dragon quest

I started Dragon Quest VIII on the Nintendo 3DS over a year ago – it may even be closer to two years at this point. It didn’t keep my attention like Dragon Quest VII. I visited a new town, move the plot forward a bit, and eventually put it on ice for a month or so before repeating the cycle again. It took the pending release of Dragon Quest XI for the Nintendo Switch before I got back on this horse and rode it towards the finish line.  

It was surprisingly easy to get back into the groove of things after each hiatus. The story was exceptionally simple to follow and didn’t require much of my attention. I felt the main story arch and side quests in this game paled in comparison to Dragon Quest VII. It was a far more intimate story from the outset which kept me engaged early on. Each new character’s introduction invigorated the story but it wasn’t long before everything began to wane. I didn’t expect the game to be filled with a large number of character introductions and backstories, but I expected something else to take the baton. I expected intriguing side quests and a strong main story to pick things up. Each new town or area gave the game a fleeting jolt of excitement but when there’s more hours left than content, the game felt like a struggle to wade through. 

Accelerated battle speeds and the use of A.I. Tactics made the game’s numerous combat encounters tolerable. I eventually over-leveled via Metal Slimes and lived in the veil of Holy Protection during the back third of the game but I generally didn’t care enough to involve myself in the battle system. A 50/50 mix of “Fight Wisely” and “Focus on Healing” took me through the final boss with relative ease. I felt like I was more of a party manager taking care of the strategic side of things and only involving myself when it was absolutely needed.  

Jessica’s outfit was ridiculous back in 2005 and it’s still ridiculous today. Her outfit was doubly stupid in the snowy mountains when everyone was shivering. It was blemish in an otherwise beautiful game. Toriyama’s art and cel-shaded technology was a marriage that stood the test of time; the game still looks great on the Nintendo 3DS. 

The voice acting was a big deal 14 years ago but it’s a slog today. Every spoken line of dialog was excessively slow and I ended up thumbing past much of it. I didn’t miss much. I really could have done without the “COR BLIMEY”. Bless them for trying to make it work with the Toriyama aesthetic though. 

A functioning day-night cycle with puzzles and events tied to the time of day made highlighted the fact that this feature must have been another technological advancement at the time. The handful of use cases were well done but contrived.  

The PlayStation 2 version of Dragon Quest VIII was the first game of this long running franchise that I ever laid hands-on. I barely scratched the surface of it before laying it down for more tantalizing games at the time. My journey throughout this Nintendo 3DS re-release was filled with similar diversions where other games easily drew me away. For all its charm and elegance, waning narrative hooks left me with too many natural departure points. The story started out strong but there just wasn’t enough worthwhile threads or beats to keep me going. I felt there were many charming novelties that elevated an otherwise middling JRPG.  

Verdict:
It was okay 

Ratings Guide

I tried to play Dragon Quest VIII back in the PlayStation 2 days but the stark contrast between it and the flashier Final Fantasy titles made it tough for me to appreciate it. It wouldn’t be until Dragon Quest IX that I gave this Japanese roleplaying game juggernaut its fair shake. It turned out that I really enjoyed playing Dragon Quest on a handheld. I enjoyed the DQIX so much that I pre-ordered both Dragon Quest VII and Dragon Quest VIII releases on the Nintendo 3DS. I had an inkling what I was getting myself into but I really didn’t know.

It took me just over 85 hours to finish Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past. That’s a lot of time for a single player title. The last game role playing game that I invested that much time in was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt but that was broken up into two giant stints. The DQVII cart was permanently entrenched in my Nintendo 3DS for months as I gathered fragments and witnessed some of the most depressing scenarios in a JRPG.

As conventional as the turn based combat was, the story and the long journey that accompanied it was anything but. The journey began with the son of a fisherman and a prince named Kiefer stumbling into an ancient temple that opened gateways into the past. Apparently the world was a much bigger place with islands and continents all over. The duo would eventually be joined by a local mayor’s daughter, Maribel, and together they gathered the necessary stone fragments to reassemble the lost islands. The assembled stone fragments opened portals to the past which inevitably enabled the trio to restore said islands in the present.

A  mysterious calamity in the past doomed each kingdom/island/continent and it was up to the trio to defeat the evil that was responsible make the world whole again. I found it to be a very novel and interesting means of gating access to the world without relying on traditional transportation barriers.

Each island/area was like a little vignette of woe. One island was plagued with terrible rains that turned people into stone. Another was essentially Groundhog Day. And one of the most depressing ones featured a cursed town that had newborn babes turn into demons and running away. As I solved each area’s problems, I learned more and more about the ultimate evil responsible which undoubtedly resulted in a confrontation with said baddie.

Dealing with the sad stories and disheartening circumstances in the past often produced positive results in the present but for a majority of the time they didn’t have real consequences for me or my crew. So when a party member chose to remain in the past and I lost access to him, I actually missed the brute. In fact, by the end of the game, it was possible for the protagonist to be the sole original member duking it out with the big bad Demon King. It was a very unorthodox experience because you just don’t see RPGs, let alone, JRPGs make drastic changes to its lineup part way through the journey. Maribel stepped away from the grand adventure to be with her ailing father for a while and, for the longest time, I was wondering if I would ever see the cross eyed ball buster again.

I accepted the introduction of the fourth character, Ruff, and I tolerated Mervyn’s inclusion into the lineup but the final character, Aishe, was handled poorly. I felt she was thrusted into the limelight because of her heritage and I was supposed to immediately connect with her for that reason alone.

Although I missed the original members for their personalities, I also missed them because I invested so much time developing their classes. Being forced to start a new classes with new characters whom I didn’t really connect with was a bit of a chore. It was doubly worse because I couldn’t easily change classes without warping to Alltrades Abbey and talk to this one specific NPC in the present day.

There weren’t random encounters (except for in this one specific area) but combat was primarily a breeze thanks to the inclusion of A.I behavior. It was like a Final Fantasy XII-lite where I set certain characters to focus on healing while others fought “wisely”. It made thumbing through normal battles easy as pie so I didn’t have to page through the countless abilities and spells that I’ve learned.

The victory lap after defeating the big bad Demon King captured my feelings of Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of a Forgotten Past perfectly. It was charming, filled with warm fuzzy feelings and I wanted it to pick up the pace. And yet, at the same time, I was surprised by the fact that I was an active participant in this victory lap. Dragon Quest VII was a long journey and, in the end, it’s one that I won’t soon forget.

Verdict:
I liked it

Ratings Guide