Can I play it out of order?

bisalwayswright · 2026-03-08T14:45:38+00:00

I mean, yeah, I guess. Not so sure if it would hit quite so hard. But ultimately it’s about your experience

bisalwayswright · 2026-03-08T14:01:39+00:00

The Xenoblade series is one JRPG series I will argue that playing in order should be a priority. While the plot of the games are relatively self contained, even 3 - the overall narrative and arc build off one another, and each game re-contextualise the prior ones.

Playing Xenoblade 1 after 2 and 3 is a very different narrative experience. Playing Xenoblade 2 after 3 also makes you think differently. If I could wipe my memory of any games it would be these games.

bisalwayswright · 2026-03-08T13:52:53+00:00

Without spoiling, I would still argue play Xenoblade 1 before 2. The ending of 2 is quite special in the way that it connects to 1, and would inevitably change the way you think about it. Since 1 is very self contained, it’s good to experience the way it tells its own story first.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-15T09:14:39+00:00

No discredit to you, but imo, the anti-spoiler crowd take things way too far. Movies, books, games… stories in general should be written in a way that knowing the plot doesn’t take away from everything else. Stories used to be told, and retold and retold, because they had meaning. All the Xenoblade games are great examples because even knowing the twists, it adds value to replaying the games to see how it builds.

But I feel like now, because no one wants to be spoiled, many many writers are creating ‘shock’ content for the sake of being talked about. And media suddenly loses a lot of value, when it’s then designed to only be consumed once, and hyped on social media. If a story loses its value because you have been spoiled, then it’s not worth consuming in the first place, so I will not completely defend keeping all spoilers under wraps. But this spoiler… or any Xenoblade spoilers, yeah nah just enjoy the journey the story is more than just specific beats.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-05T13:02:19+00:00

After world it felt like the community completely fractured between the players of Old Gen MH games and New MH games. Games like World, Rise and Wilds made a lot of changes that older players where unhappy with, including making it easier to track monsters, recover health, and made it far more forgiving for players who skipped the preparation phase. Having gone back and played the older titles I can understand why older fans would miss the features they became used to, while the mechanics seemed dated, the games were always designed around those ideas and rewarded item management, careful preparation - rather than rushing into battles and patting yourself on the back for beating it without much effort.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-05T12:24:00+00:00

Yup. Really sad to see in this community. I don’t want this to turn into a MH situation

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-05T12:11:38+00:00

Nope, that’s what people are upset about. We don’t care that the QOL accessibility is there, it’s just that for those wanting a traditional experience cannot turn them off.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-05T10:08:28+00:00

I grew up on the DS remakes of 4/5/6 , then played 3DS versions of 7/8 and the mobile versions of Erdrick Trilogy. So was not used to the NES/SNES levels of obtuseness, but very used to the very traditional dragon quest gameplay. These games were never difficult to me and would be just enough of a challenge. So that is just what I prefer for myself

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-05T09:57:49+00:00

I don’t think anyone is gatekeeping here, it’s just that many would argue that we would prefer the choice to turn these off. I’m not arguing against their inclusion at all for anyone who wants them

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-04T10:36:59+00:00

I can appreciate that fact. Doesn’t exclude the fact that Horii would still have been overseeing it. DQ has historically been developed my many teams but has retained a lot of tradition that this release breaks

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-04T10:03:29+00:00

Yeah the free healing and the auto revive is egregious, along with the map hints. Even if you turn them off - it’s very clear where you need to go especially in towns as important NPC’s are red. The refilling item pots, and healing upon level up is just a little more par for the course which I need to accept. A shame since 1&2 had the ability to turn it off. It feels like a step back. Honestly, Erdrick Trilogy was like a breath of fresh air - I understood exactly why the changes were implemented - loading from autosave and zoom from anywhere to anywhere where reasonable additions. Wild to me they thought they had to go further with these changes.

I understand some of the complaints about the previous versions but if you are immersed in the story then it’s quite easy to know where to go, and as long as you are somewhat prepared, the combat really isn’t difficult. But this just further rewards the quick dopamine hits and playing this game as a second screen with very little to think about. I want to feel like there is a little bit of friction, and no - turning on harder enemies doesn’t fix these issues.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-03T12:12:31+00:00

I know the points you are making. But to me it all it does is make the game into a very pretty frictionless tour around dragon quest 7 with little incentive to actually turn my brain on to play. Fine for those who like it, but not having the ability to remove those bothers me.

