I used Alena in place of Ragnar and she butchered anything she touched. The unusual critical hit rate she had made fighting Metal Kings easy and everything she attacked did not live long enough to be threatening. I didn't worry about anything with her in the group. Her HP and Defense were never a problem.
i for one like ragnar more, she is pretty good but she lacks in magic and elemental resistances with very few equipment that gives her such, I think she stands out more in NES as offensive magic in bosses is very rare of actually being useful and she is good as somewhere near the back to make amends of her frailness. in postgame she does have some of those issues fixed but then they throw in another really good character in there and at least she can hold her own still it's just you will use her much less than usual
@Nightwish145 Alena gets some great equipment late in the game that protects her from magic just fine. She's no detriment to anyone and dwarfs several other characters. I've never had trouble with Alena surviving magic.
@@RetroPerspective she only comes with the magic skirt (postgame gives her the angel leotard which is a bit of an improvement) which may not be enough the fact she can't use shields is also a detriment, she's not bad it's just ragnar is a bit more consistent with better bulk and in the ds version you can throw him all the agility seeds and he'll be fine
@Nightwish145 I streamed the game recently and had none of the problems you are referring to. I avoid using Soldiers in any Dragon Quest game because their strength lays mostly in their equipment. They are too slow to contribute much of anything else in combat. I am not referring simply to things like the Fur Hood early in the game with Alena. Maybe Alena took slightly more magic damage than other characters, but her HP was more than enough to not worry. The first action of any combat round involved Alena removing something from the battlefield. Even with heaps of Agility Seeds the magnificently slow Ragnar cannot accomplish this. He attacks, at best, in the middle of a combat round. Alena has such naturally high statistics it's hard to fathom not using her beyond miniscule preferences. We do not need to have quasi-semantic arguments on someone else's channel, let alone on a video over a year old.
Apparently, Alena's Critical ratio actually increases as she levels up. Also, the Falcon Knife Earings don't just attack twice, but also boost Critical chance as well.
Having played exclusively the NES version, I always put Cristo at *bottom* tier because while he had so much amazingly useful magic, he would waste all his MP in combat casting Beat and Defeat rather than healing
If you don’t mind changing battle tactics around, you can manage him from doing that. Defensive for example, he is unlikely to use it. Save MP will usually cause him to attack only unless someone goes in low HP in which case he will heal. It’s all about them battle tactics. Not only that but the AI learns. If he casts beat once or twice and it doesn’t work, he is unlikely to cast it again on that same enemy even in a different fight.
@Vegesther the AI is adaptive though it isn’t perfect. I can generally predict the behaviour of the other chosen ones based on AI but I’ve played the game into oblivion lol.
I’ve mentioned this before but this is basically exactly how I rank the characters as well! I love using a party of Hero, Alena, Cristo and Ragnar (occasionally swapping Ragnar for Brey or Mara) and giving Cristo the Metal Babble Sword to allow his damage to rival the others. It’s also worth it to give him all the agility seeds you find to ensure that his “sometimes acts before the enemy” turns into “always”. He’s hands down best boi and I love him for it. He’s a lot of fun in Dragon Quest Heroes as well. This is my favourite ranking video! ❤️
@@civilwildman truthfully the Dragon Killer is good enough to his damage output up there. Whereas the Sword of Miracles, while it is a nice choice for Cristo, doesn’t pack that same punch.
I think Meena is more useful at the starting because she learns before Zing than Kiryl. After Marquis de Leon or Baalzack usually Kiryl becomes more useful
late comment but I think she gets more use once she gets insulatle, late and to the optional boss, she becomes a necessity for the true final boss. she kind of gets overshadowed by kyril due to multiheal and kanbuff which are pretty good for the most of chapter 5, she is workable but it's situational when the game demands it as far as the ds version goes, NES it's hard to say guess it depends if you want to play defensive with more healers
Poor Healy the Healslime, you'll always be number one in my heart. This is another game on the list of "I need to buckle down and finish it". I carry my DS with me everywhere, so I really don't have an excuse xD
In fairness, this is only for chapter 5. Healy, for where he comes into the game, is god tier enough to have seeded a love for friendly monsters in all who have met the little guy who could.
Im newer to jrpgs. I only started like three years ago. I just don’t know how to stress this anymore than you are easily the best youtuber for this genre you are everything I was looking for. Im not gay, but i’ll be gay for you lol.
Played and beat this back in the day on the NES. Loved it. My party for the last phase of the final boss was the Hero, Ragnar, Alena and Cristo. Cristo healed (as did my Hero in a pinch) while Ragnar and Alena pounded on the Big Bad. Ragnar had the Metal Babble Sword, which boosted his damaged significantly but still was behind Alena, who hit more than once per turn and would often crit. My hero wasn't a total slouch with damage either. Either way, Big Bad went down like a sack of potatoes on a ledge. ;)
If memory serves, last phase took me about 2 to 4 tries, but I got him down. I remember getting so excited when the music fades out and you watch the boss fade away himself. I was thinking "Wait, what?" and realized it was over. Honestly one of the first games I alone in my family played and I just felt waves of accomplishment. Being a high-functioning person with special needs, this was a landmark because I proved to myself just how capable I really can be if I put my mind to it. Here I am, almost 30 years later, managing to hold a job for just over 10 years (June 2003 to February 2014), got my driver's license when I was 18, got my Bachelor's Degree at 27, and managed to keep a serious relationship going for roughly 8 months. Since then, I've learned lots of domestic skills and am just finding that next bridge to cross in life. Who knows?
