Alchemy, in one case referred as forging, is a recurring element and process in the Dragon Quest series, in which new items can be created from existing ones, often after mixing them with a wide variety of materials.
Introduced as a complete gameplay mechanic in Dragon Quest VIII, the process not only is controllable but it is also an excellent mean for either creating new items manually, or enhance an already made item.
Alchemy is a fantastic way to recycle older equipment, with the results often significantly greater than the sum of their parts and well worth resisting the temptation to sell the old scrap off.
Appearances[]
Dragon Quest IV[]
Alchemy first debuted in the series as a crucial plot element mentioned in IV, in relation to Meena and Maya's father, the esteemed Mahabala. A true genius in his field of expertise, Mahabala not only found a way of creating gold using alchemy, but he made also many other amazing discoveries, such as the Night light, or the magical elevators in his private secret laboratory.
Unfortunately, his latest and perhaps greatest breakthrough lead to the rediscovery of the Secret of Evolution, a forbidden and dangerous alchemical art not meant for mortal use; recognizing its enourmous danger, the master alchemist tried to destroy his research, but before he could do that, Mahabala met his demise at the hands of his second apprentice, Balzack, a traitorous individual who was waiting, biding his time for such an occasion to backstab his master and steal his research for himself.
Due to Balzack's self-serving agenda, the Secret of Evolution fell into the hands of Psaro, the misguided Master of Monsterkind, and his much more loathsome right-hand man, Aamon, which not only lead to many inhuman experiments being performed, but also endangering the world as never before.
Dragon Quest VI[]
While not a complete example of alchemic synthesis, VI presents the option to strengthen some pieces of equipment thanks to the Fashion Forge, a shop found in the Real World. While the process is primarily meant to increase the Style value of the object, it will sometime strengthen even its other characteristics.
Dragon Quest VIII[]
- Main article: List of alchemy recipes in Dragon Quest VIII
Alchemy debuts as a gameplay feature in this title.
After may nights of hard labor, King Trode repairs the Alchemy Pot he had managed to salvage from the ruins of his castle, and presents it, fully repaired, to the Hero while aboard the ship sailing to Peregrin Quay. At first, only two ingredients can be combined, but the pot will be upgraded by Trode to handle three at once after the Pickham incident.
In the original PS2 version of the game, the pot will boil as it combines the ingredients while the Hero walks through towns and the over world, but not in dungeons where the Wagon cannot traverse safely, with different times required depending on what difficulty rank the recipe was classified as; the pot can however, be upgraded to instantly complete a concoction as a reward for defeating the Lord of the Dragovians. In the Nintendo 3DS port, this boiling system was however scrapped, and instead the recipe will always finish immediately once the ingredients are added; as such the reward from the Lord of the Dragovian's defeat was changed to unlocking the dungeon of Memories Lane.
Many alchemy recipies can be found by reading books from bookshelves and speaking with townsfolk, though some recipes, like some redundant or downgrade ones, are never fully alluded, making it necessary to freely experiment with the system in order to discover them all; however as a general rule of thumb, if there is a recipe to upgrade an item, then there is also a recipe to downgrade it and return it to the original form, thou this is not always true. In the original version, most formulas taken from tomes only hinted towards their required materials while leaving some elements unclear, but in the 3DS port, all ingredients are listed in the recipe book once the player gets the initial hint.
There are four recipes that are found, instead from hints from people or inside books, as notes dropped on the floor, as part of a game of hide-and-seek proposed by the armor shop merchant of Farebury; not only these notes are barely visible, they only appear in hard to find places after certain story events, and are furthermore, since they are not technically counted as items, not signalated by the Nose for Treasure skill. These four recipes are:
- The Thief's key Recipe, which appears under the bell of the church of Farebury, after talking about it to the local armor shop merchant behind the counter; this is the only one of his recipe notes that the story itself directs the Hero towards, as it is required to proceed forward.
- The Eros' bow Recipe, which appears at Pickham behind a set of crates next to the ladder of the wooden watchtower after retrieving the Magic Ship.
- The Imp knife Recipe, which appears in front of the fountain at Castle Trodain after defeating Dhoulmagus at the Dark Ruins.
- And finally, the Dragon slayer Recipe, which appears at Savella Cathedral, behind the transport chamber that leads to the Lord High Priest's Residence, after the appearance of the Black Citadel in the sky.
The armor shop merchant of Farebury will offer an hint to where to find the next recipe note, if spoken to after the necessary story events have been achieved; however, he will skip any previous hints, if multiple progression prerequisites have already been achieved, meaning that he will only speak about the most recently available recipe note. The 3DS version makes these notes slighty more easily findable, thanks to the balloon of interaction popping out when near them.
Should the selection of ingredients attempted to be used in Alchemy result into a failure, the ingredients are not lost, instead they are simply ejected back into the bag.
