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Dragon Quest - Like a Dargon

Looks like DQ1 is going to be practically a whole new game. I suppose it'd have to be, since the original is so slight.
 
alright now i'm playing 6. wrapped up the first act today with a bit of struggle, it feels a bit rude to toss out a whole final dungeon and boss like that so early when you don't have many abilities/items/options in general. lol. it's a little unclear to me how the class system is gonna play out, it feels like most of the starter classes obviously and immediately debuff you by taking them. on the other hand this coincides with entering a chill get-lost vibes section of the game i guess, so that's fine.

the vibe of this game is kind of weird. even for dragon quest, i mean, since 3-5 definitely all also had this sort of constant tension of horii's vices versus the more dramatic elements. although my social media is also mostly full of talking about games and reposting illustrations with lots of cleavage while occasionally despairing at the state of the world, so maybe i'm not one to talk. the theme of illusions and appearances is hitting for me, though given the style of the series i don't really expect this game to all-in on some kind of philosophical message or anything. which is just as well. it's fun that all the weirdness and mysteries build up this kind of existential aspect and the floating world kind of evokes a "heaven" kind of afterlife given various aspects of the intro but trying to lay it on too much seems like it could easily backfire. though, i mean, maybe it does, i know a couple people who really like this game but i've certainly always gotten the impression it's one of the least popular.

i don't really expect that though. it's dragon quest. i'm pretty sure there's gonna be a bunch of varyingly moody vignettes and a big demon with a sort of vague plan to cover the world in darkness and monsters for the sake of evil. i'm not trying to buy clothes at the soup store
 
You can toss me into the "love DQVI" bucket. Not sure why it resonated more with me than DQV, but it did.
 
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I like it a lot too. Took a while to learn to love VI but I got there. I like it better on SFC too. Its unique identity and innovations ring a little louder there than when it's the third in a series of very samey remakes.
 
The SFC sprites are beautiful. It's been so long that I've largely forgotten the plot.
 
Overview of the additions to DQ1&2HD2DR:

  • Major new plot events, characters, and locations in both games
  • DQ1 also has you collecting sigils
  • In addition to being plot tickets, sigils can power up spells
  • Acquire consumable scrolls to teach party members new abilities (in DQ2 this serves as a form of party customization)
  • Mini medals are in both games
  • There's stuff worth winning in the tombola minigame
 
This latest trailer for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is based on a detail that, in addition to being a significant departure from the original, would probably be a huge spoiler if they weren't making it a major part of the marketing.

 
After taking another break from the game to play some other stuff I finally returned to Dragon Quest 11 to complete Act 3 and just finished the game last night. I still have the post-game stuff to go (though, I've seen most folks refer to Act 3 as a post-game so I guess I mean the post-post-game?) but that aside I gotta say, boy Act 3 was a mess!

I touched on this back when I first beat Act 2 and started on Act 3, but the whole time-rewind thing led to some wacky stuff, and it only got worse as I finally got around to doing all the events in Act 3. Most of them retread on what we already did in Act 2 and every single time the story was worse for it.

Gyldigga/Mia? Nah now you just de-curse her immediately, nullifying the moment when Erik finally reached her in Act 2. The Miko in Hotto? Now you just give her the thing that cures her son, no more tragedy. Jade and Rab both knowing abilities they should no longer have. And, inexplicably, Michelle is alive and she and Kai act like they never met, despite the fact that she died in Act 1 and thus should not have been affected by the time-rewind. They both speak as if they vaguely remember her dying though, which is even weirder! I can only guess in an earlier build the whole Michelle/Kai thing actually went down in Act 2 and was eventually moved to Act 1 but they didn't change the Act 3 content?

Risking everything to save Veronica is fine, but I kind of dislike that the party never remembers what happened in Act 2. It was all just unsatisfying across the board. Sure, Calasmos was a cooler final boss design than Mordegon but that's about all I can give Act 3. I hoenstly think I might've been just fine stopping after Act 2 and calling it a day, sorry Veronica!

Oh and the Dragon Quest 3 worship got a bit much, even though I usually love callbacks. Using the DQ3 overworld music for the overworld in Act 3 was fine, but it got a bit much when the skywhale got the Heavenly Flight music, but when you break Calasmos's barrier and his own unique music is then replaced by freaking Hero's Challenge from DQ3 it was just a step too far. And don't get me started on that final post-credits scene. It all felt less like a loving tribute and more desperation as if they felt DQ11 couldn't stand on its own merits without tying it to the most beloved entry in the series.