When I started DQ9 I chose priest as my class and named my character Cristo. DW4 is my favourite game of all time, and I always liked Cristo a lot (though Alena is my absolute favourite). In DQ9 I wanted to main as a priest because of Cristo, and when I played with other people they often remarked that priest mains were rare. I think he's maybe the strongest healer in the entire series though, and a great character to lead a party. He can equip above average equipment for a priest, including all the metal babble equipment. My only problem is that in the original DW4 for the NES there was no way to directly control him in chapter 5, so I couldn't always take full advantage of his incredible arsenal.
Yeah that was a really good list. Although I'll myself put Alena on top. Having a fast attacker with high crit rate is Very usefull. Also METAL SLIME HUNTER
This is an awesome list! Kiryl is definitely my MVP; that Kabuff is incredible. My main reason for using Meena at all is to give him more windows to keep Kabuff up (especially back before I got multiheal). And as notorious as Kiryl's AI was in the original version for casting useless Wack spells, I do love using Thwack from time to time once he gets it. ;)
Oh, you did not just put Nara towards the bottom! In NES, yes, her stats are terrible and she levels the slowest. She was also the most reliable healer in the AI hell though. That said, I can understand why she is underused here. In the remakes though? Her low hp issue is fixed and gains a respectable amount. She's also the strongest of the mages (until very high level where out of nowhere mara suddenly gets strength for some reason) and has a great equipment pool. And in the bonus chapter, she is outright better than kiryl as healer thanks to insulate. While unnecessary, her tarot cards actually have two safe pulls which can either help for grinding or do an emergency heal or atk up. I did challenge runs where in one I'd only use Mara & Nara, and one where I only used Brey and Cristo (DS remake). Nara and Mara did SO much better, especially regarding magic immune area since Nara is stronger than Cristo. Granted, Cristo had Brey dragging him down a bit, but you'd think oomph/bikill/twinhits would help more! Honestly though, I like all the characters as they each have something going for them. -Torneko isn't great for boss battles, but he has great utility for grinding (whistle, trip crits for metals), and when you need items like STAT SEEDS or extra HEALING STAVES (his steals!) or other items you may want. -When I did a no healers run, i realized how much better Ragnar is for bosses than Alena. Durability is great, and he does not need much healing so you can just go all out for longer! -Alena still though is amazing for her dps, she just has a weakness to breath damage due to poor equipment pool (until bonus chapter where she gets armor with resistance to breath) -Brey has great support mage vibes with oomph, sap, and accelerate, just can't dps like Mara. Still a spry useful guy. -Mara is a magic dps god, she just gets hit hard for quite awhile unless you give her the metal slime shield. -Nara is essentially the best substitute character. Can attack respectably if given the right weapons (can equip metal slime sword), can be your mage if your others are low mp (Infermost), can take over healing for kiryl if needed (she can rock full heal and sage stone well), and can equip metal slime armor and has insulate, so she can actually tank OKAY when you need her to. -Cristo is the best healer and a tankier one than Nara (gets better hp and resilience than her, but less str and agility), he's essentially your pure support healer. His attack is okay but usually only good for wild battles. Does get a few more armor options than Nara (Mirror shield pretty good). (I'm not actually mad, I'm just defending one of my favorite characters) ;)
Both Kiryl and Meena got huge boost from NES to later versions. Meena, especially. Meena was not good at all in the NES version, but she was so useful against magic attackers in later versions.
Honestly, I'm really glad to see someone abide by the original NES translation. I like the DQ8 and DQ11 localizations, but everything else is just... too much for me. The Japanese originals enjoy puns and silly jokes to some degree, but in much more moderation. Towns have normal names, not puns. Dungeons have normal names, not puns. 90 percent of characters have normal names, with maybe 10 percent at most having pun names; in the localization those numbers are reversed. NPCs speak in normal, generally serious dialogue. The original games are lighthearted adventures with a healthy sense of humor, but they're still well-rounded stories that are capable of being very sincere, dramatic, and exciting. Modern DQ localizations are incapable of going a single sentence without making a pun or joke, and have only one mode: being as zany as possible at all times. Great video, though. I like how you cover very specific things that wouldn't be covered anywhere else. As a little kid, Ragnar was always my favorite, moreso on a personality level than anything - there's some imprinting there since he's the first character you control, and I liked how manly he is. :P
Today I finished Dragon Quest IV, and I should say that my party was Hero - Mena - Kyril - Maya, i feel comfortable using them, they were versatile and fun to play all the time in my opinion but I still love every character in the game.
Cristo can equip all the metal babble armor and the metal babble sword, thus that's always what I ultimately equip him with, as he's the 'metal babble warrior' which makes him pretty cool.
Quite literally my favorite game of all time, been playing it since around 91-92 (whichever year it came out is when my parents got it for me), and I just got done (literally like an hour ago) replaying DQ4 on the DS, and this was the first time I used Brey on my team. He’s too damn useful because of having both Sap and BiKill, I never used him on the NES due to the AI but when you can control him he’s beyond useful.
Maybe an unpopular opinion: I think that DQ4 is better than DQ5 because it has a better cast of playable characters compared to the random monsters you recruit in DQ5.
Just beat Chapter 6 right before checking out this video! Here's my opinion :) we were pretty close! 9. Taloon 8. Meena 7. Ragnar 6. Alena 5. Maya 4. Borya 3. 9th character (just in case spoilers) 2. Kiryl 1. Hero
Ragnar isn't bad but he's not Alena, Mara isn't bad but magic doing a static amount of damage makes her inferior to the old man with the crazy hair. And Cristo took a level or 2 of paladin. Good video, love and peace.
