Fall 1992. Dragon Quest V was released and became an instant success, both critically and commercially. Plans for the sixth game in the series were made soon thereafter, but series father Yuji Horii was skeptical about the whole thing. One very day he knocked at the door of Chunsoft, the developer of all last games and politely asked them to stop working on Dragon Quest VI and handed the whole thing over to Heartbeat, which doomed Chunsoft to produce mystery dungeon games for all eternity.
And this proved to be a huge step forward for the entire series.
And this proved to be a huge step forward for the entire series.
Released in December 1995, the sixth installment of the series was a huge hit. Cue 2010, where the game got remade by Arte Piazza, and then came 2011 where the game was finally released worldwide.
So yeah, if you haven't guessed yet, I'm gonna talk about Dragon Quest VI in this post. Yeah I know, I already did before, but t'was two years ago, so who cares? Anyway...
Dragon Quest VI is a huge improvement over the preceding games, and it's the first game in the series to actually push its platform. Or it used to at least, since I'll be mostly covering the DS remake here. But let me begin by saying this: DQVI is still a simple game. While it got a graphical and musical overhaul, it's still the same game from 1995, but that is not neccesarily a bad thing, right?
As the law of critics says, you start with the good stuff, so there we go. Dragon Quest VI is pretty. Very pretty. The game has a bright and varied color pallette, which it uses to create some very memorable scenery and moments, the first one being when you leave your house and step into the village for the first time.
So yeah, if you haven't guessed yet, I'm gonna talk about Dragon Quest VI in this post. Yeah I know, I already did before, but t'was two years ago, so who cares? Anyway...
Dragon Quest VI is a huge improvement over the preceding games, and it's the first game in the series to actually push its platform. Or it used to at least, since I'll be mostly covering the DS remake here. But let me begin by saying this: DQVI is still a simple game. While it got a graphical and musical overhaul, it's still the same game from 1995, but that is not neccesarily a bad thing, right?
As the law of critics says, you start with the good stuff, so there we go. Dragon Quest VI is pretty. Very pretty. The game has a bright and varied color pallette, which it uses to create some very memorable scenery and moments, the first one being when you leave your house and step into the village for the first time.
Cue the sun!
It uses a combination of polygonal environments and sprite-based characters. While the sprites may be small and undetailed, the scenery more than makes up for that, and the styles don't ever clash. Some areas use both the upper and the lower screens of the DS, and you can rotate the camera most of the time as well, giving you full view of your sorroundings.
Get on my horse, my horse is ama- nevermind.
The game manages to create a vibrant world, which looks just as good, if not better than the original SNES version (which already was a very pretty game for its time). While the sprites may not be all that attractive, there is some really nice animation here and there, but it honestly makes you wonder why there isn't more of it, but that's a different story.
The real deal lies in the battles, however. Those have some really nice 3D backgrounds and some of the most smoothly animated monsters ever. The slimes will playfully bounce right at the screen, those pink guys will perform a silly dance and so on. The monsters also animate when they're idling, which makes the battles feel so much more lively. The weapon and spell animations are gorgeous as well, with every single weapon having its own, same goes for the spells. The best part- almost none of these animations were reused from the previous game! (Sadly only almost, a couple weapons are the same)
The real deal lies in the battles, however. Those have some really nice 3D backgrounds and some of the most smoothly animated monsters ever. The slimes will playfully bounce right at the screen, those pink guys will perform a silly dance and so on. The monsters also animate when they're idling, which makes the battles feel so much more lively. The weapon and spell animations are gorgeous as well, with every single weapon having its own, same goes for the spells. The best part- almost none of these animations were reused from the previous game! (Sadly only almost, a couple weapons are the same)
Complete with wacky enemy designs!
As you can tell from the screenshot, the battle system is first-person, meaning that you never get to see your party members in battle. While this does mean that there's none of the dynamic camera movements á la DQVIII and IX, it does make the whole affair a lot faster, which makes the level grinding a lot more bearable. You can make the battles even faster if you so desire.
I just noticed that both screenshots show the same party formation. Heh.
The other good thing? The soundtrack. Oh yes, the soundtrack. Music has never been a problem for the series, and this game is a good example of some of the series' best composing. As with all installments in the series, the soundtrack is lovingly bizarre and damn catchy. While there aren't all that many tracks in the game (about 16, allthough the OST doesn't have them all) they're all very well composed, and the sound quality is great, especially for the DS's limited capabilities.
Here are a couple of examples:
Tower Theme (SNES version)
The music may become a little obnoxious, depending on how long you're stuck in a certain area, but it's definitely not as bad as certain other examples.
So it has good graphics and nice music, anything else there to keep me going? What about the gameplay?!
Well first of all- yes, there's another great thing about the game: the translation. Just like DQIX, it was translated by Nintendo, but there's not much of a difference between Square's translation of the last games and Nintendo's version of VI. Which is good, since the translation is excellent. The dialogue has a ton of flavor- or should I say flavour? Everyone speaks British English, which is a better decision than using Shakesperean English in my opinion. There is a lot of humor everywhere, the item names and descriptions are punny, and it's fun to talk to all the different NPCs. You can also talk to your party by pressing the B button, with the dialog changing after every small event, sometimes even after talking to the aforementioned NPCs.
So is there a bad thing about this game?
Yes. For once, no matter how great the translation is- it fails to cover up two things: the characters are still boring and the plot is still bland and lacking. While the start is mysterious and all, it quickly boils down to a generic "defeat the evil monsters that seek to destroy our world" thing. The game does try to shove in some unique things- like a second "mirror world" to explore, but in comparison to the last two game's unique storytelling methods, this one just falls flat.
But even if the characters are somewhat boring, they're not unlikeable. Most of them are fairly sympathethic, actually, but they don't interact much with each other. Actually, some of them stop talking alltogether once they join you (safe for the party chat of course).
And that being said, I can finally get started on the gameplay. As I said before, it's still the same game it was in 1995 gameplay-wise. There are still random encounters. You walk from plot point A to B while fighting monsters, grinding EXP and money and buying new equipment for your team. The remake added some random minigames that actually use the touchscreen (the first of the DS remakes to do so, in fact) but they're nothing to write home about.
You'll also spend a good chunk of your time levelgrinding, and the equipment prices are also ridicolously high. Couple this with the rather small status boosts the level ups give you and you're in for a grind.
The menus are also pretty much the same as back in 1995, except for a graphical update, naturally, making navigation a lot easier.
So there is pretty much no complexity in DQVI. Does that mean simplicity is bad? Definitely not. It's still a great game, even if it's a bit dated.The graphics and music are lovely, and the battles are fast enough to avoid feeling like a chore.
Also, on another note, Arte Piazza have recently announced a 3DS remake for Dragon Quest VIII, and they will finally drop the random encounters and give the game a huge graphical update, so expect to read about that one some time in the future.
So that's all about DQVI from me. Au revoir!
...whew, can'
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