Dragon Quest 1, 2, and 3

Dragon Quest is the first RPG game I've ever played, and most likely, it was the first for many. It was released in 1986, yes, that was during Ronald Reagon's second term. We barely had 14.4k modems back then. And most likely the game was less than 1 megabite. We, as Americans, got the English versiona as Dragon Warrior in 1989 for the NES.

The game featured one knight out to save a princess. It was pretty much the entire plot. It introduced ideas like regaining your HP at the inn, saving at the cathedrals, and getting clues from villagers. Monsters like the Wyvern, Golem, Slime, and Dragons got their start in this first game. Remember walking through tunnels and you actually had to use the ITEM torch? Remember walking through the marsh and picking up a clue in the middle? The good old days.

In Dragon Quest 2 we explored the possibility of the party. While Final Fantasy already had the hero party of four members, DQ2 introduced a team of three. The cool thing about Dragon Quest games are that they continue after another. The descendant of Erdrick (or Eldrick) makes his name in the world. You actually can find your father towards the end of the game. Pretty fun stuff. It came out in 1990, so I can't remember much about it.

Dragon Quest 3 still had an attachment to the first two games as it was set as a prequel to them. It introduced a system of recruiting teammates with different classes. There were skill points in addition to experience points. This game really brought replay value into the series as you can pick different classes of heroes to finish the game. I remember the goof-offs became sages, odd way of doing things, but I guess they wanted you to suffer carrying a goof-off in your team until you can get him to the shrine for a class change.

All in all, these games really set the tone for NES rpg's, especially since Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were not ported over to the US.












[image from Entropypump.com]

I recommend this the Dragon Quest Shrine for more info on this series of games.

Completion: Completed all three
Dragon Quest 1 (x 4) = 80 hours
Dragon Quest 2 (x1) = 50 hours
Dragon Quest 3 (x 2) = 100 hours
Hours: 230 hours

Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3

How can we forget about Mario? He's only the most recognized video-game character in the world. So yes, I've had my share of Mario. Heck, I had to because when you bought a Nintendo in 1989, it CAME WITH MARIO. Remember that? When video-game console systems came with stuff? Yes, it came with Super Mario Brothers, Duckhunt, the zapper, and two controllers. Fun.

While I spent a lot of time on Super Mario Bros., I really didn't master it. I didn't "grock" it like the guys on youtube. No, I cannot beat the game in 20 minutes or however fast. I just learned basic plat-form gaming. It was a great time, and I have to admit, you miss those simple side-scroll games here and now.

Super Mario Brothers 2 enabled you to use the Princess, Toad, and Luigi. Yes, we all loved Luigi, but the Princess can float. Each of them had special abilities, so it became a sort of "Lost Vikings" kind of game. Not the greatest game, but I remember a lot of fun getting the star: 23 seconds of invincibility? Not bad.

Super Mario Brothers 3 was the one that everyone loved. I remember when it was the rave when we saw it in the movie "the Wizard" with Fred Savage. God that was a silly movie, but of course we all wanted to be that wiz kid. My favorite aspect of SMB3 was the suits. Yes, you gotta love the suits! I mean, back then all you had were the overalls and then the white over-alls if you had the fire-flower. But in SMB3 you had the Frog Suit, Racoon Suit, Hammer Bro's Suit, etc. Awesome fun. These three games will live on as the great ones, but will I ever play them again? Most likely not.

Completion: Completed
Hours: aprox. 60hrs.

01 - Heroes of Might and Magic V

Well, there you have it, the fifth installment of the HOMM series. I have to say that... I loved this game! I have tried the third and fourth games of this series, but I never got into it. This time, I played two maps and got hooked.

Not really much to say about the game play, everybody knows by now that HOMM is a strategy-rpg game where you control armies lead by heroes. There are two types of play, the town building and resource acquiring aspect and the tactical battle aspect when a fight occurs. There are six types of troops this time (althought this being HOMM5): Humans, Elves, Dark Elves, Wizards, Demons, and Undead.

The story is of Agreal, the expeled demon on the quest of saving the human queen, Isabel. Through the worlds and leaders, we find great leaders and dark plots that have been set in motion by the demon lord. I just completed it and the four "good guys" linger in my mind: Findan, Godrick, Zehir, and Raelag (Agrael). I will definitely try the add-on and perhaps try "hard" difficulty soon.











Completion: Normal Difficulty
Hours spent: 60Hrs

Another blog site... maybe I'll get it together

So this is my 3rd Blogger website, and I think this one will definitely stick. I hope so. I really hope so. This one is going to track time spent on one of my oldest hobbies, video-games. I guess it's stupid to track time spent on video-games, but it does put my life in perspective. Have you ever done something all your life, without knowing how long you've been doing it? I was in Japan and during introductions amongst new friends you always talking about hobbies. One guy said tennis, for 13 years. Another girl said piano, for 8 years. A German guy actually said he enjoyed soccer, but only watching. When it was my turn, it was odd, because I'm the type of guy that floats from one hobby to another. I ended up saying Video-games. The one thing that I've been "doing" since I was nine-years-old. Yeah, that's right, it was 1989 and I was playing the Nintendo. My 19 year old journey has lead me to the Nintendo Wii. All those hours spent on it, if I had to count... well I can't. That's why there's this site.