Are Dragon Quest games independent, plot-wise?

[Danime]

Basically, as the title says.

I'd love to start getting some games of this franchise, cause it's Square Enix, and it's RPG ala Final Fantasy, therefore making it my kind of franchise. Just it's so huge, and has been Japan-only (or at least not available in the UK) for most of its life it's hard to know where to start. I think the PS2 game was one of the first to be released, but I'm thinking more the DS games, the fourth game seems to have a DS remake, and there's an upcoming Wii game. So yeah, I'm wondering if I can just buy one and start playing immediately and it won't matter about previous games/plot.

On a side note, for some odd reason I'm starting to have an itching to play Final Fantasy XII all over again, but this time try and get all the secrets and things that I missed first time around, or maybe just play my completed file (though I think there are some things that are permenantly missed when you get too far), and I'm wondering if I should just stick to GameFAQ's, or buy one of the official guides, but my question is if these guides are worth it, and if they really tell you every last detail about the game? I'm also stumped on the different publishers for the guides, we have Piggyback guides here in the UK, but they also seem to have US prices, but then there is Brady Games who seem to be US only, but do some of the same guides as Piggyback. Much confusing.

Also, getting even more off-topic - can anyone recommend me some really good sites just for general information, because (although I'm no newbie to games) I haven't spent huge amounts of time finding the gaming equivalent's of AoD/ANN/AniDB/various other anime sites, I use Wikipedia/IGN/other review sites like IGN and Google for information (oh and this other site that apparently gets information directly from Famitsu, news-wise, called MVCUK), being a PAL gamer it's often hard to find information about whether an older game was released in PAL60Hz, and it's probably a tad silly to ask in this forum as most people here are American, but I thought it was worth a shot.

I -so- wish I could read Japanese, so I could just get Famitsu!

[Fencedude]

Short answer? Yes.

[broodwars]

I believe that the first 3 games (DQ 1-3) and the second 3 games (4-6) form trilogies of sorts, but if I remember right they're very loosely so. Otherwise, I think the DQ games are independent of one another. Honestly, the person to ask here is ADC, our resident DQ expert.

[HitokiriShadow]

From the three I've played (though the only one I've beaten is 4, I've only put a few hours into 5 and 8) they have about as much to with each other as the Final Fantasy games do.

In other words, no, they don't really have anything to do with each other. Yes, 4-6 are supposed to be some sort of trilogy, but whatever relationship they have to each other is not plot significant as far as I can tell and you certainly don't have to pick up one to enjoy the others.

You should be able to start with whichever one you want. At the very least, I can guarantee you'll be okay starting with 4 as that was the first one I played as well (aside from a few hours on 8 as a rental).

[Betenoire]

On a side note, for some odd reason I'm starting to have an itching to play Final Fantasy XII all over again, but this time try and get all the secrets and things that I missed first time around, or maybe just play my completed file (though I think there are some things that are permenantly missed when you get too far), and I'm wondering if I should just stick to GameFAQ's, or buy one of the official guides, but my question is if these guides are worth it, and if they really tell you every last detail about the game?

Since the DQ question was answered, I'll touch on this. I haven't played through XII, but the FF X guide did what you are asking. I think Square learned from the complete and total FUBAR that was IX's guide where it wanted you to go online to find out parts of the walk through (Then why the @#$% would I need to buy the @#$%ing guide!-Sorry, this still pisses me off). Looking at the sheet that was shrink wrapped to the collector's version of the guide (That's the kind of mark I am) It says it shows how to get all the side quest and how to uncover many things (weapon's and bosses and more). One thing the guide does provide that GF doesn't is maps-so I guess it's up to you if this is a significant enough value for you.

[Fencedude]

On a side note, for some odd reason I'm starting to have an itching to play Final Fantasy XII all over again, but this time try and get all the secrets and things that I missed first time around, or maybe just play my completed file (though I think there are some things that are permenantly missed when you get too far), and I'm wondering if I should just stick to GameFAQ's, or buy one of the official guides, but my question is if these guides are worth it, and if they really tell you every last detail about the game?

Since the DQ question was answered, I'll touch on this. I haven't played through XII, but the FF X guide did what you are asking. I think Square learned from the complete and total FUBAR that was IX's guide where it wanted you to go online to find out parts of the walk through (Then why the @#$% would I need to buy the @#$%ing guide!-Sorry, this still pisses me off). Looking at the sheet that was shrink wrapped to the collector's version of the guide (That's the kind of mark I am) It says it shows how to get all the side quest and how to uncover many things (weapon's and bosses and more). One thing the guide does provide that GF doesn't is maps-so I guess it's up to you if this is a significant enough value for you.