Dragon Quest IX[]
- Main article: List of alchemy recipes in Dragon Quest IX
- Main article: List of alchemy ingredients in Dragon Quest IX
Even further expanded in IX, the Hero can use alchemy to create a huge selection items, one of the largest in the entire series, thanks to the use of the sentient Krak Pot at Quester's Rest. The Krak Pot does not become available until after the gate east of Stornway opens. Erinn then puts the Krak Pot on the inn's counter for usage.
In IX, alchemy is by far, the primary mean to obtain superior gear, with its best recipes surpassing by a large margin in quality any equipment bought or found in chests. Like in VIII, these recipes can be found by searching bookcases, for both common and rare items. In fact, mechanically speaking, alchemy has not changed much from VIII: it is still possible to manually mix items, which may or may not produce a resulting item, If an item is not made, the items are returned to the bag and not consumed, and most of the recipes are still left to discover though experimentation.
And only by experimenting it is possible to create a set of the rarest, and strongest, recipes of them all, the 22 Alchemiracles, a reaction that occur as a low-chance event during particular mixings.
Dragon Quest X[]
Once again, Alchemy return as both a gameplay element, and also an important story element, being used at multiple points in both the story, and various sidequests, in order to solve some crucial issues. The people of the Great Etene Island, as well as their descendant of Tenton were particularly renowed for their alchemical prowess. Some characters, like the Hero's sibling, Isshou, and Linker, are all noted to be supremely talented master alchemists.
Alchemy can be accessed through the Alchemy Pot, used to create some useful items.
Outside of particularly important and of larger scale alchemical projects, Alchemy is primarily accessed through the accessory shop, managed by the Wetling alchemist Renee and her siblings. The accessories created through the shop have random effects, meaning that, in order to have the desired effects, sometimes the same accessory must be created multiple time; this of course, means a great deal of money could potentially be spent until the desired result is achieved. This is even noted in-game, as Renee is not only one of the richest people in Astoltia, but also one of the most hated, with many sour customers having swore bloody revenge against her, one being Pirate Squalo. That being said, the accessory synthesis has a levelling system, meaning that the higher the level, the higher the chances for beneficial effects, such as not losing the initial materials after a synthesis, lowering the fee, or the probability of a critical synthesis where the desired effects can be chosen.
In addition to accessories's alchemy, there is also a Crafting system, which works similarly to alchemy and would later be used as a basis in later titles. So far, 8 different professions are available, such as Weaponsmith, Weaver, Armor maker, Cook and so on, with each craft being performed through a different type of minigame-like action. Like the combat levelling system, in order to level the crafting profession beyond the various levelling caps, sidequests must be undertaken, however, each craft has its own specific, separate quest for each level cap; the first increase is from level 10 to level 30, then from 30 to 35, from 35 to 40 and so on. The end result is that, of the 700+ sidequest available, quite a number of them are all crafting level cap quests; only from level 60 and beyond the crafts began to share the same, single sidequest necessary to increase the cap for all of them.
Furthermore, while it is initially possible to freely switch between different crafts, once one of the crafting sidequests necessary to increase the level cap from 10 to 30 is completed, the Hero is locked in that specific profession, and can no longer freely switch to another. Fortunately, an item that allows to change the current craft can be exchanged for 100 Mini medals at Luckland, with the levels of each profession being preserved, not resetted, between switches, meaning that no sidequest, or craftable piece of equipment or consumables becomes permanently locked off.
Rocket Slime[]
In Rocket Slime, the Krak Pot must be found on Mt. Krakatroda. It requires the use of recipes, most of which are acquired from rescued slimes.
Dragon Quest XI[]
Known in this title as Forging, it is accomplished thanks to the Fun-Size Forge, an item gifted to the Luminary by Erik while inside The Manglegrove. Based on the crafting system from Dragon Quest X, the basics of forging are pretty much the same as classic alchemy, use raw materials to create something new; however the process is this title is strictly relegated for pieces of equipment, no consumable items; furthermore there is no free development, meaning that acquiring forging recipes is necessary in order to create each object.
Unlike alchemy, forging is an active process, requring to pound into shape different sections of each items, filling in the process a meter. Each meter has a sweet spot, which is considered the perfect point to reach; failing to reach said ideal spot, either by not filling the meter enough, or by overshooting it, will result into a smelting error, which may drop the overall initial quality of the item.
As the Hero increses his level, he'll learn more exotic forging techniques, such as a cross hit, heating up the forge, or cooling it down, which combined will increasingly make forging a perfect piece of equipment, more and more easy. Leveling up and collecting recipes also gives him more focus, allowing him an easier timr at hammering tougher into shape equipment.