Funny enough, while I focus on statistics more and game statics now, I always think back how each character made me FEEL during that time. I hate to say it, but it was Taloon and Ragnar lol. Maybe challenge comes directly contributes to effort?
Hero, for Kazap and Omniheal. Kyril for Kabuff and Multiheal. Ragnar because you can always cast Oomph on him before he hits the enemy because of his lower agility. Borya, for Oomph! (and Snooze is helpful a lot too)
i think this was the first game i ever abused the game genie on to any real extent. doing things like having characters start with Metal babble sword. man so many good memories! i almost called it the liquid metal sword... man its been too long
Great list, but I have to say this: Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!Whack!!! You go away! That is if you didn’t have a game genie Cristo was damn near useless without it.
About the bottom two characters, which I have to agree in their placement, one of Torneko's goof-off actions can steal an enemy's item, but that's way too situational to be useful in lieu of the heavier hitters Ragnar or Alena. About Meena/Nara, Insulatle/Barrier is a big deal against some late game bosses, but Kiryl/Cristo has the edge with Multiheal/HealUs and Kazing/"whichever-highly-intuitive-name-used-for-the-guaranteed-revival-spell" which Nara sadly lacks and you can outfit almost everyone with breath protection equipment.
old comment but for some breath attacks especially postgame, you need the breath protection and insulatle to even to remain stable on the health, Meena does end up typically used more in postgame then Kyril who stands out more in base game who may come in for a kabuff after that but meena with a sage's stone can mostly cover a fight
I have only played the original NES version, but I disagree a bit about Taloon. True, he's not a very good fighter, but some of the goofy things he do can actually really help you out in battle, for example stopping dangerous enemy spells or putting all enemies to sleep. I ended up using him for a good portion of the game during my first playthrough. The rest of the list I pretty much agree with, though I would probably put Cristo at number 2 rather than 1, as towards the end of the game, he tends to waste his MP casting Beat and Defeat on enemies immune to it.
I feel like the rankings seem to be a mish mash of both ds and NES and torneko in DS is pretty useful despite having spells in that version, the sisters are much better with Maya's fire spells being more useful paired with sap (which she also learns) makes her more complete then borya due to not being able to do much besides support which is fine but not the most efficient to have him on the party constantly and insulatle being more demanding in the later points in the game more so then kabuff though Kyril is still really good and dominates most of the base game
I've replayed this game a ton. While I agree with most of your assessments on the characters' strengths and weakness, I don't agree with placing them along a linear list; they all have different roles in a party. I also don't think there's any character that's truly "bad", which is a blessing. Even Taloon is fine--not great, but viable. I'd rate them like this: Hero - A tier. A strong physical fighter with access to most of the best equipment in the game, they make for a reliable frontline. Their line of heal spells makes them useful as a secondary healer, and by the time they attain Omniheal they trivialize pretty much every encounter in the game. Ragnar - B tier. Plays very similarly to the hero in that he's a reliable beatstick, only he's even tankier! His slow speed and lack of any utility, however, consign him to a still fairly respectable B tier. Alena - A tier. Hands down the best physical fighter in the game, her innate critical hit chance and access to falcon earrings let her absolutely shred any opponent. High agility also makes her ideal for holding important consumables. Also? Great for metal slime hunting. While she may be a bit squishier than some other options, keep her nearer the back of the party and she'll prove indispensable. Brey - A tier. Lacks a lot of the AoE damage spells that the game's other mage has, but as a support mage he's invaluable for boss fights. Bikill alone puts him in this spot. Cristo - A tier. He's tanky, and a solid physical fighter, with access to many of the strongest healing options in the game. A solid backbone for any party. Taloon - C tier. He's not all that bad, actually. With a meteorite sword he still deals respectable damage. But he's squishier than other physical options and lacks their raw offensive output, too; in short, there's no real reason to pick him unless you want a full physical party. His random actions can be great for slime hunting, though! Mara - B tier, bordering on A. She's actually very strong, and is my go to mage for clearing dungeon trash due to her range of sheer damage spells. Bedragon also melts metal monsters. Beautiful. Just don't take her along for boss fights; Brey is the superior choice there. Nara - B tier. She's far, far too fragile, lacks meaningful physical presence, and her spell selection is (for the most part) not as well rounded as Cristo's. She does have Insulate, however, which saves her from slipping into C tier; elemental resistance is a godsend for some late boss battles. In short: Top Tier - Hero, Alena, Brey, Cristo Mid Tier - Ragnar, Mara, Nara Bottom Tier - Taloon
NES version , i agree Nara was too fragile. In the remakes though? She gets respectable hp finally! She does still level slower than the others, but she is far from fragile! She can equip Liquid Metal Armor for a significant defense boost. In fact, she is equally capable of equipping all liquid metal gear like Cristo. Also can give her flowing dress which is okay defense and resistance too. But fun fact, she actually gets better strength gains than cristo (and agility) so she ends up being a better fighter. And give her sage stone and she can get some group healing in just fine too. Not going to knock Kabuff though, that can sometimes be all you need for bosses if the rest of the party has good breath resistance gear... but insulate still is damned good! She's actually the most well rounded party member though. Attack only lower than Taloon's by a little (until late levels where Mara gets strength for some reason?) so can attack well enough. Solid heal spells for healer role. Pretty good magic damage with Infermost. Support magic via insulate, and if you really need it, can revive 3 party members with farewell/kerplunk, though that is slightly less useful since kerplunk bracers became a thing in the ds version.
The characters of Dragon Quest 9 were a trip because while you could give them any form possible (Dragonball) they still were victims of a brokne growth system.
