I wasn’t intending on making a review for this game but I decided to change my mind and give this one a nice review. I’ve always been terrible at trying to just finish these DQ games despite XI being such a great game. I decided to play the fifth entry because I know how popular it was though had I done this later, I probably would have done II instead. Regardless, let me tell you why DQ V is such a great game.

While this game is old, I don’t really want to spoil much of the story as I think it’s something that should be experienced if you have an interest in the game. The story however did surprise me, I was expecting it to be pretty basic and would work for the most part of the time. There’s so many eye opening moments and even times that got a big reaction out of me. While I don’t find the characters as memorable as other RPGs, a lot of them are still good for the game and I’m happy to find the writing to be one of the highlights of the game. There’s even some nice humor at times. It’s just overall very good.

The gameplay is also pretty fun and rarely has dull moments. One neat mechanic of DQ V has to be recruiting specific monsters from the overworld or dungeons to put on your team. I used a few of them and I’d say my favorite one was the Curer just to have a convenient healall user if I needed it. Battles require some thought and you’ll have to make use of buffs, debuffs, and statuses to win some later fights. You don’t even need to grind all that much in the game, I only did it like a few times though it might vary for others. I love all the different types of spells to use too but it does make it stressful to sometimes not go overboard and run out. If there was one thing I regret was not buying more Elven magic from the casino. I did at least prepare for the last part of the game.

The world is vast in the game and there’s a lot of places to visit and discover. One thing I love about the overworld is just the many ways to travel in it. You can go on foot, travel by ship, magic carpet, a floating castle, and even a dragon. I did find myself getting lost a few times but I did get used to it for the most part. I wish the return spell would let you travel to any location you’ve been to, it seems to be picky about where it’ll save locations for you. While the game visually might be a little repetitive for some of the locations, there’s still a lot here and it was always a curiosity to check what’s new.

The dungeon design in this game is pretty good and not much of it is that annoying or bad. It’s fun to explore these and get items and fight tough enemies. I do wish more bosses were in them though, it feels like a lot of the time you don’t fight them. There’s some memorable places like the haunted location early in the game, a cave with minecarts to ride, and a volcano with lava floors that hurt. Wait, Final Fantasy 1 already did that last one, hmm. You also sometimes can’t bring your caravan in for these places so make sure you set out a good team for this before going in. I swear a lot of the 2nd half makes you do this.

Ok I know I said to let you experience the story for yourself but one thing that was on my mind a few times was the marriage thing. You’ll try to get an item related to your quest but are forced to marry a girl by the name of Flora. By the time you’re almost done, you meet up with Bianca as she’s aged up since you last met her in your childhood years. Now I for one thought it was very obvious where they were going with this and I was expecting them to truly fall in love. When you finally get the rings, you get this plot point where the Hero struggles between the two with even a restless night and I’m just thinking “What? Why would I not choose Bianca?” I almost felt like this was just gonna force her anyway but obviously I was going to pick her. It wasn’t till later I looked it up and found out you can marry her! With some of the parts in the story, that just feels wrong. Maybe I just don’t get it? Just feels like the wrong choice to me.

There are some small nitpicks I have with the game. I really don’t like the item management with this game and how picky it is with them wanting items in a character’s inventory to use. I also felt the encounter rate at times could be a little annoying at times. This point I’m gonna bring up isn’t a problem with the game but I felt by the 2nd half, my team basically stayed the same and I felt kind of discouraged to try other ideas because what I had was working fine. There’s also some characters you can use and I find confusing why you would want to unless I’m missing something. I think it’s partially why a lot of the characters don’t feel the most memorable in my heart if that makes sense. Still, again these are nitpicks and it says a lot about the game that these are really some of my only few negatives.

Visually the game looks pretty nice for a 1992 RPG. I think the battle screens are the highlight because they actually take place in locations just like the first DQ game on Famicom. Those designs by Akira Toriyama are also just splendid here. The music is also pretty good and almost feels like I can hear the orchestra even if it’s obviously still just the SFC sound chip. I especially love the two dungeon themes you hear in the game the most. I also really love the music when you’re sailing. Even the sound effects sound pretty nice for the hardware. It’s all worth a listen if you ever have the time.