Forging also offers the possibility to enhance already made equipment pieces, up to three extra "levels of quality", +1-3, with no detriments as, once raised, the quality of the object cannot drop. The better the forging process is executed (by reaching gold in the various bars, or as close as possible), the better will be the initial quality of the equipment created, with an almost flawless forging usually resulting in the item already being of +3 quality. One doesn't have to get all bars to gold standards to get a +3 ranking, usually about half the number of gold bars will do.
Should the initial forging process be less than optimal (be it because of under or overshooting a bar's acceptable range), it's still possible to enhance the item thanks to the use of Perfectionist's pearls, usually received after the successful creation of something on the forge or bought at L'Académie de Notre Maître des Médailles; the better the piece of equipment, the more pearls it will require to work on it.
No matter if they were created on the forge from the beginning, bought in a shop or found as a treasure, almost every piece of equipment can be enhanced up to a +3 quality, with only certain exceptions being unable to be enhanced at all. Due note however, overshooting in forging is a massive detriment to the item's quality.
Dragon Quest Heroes[]
Alchemy returns pretty predominantly once again in Dragon Quest Heroes, performed thanks to an Alchemy Pot similar in appearance to the basic model of the one in Dragon Quest VIII, and each operation requires a fee of gold.
With the alchemy shop found inside the Stonecloud, alchemy is trictly used to only create Accessories; once again, there is no free development, requiring to posses the related recipes in order to create items. Most accessories have three different tiers of recipes, Quick, Classic and Luxury, with the exception of the first five items, the Gold ring, Gold chain, Gold bracer, Scholar's specs, and Bunny tail accessories, which have only the first two recipe variants. The Quick recipe for the Gold ring is made available after speaking to the old alchemist the first time once his alchemy pot is up and running, alongside its required ingredients.
Once learned, a recipe can never be found or bought again and it is brought over with the Flying Start Mode (essentially New Game+), making them, by all means, permanent.
Usually, the better quality recipes not only require a less quantity of, or perhaps a more common alternative, of raw materials compared to the inferior recipes, but they also having better chances to receive additional perks thanks to a Sweet Success creation. This additional perk is applied alongside their default abilities, and each type of accessory have their own separate polls of possible perks to choose at random from.
Accessories can also be fused together in order to increase their rank, up to a +3 quality, with each rank allowing an additional extra perk to be stacked on the same accessory. During the fusing process, its possible to choose to trasfer one of the perks already possessed by the accessory used as material to the accessory used as a base, or to leave to chance on what new perk the item will receive,
There are two ways to obtain Alchemy recipes: firstly, unlike the other two tiers of recipes, the Quick recipes have the additional option to be purchased by exchanging Mini medals; the other method, which is the only way to find Classic and Luxury tier recipes, is to obtain them as secret drops from monsters, drops that are not listed in their Monsterpedia entries. The Recipes can also, according to the old alchemist, randomly appear inside treasure chests, although this is an extremely rare occurance. It should be noted, that if a recipe is found on the battle field, that particular mission must be completed or the spell Evac must be used in order to keep the items found. If the Mission fails, all the Spoils found, including any possible Recipe, are lost.
It is important to know that each accessory's recipe has only a select few monsters that are capable of dropping it, making some of higher-grade recipes quite elusive to find: for example the recipes necessary for creating an Endure ring can only drop from coffer-like monsters, like Canniboxes, while the Elevating shoes recipe can only be found from the Metal slime family members and so forth. Their elusive nature is only further increaded due to the fact that the natural drop rate of the recipes in general, is incredibly low by default, and there is no apparent way to increase it. A general rule of thumb, although not always true, is that the stronger members of the same monster family have better chances to drop higher-quality recipes for the particular accessory they are associated with.
As such, since it is not ideal to find a Quick recipe as a drop that could had been purchased instead, it is preferable to spend some Mini medals and learn all the Quick recipes as soon as possible, thusly increasing the chances for the monsters to drop the better, rarer quality recipes rather then the ones that are already more easily accessible.
Recipe drop list[]
Dragon Quest Heroes II[]
Alchemy returns again in this title, performed thanks to a massive cauldron at the alchemy shop of Accordia, and each operation requires a fee of gold. Just as the previous title, alchemy is once again restricted to accessories; compared to before however the process has been overhauled and streamlined.
Accessories are now fairly rare drops from monsters, with no recipe required to create one from scratch. Instead alchemy and materials are used to increase the rank of the singular accessory, up to a +✩ quality (effectively, 11 rank ups). Each rank, marked by a total of 12 nodes in a grid of bonuses, increases the attributes of the accessory, sometimes even unlocking additional effects, thou each individual accessory, even two of the same kind, have some variations on what material or in what quantity, each rank require in order to achieve.