Were this the NES version "Cristo" would be closer to last :) his job is to revive "Nara", though her HP are even worse in that one. I much favor Ragnar's HP over Alena in Chapter 6 for his HP, but I suppose your Chapter 5 criteria matters. I would rank Mara much higher due to her fair HP.
Me, playing through DQ IV for the first time, watching this: welp. Guess it’ll just be the Hero and the Chapter 2 crew til the endgame 😂 I MIGHT swap Maya for Borya, or Ragnar for Alena, but it’ll probably only happen occasionally.
if you are on lower levels Ragnar and Maya maybe more helpful then the alternatives, Alena unless overlevelled enough may have trouble with magical or breath threats while ragnar while has less offense potential is safer, this doesn't make Alena terrible but there is that flaw when she only has the magical skirt in the base game as her only response to anything outside of physical. Maya does in fact come with sap so your not completely removed on support but fixed magic damage actually can be helpful where it will tend to hit harder then physical attacks at lower levels, her AOE mobbing is also helpful which Borya kind of struggles doing oomph is good but your probably not going to use it in every encounter you face
This is one of the case where I knew a character is amazing but I just don't like the character at all and never use him, yep never use Kyril ever simply because I didn't like him, but yeah a simple look at his spell list make it clear he is simply great. I would have put Maya and Borya as a tie personnaly, really the only thing that's saving Borya is Oomph if it wasn't for this one spell Maya would be superior in every possible scenario, she has Sap and she hit like a truck either ST or MT spells, Oomph however makes Borya better for boss fight were you want huge DPS, Maya is the best of the 2 for mob fight tough when you simply want to nuke stuff.
honestly id rank alena as number 1 not number 3 she has a mechanic unique to her where her critical hit rate increases as she levels up. she hits max attack long before anyone else will and falcon knife earrings not only gives her 2 hits those 2 hits can also critical. its completely possible for her to consistently do more damage to a boss than the other party members can do combined. plus her crit rate makes her ideal for metal king slime farming. funny enough that well cristo is useful on the DS remake he is downright awful on the NES original. worst character by far there the DS didnt really buff him or anything he has all the same strengths in both version. but without a cheat code the NES has all the party members be AI controlled and his AI is dumb. instead of using his great healing spells or defensive buffs he will just cast his instant death move over and over and over again on bosses immune to it. making the healing twin much more useful on the NES as her AI will actually use her healing spells
I'm gonna be completely honest with you my Default party is usually just Hero, Alena, Kiryl, with Maya and Ragnar switching depending on if a dungeon is best geared for all fields or a physical team. Taloon I just have him use Whistle for metal slimes, and to steal Liquid metal helms from Metal King Slimes because fuck the casino in DQ4, Meena was basically essential for beating the final boss, but I honestly feel like Borya is honestly the most situational party member of the cast. He's meant to be the a different type of mage I know, but like Maya is a lot more useful because the fact that not only are more enemies weak to Fire then they are to Ice, but also just because Borya just has bad equipment draw, like 2 of his most optimal defensive equipment items better geared for party members like.... Maya, but even if you wanted to swap them so you can use Borya, well I would just use Maya anyways because she's simply more useful in more situations. With how easily you can break DQ4, I never found myself never using Oomph till the final boss, I just needed Sap to lower defense for almost the whole game, and in the DS version where there's new stuff, well I can't spoil it because if I did it would heavily HEAVILY ruin a newcomer's experience, I'm just gonna say that Borya is basically just obsolete because of what happens in the additional stuff the DS version adds. This my opinion on Borya, no comments can honestly change my mind on him. Also nice video
Ranking of jobs in bravely default series, that will be great.
I used Alena in place of Ragnar and she butchered anything she touched. The unusual critical hit rate she had made fighting Metal Kings easy and everything she attacked did not live long enough to be threatening.
I didn't worry about anything with her in the group. Her HP and Defense were never a problem.
i for one like ragnar more, she is pretty good but she lacks in magic and elemental resistances with very few equipment that gives her such, I think she stands out more in NES as offensive magic in bosses is very rare of actually being useful and she is good as somewhere near the back to make amends of her frailness. in postgame she does have some of those issues fixed but then they throw in another really good character in there and at least she can hold her own still it's just you will use her much less than usual
@Nightwish145 Alena gets some great equipment late in the game that protects her from magic just fine. She's no detriment to anyone and dwarfs several other characters. I've never had trouble with Alena surviving magic.
@@RetroPerspective she only comes with the magic skirt (postgame gives her the angel leotard which is a bit of an improvement) which may not be enough the fact she can't use shields is also a detriment, she's not bad it's just ragnar is a bit more consistent with better bulk and in the ds version you can throw him all the agility seeds and he'll be fine
@Nightwish145 I streamed the game recently and had none of the problems you are referring to. I avoid using Soldiers in any Dragon Quest game because their strength lays mostly in their equipment. They are too slow to contribute much of anything else in combat. I am not referring simply to things like the Fur Hood early in the game with Alena. Maybe Alena took slightly more magic damage than other characters, but her HP was more than enough to not worry. The first action of any combat round involved Alena removing something from the battlefield. Even with heaps of Agility Seeds the magnificently slow Ragnar cannot accomplish this. He attacks, at best, in the middle of a combat round. Alena has such naturally high statistics it's hard to fathom not using her beyond miniscule preferences.
We do not need to have quasi-semantic arguments on someone else's channel, let alone on a video over a year old.
Alena is the best for farming King Metal Slimes.
Apparently, Alena's Critical ratio actually increases as she levels up. Also, the Falcon Knife Earings don't just attack twice, but also boost Critical chance as well.
