Japanese Role Playing Games. That sub-genre of games that defies logic and my interest. Oh, sure. I've played my way through Persona 4 and my accumulated amount of Pokemon has become obscene. I also class Final Fantasy 1 my favourite in the series. But they are but an elite selection that broke the barrier.
I enjoyed Pokemon from an early age, and I've become an invested fan along it's years of activity. One of the main reasons for this,
is the 'anime' that I watched religiously. It was cool to have a level 89 Blastoise amongst the sea of flames and vines. Final Fantasy was presented to me as a remake on the PSP. I sunk nearly 200 hours wandering around aimlessly and possibly discovering a boss battle that advanced the story. It was basic enough for me to enjoy and mellow out to. Persona 4 caught my eye as a feature known as the "Endurance Run" on a website called 'Giant Bomb.' I took the opportunity around my birthday to ask an acquaintance to purchase it for my birthday. The story and presentation of the game were bedazzling to me, and fusing monsters and collecting cards reminded me of my "Yu-Gi-Oh!" days. It was different, the grinding wasn't all that noticeable and the boss battles made intriguing. It was the most I've ever used a PS2.
So, I bring before you a point of view
on the latest addition to the Dragon Quest series.
The game starts out with as an angel, floating about and doing good deeds in sections that felt so slow and redundant, that I contemplated switching off my DS and returning to something else. An hour later, and a thumb imprinted with the letter A, I reached the part of the game where it allows the player to begin a party.
After creating a rag-tag team of references, (Eko, Palmer, and Cortana,) I realized that they were 6 levels below me. After a mindless grind, and reaching the first boss, the game kicked off for me. I began to throughly enjoy the basic outline of the story, and the deeply involving story quests and side quests. You know why I am enjoying this so much? It reminds me of the old TV shows I used to watch. The band of heroes would help the towns folk, and go up against the villain for two episodes. I guess I carry on playing to see what enemy they will throw up against me next. (I've not actually finished, but I think a 40 hour play time is adequate to bring an
opinion.)
The gameplay is the most basic of JRPGs. Turned based combat, dungeon crawling, talking to towns folk and grinding. What separates it from most, is the deep customization options. Armour has it's own look and effects. While still just basic 'speed', 'defence', 'attack', etc. It's incredibly nice to have it make a proper difference to your characters look and style.
Another sweet little feature included is a method of changing your class and unlocking new ones. This is excellent for your main character, if you become fed up with whatever designated class you were given at random. Personally, I kept my Minstrel, as it was excellent for creating "tension" for devastating attacks from my Martial Artists. It's also handy to have, so you don't have to redo your entire game from scratch - which is incredibly helpful due to the lack of save files.
Now, when I said this was traditional, I meant it literally. Remember how in the classic JRPGs, you'd have to sit through text and wait for the Shop keeper to stop talking? And how most modern JRPGs and even RPGs included a method of having it scroll faster? Yeah, this has that, but I doubt it makes much of a difference. Want to save? Prepared for the same speech every. Single. Time. Resurrection still cost gold, and it gets more expensive the further you go into the world. This isn't much of a struggle to cope with, as gold is incredibly easy to come by, and once you get into the groves of the game, you know exactly where to go and what to do, to earn yourself a couple thousand.
The look of the game is still the same classic Dragon Quest look. That Dragon Ball-esque style
with crazy hair and astoundingly creative monsters. Never have I been bored from running into the same creature. Even the hordes of Slime have that charm they always have. But I do
have to point out one thing. Whereas important story characters and your party have a polygonal and 3D presence in the world, the minor and useless characters inhabiting the world, are merely sprites that could be rendered better on the Game Boy. It's not that bothersome, but it's a little lazy. I guess it was to conserve space to bring the
beautiful over world and towns to life, and have those menacing bosses look as evil as possible. Though, you can tell it's a DS game all the way, as when a close up happens, the models look blocky and stretched out.
Combat becomes a mere battle of remembering which order you do things - but becomes a highly deep and strategic game. Grinding sounds boring, but becomes essential to the experience. All the fancy armour and accessories you earn, buy and alchemise are needed to succeed. Creating a strategy is a necessity to your experience. Mine involved pumping up my Martial Artist with tension, buffing up everyone's defence to the maximum and trying to decrease the boss'. It's a monotonous task, and I found it fun. Weirdly, I began to realise the appeal to these type of games.
The fans enjoy strategy and getting a story so long and deep it's something worth investing time into. And I guess I should start doing the same.
If you want a game that will last you a while, pass the time or just looking for a decent DS JRPG, this is way forward. No tricks, no gimmicks, just an excellent 'little' game, that is well worth the price tag.
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