RPG Diary

Dragon Quest IV

I know very little about Dragon Quest IV. To be honest, I'm getting a little burned out on Dragon Quest as the first three games did not have much story and required hefty amounts of grinding. Is Dragon Quest IV any different?

Title	Dragon Quest IV (US Dragon Warrior IV )
Year	1990 (US 1992 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

Thankfully, Dragon Quest IV has significantly more story than the previous games. In fact, the distinctive feature of this game is how the story is divided into five chapters. Each chapter features a different main character which I thought was a great way to introduce the characters and the story. I thought this was easily the best story of all the NES RPGs that I have played so far. In previous Dragon Quest games, the stories felt very static — there's a bad guy, he's over there, so go level up and defeat him. This time the plot unfolds during the game which is much more compelling. My only complaint is that party members do not have much personality or dialogue.

The game balance also seemed better than the previous games as there was less grinding required. However, every chapter starts with a new character at level 1 again, so there is a little grinding required there to get started.

One of the new gameplay mechanics in Dragon Quest IV is the wagon. The wagon lets you easily change your active party members, even during battle, without returning to town. Experience is also shared with party members in the wagon, which reduces grinding and helps keep the other party members relevant. The only caveat for these features is that the wagon must be present — it is unable to enter some dungeons.

The other gameplay mechanic is AI controlled party members, which seems pretty ambitious for 1990! There are a few guest characters that join and leave the party during the quest and the AI controls them during battles. Furthermore, during Chapter 5, all party members outside of the hero become AI controlled. I liked this feature at first because it speeds up the common (i.e. boring) encounters where you just select your strongest attacks. However, later in the game this became quite frustrating as the AI would make strange and ineffective choices about spells to cast. The worst case was Cristo draining his MP repeatedly casting Beat and Defeat (instant death), even on bosses, instead of healing. By the end of the game, I was just using my three best physical attackers and using the hero to heal.

Despite the annoying AI, I had a lot of fun with this game. It far exceeded my expectations for an NES RPG. The reduced griding and the interesting story kept me hooked until the end.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. It's hard for me to choose between this and Final Fantasy III. Final Fantasy III has a big difficulty spike at the end, but I think Dragon Quest IV's AI party members were more frustrating.

Dragon Quest III

Dragon Quest III is one of the more popular games in the series, especially in Japan. I think I've played the GameBoy Color remake, but I've definitely never played the original. Does this classic game still hold up decades later?

Title	Dragon Quest III (US Dragon Warrior III )
Year	1988 (US 1992 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

The distinctive feature of Dragon Quest III is the party creation. The hero is the only required character (and only character relevant to the story), but you can create three more characters to fill out your party. Similar to Final Fantasy, there are several character classes to choose from which adds some variance and replayability to the game. After level 20, created characters can class change to any of the other jobs. This resets the character back to level 1, but they retain half their stats and all learned magic. Class changing is not necessary to beat the game, but it certainly makes things more interesting.

There are a few quality-of-life improvements over the previous games. The Return spell can now teleport to almost any town that you have previously visited. This is a very welcome change since it cuts down on the boring backtracking (and random encounters) across the world map in the mid-game. There's also a vault in the first town which has two purposes: storing extra items (including key items that are not currently useful) and storing gold safely without losing half of it in the event of a party wipe.

Dragon Quest III does have more story than the previous games, but it's still minimal by modern standards. There isn't much progress on the main storyline until the final quarter of the game, though there are some small self-contained stories in several of the towns across the map. The big reveal of Zoma and the dark world was a nice surprise but the brief reunion with Ortega was very underwhelming.

Unfortunately Dragon Quest III requires a fair amount of grinding, both for leveling and to get enough gold for upgrading equipment. The need for grinding is fairly constant throughout the game — I remember significant grinding around Romaly, after class changing, and before each of the last two bosses. The frequent grinding was my biggest complaint with the game and I think it — or at least this version — has aged poorly because of this. I did actually somewhat enjoy grinding after class changing though because it felt rewarding to level up those characters so quickly.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I generally enjoyed Dragon Quest III, but there was a little too much grinding for me. Although Final Fantasy II was less grindy, I think it was a little more frustrating to play (due to dungeon design and hidden mechanics), so I'll put Dragon Quest III above it.

