OK, time to explore that cave in Whealbrook; the boy's father, Pankraz, apparently hid something important in here years ago, before the tragedy.

I am nearing the end now, I am at about 23 hours on the clock but likely more like 28 overall. I have been loving the game but have hit a boss encounter where my party gets wiped out pretty easily. I have no problems getting to the boss and decimate everyone but its at this point in RPGs that I usually give up as I hate having to grind in any way just to get through one encounter. I do have to say though that this point usally comes much earlier for me in other RPGs and i do not want to throw away this progress lightly as the story is really damn good. I will see how persistent I can be.

@warerare Which boss is giving you trouble? Perhaps I could offer up some tips to make it more manageable.

@warerare Hm, okay, I think I recall that one. Here's a few tips...

The key to this battle is buffs and debuffs. Firstly, have your Daughter use Kasap, and hopefully she'll get it in before he uses Bounce. If he does use Bounce, then watch for it to disappear, and try to use Kasap before he raises Bounce again. Kasap doesn't work 100% so keep trying if it fails. After that, she should use Oomph on your attackers, and then Defend or heal until she needs to use Kasap/Oomph again.

Also on the first turn, your Son should use Kabuff, and then Insulate on the second turn. You can layer on Kabuff if you need more defence, and make sure to use these again when they wear off. He should be Oomphed and attack when he has a chance, but he has Fullheal so use that when necessary. If he has reached Level 27 then he'll know Kazing, a full revive spell, which is very useful as the chance of a character getting killed is likely here. If he's level 30 and knows Multi-heal, that's even better. If he has one or both of these spells, then take priority in keeping him alive.

Hero should be your main attacker once Oomphed, though he (should) also has Fullheal, so be sure to use that when necessary. He should also have Zing at this point, but it only works half the time so it's a real gamble if you have to rely on this. So it may be slow-going, but heal a lot so you don't have to revive anyone.

I don't know which wife you picked, but none of them are the greatest attackers. Don't use attack magic because the enemy uses Bounce and you'll hit yourself. Have them heal and support as necessary with whatever they have.

Having MP-restoring items in this battle can help if it runs long. Hero should be Level 30 or higher, kids and wife should be in the high 20's at least. If you're still using monsters at this point, then I have no idea what to do, I switched over to the humans as soon as I could. They're better. You may have a lot of leveling up to do if these characters are low.

Okay all of this sounds good, I shall give it a try tomorrow. I can't use the Wife as she has been turned into stone. I am level 31 now I think but the kids are just hitting the mid 20's. Maybe I should go out and level them up a bit more.

Thanks for the help though, hopefully it will see me through this tricky boss fight.

This was a pretty awesome game, the story was so epic too, generation spanning and all of that. I liked it more than IX really, which probably ultimately had better gameplay but V just had so much more going on storywise, really kept me connected.

@warerare Ah, my mistake. It has been a while since I played it, and so I don't exactly recall the order of events. I was afraid I'd mix something up like that. I don't recall who my 4th member was for that battle, but whoever it was, they weren't a person with abilities that helped me out.

As for your levels, the Daughter learns Kasap at level 22 and the Son learns Insulate at level 23. At the least, make sure you have these spells before trying again.

13 hours in and making slow but steady progress. I'm really enjoying the game! I just made it to the part where you can possibly court one lady? In Mostroferrato, the Briscoletti dude wants to find a guy for his daughter, and since her dog likes me, I think she does like me. But he wants the guy to get the Circle of Fire, so I'm heading to the volcano area. Stronger enemies have now appeared, including the annoying Rockbomb, who recently wiped out 3/4 of my party with an explosion move. Anway, getting back to the lady… I'm not sure if she's 'the one,' but hey, I'll get the family shield, which rumors says is the legendary Zenithian shield, which is something I definitely desire.

Also, not sure if I have the right monsters in my party. I do like the fact that when I'm traveling with my wagon, everyone with me gets experience points (even if they didn't participate in battle), but alas, I still have to leave some monsters behind at the monster center. So far I have:

Brownie
Chimaera (newly acquired)
Funghoul
Hulagan
Mudraker (newly acquired)
Prestidigitator
Rotten Apple
Saber (my trusty sabrecat)
Slime
Slime Knight

Obviously I can compare their stats and see who I like (and what abilities/ spells they have), but since new monsters are usually low-leveled, I'm guessing it's probably a good idea to level them up to get better comparisons, which also means spending some additional cash on giving them some decent equipment (or perhaps spend some time managing equipment off my other monsters).

