So I bought Dragon Quest VIII

Haven't been paying much attention to it. It's nice enough.

I find it really nice, especially considering we got the orchestrated versions instead of the midi ones from the Japanese version. The other DQ games don't have nearly has much good tracks as this one did in my opinion. =/

This games music quality beats most into the ground

Well, got the mirror all charged up, went into the ruins, and Dhoulmagus killed me. Bastard.

Moose you didn't honestly expect the game to be that fair, did you?

And I'm getting fed up of games where the bosses don't have fucking health bars.

Same, I fucking hate games that don't give you any indication on how well you're doing.

Alright. Leveled up a bit, bought some better equipment, Angelo knows multiheal now, so it's off to fight Dhoulmagus again.

I was worried Dhoulmagus was going to kick my ass when I first played so I cleared the dungeon up until the last part before you go in and fight him and then used Evac to exit and save then returned later(I'm so insecure about that "wiped out" crap, I always wanted it to be left as 0 so the king can make glorifying comments about me later...and he does). Turned out it was a waste of time since my overleveling from running around finding crap made it much easier. =P

Still it was one of the better boss fights at that point, the following parts are nice too. God this game was awesome.

Fuck this shit. Stupid boss after another boss with no save or heal points in between.

U MAD?

DAMN THIS GAME FOR ACTUALLY POSING A CHALLENGE FOR YOU!

Don't you actually try to help your team with status effect boosters like Oomph and shit? Although sometimes Dhoulmagus tries to negate them, it's not very common IIRC. There's also the tension crap which helps a lot.

He negates status stuff like every 3 or 4 turns.

And it doesn't feel like a real challenge because it's turn based, and there's always an element of chance. I was doing fine the first time around until he suddenly had the first go for the first time in the fight and wiped out the team.

Well keep boosting. Have Yangus use his critical axe moves(if you're using axes in this playthrough) or have him use kabuff and just have Angelo heal. Jessica can just keep omphing Yangus and the hero.

I dunno if any of that will help you but it did for me. =P

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

And it doesn't feel like a real challenge because it's turn based, and there's always an element of chance. I was doing fine the first time around until he suddenly had the first go for the first time in the fight and wiped out the team.

That's just you sucking and being underleveled. Have you been running a lot from fights?

Wait, what level is Angelo?

How is it me being under leveled? Nothing changed. He just had suddenly had the first turn for no apparent reason. Which is why I prefer real time combat. Turn based has a lot of unseen mechanics and stat shifting going on that you can't see.

No, my assumption that you were underleveled was because apparently he "wiped you out" just because he could go first. I thought you were insinuating he pulled a OHKO on you. Oh and it does include being underleveled regarding who goes first sometimes because that means your speed(or whatever the hell acts in its place) is low.

Dhoulmagus really isn't all that hard if you're prepared. Stop bitching just because you suck.

What could have also helped you is if you went and started Morrie's quest earlier up until you can form your own monster team. Then you could have them summoned in battle and help you a lot with their ridiculous power.

like i said earlier

fight battles and explore the map you'll always be the right level
if your losing fights chances are you should be rethinking your tactics

Superbuu3 wrote:

like i said earlier

fight battles and explore the map you'll always be the right level
if your losing fights chances are you should be rethinking your tactics

Pretty much.

Turn-based isn't just made to bother players and change how you fight things instead of fighting in real-time, it follows a completely different course of actions. It's based on being strategic, not just to be a slow dull fight with "unseen mechanics".

Strategy is fine when chance doesn't waltz in and fuck it up.

unless you got wiped out
theres normally a strategy to deal with

i remember on the early bosses i made a poor call on when to revive or fight
realising the speed of your characters and what of there moves are most effective are essential to defeating most bosses on your first try

ignoring those things you'll get clusterfucked and feel like the boss was cheap
the reason this will always be one of the best RPGs for me was the fact the balance was perfect and defeating bosses purely with strategy could be achieved

if you revive a party member only for them to be killed again in one hit
think about which two ppl had a turn before the boss and then revive heal in that order so it won't happen again

i know thats fairly obvious but you sound like your having a hard time so i thought i'd cov er the basics

Then you shouldn't be sucking so much as what ever little amount of "chance" this game has really shouldn't screw you up at all unless the player is really failing hard at leveling and strengthening their characters' statistics. If Dhoulmagus can OHKO you, then that's your fault. You should be at least around levels 28-32 there.

Ah well, maybe you'll have better luck this time because apparently from what I've read, Dhoulmagus starts off in his second form if you lost against that second fight during your first attempt.