I’m happy to have finally finished this game and see it rank so high. Sure it may not be my favorite 16 bit RPG as of writing this but still being such a great game is no slouch either. You probably know already just how popular this game is and it’s very easy to see why now that I’ve played it all the way through. There are various ways to play the game now. It was first remade in 3D on the PS2 and then a more enhanced 2D version was made for the DS. The DS version was the first time it was localized too so you’ll need a fan translation to play the original or the 3D remake. It also has a version for mobile phones. Oddly it’s never been ported since which feels very odd considering the Switch’s success. A movie based on this game also exists called Dragon Quest: Your Story. Never watched it though, maybe I should. The series would only get one more sequel on the system which is kind of shocking considering how well this one did. When I watched the credits of the game, I really felt moved at reminiscing about the journey I had. It’s kind of crazy to think I played this in memory of Toriyama as he has now passed away and seeing his name makes me miss him again. Bless him and all of the talent who worked on this game. Dragon Quest V is a great game and it’s a game I’ll probably play again someday.

When it comes to an RPG adventure, I don't think much beats Dragon Quest V. That's not an evaluation of the game overall but a specification of its journey.

The scope of the story starting from Hero's childhood, into his teen and adult years, and then fast-forwarding to when his kids are grown up is really special and done very well. The world map is tightly designed with each new country/continent a thrill to explore and there are plenty of mysteries to discover and secrets to fine, even into the game's more open-ended third act. The story builds it tension and crescendos.

Because of it's exciting adventure, I cherish DQ5 even if the gameplay, at least in this Super Famicom version, isn't great. It's the same traditional JRPG gameplay but not as tight as later editions of the franchise and lacking the customization of later titles too. It's cool that there's stuff like the monster collecting but I found that lacking potential with the three party member limit that this first version of DQ5 possesses.

I beat the main game and cheated my way through the bonus dungeon to close the book on this SFC version of Dragon Quest V, a game I played back when I got into emulation as a teen and fell in love with, enough to adore the DS remake that would come my way years later. I like the graphics in this version more than the DS version but that version has four party members so when I want to replay this game again, I'll likely go for that version.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

If you like the old-school RPG “flava,” than you will love Dragon Quest V. This is the first Dragon Quest game to appear on the Super Famicom, so it isn't that innovative compared to the NES installments. The graphics are barely a step up from Dragon Quest IV, and the basic game engine is still the same (not that it has undergone much change at all to this day, besides the addition of a Job system in DQVI and DQVII).

The story revolves around the son of Papas, who is either a King or a wandering mercenary. That's for you to figure out. Of course, you play as Papas’ son. The beginning part of the game focus on your (mis) adventures as you follow Papas around while he carries out various jobs, at the tender age of six. This abruptly ends when tragedy strikes and you end up in bondage (no, not THAT kind of bondage). You eventually escape via a plot device stolen entirely from J.R.R. Tolkien, and arrive back at your hometown some ten years later, only to find that the region has been more or less turned upside-down in your absence. You of course have to set things right, and this of course sends on a much larger quest, eventually following the footsteps of your father.

One of the interesting things in Dragon Quest V's game play that makes it slightly more than a beefed-up Dragon Quest IV is the ability to capture monsters after battle. Now, monster capturing does appear in all of the later Dragon Quest games, but it plays a much larger role in this installment, since for most of the game at least one of your two companions in battle will be a monster you captured. It adds a little depth to your battle strategy because anywhere that your carriage is accessible, you can hot-swap monsters in and out of the fight. This becomes necessary because monsters all have strengths and weaknesses that can either help or hinder you. And you have to choose wisely whom you take into dungeons and towers since you can't usually hot-swap once you're inside. You're stuck with whom you take, so choose wisely.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable game. As of this writing, there are two translations available for the game, and both are well done and will see you through to the end.

Definitely one of the best RPGs of all time. Personally, I like 8 and 11 more, but this is still WAY up there, and if you don't know of its twists and plot structure going in, you're going to have an incredible time. It is old-school, but to me, that's a good thing.