I use my Slime Knight, Hulagan and Golem quite regularly, they seem to have a good babalnce of skills, Slime Knight is a good all rounder for damage and healing, Hulagan has some good Buffs and DeBuffs and the Golem is just a heavy hitter. Works out nicely.

@roykoopa64 Yeah, it can be confusing figuring out which monsters are best, but usually, the ones you find in later areas are better than the ones from previous areas. Some monsters also have lower level caps than 99; the Rotten Apple, for example, tops out at level 20. Some monsters also level up more slowly than others and may not be worth the effort. The Sabercat is one of the better monsters in the game, so when in doubt, stick with that one.

19 hours in, and the story is keeping me glued, in a good way!

So I chose my wife! The choice seemed clear to me: Bianca, my childhood sweetheart. The wedding was simple but nice. So I got a nice ship, and traveled to the desert. I laid my hands on the Zenithian helmet, but I was not allowed to take it. Apparently, I can't use Zenithian equipment since I'm not the legendary hero.

Anyway, I went to explore my home country to the east, and I found out the truth about my father! It wasn't a big surprise because the game had already thrown a bunch of hints my way, but still nice to know. So now I should be the new king of Gotha! I just have to prove my worth and retrieve the Royal Insignia; it's tradition, ya know? And yipee, Bianca is pregnant! So she had to leave my party; gotta make sure the baby stays happy and healthy.

@Mop it up

Yeah, that sounds about right, that the newly acquired monsters tend to be better. I did not realize there were level caps on some monsters, I hope the game indicates so once you reach that limit? I would hate to carry around a monster that I thought I was leveling up when really, the exp. points are being wasted.

Some of my latest monsters have been:

Cureslime
Man o' war
Orc king

Orc king looks like he could be pretty strong, so I equipped him with a sledgehammer, silver cuirass, and scale shield, for now.

Sometimes it's tricky just trying to find some equipment that a monster can actually use! They're so picky, ya know?

I've been pretty happy with my Chimaera (level 20) and Mudraker (level 21). My Mudraker has the Cautery sword equipped and has an attack of 155, very nice! My Chimaera uses the Edged boomerang and I haven't felt the need to give him a different weapon for a long time now (gotta love attacking all enemies at once!).

And I always have my Saber with me, what a great fighting partner. My childhood pet, all grown up!

I spent as much time as I could this weekend playing DQ V in the hopes of finishing it. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I think I'm very close!

33 hours in and I finally found a pathway to the Underworld, Nadiria (after obtaining the Circles of Fire, Water, and Life)! The story has been quite awesome. The pain the hero and his wife had to endure when they were petrified for years (his is the life of suffering...) and not seeing their twins grow up. But! The hero's boy turns out to be the legendary hero, wow. Zenithian equipment fits him well and makes him a valuable party member.

The battle with the giant, Bjorn, after he emerges form the 'red pot' was very challenging, but I got the ultimate key.

Also, how awesome and clever was the scene where the Hero goes back to one of the earlier parts in the game: the adult Hero meeting with his younger self to make the Gold Orb exchange! This little bit of time travel aspect was very sweet, and I loved that you could freely walk around the town, talk to Sancho and your dad Pankraz, though they won't believe you if you try to tell them the truth or warn them about what is going to happen.

The main monster I had been using in my party was Golem, then I got a Moosifer (haha, nice swap of the letter L with M) and have been using him since. Other than my one monster, I have been using the Hero and his two children.

Main hero is now level 36; I just got my rewards for finishing the TnT board in Nadiria (on my first try, lucky me!), and am now heading to the dark mountain...

I was ready to finish this game last night but wow at the frustration level.

So I think I am at the last boss: Grandmaster Nimzo. I already finished off Nadja (and sadly witnessed the tragic moment after being reunited with Hero's mom).

First off, it's brutal that there are no save points or heal rooms before fighting that boss, and you have to journey all the way through the dungeon and fight enemy after enemy along the way (and it's taking longer and longer at this point to level up anymore, which means I'm pretty strong as it is? Hero is now level 39).