I generally find the best results using a combination of the official guide and GameFAQs (if I'm going to go that route, depends on the game). Generally the official guide is better for getting places, but it may not go completely in depth into the details of the game, so to speak.
FFXII's guide is pretty damn good though.

[ADC]

I believe that the first 3 games (DQ 1-3) and the second 3 games (4-6) form trilogies of sorts, but if I remember right they're very loosely so. Otherwise, I think the DQ games are independent of one another. Honestly, the person to ask here is ADC, our resident DQ expert.
Thanks for that. ;) Anyway, DQs 1–3 are a trilogy (3,1,2 in order), but they're each independent enough that you miss nothing by playing 2 before 1, or by playing 1 before 3. Indeed, I'd totally pass on 1 because it's a whole lot of grind with almost no reward. Meanwhile, DQs 4–6 are sometimes known as the "Zenithian Trilogy" because they all feature a "Heaven"-type castle called Zenithia. That's pretty much all that ties DQ4 to DQ5 — a tenuous connection indeed! — and I would wager that DQ6 is similarly tenuously connected, but I haven't played it so I can't be sure.

The one connection DQs 4 and 5 have, however, is that they're awesome. Those two games should be enough to convince even the hardest-hearted person to buy a DS.

[Danime]

Thanks for all the input. I've placed my order for DQ4 and 5 now =) (damn good price as well!)

And I think I will get the FFXII guide nearer the time I actually get the game out to play again, though I might also just wait to see if any of these games get a PS3 re-release, the likes of FFX and FFXII both could do with the extra power the PS3 has, during the FFXII end battle I got so much slowdown using skills it was ridiculous! And they said they cut the amount of polygons used for extra lighting effects and whatnot. PS3 re-releases of all the 3D Final Fantasy games would be quite crazy, but awesome, and would also allow PAL gamers to forgive Square Enix for what they did to the European release of FFX! (/mini rant)

[broodwars]

Thanks for all the input. I've placed my order for DQ4 and 5 now =) (damn good price as well!)

And I think I will get the FFXII guide nearer the time I actually get the game out to play again, though I might also just wait to see if any of these games get a PS3 re-release, the likes of FFX and FFXII both could do with the extra power the PS3 has, during the FFXII end battle I got so much slowdown using skills it was ridiculous! And they said they cut the amount of polygons used for extra lighting effects and whatnot. PS3 re-releases of all the 3D Final Fantasy games would be quite crazy, but awesome, and would also allow PAL gamers to forgive Square Enix for what they did to the European release of FFX! (/mini rant)

Well, it's certainly possible that we might see some PS2 games up for download in the future, given that Sony just patented a technology to better enable PS2 emulation for all models of the PS3. I get the feeling Square's not going to alter any of their old games to make them work better, though. It's just too cost-effective to just dump what they've already made on the servers and call it a day.

[Greywing]

It's just too cost-effective to just dump what they've already made on the servers and call it a day.

At least it's easy enough to get a PSN account for other regions. Not so easy to fund them but still....

[Danime]

Thanks for all the input. I've placed my order for DQ4 and 5 now =) (damn good price as well!)

And I think I will get the FFXII guide nearer the time I actually get the game out to play again, though I might also just wait to see if any of these games get a PS3 re-release, the likes of FFX and FFXII both could do with the extra power the PS3 has, during the FFXII end battle I got so much slowdown using skills it was ridiculous! And they said they cut the amount of polygons used for extra lighting effects and whatnot. PS3 re-releases of all the 3D Final Fantasy games would be quite crazy, but awesome, and would also allow PAL gamers to forgive Square Enix for what they did to the European release of FFX! (/mini rant)

Well, it's certainly possible that we might see some PS2 games up for download in the future, given that Sony just patented a technology to better enable PS2 emulation for all models of the PS3. I get the feeling Square's not going to alter any of their old games to make them work better, though. It's just too cost-effective to just dump what they've already made on the servers and call it a day.

Oh really, that's pretty snazzy news to be honest! I was thinking of trying to find DQ8 and this Level-5 RPG - Rogue Galaxy for the PS2, those seem to be the last two PS2 games I would have liked but didn't know about at the time, but now I might wait and see. Plus, if I find the answer to my question of can the PS3 output 480p/or just plain old NTSC, I might go and re-buy from this possible future store FFX/X-2/XII so I can play them in 480p, or even better somehow play the PAL discs for them that I already own on the PS3 upscaled to 1080i/p60 (I can't find any information if PS2 games could be upscaled to that or 720p on older olders using the emotion chip or software emulation, either). There is a real lack of PS3 technical information that is findable using Google : /