Furthermore, higher ranks usually require powder fragments of that particular type of accessory, only obtained by shattering a copy of that same accessory, the better the rank of the accessory shattered, the more powder is obtained. So for example, to upgrade to a better rank some Slime earrings, some quantity of Slime earrings powder, obtained by shattering other Slime earrings, is needed, and shattering a +4 pair of Slime earrings will yield more Slime earrings powder than a pair of +1 Slime earrings would. The quantity of powder obtained is also influenced by the type of accessory itself, with the more common ones yielding more powder when fragmented while the rarer ones yield lower quantities.
Of all the accessories available, two of them, the Elevating shoes and the Gospel ring, only possess a singular node, and as such cannot be further enhanced via Alchemy, being apparently special accessories that negatively react with the process.
Unlike any other title, only one of a particular accessory can be equiped at once on the same character, with no copies of the same object being allowed.
Dragon Quest Swords[]
- Main article: Sword tempering in Dragon Quest Swords
In this title, the process is known as Sword tempering; done by the weapon shop in the town of Castle Avalonia, like before, it can be used to transform lesser equipment into stronger tools, but this time around it is only available for Swords. Furthermore, Sword tempering often will yield newly learned Master Stroke techniques alongside the created item.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince[]
Known as Tinkering in this title, it is managed by Monty at Rosehill, and it is unlocked upon completing the story at the Middle Echelon of the Circle of Caprice of Nadiria.
The tinkering, which costs 1000 Gold coins, is quite simplified, as the main opjective is to combine five singular accessories in order to create just a "+" version of one of the chosen accessories, for example upgrading a Strength ring into a a Strength ring+, which provide a better effect than the base version. Tinkering multiple copies of the same accessory together will increase the probability of a success, as well melding a base accessory alongside a bunch of + accessories. Soft-resetting after a failed tinkering will however not necessarily yield a better result, as first another melding must take place before the previous fusion may give a different result, in order to reset the process.
Other than through Tinkering, +versions of the accessories can also be obtained through super-rare drops from the monsters that usually drop the base variants. Rarely. tinkering with accessories may result in a random outcome, which may produce a completely different accessory, or even some offensive consumable items, like a Rockbomb shard. So, for example a melding that should provide a pair of Asbestos earrings+ can instead become a Raging ruby.
Special mention should be gived to the Hocus Pocus rings; when combined with other accessories, a Hocus Pocus ring exponentially increases the potential of randomly transform the melded accessories in a completely different one, the chances increasing alongside the number of Hocus Pocus rings used. Two accessories, the Rational Ring and the Tingly Ring can only be obtained through this random melding effect, making the use of the Hocus Pocus rings ideal when trying to obtain one of said items:
- Rational Ring: Defence＋10, Clear Thinker trait; the + version adds also another Defence＋10 and the Insomniac and Granite Chin traits.
- Tingly Ring: Defence＋10, Fidget trait; the + version adds also another Defence＋10 and the Antioxidant and Death Defier traits.
The ideal way to obtain these two elusive accessories is to: disable the auto-save feature, make save of the file, and then combining a buch of Hocus Pocus rings together; if the result is not what was wanted, then it is necessary to reset the save file, do another melding with some other accessories in order to reset the melding process, then drop a save and start anew from the first step with the Hocus Pocus rings, continuing until the wanted accessory is produced by the random effect of the rings.
Unique accessories, as most of them provide unique traits, cannot be Tinkered with, and as such lack an improved version of themselves. Said unique, un-meldable accessories are:
- Cupcake Cane: provides the exclusive Iota of Experience, Gold Panner, and Rummager traits.
- Trainee's Badge: proviedes the exclusive Modicum of Experience trait.
- Trainee's Medal: provides the exclusive Wealth of Experience trait.
- Scavenger's Badge: provides the exclusive Scavenger trait.
- Scavenger's Medal: provides the exclusive Hoarder trait.
- Gold Badge: provides the exclusive Gold Digger trait.
- Gold Medal: provides the exclusive Gold Miner trait.
- Scout's Badge: provides the exclusive Scout's Honour trait.
- Hero's Cloak: simultaneously provides a HP +30, Attack +10, Defence +10, as well as a Bang Ward, a Crack Ward and a Frizz Ward traits.
On the subject of Traits, while Monsters can possess the advanced versions of certain traits, such as Ultra Crafty Banger, Accessories on the other hand, with the exception for the unique ones which have skills available nowhere else, possess the lowest variants of said traits such as the simple Crafty Banger. No monster species have these lowest-tier traits, being limited to only the higher tiers; while this means the effects of the Accessories are lower compared to the monster's own traits, the perk of being equippable by any monster is quite advantageous, as these lower tier traits will either grant their ability to monsters who lack it completely, or be summed up to the monster's own trait, further boosting it.
See Also[]
| Dragon Quest IX | |
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