You also have to do that room sliding puzzle along the way. Man... but it's not too bad.

But the worst part is that right before I reached that boss, I ran into some Luneyetics, they used Hocus Pocus, and my four characters lost ALL their MP. What. The. $%@*. I couldn't believe it.

Then I get to this floating platform and without warning me in any way, the battle with Nimzo commences. I start off by using some of my Elfin Elixir (stupid mistake!) so each character can recover all their MP. The battle rages on (I defeated his first form), and the main reason I lose the fight in the end is because I run out of MP and I no longer have any MP restores.

I'm glad I was able to keep the exp. pts after losing the battle, but I miss having all that gold! I also lost a bunch of my precious Elfin Elxirs. I now only have two left, and I hope that is enough for my next attempt. I think I can get more of them as Casino prizes, but I'm not that good at gambling, though if I have a lot of gold I should be able to buy way into the prizes anyway?

I am trying to leave work early today so I can finish this one tonight!

YES. Game finished! Defeated Nimzo (with the Hero at level 40). What an awesome feeling of victory; that boss is quite powerful and has a lot of HP, making for a long and stressful battle since every action must be well thought out. One wrong menu selection can screw you over big time (for example, not healing at the right time, forgetting to cast Insulate after magic is dispelled, having to constantly Kabuff, etc).

Anyway: A great RPG overall! The story was great; I loved following the hero from childhood to adulthood on top of all the memorable character interactions. I especially liked the 'ending' of the game and how the hero is able to visit all the towns and talk to everyone while they're celebrating the good times. Long live the king! Other games have followed DQ V's example; one that I particularly like is Earthbound's ending too.

I don't think I'll attempt the extra dungeon just yet, but I would like to at some point!

I've been playing this game. I'm about 17 hours in I think. My children just joined the party. Definitely a good entry in the series. Might be my favorite one so far.

At this point I feel like I'm better off just leveling up the monsters who are already in my party than having to build up new ones from Level 1. Of course, once my children are built up I probably will just use them. But for now, I'm rolling with my Slime Knight, Chimaera and Small Fry. It's nice to have two more healers in the party and they've all got some good attacks for hitting multiple people. It does make me wonder though if some of the monsters I've gotten more recently could have been very powerful if I hadn't kicked them into the storage space right away.

@Jargon The human characters are stronger than most of the monsters in the game, so they may be worth sticking with and building up.They typically have better stats and can equip better stuff. Most monsters also have lower level caps than 99, and some can be as low as 20.

Last night I wasted a lot of time in the casino. I actually hit the second biggest jackpot on a 10 token slot machine and won 10,000 tokens. Only then did I realize that I couldn't trade my tokens back for money. One of the 25,000 token prizes looked good, but it seemed like I'd never get that much (let alone for the 250,000 token prize) so I just bought a 10,000 token prize: The earrings that give you two hits. Unfortunately the only one who can use it is my daughter and her attacks aren't very powerful so it may have been a waste. Oh well.

Man, those TnT boards are so addicting! It's made me reflect on the power of RPGs to make gambling fun in video games. It's the only thing that comes close to gambling in real life, because it takes so much work and time to level up and get gold in RPGs that much like real life it really feels good to luck into a shortcut around it. Now that I have the free TnT pass, I've been wasting even more time on it. But now that I've earned enough gold to buy a Staff of Ressurection, I think I'm ready to move on.

I think I'm about to win. I'm in Nadiria and my characters are about at the same level that I've won past Dragon Quest games. Of course, you never know in RPGs and I think I've heard that there's a bonus dungeon/boss of some kind. Jury is out on whether I'll try that.

Nimzo is no more and that means DQV is in the books! Not gonna bother with any post game content at the moment (and to be honest, probably ever), since it was a satisfying ending and I've gotten my JRPG fix for the time being. Although I suppose if someone here tells me its really worth it to do some of the optional stuff, I could consider it.

Anyway, very good game. Probably the best DQ game I've played yet.

It's also exciting that I'm halfway caught up on the series! Hopefully I get the opportunity to play the rest on my Nintendo devices, although I guess it's not looking good for DQ7 on 3DS.