Having played exclusively the NES version, I always put Cristo at *bottom* tier because while he had so much amazingly useful magic, he would waste all his MP in combat casting Beat and Defeat rather than healing
If you don’t mind changing battle tactics around, you can manage him from doing that. Defensive for example, he is unlikely to use it. Save MP will usually cause him to attack only unless someone goes in low HP in which case he will heal. It’s all about them battle tactics. Not only that but the AI learns. If he casts beat once or twice and it doesn’t work, he is unlikely to cast it again on that same enemy even in a different fight.
NES Cristo before Beat/Defeat - I'm a healer!
NES Cristo after Beat/Defeat - I'm a necromancer!
@Vegesther the NES version absolutely has battle tactics. Normal, Offensive, Defensive, Save MP, Use No MP and Try Out.
@Vegesther the AI is adaptive though it isn’t perfect. I can generally predict the behaviour of the other chosen ones based on AI but I’ve played the game into oblivion lol.
@@serenavox5540 Yeah I'd noticed the AI changing with experience even as a kid. I'd be really curious to know how it actually works.
Alena is number one for me, those crits on metalbabbles is too clutch
I’ve mentioned this before but this is basically exactly how I rank the characters as well! I love using a party of Hero, Alena, Cristo and Ragnar (occasionally swapping Ragnar for Brey or Mara) and giving Cristo the Metal Babble Sword to allow his damage to rival the others. It’s also worth it to give him all the agility seeds you find to ensure that his “sometimes acts before the enemy” turns into “always”. He’s hands down best boi and I love him for it. He’s a lot of fun in Dragon Quest Heroes as well. This is my favourite ranking video! ❤️
Seconded, though as I said, I gave the Metal Babble Sword to Ragnar to put him more on par with Alena damage-wise.
@@civilwildman truthfully the Dragon Killer is good enough to his damage output up there. Whereas the Sword of Miracles, while it is a nice choice for Cristo, doesn’t pack that same punch.
Do you like Dragon Quest Heroes 1 over the second game? Or 2 more than the first?
@@KC-135RT_BoomOperator i preferred the first game. The second was, I dunno. Not as fulfilling I guess? To me anyway. Still fun!
@@serenavox5540 Um, sorry, I don't quite understand that first sentence.
I think Meena is more useful at the starting because she learns before Zing than Kiryl. After Marquis de Leon or Baalzack usually Kiryl becomes more useful
late comment but I think she gets more use once she gets insulatle, late and to the optional boss, she becomes a necessity for the true final boss. she kind of gets overshadowed by kyril due to multiheal and kanbuff which are pretty good for the most of chapter 5, she is workable but it's situational when the game demands it as far as the ds version goes, NES it's hard to say guess it depends if you want to play defensive with more healers
I wholeheartedly agree with the top spot being taken by Cristo! He's just so dang useful!
My favourite is Alena, she's just awesome. I mean her story literally starts off with her kicking her way out of a castle what's not to love?
Torneko is top for me. My favorite character in the franchise.
A loving husband and father who just wants to live well and have purpose
Poor Healy the Healslime, you'll always be number one in my heart.
This is another game on the list of "I need to buckle down and finish it". I carry my DS with me everywhere, so I really don't have an excuse xD
In fairness, this is only for chapter 5. Healy, for where he comes into the game, is god tier enough to have seeded a love for friendly monsters in all who have met the little guy who could.
@@superbaas8822 True, it really would have upset the game balance to have Healy for the whole game, I can't fault the game designers there
This video won once the line of "I'm a crotchety old bitch" was uttered.
"I'm a crochety old bitch"
Well at least he honest
Kinda like to see this for Yakuza: Like A Dragon
Im newer to jrpgs. I only started like three years ago. I just don’t know how to stress this anymore than you are easily the best youtuber for this genre you are everything I was looking for. Im not gay, but i’ll be gay for you lol.
This is still my favorite cast in the series. Most characters have some use( there are exceptions) and have real character and likeability.
Cristo is pretty awesome for being the greatest healer in the game. He was always my end game healer. Have a great day David 😀
Played and beat this back in the day on the NES. Loved it. My party for the last phase of the final boss was the Hero, Ragnar, Alena and Cristo. Cristo healed (as did my Hero in a pinch) while Ragnar and Alena pounded on the Big Bad. Ragnar had the Metal Babble Sword, which boosted his damaged significantly but still was behind Alena, who hit more than once per turn and would often crit. My hero wasn't a total slouch with damage either. Either way, Big Bad went down like a sack of potatoes on a ledge. ;)
If memory serves, last phase took me about 2 to 4 tries, but I got him down. I remember getting so excited when the music fades out and you watch the boss fade away himself. I was thinking "Wait, what?" and realized it was over. Honestly one of the first games I alone in my family played and I just felt waves of accomplishment. Being a high-functioning person with special needs, this was a landmark because I proved to myself just how capable I really can be if I put my mind to it. Here I am, almost 30 years later, managing to hold a job for just over 10 years (June 2003 to February 2014), got my driver's license when I was 18, got my Bachelor's Degree at 27, and managed to keep a serious relationship going for roughly 8 months. Since then, I've learned lots of domestic skills and am just finding that next bridge to cross in life. Who knows?
When I started DQ9 I chose priest as my class and named my character Cristo. DW4 is my favourite game of all time, and I always liked Cristo a lot (though Alena is my absolute favourite). In DQ9 I wanted to main as a priest because of Cristo, and when I played with other people they often remarked that priest mains were rare. I think he's maybe the strongest healer in the entire series though, and a great character to lead a party. He can equip above average equipment for a priest, including all the metal babble equipment. My only problem is that in the original DW4 for the NES there was no way to directly control him in chapter 5, so I couldn't always take full advantage of his incredible arsenal.
