User:System Error/CnC 2: Additional Info

This is the Additional Information for Compare and Contrast 2: Dragon Quest V

The Wives

I originally wanted to make this section larger, particularly in honor of Bianca, but decided against it in the end (as it was too big as it is, anyway). If I wanted to go all-out though, here's what I would've put.

Bianca

Concept art of the wives.

Bianca Whitaker, not to be confused with Bianca from Black and White (although they look pretty similar and are just as stupid at times), is the blonde daughter of an Innkeeper. As a combatant, she is the balanced of the three, which unfortunately amounts to pointlessness in this game. She's your "childhood friend", and I put that in quotes because that's the game's words.

Remember when you were very little? No? So you know how you basically don't remember that time when you were say, before the age of 3 or 4, correct? Yeah, that's when she was most familiar with you. Now imagine you being a little older, say 6, you don't remember a thing, having one playday with her involving ghostbusting. Then you never see her again for 10 years after that. That is what this game considers a childhood friend. And you have to get married, the game tries its damndest to guilt trip you into marrying her in ways that seem almost surreal.

She's the canon wife: Nera and Deborah don't appear on any official material as the wife, nor do the kids appear with hair other than blonde (they have the same hair color as the chosen wife). The game even defaults to her if you use cheats to get through without getting married (among other crazy things)
Her father has since lost the Inn, and they now live in a podunk little spa town.
It is implied she may never love for a long time, if ever, if you do not marry her. Even though there is a guy who likes her.
She is adopted. Technically, all the wives are, but you learn this beforehand with Bianca, and with the other two, it's a party chat/later detail.
If you use party chat in a dungeon where you get her help to obtain a ring (for the marriage), she sadly reminisces about the past. And yes, due to the nature, that pretty much amounts to talking about ghostbusting to make Egon himself regret inventing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator.
There is a sex scene with her if you stay in her family's old inn after marriage, but before going to Gotha. It's not much, but it's better than a Bioware sex scene (not that it's a feat).
Nera herself suggests you marry Bianca.
Nera still finds happiness if you don't marry her.
Nera outright states that as a wife, she would rely on you for everything, and Debora is presented as the one who would wear the pants in the relationship, so to speak.
She starts at a higher level than the rest of the wives (though that doesn't matter, as they'll all fall behind anyway).
Someone told me Nera (aka Flora in the fanslation) has a level cap of 10 in the SNES version, which I presume (hope) just applies in the second generation. Bianca's cap is much higher.
Perhaps most extreme of all comes in the SNES version only, and was likely removed in the remakes because it simply went too far to make it unfair (and yes - that's not a typo, it went beyond that). See, in every version when you meet her in the second generation, her father is sick and dying. He begs you to marry Bianca, so he can rest easy. Incidentally, if you do marry her, he gets better right away. But if you don't marry her, not only does he die in the SNES version, but Bianca becomes a barmaid who is repeatedly abused. In the remakes, he survives and gets better in the years that pass. Of course, due to all the above, it really doesn't matter.

Nera

Nera Briscoletti is the daughter of the rich Rodrigo Briscoletti. You first see her (and her sister) shortly after getting off the boat in the beginning of the first generation, later meeting her unexpectedly in the second where it is implied it is love at first sight for her. In a neat detail, if you marry her and bring her to the same port, she'll remember having seen you there as a child in the party chat. Because of her upbringing in a church, she is very kind, caring, and at times even shy. Though as mentioned, she is flirty, and may be a beast in the sack. Plus she has blue hair too, and that's always classy (and it makes the son not look like Goku from Dragon Ball Z). In battle, she gets the most magical variety. Which isn't too bad, as monster-wise, you're limited there.

I'll explain that bed point a little further here: after marriage, you can explore around on a ship, and find the desert "Queendom" of Helmunaptra. This is where you learn some stuff about the main character's past, and also can obtain the legendary Zenthenia Helmet later on. In the basement, which is a garden resort of some kind, there is a old woman who will comment on the main character's wife. If it's Nera, she'll say in part, "what purity of heart I see in this young lady!" If you use party chat immediately afterwards, Nera will say, "He he! I may look pure, but looks can be deceiving. You know that better than anyone, don't you, darling?" Hot. Perks for marrying her over Bianca? Her father will send men from time to time in the story to give you some cool stuff. The same applies if you marry Debora in the remake.

Debora

Debora Briscoletti is also the daughter of the rich Rodrigo Briscoletti. Unlike her sister, however, she was spoiled from an early age. A lot of people seem to think she's funny, although her comments pretty much amount to "so and so is stupid" and "why doesn't he do this" and "I'm great everyone else sucks". Though it is a breath of fresh air, and to each his own bizarre fantasy, whatever. What is hilarious are the events immediately after marrying her. As it turns out, her father had pretty much given up on her (pretty sad, as in depressing sad), to the point of telling her off rudely when she comes down and declares you worthy of marrying her. If you do choose her, he'll become mortified and ask if you know what you're getting yourself into (giving you a third prompt, compared to the other girls' two), and if you still say yes, he'll call you a "true lionheart" or something to that effect. One of the townsfolk tells you he literally cried afterwards.