I dunno, I liked DQ11 a lot until I got to the point where they decided to add a third act and it kind of fell apart for me. I can't say I hated the third act, but it was a disappointment by almost every metric compared to what came before., it's unfortunate.
 
From a gameplay standpoint, I like what Act 3 has going on. Open-endedly scouring the world for sources of power to put together your optimal endgame kit is an RPG tradition, and they did it in a way that lasts a good long while and makes every location relevant again.

From a writing standpoint, yeah, I get it. The happiest and neatest way to conclude the story is the least dramatic. I rationalized that all these people are heroes, so who among them wouldn't willingly sacrifice their closure and memories in order to avert the tragedies they've seen? The whole first two acts were about how adversity brings people closer together, and the third act reinforces the point by showing you them farther apart without that adversity. It definitely gives it all a weird vibe. If it helps, there is a throwaway line about them gradually coming to remember what they experienced in the other timeline, as though in a dream.

Musically speaking, even the original parts of the soundtrack were phoned in. So, I say, go ahead and play the classics for the climactic moments; it's obvious Sugiyama didn't have it in him to write something more fitting any more.
 
Oh the Number Go Up portion of Act 3 was fine, the actual boss encounters and gearing was enjoyable. Super easy to power level to 99 using the swap to 2D in Tickington, the Hallelujah/Electro Light technique is so much faster in 2D.

I just feel the story in Act 3 needed, at least, another draft. It just felt sloppy and unsatisfying, to me, after the comparatively solid first two acts.

As for the soundtrack, well fair enough, but it still felt a bit much to me by the end. If I were making the call I would have used DQ8's final battle for Calasmos instead of DQ3, sure that track itself was already using a motif from 3 but it would have been fitting since that song was already being used on the skywhale, which is itself the platform we're standing on for the final battle.
 
Act 3 does undo a lot of the strong moments of Act 2. It does save a whole lot of people’s lives, though. I felt salty about the plot turn until I realized just how much the world got messed up and how many people died, not just Veronica. If I had a chance to go back and stop a partial apocalypse, I would probably take it.
 
See, I thought Mordragon was a much cooler final boss design.

But I respect the take. Especially if you see him as I did: As if Twilight Princess's Malo got ahold of a Namekian power suit and said "world domination".
 
I mostly just enjoyed the chutzpah of
reversing the character death and by consequence reversing making the character actually good to use.
 
I didn't get too far into Act 3 before stopping for something else, myself. Felt like a satisfying place to end the story as-is.
 
Ok... I'm going to restart DQ1 so I can keep the princess with me and get the best ending.
Friggin' counterintuitive mechanics...
 
So I find myself speculating about what the business strategy is with the Dragon Quest series these days.

Dragon Quest XII was announced kind of a long-ass time ago, and there's been no news. I think that they have probably stepped back to retool development since Akira Toriyama's death. The project there now isn't just to make another Dragon Quest game, but to contribute to establishing what Dragon Quest will become in the future, after Yuji Horii dies too. And the remakes of III, I, II, and VII are also part of that movement.

I think it likely that they're doing really liberal remakes of all the old games, probably up through IX. Unlike the ArtePiazza remakes of yore, these new remakes aren't intended to be supercessionary upgrades to the originals (though, sadly, they may end up serving that role in practice, because modern games are much more future-proof), but rather original takes on classic concepts. The end goal isn't just to get Dragon Quest games back on shelves, but to train a new generation of developers in how to make Dragon Quest, and indeed in how to decide what constitutes Dragon Quest.

Yuji Horii is a businessman, and he's got to be thinking about retirement. I don't think he wants the brand to die with him any more than Square Enix does, not when there's still money to be made from it; if nothing else, the royalties for an eternity of Dragon Quest would be a really nice thing to bequeath to his estate. To thrive, it must be forward-looking, not backward-looking. Retelling the same old stories from the 90s and 00s would be too stifling.

In other words: Dragon Quest VII Reimagined and Dragon Quest 1&2 HD2D are not just ways to keep the brand active while Dragon Quest XII bides its time or whatever; they are auditions for Dragon Quest XIII and beyond.
 
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