/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6201931
>It was also the fact that the game places a timer on you, one that's only truly "reset" by starting a game over.
This is a bit deceptive to anyone who hasn't read the manual or played the game. I like to describe Dragon Quarter as the perfect example of "choose your own difficult" in game design. The game gives you three options whenever you game over
>SOL: Restart
>SOL: Restore
>The End

The first option is what sends you back to the beginning of the game and resets your character's levels. However, in both Restart and Restore you keep any skills, equipped or stored weapons, and Party Xp (a floating bank of experience points to be used whenever). In addition to this, based on performance the types of enemies you encounter will be different and stronger ones. You will also unlock new cutscenes that flesh out some events.

SOL: Restore sends you to the last save point and does the same as Restore with regards to inventory and skills.

The end is just that, you take a game over and just reload your last save.

So for players who try and complete the game on a single run; the timer of the game, the D-counter, will really start to ramp up the tension as just walking around brings you closer to death and it more heavily restricts your usage of dragon form. This is what a lot of people bounce off of since they might not realize how to game the system. Meanwhile other players will abuse Restore to also beat the game since you can more freely use dragon form to destroy any and all encounters at the cost of getting a poorer rating upon completing the game since the game does grade you on exploration, combat, and whether or not you played everything from start to finish in a single go.

It's definitely the Gaiden game of the franchise but if more people are finally warming up to it that's good in my books. DQ was my first BoF title and I loved it despite realizing it's very different from it's predecessors.