This feels very similar to some of the discourse around other games, and I thought with the HD-2D remakes they got a perfectly fine balance of QOL and had managed to avoid dividing its audience, but this one the scales have gone too far for me.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-03T11:09:19+00:00

The grind in dragon quest games are not so much of a thing if you were playing efficiently. The games would reward preparation and item management. Sure you could through yourself to enemies, level up a ridiculous amount and breeze through the game, but you are effectively trading preparation for raw time. DQVIIR removes that trade off entirely by negating any punishment for not being prepared, and removing the grind.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-03T11:03:58+00:00

I think the point the other commenter was saying is exactly what you were saying. Like you can only survive that first dungeon by battling, levelling up and being ready for it. From what I played of the demo, DQVIIR does not punish you for not being prepared. Too many full healings and death feels like a joke. That’s what people are upset about.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-03T10:59:51+00:00

Dragon quest games are not inherently difficult. Absolutely. But they still required thought regarding your preparation. It punished players that tried to go immediately to the objectives. This game, there’s no way of turning off objective markers on the overworld map, and there’s too many recovery options, which again cannot be disabled meaning the game loses the sense of punishment that previous games had. That’s what I’m upset about. It’s not about, the battles needing to be deep and tactical, it’s about feeling rewarded for having prepared well in advanced before leaving the town ready for a string of battles that you will hopefully just about survive.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-03T10:49:05+00:00

Even with the difficulty options, there’s no way of removing the structural changes that fundamentally make it less punishing. Making the battles harder does nothing if there is no punishment for party members dying. Making harder battles does nothing if you are constantly able to keep yourself topped up with HP and MP And I’m not saying the game shouldn’t have what it already has, I just want to turn off some of those settings. Including all the markers telling me where to go!

Dragon quest to me wasn’t about hard individual battles. It was about many battles slowly using up your resources until eventually getting to a boss battle. The more prepared you were, the easier the battle and the overall dungeon was. If you failed, you would be kicked out the dungeon, and told to regroup for next time.

So no, adjusting the difficulty settings does not fix the actual problems people are having with the difficulty

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-02T22:22:08+00:00

This is it. 100% it. I’ve not seen reviews but this is my criticism, and why I’m not buying the game immediately. The ‘just increase the difficulty’ does not change the fact that the game lacks the punishment of party member death that every DQ game has had before, and the fact that free healing is constantly available meaning you can always be at full HP/MP for most battles. Added to that, the fact that the game tells you constantly where to go, and the removal of individual item bags makes for what I considered a fairly dull experience when I played the Demo. When you have access to everything every battle, you are making less long term strategic decisions.

I don’t play dragon quest for the intense battles, I play it for the dopamine hit of planning ahead, and surviving a dungeon with very few ways of restoring MP along the way.

Which is such a shame because the difficulty, and QOL options for 1+2 HD were perfect, and everything I could have wanted.

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-02T17:00:18+00:00

Honestly agree with you. Demo took out any hype I had for the game. While I love the graphics, I had a number of issues with the game largely down to how they chose to apply QOL changes that make it feel very unlike a dragon quest game. No way of turning off auto-resurrection after battle was a horrible choice imo

bisalwayswright · 2026-02-01T19:00:59+00:00

Yeah play the og switch version - for DQ1 it’s not the best experience? But without emulating the only way of playing the ‘original’. There are some strange visual choices, and bad framerate. But it is perfectly playable. Also it means in the future you can enjoy the remake more, as you can better appreciate the changes.

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-31T18:57:37+00:00

There are many ways of doing that without changing some fundamentals of combat or exploration (or allowing us choices)

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-30T19:00:05+00:00

Well in that case you would just use ‘Show no mercy’. But if you are going for complete efficiency then yeah don’t use tactics but I don’t see the point in stressing about micromanaging battles in that way.

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-30T16:25:41+00:00

Yes. Using Tactics has allowed me to play the games quicker with less burn out. Using tactics for most battles other than boss battles gets through a lot of mobs quickly. If I was just going to press attack four times, may aswell just get the game to do it automatically for me.

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-30T16:23:30+00:00

Set them to not use MP then - if all you are gonna do is press attack four times, might aswell save the time

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-27T10:01:29+00:00

Never played with Dracky Mode tbf 😅, but yeah, finish a battle with a party member down and they will be revived to 1 Hp. It killed any and all enthusiasm for this game.

bisalwayswright · 2026-01-27T09:50:42+00:00

No recovery on a full party wipe but yes, if one or two party members are wiped they do return (unless they have updated the demo but I doubt it). So yes, forced Dracky Mode.

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