A month or so back I managed to finally give the series an earnest shake and managed to complete Dragon Quest I and III on the Game Boy Color. (I'll get around to II... eventually)
After that, I decided to give XI a try on Switch as that was the newest game, and had gotten a lot of really great word of mouth. Being portable also helps, as I'm finding myself more and more willing to invest time in RPGs when I can take them on the go. (Though that's not to say I'm sick of home console experiences by any stretch of the imagination)
I knew the game was going to be good from impressions on era and just general internet chatter but man, DQXI really might just be the JRPG genre polished to a mirror sheen. It's not groundbreaking or anything, and from what I understand, a good deal of it's structure was derived from Dragon Quest VIII (more on that a bit later), but it is extremely good at what it does. It's been such a long time since I've fallen in love with a game world and it's characters, but everything in DQXI is just so damn charming. At this point, I think I'm generally used to DQ's usage of vignettes to paint pictures of villages/towns and the people within them, but even some of those caught me way off guard. The mermaid story in particular bummed me out to the point that I actually had to put the game down for a day or so, as silly as that shit sounds.
And I know the game is hilariously easy and that's understandably a bit annoying for people (though there's the Draconian stuff, of course), I... actually didn't mind the lack of difficulty? I'm usually the kind of person that enjoys difficult games, but DQ games are so cozy and warm for me that just playing them and being engrossed in the world is enough for me, which is weird, because there's very few other series I can say that have the same effect on me. Like sure, I haven't gotten a game over in over three hours, but Sylvando just pulled up with a literal parade of people dancing behind him pledging to bring smiles to the world. How can you not love that?
So... in regards to the last third of the game, I'm of two minds here:
I actually really enjoyed being able to go back and ensuring a better ending for everyone. Sure, you can call it quits once Mordegon is beaten and consider everything done after the credits roll, but I love that it's entirely your choice to go back and time and go for a better ending. Seeing the character development play out slightly differently from the original timeline (Sylvando and Erik's stories with their families in particular come to mind here) was pretty fun, and I liked how there were consequences from making that choice as well. On the other hand, while I was happy to save Veronica, it did kind of suck to have to erase Serena's character development in those regards, doubly so since she also loses out on inheriting Veronica's skill set, but that's a minor gripe.
I'm still going through Act 3, not because I'm finding it hard to chip away at it or anything, but because I'm having so much fun with it and I... guess I don't want it to end.
And then there's the Tickington quests, which were really cool to go through even if DQ I and DQIII were the only games where I'd recognize the references. The DQIII quests in particular involving Baramos were pretty great. The quests in these classic areas ended up helping me in a roundabout way because they helped me become a bit more familiar with Dragon Quest IV in particular, and now's as good a time as any to segue into my experience with that game.
And that makes for a great segue into the next game I dove into, Dragon Quest IV.
Now, I played through the DS version, and before anyone says anything, yes, I'm aware of the DS version lacking party chat and no I wasn't going to play the mobile version just for that (I really don't like playing games on my phone). Apparently there's a tool someone made that effectively takes the English script and backports it into the Japanese DS release while using the English DS font, which sounds great, but at minimum, you need the JP DS cart and the Android version of the game, along with a tool to rip the script data from the latter. Maybe some other time.
So a few years back, I bought both DQIV and V on DS, since I found them at my local mom & pop shop for $30 each. Bought IV, got to Torneko's chapter before deciding the series wasn't for me, and sold both games. Yeah, I was dumb.
Three years and a sadder wallet later, I re-acquired both games (and VI should hopefully be shipping soon), this time coming off of I, III and XI, and surprise, I loved it this time around. As someone that replayed Mother 3 shortly before playing DQ1, my immediate thought upon getting to the fifth chapter was "Oh, this was where that game cribbed it's chapter structure from". Being able to play little mini stories with my future party members ended up being areal blast, and Torneko's chapter in particular ironically ended up being the one I enjoyed the most of the initial chapters, as collecting weapons via the store ended up being really fun (I was lucky and had two people sell me Cautery Swords on the first day; needless to say, I got addicted and tried to get as many more as I could to sell)
And there were a few moments in the game that gave me a nice little chuckle having played DQXI, like the Ice Cave where you get the feverfew root for Kiryl; because I had already did the Tickington Quest there in XI, I knew the dungeon layout like the back of my hand and was able to clear the dungeon faster than I think I've cleared a dungeon in any other DQ game. That was neat.
Being able to swap out characters with the Wagon was great, and also forced me to be a bit conscious of who I take into dungeons, since only the characters that go in get experience.
And then, there's that final boss fight.
Hol-leeee shit. Dude is literally "This isn't even my final form": The character.
I'm used to RPGs having multi form final bosses, But this guy having seven entire forms was really, really neat without feeling overindulgent, surprisingly. It really sells the whole "secret of evolution" thing said villain was chasing throughout the game.
I know this might be a negative for people, but I actually really enjoyed how much important background detail was inserted into regular NPC chatter. Of particular note for me was the grumpy old guy early on in the fifth chapter that lets you rest at his place overnight despite clearly having a disdain for the hero. My first thought was "haha, silly old JRPG man" Then not too far away, there's an NPC that'll tell you about a familiar sounding old man that lived with his son in a cabin, until his son was struck by lightning and killed, leaving the old man alone and bitter. It turned my thinking on it's head and had me wondering if maybe he let me stay with him because he saw a bit of his son in the protagonist. But then, waaaaay later in the game in Zenithia, there's again a completely optional conversation where someone brings up that same tragedy, only they fill out the details a bit more; The man was struck down for starting a relationship with a Zenithian woman, and guess what? That man was the hero's father. Which means the grumpy old man from earlier? Your grandfather. And that left me wondering if he realized the hero was his grandchild and held some resentment towards them for basically being a symbol of the union that led to the death of his son, but still couldn't muster enough hate to leave them without housing for a night. I love that you don't (as far as I know) get a straight answer to that and that it leaves you wondering. Sometimes life is complicated, and we don't get closure, and that's a perfect example of that.
I feel like I'm rambling at this point, so I'll start wrapping things up. I know there's a bonus chapter to play through as well, but I also recently acquired the 3DS port of DQVIII and plan on starting that tonight to serve as a little break between 2D DQ games. I've heard a lot about it (especially in relation to XI) and can't wait to get into it and later on, DQV.
tl;dr dragon quest is awesome yo
P.S. Sylvando and Erik are the best DQXI characters, don't @ me
