one. With only limited plot to riff on, that will provide the moments of fun between nostalgia quips.

Can't wait to hear how you handle Gwaelin at the end *laugh*

Someone on GameFAQs made a simulator for fighting the Dragonlord at different levels and stat growths, though I don't have access to it. He ran a millions simulations at Level 17 and couldn't win one fight, even with the best odds, but without abusing save states to get Sleep to hit. At Level 18, you get a massive strength boost, which helps. You might be able to win with the HP/Str growth, but the odds are still rather low. Ignoring save states, it would be faster to simply grind up to Level 19, than to walk all the way from Tantegel to Charlock over and over again. At that point, you really have over a 75% chance of winning. Note that you cannot get critical hits on him either, so the chance is entirely dependent on your random damage variation and the Dragonlord's attack pattern.

It never even dawned on me that tremendous blows against the Dlord weren't possible in the original version.

You can get them in the SNES and GBC versions, and they may be the only thing that pulls your fat out of the fire at level 19 in the remakes, with the addition of the sleep and healmore spells to his arsenal.

Also, unlike every other enemy in the game, the Dragonlord's HP is constant. Originally, the guy who developed the simulator didn't realize this, and thought it was reasonably possible to defeat the Dragonlord at Level 18 with the HP/Str growth. However, after discovering this himself, it became very unlikely to win the battle until Level 19 with any Str build.

I've played DQ so much that I have the charts for DQ and DQ2 memorized...

As for beating the Dragonlord at such a low level, like 17, I thought I had saw it done once. Maybe not. I'll have to look for it again. Maybe it was in a speed run. I could be mistaken...

The only way to defeat the Dragonlord at such low levels would be with Sleep and Hurt, both of which only have a 1/16 chance of hitting him. There's no way you could do that without the use of an emulator.

so what about the few of us who are playing this on console

You'll want to be at Level 19 to be able to kill the Dragonlord on a console. I'd recommend Level 22 if you're not going to run from everything.

Well, I got bored already (that didn't take long), so I recorded the first episode. I'll upload it later today.

Good, no more grinding to LV25 anymore

I usually just run from the Stonemen when going for a level 19 kill, as those are the monsters that really beat you down. I only start running from the other critters as I'm nearing the final floor if I've used more herbs/MP than I'm comfortable with.

This is assuming that you make a run first, grab Erdrick's Sword, and then go back to save. If you're going for a straight run getting the sword and finishing the game in one go, Lvl. 19 is going to be a pretty tough challenge.

Another interesting thing about the game is that if an enemy is asleep, you have a guaranteed 100% chance to run from the battle. While that makes logical sense, I'm surprised that they actually took that into account for such an old game. This is quite useful against Stoneman, who is extremely susceptible to Sleep, unlike every other enemy at Charlock. You can just put him to sleep, then run, to reduce the risk of taking a ton of damage from failed running attempts.

Most enemies in the game are absurdly easy to run from anyway, but it seems that Stonemen are even less likely to block a run attempt. I usually just conserve MP and flee.

Every so often, you run into rotten luck, though. I'll have to try the sleep trick if I make another run and hit one of those goopie loops of failed runs.

I was going to say HC, So much for catching up on things irl.

Haha, gotta wait another day to learn what the battle system is like? The wait between the first episode and the second in cases like this hypes me up much more than it should xD

It's just a normal turned based battle system with just one character. There's absolutely nothing special about it.

Are you going to be showing a so called "perfect game"? Such as max level, max gold, all items.

It'd be nice to show the Dragonlord being beaten at level 20 then at level 30. It's a big difference.

I could record it myself if I need to. I just find it interesting in a game like Dragon Quest.

Still, I just love seeing the simplicity and differences in it. HCBailly's FF1 LP was the first LP I'd ever seen to completion, and I loved the battle system there since it was just so much different compared to the FFs that I played at the time (Read - 7 and above)

Then you have missed out on a lot of classics by not playing FFs 1-6

That's got to be a challenge. I think I've done it at level 22, but certainly not 20.