Dragon Warrior 1 again. So primitive and dated, but still enjoyable. Sans the mandatory 80% of the game being forced level grinding. However, while reading more into the game, it turns out I made a few interesting discoveries.
1. First of all, there are two damage formulas. Not sure on the exact specifics, but once your defense power reaches or passes the enemy's attack power, it uses a formula that puts out a much smaller number. The formula is (A + 4) / 6, rounded down, where A is the enemy's attack power. I'm not 100% sure on the other one, but all I know is that for every 4 defense power you have, you take one less maximum damage from a monster and for every 8 defense power you take one less minimum damage. Or in short, 4 defense = you take 0.5 less damage overall. So to grind efficiently, you would want a name that has good long-term Strength and Agility growth, and you want to fight enemies that your defense power is greater than or equal to their attack power. On a similar note, every 4 Attack Power you have = 1-2 more damage per hit. Offense > defense in Dragon Warrior 1. Always.
2. Secondly, your name affects your stat growth. For instance, if I input "Adam", my HP and Strength would be higher. However, if I would type my name in all caps, then I have high Strength and Agility growth. Not 100% sure how it works, but I never realized in all the years of playing that I was playing with a slight handicap. If only I thought to make my name in all caps...
3. If a monster is put to sleep, the RUN command never fails. It's really interesting to see something like that in such an old game. Also, enemies seem to have a 1 in 3 chance to wake up every turn after being put to sleep. On the matter of sleep, Sleep NEVER fails to hit the protagonist in the NES version. Thou art asleep. Thou art still asleep. Thou art still asleep. Thou art still asleep (gets dealt finishing blow) Thou art dead.
4. Is it really fair to say Erdrick's Armor is "the most overpowered armor" in older RPGs? First of all, it's barely an upgrade over Full Plate / Magic Armor, having only 4 more defense power (28 compared to 24). However, it offers 1 HP regeneration per step (compared to every 4 steps with Magic Armor), immunity to all damage tiles, immunity to being hit by Stopspell AND reduces the damage done by the Hurt/Hurtmore spells and a dragon's fire breathing by 1/3. Is it really THAT overpowered? I mean in the context of Dragon Warrior, definitely. But it doesn't seem impressive compared to things in later RPGs, such as FF4's Adamant Armor, the Onion Armor from FF3, Paladin's Shield from FF6, etc.
5. You can actually beat the game WITHOUT saving that annoying princess. Doesn't really change much though. Just omits a few lines of her demanding you to take her with you. Honestly, why give you the option to say no if you're just asked again until you say yes? No. "But thou must." No! "But thou must!" NOOOOOOOOOOOO! "BUT THOU MUST!!!!!!" Okay, fine -_-. But yeah, the princess can rot in that cave for all I care. I have the exact spot Erdrick's Token is memorized by heart that's how many times I played it.
6. You can't get an "excellent move" on the Dragonlord. Even with a cheat that makes it guaranteed, it just doesn't work against him. Not to mention, he's impossible to beat below level 18. Based on a battle simulator and tens of thousands of attempts, it's impossible to beat him at 17. You just can't damage him fast enough. At level 18, your success rate is a mere 17.5%. But get up to level 19, and your chances are more like 80%. From level 20 onward, your success is nearly guaranteed as long as you cast Healmore whenever your HP drops below 49, since he can hit up to 48 damage maximum. All attempts assume you get to him completely unscratched with full HP/MP upon fighting the 2nd form, which is already highly unlikely.
7. All spells used against enemies have at worst a 1 in 16 chance to work. That's right, even the Dragonlord's contractual boss immunity to being put to sleep means nothing as he can be put to sleep by extremely good luck on your part.
Anyway, am level 8 with Copper Sword, Clothes, Dragon Scale and no shield, going to Rimuldar for my Broad Sword. Got to love abusing how zoning mechanics worked in older RPGs; if you go south of the starting castle on the bottom row of mountains, you fight enemies from a domain that's intended for level 4-7 players to grind at (Magicians, Magidrakees, Scorpions). Hoping I don't die on the way, since my defense is a pitiful 14, and Wolves at that level will hit in the low to mid teens against my very sad 44 HP. Good thing sleep is highly effective on them (only a 1/16 failure rate)
EDIT: Now level 14 with Erdrick's Sword, Erdrick's Armor and Silver Shield. Safely grinding against Wyverns, Rogue Scorpions and Knights. This is so easy it's sad. The most dangerous enemy I train on only hits for 0-13 damage on me (would have been much more if I had Adam as my name instead of ADAM). Had a few bits of bad luck, getting put to sleep and murdered by an Axe Knight while trying to get Erdrick's Armor (Stopspell missed) and again while trying to get Erdrick's Sword. While going for the sword, I was nearly stomped flat by a Stoneman and thanks to an ambush and repeated failures to run away, a Blue Dragon got a tasty level 13 hero named ADAM for dinner. At least I had my Silver Shield bought before all this crap went down, so I didn't lose much gold. Not that gold has any real purpose after getting the Silver Shield, but still.
Edited by RedmageAdam, 25 February 2015 - 11:24 PM.
I've had the game since shortly after its release but was always too busy to play it. I decided a couple days ago that it was finally time to take a crack at it. I really liked it! Despite the low-difficulty level of the overall game, I enjoyed the more non-linear structure and the way that things were set up. The story could have benefited from a bit more substance, but I think the ending really made up for it.
I've got my Link Between Worlds pretty much 100%'d on both the regular quest and the Master Quest, including the Street Pass challenges. Then only thing that I'm missing (that I know about) is the giant cuccoo you get in the minigame.