Yeah that was a really good list. Although I'll myself put Alena on top. Having a fast attacker with high crit rate is Very usefull. Also METAL SLIME HUNTER
I named my daughter Alena...
This is an awesome list! Kiryl is definitely my MVP; that Kabuff is incredible. My main reason for using Meena at all is to give him more windows to keep Kabuff up (especially back before I got multiheal). And as notorious as Kiryl's AI was in the original version for casting useless Wack spells, I do love using Thwack from time to time once he gets it. ;)
Hi David Where would you place the bonus character you get in chapter 6 not mentioning the name cause you know spoilers?
Oh, you did not just put Nara towards the bottom!
In NES, yes, her stats are terrible and she levels the slowest. She was also the most reliable healer in the AI hell though. That said, I can understand why she is underused here.
In the remakes though? Her low hp issue is fixed and gains a respectable amount. She's also the strongest of the mages (until very high level where out of nowhere mara suddenly gets strength for some reason) and has a great equipment pool. And in the bonus chapter, she is outright better than kiryl as healer thanks to insulate. While unnecessary, her tarot cards actually have two safe pulls which can either help for grinding or do an emergency heal or atk up.
I did challenge runs where in one I'd only use Mara & Nara, and one where I only used Brey and Cristo (DS remake). Nara and Mara did SO much better, especially regarding magic immune area since Nara is stronger than Cristo. Granted, Cristo had Brey dragging him down a bit, but you'd think oomph/bikill/twinhits would help more!
Honestly though, I like all the characters as they each have something going for them.
-Torneko isn't great for boss battles, but he has great utility for grinding (whistle, trip crits for metals), and when you need items like STAT SEEDS or extra HEALING STAVES (his steals!) or other items you may want.
-When I did a no healers run, i realized how much better Ragnar is for bosses than Alena. Durability is great, and he does not need much healing so you can just go all out for longer!
-Alena still though is amazing for her dps, she just has a weakness to breath damage due to poor equipment pool (until bonus chapter where she gets armor with resistance to breath)
-Brey has great support mage vibes with oomph, sap, and accelerate, just can't dps like Mara. Still a spry useful guy.
-Mara is a magic dps god, she just gets hit hard for quite awhile unless you give her the metal slime shield.
-Nara is essentially the best substitute character. Can attack respectably if given the right weapons (can equip metal slime sword), can be your mage if your others are low mp (Infermost), can take over healing for kiryl if needed (she can rock full heal and sage stone well), and can equip metal slime armor and has insulate, so she can actually tank OKAY when you need her to.
-Cristo is the best healer and a tankier one than Nara (gets better hp and resilience than her, but less str and agility), he's essentially your pure support healer. His attack is okay but usually only good for wild battles. Does get a few more armor options than Nara (Mirror shield pretty good).
(I'm not actually mad, I'm just defending one of my favorite characters) ;)
Cries in "Cristo casts Beat! Necrosaro is unaffected."
This thumbnail is my favorite so far :) You definitely need to create the entire cosplay!
Damn so this is the only one I haven't been able to play, and now I can see why there is so much Cristo hype!
Taloon was useful for appraising items and finding out how much they're worth or if they're cursed.
Both Kiryl and Meena got huge boost from NES to later versions. Meena, especially. Meena was not good at all in the NES version, but she was so useful against magic attackers in later versions.
Honestly, I'm really glad to see someone abide by the original NES translation. I like the DQ8 and DQ11 localizations, but everything else is just... too much for me. The Japanese originals enjoy puns and silly jokes to some degree, but in much more moderation. Towns have normal names, not puns. Dungeons have normal names, not puns. 90 percent of characters have normal names, with maybe 10 percent at most having pun names; in the localization those numbers are reversed. NPCs speak in normal, generally serious dialogue. The original games are lighthearted adventures with a healthy sense of humor, but they're still well-rounded stories that are capable of being very sincere, dramatic, and exciting. Modern DQ localizations are incapable of going a single sentence without making a pun or joke, and have only one mode: being as zany as possible at all times.
Great video, though. I like how you cover very specific things that wouldn't be covered anywhere else. As a little kid, Ragnar was always my favorite, moreso on a personality level than anything - there's some imprinting there since he's the first character you control, and I liked how manly he is. :P
Today I finished Dragon Quest IV, and I should say that my party was Hero - Mena - Kyril - Maya, i feel comfortable using them, they were versatile and fun to play all the time in my opinion but I still love every character in the game.
Cristo can equip all the metal babble armor and the metal babble sword, thus that's always what I ultimately equip him with, as he's the 'metal babble warrior' which makes him pretty cool.
I agree with this list. By the end of the game I usually always Use Hero and team Alena.
Quite literally my favorite game of all time, been playing it since around 91-92 (whichever year it came out is when my parents got it for me), and I just got done (literally like an hour ago) replaying DQ4 on the DS, and this was the first time I used Brey on my team. He’s too damn useful because of having both Sap and BiKill, I never used him on the NES due to the AI but when you can control him he’s beyond useful.
Funny how Cristo went from being one of the worst nes characters to being the best DS character.
Maybe an unpopular opinion: I think that DQ4 is better than DQ5 because it has a better cast of playable characters compared to the random monsters you recruit in DQ5.
Just beat Chapter 6 right before checking out this video! Here's my opinion :) we were pretty close!
9. Taloon
8. Meena
7. Ragnar
6. Alena
5. Maya
4. Borya
3. 9th character (just in case spoilers)
2. Kiryl
1. Hero
Thanks for the video David!
What software do you use to divide the DS screen into one main screen, two secondary screens and the game logo?