Debora also gets the most character development: after a certain plot event in the third generation, she begins to mellow out somewhat. Though prior to that, the only exception to her treating the main character like a slave (then again, I suppose that makes her the most realistic?) is when she agrees to follow his orders in battle because he knows about it well. Speaking of battle, she is the physically-orientated of the three eligible bachelorettes, and has some unique equipment options to boot. Is it all worth it? Possibly.

The World

This is a section I'm considering putting into future editions, but decided against it here. It'd be for things unrelated to the plot, mostly just that which it has in common with Pokémon or another monster-training game. One of the things I just had to bring up here that there was no section to mention it in is the casino. There are actually two - a casino ship (also part of the plot if you marry Nera or Debora), and a standard one. Not much of a biggie normally, but the slot machines in them are similar enough, that you could swear Pokémon took inspiration from it.

In both the Pokémon casinos (you know, before the European Union threw a hissy fit) and the Dragon Quest V ones, you put in coins/tokens. The amount of these you put in represents the rows that will count in regards to getting a win. The only difference is that in Dragon Quest V, there are five columns instead of three. And instead of middle->outer->diagonals, you get middle-upper-bottom three times, additional coins past the first three allowing for more than three symbols in a row to count.

The slots both have different odds, too. In DQ5, there's no hard evidence of this, but the second in the row of blue slot machines is said by a man in-game to be the one that pays off the most. In Pokémon RBY, it's both stated, and a fact. You can rarely get a machine that wins basically every time (except when 7s or BARs get involved; it only lets you get those when it feels like it). The Gameshark code 01xx96D0 (in Red and Blue) will let you see this odd fixing in action. Put FF in the place of xx and watch the coins come in, or set it low and watch the coins stay in.

The other key difference is that in Dragon Quest V, a jackpot is, in fact, a jackpot. In RBY (and most of the series), 777 gets you a fairly laughable 300 coins, but in Dragon Quest V, it gets you 100x your bet. If you get 777 with a bet of 900 coins, you get 90000 back! And that's not the most you can win if luck decides to be on your side.

Additional Battle Information

The parts about status ailments and Tactics were cut down for size constraints. Here are the full explanations.

Under SLEEP, the victim does nothing. Getting hit with a physical hit may cause him to wake up. POISON and ENVENOM are basically like Poison and Strong Poison, though the latter is just a stronger version with no increasing effects. The former will stick outside battle, however. It's one of only three status ailments to do that. CONFUSE is fun: the victim will do all sorts of random stuff in battle: attempting to run, failing to cast a spell, unequipping an item, moving to the front of the party, and so on. PARALYZE stops the character from acting until it wears off, unlike in Pokémon where it simply reduces speed and only stops it from acting sometimes.

Two of the more common status ailments in RPGs not found in Pokémon are Silence and Blind, and Dragon Quest has both of them in a sense. DAZZLE causes the victim to hallucinate, and is essentially causes a reduction of the accuracy of physical attacks. FIZZLE prevents the inflicted from casting Magic. 0MP skills remain unaffected.

CURSE is a special case. Often found on otherwise powerful equipment though inflictable by a few monsters (such as Hex Helm), this has a variety of negative effects depending on where you go it. It can include randomly being unable to act, a reduction of stats, taking damage when you walk outside battle, or taking recoil damage upon attacking. Unlike most DQ games, you can remove the cursed piece of equipment in this version without going to a church. This is the second status ailment that continues after battle. The third of these, DEAD, is self-explanatory.

Now for Tactics. For such an archaic RPG, Dragon Quest was actually fairly ahead of its time with this feature. Debuting in Dragon Quest IV where it was mandatory in the final chapter (in the NES version), this is essentially an advanced auto-battle feature that lets you decide how your party members should act. Every member of the party can have their own individual tactics set. You can have them do everything possible to eliminate the enemy, avoid using MP, heal, act as support, or to Fight Wisely. The Follow Orders option is always an option, as well.

There are two things to note about Tactics. One, a few enemies, such as the Minidemon, may occasionally cause your party's tactics to change. However, there is no penalty to changing tactics, so this is a minor annoyance at best. And second, it chooses its action when its turn comes around, not when you're selecting the attacks. Let's say the main character gets KO'd in the middle of a round. If you have a character/monster with Tactics set, it may revive him. If it choose its move at the start of a round, it would never do such a thing.

More Monster Information

Since I used the monster gender as a lead-in for party chat, I couldn't find a good way to fit this blurb in. A quick way to tell your monster's sex is to put a Knick-Knack (or other usable item with a quote) in its inventory, and have it use it. T 'n' T tickets are the best, as they're really common. You'll receive a message like "Jayla grips the T 'n' T ticket tightly! She feels a little glow inside..." Again, even if you know your monster is a he or she, Sex: ??? will always be displayed when you look at the stats.

One part I didn't find a good place to put pertains to monster recruitment. There's a spell known as Poof. If you've played the Final Fantasy series before, you can think of it like X-Zone in how it banishes the enemy to lalaland. Enemies you gets rid of in this fashion don't count as being killed. You won't get a chance to recruit it, but if another recruitable monster was killed before it, you may be able to recruit it.