Edit: Bumping this game up a bit since I was comparing it too much to just NES games. Despite the grinding, I enjoyed this game more than Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy XIII.

Dragon Quest II

Dragon Quest was a hugely influential but very simple game that is not very enjoyable by modern standards. Its huge success led to a direct sequel in less than a year. Does the sequel hold up better than the original?

Title	Dragon Quest II (US Dragon Warrior II )
Year	1987 (US 1990 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

Dragon Quest II is a huge improvement over Dragon Quest. There are multiple party members and battles can contain multiple enemies as well. This change alone has a huge impact on gameplay. The world map is much larger and there are many dungeons to explore too (but thankfully torches were abandoned). About halfway through the game, exploration really opens up when the party receives the boat. The game becomes non-linear at this point as there are multiple MacGuffins to collect and you are free to do so in (almost) any order.

Like it's predecessor, Dragon Quest II does require a fair bit of grinding to advance safely. Unlike the first game, the variety of places to go and dungeons to explore helps break up the monotony and makes things more interesting. Unfortunately, things come crashing to a halt right before the final dungeon, the Road to Rhone. While the game progressed fairly smoothly until this point, I had to stop and grind for hours here. The dungeon itself is also very cruel: there's pitfall traps, endless loops, and confusing asymmetrical teleporters that effectively prevent backtracking. This final section completely ruined the game for me.

Dragon Quest II has a few balance issues that worsen over the course of the game. Enemies can now appear in groups and larger encounters are very dangerous. Enemies that can inflict sleep, damage the entire party, or — worst of all — inflict instant death can be nearly impossible to deal with. These abilites become very common in the endgame, which contributes to the extreme difficulty spike. Additionally, the magic-oriented party members become increasingly less useful towards the end of the game as spell effects do not scale with levels. By the end of the game, the sole "warrior" type character is the sole reliable source of damage, while the other two characters are just spamming healing spells to keep everyone alive.

There is not much plot in Dragon Quest II, outside of the opening scene (which apparently was not in the original Japanese release). While this is expected for the era, it means there is little payoff for enduring the brutal endgame.

In the end, I am conflicted about this game. I actually really enjoyed the first 10 hours, but the 5 hours of grinding at the end completely ruined it for me. I think I have beaten a remake of this game before, but I don't remember it being so painful — perhaps the remake(s) fixed the balance issues.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I actually enjoyed this game until the final dungeon, but the endgame was so unpleasant, it ruined the whole experience. I had more fun with this than Final Fantasy, but I think the grinding is worse than Final Fantasy II.

Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest (formerly Dragon Warrior in the US) is widely considered to be the first "JRPG" or console RPG. I've played the GameBoy Color remake before, but I've never played the original version. How does this historically significant game hold up nearly 40 years later?

Title	Dragon Quest (US Dragon Warrior )
Year	1986 (US 1989 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix (US Nintendo )

Dragon Quest is a very simple game. The nameless hero is the sole party character and even battles only feature one enemy at a time. There is no character customization nor any real equipment choices   more expensive is always better. There are a few useful spells to learn, but generally most battles are fought with just the basic FIGHT command. While this is all minimal by today's standards, Dragon Quest established the core template for console RPGs.

Despite its age, Dragon Quest has a timeless charm to it. The enemy sprites are clear, vivid, and still look good today. The music also manages to be very memorable even though there is really only six "songs" in the entire game: castle, town, overworld, battle, dungeon, and final boss. The final boss battle is a memorable experience despite the technical limitations.

That said, the game is a chore to play by modern standards. The plot is simple but minimal: save the princess and defeat the Dragonlord. There are big difficulty spikes and significant grinding is required to buy better equipment and gain levels. There are few real dungeons to explore (and few real bosses), so the majority of this grinding occurs on the overworld map. It cannot be understated how boring it is to walk in circles on the overworld compared to exploring a dungeon for loot. Grinding is easily at least 90% of the game — the lack of dungeons or scripted scenes means the quest itself could probably be completed in an hour if the hero was strong enough to avoid dying.