Ragnar isn't bad but he's not Alena, Mara isn't bad but magic doing a static amount of damage makes her inferior to the old man with the crazy hair. And Cristo took a level or 2 of paladin. Good video, love and peace.
Funny enough, while I focus on statistics more and game statics now, I always think back how each character made me FEEL during that time.
I hate to say it, but it was Taloon and Ragnar lol. Maybe challenge comes directly contributes to effort?
How do you rank Psaro among them?
Hero, for Kazap and Omniheal. Kyril for Kabuff and Multiheal. Ragnar because you can always cast Oomph on him before he hits the enemy because of his lower agility. Borya, for Oomph! (and Snooze is helpful a lot too)
Oh and I forgot about Kyril's Sap and Kasap
edit: Borya's Sap and Kasap :)
And Kazing!!
edit: this is still Kyril's :)
Yep, Kyril is definitely the GOAT
i think this was the first game i ever abused the game genie on to any real extent. doing things like having characters start with Metal babble sword. man so many good memories! i almost called it the liquid metal sword... man its been too long
Great list, but I have to say this:
Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!Whack!!! You go away!
That is if you didn’t have a game genie Cristo was damn near useless without it.
...So Hero, Alena, Kyril, and Borya for hardest fights in the game?
About the bottom two characters, which I have to agree in their placement, one of Torneko's goof-off actions can steal an enemy's item, but that's way too situational to be useful in lieu of the heavier hitters Ragnar or Alena. About Meena/Nara, Insulatle/Barrier is a big deal against some late game bosses, but Kiryl/Cristo has the edge with Multiheal/HealUs and Kazing/"whichever-highly-intuitive-name-used-for-the-guaranteed-revival-spell" which Nara sadly lacks and you can outfit almost everyone with breath protection equipment.
old comment but for some breath attacks especially postgame, you need the breath protection and insulatle to even to remain stable on the health, Meena does end up typically used more in postgame then Kyril who stands out more in base game who may come in for a kabuff after that but meena with a sage's stone can mostly cover a fight
I have only played the original NES version, but I disagree a bit about Taloon. True, he's not a very good fighter, but some of the goofy things he do can actually really help you out in battle, for example stopping dangerous enemy spells or putting all enemies to sleep. I ended up using him for a good portion of the game during my first playthrough. The rest of the list I pretty much agree with, though I would probably put Cristo at number 2 rather than 1, as towards the end of the game, he tends to waste his MP casting Beat and Defeat on enemies immune to it.
I feel like the rankings seem to be a mish mash of both ds and NES and torneko in DS is pretty useful despite having spells in that version, the sisters are much better with Maya's fire spells being more useful paired with sap (which she also learns) makes her more complete then borya due to not being able to do much besides support which is fine but not the most efficient to have him on the party constantly and insulatle being more demanding in the later points in the game more so then kabuff though Kyril is still really good and dominates most of the base game
Whats the name of the hero in dragon quest 4?
Solo for male, Sofia for female. At least canon wise.
I've replayed this game a ton. While I agree with most of your assessments on the characters' strengths and weakness, I don't agree with placing them along a linear list; they all have different roles in a party. I also don't think there's any character that's truly "bad", which is a blessing. Even Taloon is fine--not great, but viable.
I'd rate them like this:
Hero - A tier. A strong physical fighter with access to most of the best equipment in the game, they make for a reliable frontline. Their line of heal spells makes them useful as a secondary healer, and by the time they attain Omniheal they trivialize pretty much every encounter in the game.
Ragnar - B tier. Plays very similarly to the hero in that he's a reliable beatstick, only he's even tankier! His slow speed and lack of any utility, however, consign him to a still fairly respectable B tier.
Alena - A tier. Hands down the best physical fighter in the game, her innate critical hit chance and access to falcon earrings let her absolutely shred any opponent. High agility also makes her ideal for holding important consumables. Also? Great for metal slime hunting. While she may be a bit squishier than some other options, keep her nearer the back of the party and she'll prove indispensable.
Brey - A tier. Lacks a lot of the AoE damage spells that the game's other mage has, but as a support mage he's invaluable for boss fights. Bikill alone puts him in this spot.
Cristo - A tier. He's tanky, and a solid physical fighter, with access to many of the strongest healing options in the game. A solid backbone for any party.
Taloon - C tier. He's not all that bad, actually. With a meteorite sword he still deals respectable damage. But he's squishier than other physical options and lacks their raw offensive output, too; in short, there's no real reason to pick him unless you want a full physical party. His random actions can be great for slime hunting, though!
Mara - B tier, bordering on A. She's actually very strong, and is my go to mage for clearing dungeon trash due to her range of sheer damage spells. Bedragon also melts metal monsters. Beautiful. Just don't take her along for boss fights; Brey is the superior choice there.
Nara - B tier. She's far, far too fragile, lacks meaningful physical presence, and her spell selection is (for the most part) not as well rounded as Cristo's. She does have Insulate, however, which saves her from slipping into C tier; elemental resistance is a godsend for some late boss battles.
In short:
Top Tier - Hero, Alena, Brey, Cristo
Mid Tier - Ragnar, Mara, Nara
Bottom Tier - Taloon
NES version , i agree Nara was too fragile.
In the remakes though? She gets respectable hp finally! She does still level slower than the others, but she is far from fragile! She can equip Liquid Metal Armor for a significant defense boost. In fact, she is equally capable of equipping all liquid metal gear like Cristo. Also can give her flowing dress which is okay defense and resistance too. But fun fact, she actually gets better strength gains than cristo (and agility) so she ends up being a better fighter. And give her sage stone and she can get some group healing in just fine too.