The freebie monsters. The aforementioned Sabrecub (who becomes a Great Sabrecat in the second generation) is the only such case in the SNES version. You can encounter enemy Great Sabrecats, but cannot recruit these. In the DS version, you can also get Dwight - a dwarf, Starkers - the brother of one of DQ4 villains and optional boss in DQ5 remake Estark, and Rebjørn, a massive enemy you encounter at one point in the game who's been reborn.

You don't encounter any formal "enemy trainers". However, some monsters do have the ability to call for backup in the form of other monsters. The Beastmaster-type monsters are probably the closest, as they summon a variety of monsters, whereas most simply summon one of their own or a healing Slime. Incidentally, you can recruit a Beastmaster yourself. Unfortunately, there's no layered summoning to be found.

The Best Monsters

The best way to figure which monsters to use is to look at the humans you have available.

- Main Character: Mandatory to take, though not necessarily to fight. Well-balanced, Woosh type spells, and Zoom/Evac.
- Wife: Varies between them, but mostly a mix of magic.
- Son: Well-balanced. Zap spells, and quite a few buffs/healing spells.
- Daughter: Offensive magic from the Crack and Bang families. Oomph and Kasap (boosts your offense and lowers their defense).
- Sancho: Kabuff and some debuffs. Some unique spells.
- Tuppence: No spells, but good equipment.

No human really fits into the debuffer category, and an extra healer would never hurt. Monsters also have the benefit of being able to have innate defenses against spells. In general, good things to have are those with resistances, and those with handy skills (often 0MP). Preferably, you'll want them to get skills early, and easily. For example, the Ghost monster learns Kafrizzle, a great spell...at Level 65. Way, way past the levels you'll need to even finish the post-game stuff.

Some of the more popular monsters are the Slime Knight and the Golem. Both are easily recruitable. The Slime Knight gets 1/3 resistance to most elements, in addition to healing magic and low level Bang spells. The Golem is a tank with 4/5 resistances to most elements and some good skills, including Meditation (restores 500 of the user's HP for no cost). Great Dragon is one that is often overlooked. Being a dragon in an RPG, it kicks ass. Namely, by getting high stats, lots of resistances, and 0MP breath skills (including both highest level ones). 1/64 odds of recruitment, though there's worse.

So what about those that are not general purpose? That, again, depends on what you're looking for. Here's a few examples.

Balanced: Jailcat, Chimaera, Archdemon, Minidemon, Samigina
Non-MP Dependant: Great Sabrecat, Small Fry, Conkerer, Battle Pip, Restless Armour, Hoodlum
MP Offensive: Prestidigitator, Old Man of the Sea, Moosifer
Healers: Healslime, Cureslime, King Cureslime, Orc King, (many others have a healing spell or two)
Defensive: Magic Marionette, Hades Helm, Goodybag, Hyperanemon
Buffers: Revaulting Horse, King Slime, Warhog
Debuffers: Dracky, Man 'O War, Cross Eye, Pocus Poppet, Walking Corpse
Etc: Snowbird, Grudgerigar, Slime
Swagger: Wax Murderer, Hellion, Hawk Man, Killing Machine

Finally, there are gimmick monsters out and about. The DS remake is most notable here, for the Pip crew and the Conk crew. This team of four little guys consist of a mixed hero type, physical attacker, healer, and spellcaster. Their stats and spells are among the best...except their MP, which is a joke. At level 25, my Conkjurer with all its spells had only 2MP! The Goodybag is another such monster. Reasonably easy to recruit, and immune to most spells, but a level cap of 7, and a Wisdom cap of 5 (the only monster who has a cap below 20), meaning the only way to gain full control of it is to feed it Seeds of Wisdom.

A Full List

Here's a full list of recruitable monsters in each version.

Both Versions:

Barbatos
Bomboulder
Brownie
Chimaera
Cross Eye
Cureslime
Dracky
Drag-goof
Fandagow
Gigantes
Golem
Goodybag
Great Dragon
Grudgerigar
Healslime
Hellion
Hoodlum
Hyperanemon
Killing Machine
King Cureslime
King Slime
Liquid Metal Slime
Magic Marionette
Mandrake Marshal
Minidemon
Moosifer
Old Man of the Sea
Orc King
Powie Yowie
Prestidigitator
Revaulting Horse
Rockbomb
Samigina
Slime
Slime Knight
Small Fry
Snowbird
Ticking Timeburrm
Walking Corpse
Warhog

DS Version Only:

Archdemon
Bad Apple
Battle Pip
Beastmaster
Blizzybody
Conkerer
Conkjurer
Conkuisitor
Conkuistador
Epipany
Fat Rat
Flamethrower
Funghoul
Ghost
Hades Helm
Hawk Man
Hulagan
Jailcat
Man o' War
Metal Slime
Mudraker
Pip Fighter
Pocus Poppet
Restless Armour
Rotten Apple
Wax Murderer
Wiz Pip

Additional Reading

This is a good page comparing the three versions (SNES/PSX/DS), but it has a couple plot spoilers.