Though Dragon Quest is clearly an important game historically, it's hard to recommend playing it today unless you enjoy grinding. I ended up multi-tasking to help pass the time and get through it. Thankfully the game is very short because I was ready to move on. I've heard the remakes reduce the grinding requirements, so maybe I'll try one of those someday.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. Unfortunately, this game was a complete chore to play, so it's going straight to the bottom. Sorry.

Final Fantasy XV

I completely ignored Final Fantasy XV when it came out. Square Enix's games in the previous 5-10 years had generally disappointed me and I wasn't playing many RPGs. I was gifted a copy of the game several years ago, but it's been left in its shrinkwrap collecting dust. Well, it's time for me to finally play this game!

Title	Final Fantasy XV
Year	2016
System	PS4 XB1 WIN
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix

The defining characteristic of Final Fantasy XV is its open world. Battles take place directly on the map without any separate battle screens, similar to Final Fantasy XII. However, this time the map is seamless instead of being divided into smaller zones. Unfortunately, points of interest are usually too far apart to walk which makes travel tedious without the car or a chocobo. Driving quickly becomes boring once the novelty wears off as there is little to do during the ride. Fast travel is an alternative, but it comes with long loading screens. While I enjoyed exploring the map, the pain of long travel was probably my biggest complaint about the game.

Combat in Final Fantasy XV is truly real-time as there are no charge times or ATB bars to slow down combat. Combined with the battles directly on the map, this made battles feel faster and less tedious than older games. Things can get pretty hectic with a lot of targets, warp-strikes, and phasing. I got frustrated that the lock-on feature seemed to frequently lose my desired target. Combat itself is very simple — there's really only one attack button and one dodge/guard button. I still enjoyed battles, but that may be due to the novelty since I do not frequently play action games.

The game can be roughly divided into two parts: the first half is light on plot and encourages open world exploration, while the second half focuses on the plot and puts the party on rails (complete with no backtracking, just like Final Fantasy XIII). I liked this because I got to explore and get the side quests out of the way early while the game still feels fresh, while the story towards the end kept my interest in finishing the game.

I thought the story was interesting, but there is a serious issue with how it is presented in game. There are a few glaring gaps in the story (party members leaving, time skips) that are barely explained in the base game. These gaps were eventually filled in with DLC, but they are not directly integrated into the main game. Instead, they are self-contained bonus games, complete with their own main menus and saves. It is very jarring to go back and forth between the main game and the DLC. Overall, I thought the DLC was a disappointment. Episode Gladiolus is filler. Episode Prompto suddenly ends just as it was getting interesting and without filling the entire story gap. Episode Ignis was the only DLC I enjoyed, but I wish it was integrated in the main story. Unforunately, it unnecessarily contains massive spoilers at the end, so I would not recommend playing it until beating the game. (Seriously?) Finally, Episode Ardyn is decent, but it's salvaged from a cancelled four-part DLC series. This series would have led to an alternate ending for the main game and seemed to retcon some characters, which makes it kind of pointless to play now.

The other issue I had with the story is that many of the NPCs felt underdeveloped. There are several characters that are introduced but are only met once or twice before they disappear from the game. It's also disappointing that most characters are not seen again in Chapter 14 after the big time skip. Despite those issues, I did enjoy the story overall. In particular, I found the main villain different and interesting. The party characters are also very distinct and memorable.

I went in to this game with low expectations for an open world Final Fantasy, but I ended up having a lot of fun. It's a little frustrating to think about how the game could've been more polished and cohesive, but I still enjoyed the final product.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I really enjoyed this game — much more than I expected to — despite its issues. I particularly enjoyed the focus on the story in the second half, which kept my interest in finishing the game. I'll put this above Final Fantasy VI which started amazingly strong but lost my interest in the second half.