Not going to knock Kabuff though, that can sometimes be all you need for bosses if the rest of the party has good breath resistance gear... but insulate still is damned good! She's actually the most well rounded party member though. Attack only lower than Taloon's by a little (until late levels where Mara gets strength for some reason?) so can attack well enough. Solid heal spells for healer role. Pretty good magic damage with Infermost. Support magic via insulate, and if you really need it, can revive 3 party members with farewell/kerplunk, though that is slightly less useful since kerplunk bracers became a thing in the ds version.
Thanks 4 the info friend
Would you ever consider doing a video ranking the characters of Final Fantasy IX?
Your link to the top 10 playlist doesn't work.
Try it now
The characters of Dragon Quest 9 were a trip because while you could give them any form possible (Dragonball) they still were victims of a brokne growth system.
Were this the NES version "Cristo" would be closer to last :) his job is to revive "Nara", though her HP are even worse in that one. I much favor Ragnar's HP over Alena in Chapter 6 for his HP, but I suppose your Chapter 5 criteria matters. I would rank Mara much higher due to her fair HP.
Me, playing through DQ IV for the first time, watching this: welp. Guess it’ll just be the Hero and the Chapter 2 crew til the endgame 😂 I MIGHT swap Maya for Borya, or Ragnar for Alena, but it’ll probably only happen occasionally.
if you are on lower levels Ragnar and Maya maybe more helpful then the alternatives, Alena unless overlevelled enough may have trouble with magical or breath threats while ragnar while has less offense potential is safer, this doesn't make Alena terrible but there is that flaw when she only has the magical skirt in the base game as her only response to anything outside of physical. Maya does in fact come with sap so your not completely removed on support but fixed magic damage actually can be helpful where it will tend to hit harder then physical attacks at lower levels, her AOE mobbing is also helpful which Borya kind of struggles doing oomph is good but your probably not going to use it in every encounter you face
I just saw this at the local used game store for $150. I'll get the SNES ROM or phone version instead.
This is one of the case where I knew a character is amazing but I just don't like the character at all and never use him, yep never use Kyril ever simply because I didn't like him, but yeah a simple look at his spell list make it clear he is simply great.
I would have put Maya and Borya as a tie personnaly, really the only thing that's saving Borya is Oomph if it wasn't for this one spell Maya would be superior in every possible scenario, she has Sap and she hit like a truck either ST or MT spells, Oomph however makes Borya better for boss fight were you want huge DPS, Maya is the best of the 2 for mob fight tough when you simply want to nuke stuff.
And the oldman?
Been playing rpgs for 26 years, never played a DQ game 😬. Selecting every actions made my OCD break down 🙃
Torneko is at least useful for stealing stuff from enemies. I used him to steal a bunch of items and sell it off for dough
Worth noting Psaro is #1 in the postgame
No Psaro the Manslayer from the post game...
Psaro?
Ranking each job in FF5, cast from Lost Odyssey.
He already ranked the Final Fantasy V job classes, with a very interesting tier naming.
For me its: Hero > Alena > Kiryl
im a simple man... Maya...
Rank the Dragon Quest V characters.
honestly id rank alena as number 1 not number 3
she has a mechanic unique to her where her critical hit rate increases as she levels up. she hits max attack long before anyone else will
and falcon knife earrings not only gives her 2 hits those 2 hits can also critical. its completely possible for her to consistently do more damage to a boss than the other party members can do combined.
plus her crit rate makes her ideal for metal king slime farming.
funny enough that well cristo is useful on the DS remake he is downright awful on the NES original. worst character by far there
the DS didnt really buff him or anything he has all the same strengths in both version. but without a cheat code the NES has all the party members be AI controlled and his AI is dumb. instead of using his great healing spells or defensive buffs he will just cast his instant death move over and over and over again on bosses immune to it. making the healing twin much more useful on the NES as her AI will actually use her healing spells
The hero class is far above the rest.
I'm gonna be completely honest with you my Default party is usually just Hero, Alena, Kiryl, with Maya and Ragnar switching depending on if a dungeon is best geared for all fields or a physical team. Taloon I just have him use Whistle for metal slimes, and to steal Liquid metal helms from Metal King Slimes because fuck the casino in DQ4, Meena was basically essential for beating the final boss, but I honestly feel like Borya is honestly the most situational party member of the cast. He's meant to be the a different type of mage I know, but like Maya is a lot more useful because the fact that not only are more enemies weak to Fire then they are to Ice, but also just because Borya just has bad equipment draw, like 2 of his most optimal defensive equipment items better geared for party members like.... Maya, but even if you wanted to swap them so you can use Borya, well I would just use Maya anyways because she's simply more useful in more situations. With how easily you can break DQ4, I never found myself never using Oomph till the final boss, I just needed Sap to lower defense for almost the whole game, and in the DS version where there's new stuff, well I can't spoil it because if I did it would heavily HEAVILY ruin a newcomer's experience, I'm just gonna say that Borya is basically just obsolete because of what happens in the additional stuff the DS version adds. This my opinion on Borya, no comments can honestly change my mind on him. Also nice video
Yeah the bonus character essentially replaces both Kiryl and Borya since he has 3 of their key spells (Kabuff, oomph, Kazing).
@@Ruesen he even replaces ragnar and even alena for being a good physical attacker too, he has acess to the best equipment in the game as well by far
But yeah, David, you pretty much nailed it on the head. That's pretty much how I'd rank them, if not exactly the same.
David... You Conservative.... lol
I hated the Taloon chapter. I love all Dragon Quest games but IVs chapters made me a little mad until you get all your characters.