The version to play for a new-comer is probably the DS version, as it has the party chat feature, that adds a lot of extra character to the.. well, the characters. Still, I thought the SNES version held up surprisingly well. Fantastic game.

All 5 of the Dragon Quests I've played so far have two major goals in mind with each entry. One is to expand the scope of the world, the other is to introduce further mechanical combat depth while still being firmly rooted in its cozy, simple to pick up gameplay. DQ5 succeeds in both, with a whopping runtime of 35-40 hours, the longest it's been yet. I knew not to expect huge changes, this isn't Final Fantasy. "Dragon Quest, but bigger" is up my alley as long as there's a good diversity of content, and this one makes good use of the SNES to bring a larger variety of places and events that should keep you engaged.

It's just a shame that the series is so heavily focused around scale and combat depth, but five entries in and it's still heavily neglecting quality of life improvements. Don't get me wrong, there are some fixes here! You can actually see the stat differences on armor/weapons while browsing shops, your party finally auto-targets enemies that are alive instead of trying to hit ones that are already dead, there's a dedicated button to talking to NPC's instead of having to use the command menu, medals don't take up inventory space, and the Tactics system is back as an option, instead of something that you're forced to use.

The problem is that Dragon Quest has been drip feeding its QoL from day one, and after playing 5 of these suckers, you really find yourself thinking they could've used that extra year of development time to address some of other bigger inconveniences that really should've been fixed by at least DQ4. The survival horror inventory, the encounter rates, the sluggish movement, inability to buy stuff in bulk, consumables not stacking, the repetitive town music, it's all still a problem here. The developers have used the SNES to deliver a greater sense of scale, but the overall systems and presentation still have the antiquation of an NES RPG.

Because of this, I've found myself getting more annoyed with this Dragon Quest than either DQ3 or DQ4. I'm by no means getting tired of the formula, which is as pleasant as ever. But I am getting weary of the lack of convenience that could elevate this formula even higher. It'd be nice to have less reasons to rely on the fast forward button, y'know? My time is limited too, and though I'm willing to give an RPG much more patience to prove itself than other genres, there are limits if my character's gonna spend these 40 hours walking at just above a snail's pace.

With that out of the way, it's not all doom and gloom with this game. The story is the strongest it's been yet. The generational structure, combined with the looming threat that approaches ever sooner, gives the game some very strong and impactful moments as time becomes out of your control. It also likes to play around with the conventions of RPG storytelling much like DQ4 did with the merchant chapter. Placing you in the shoes of someone else but the hero, and doing a couple fun things with it, almost bordering on meta.

My only gripe is that the main villain does not come anywhere close to the impact of those individual moments, and was so generically evil, that a week later and I don't remember who they were, what was their name, or what they looked like. Which ultimately, causes the finale of the game to fall flatter than the rest of it, like it's yet another Dragon Quest final boss, with yet another two phases, and one more "How can this be...!" speech on top of the pile.

The game also introduces a monster recruitment system, a prototype Pokemon of sorts. This is where the increase of combat depth comes from in this one, as certain important spells can only be obtained via these monsters, and there is no guarantee you'll get them. After all, recruiting monsters isn't something you can control, it's a random event that may happen at the end of every battle. What makes this more confounding is that only certain monsters can be recruited, and if you're not using an online guide, you won't be able to tell which. Let alone the fact that some of these monsters have a mere 1/4 chance to be caught, but some of them can be a 1/64, or even 1/256, necessitating the use of very heavy grinding if you really want them all. But I wouldn't recommend it. Something I've quickly learned about DQ5, is that it's a much better game if you just let luck take its course, and see what sort of recruits you accidentally stumble upon, instead of trying to gain the system to catch'em all. I'm sure the point was that on subsequent playthroughs, you could get some monsters that you didn't get before. Some of them, people have never seen in their life, but perhaps you might be the one who did... and that's the appeal.

Another reason to not grind for recruits, is because you eventually find out that certain 1/4 recruits are extremely competent at their jobs, more than enough to beat the game and its secret optional boss. The game is always balanced around giving you the right recruits for the right sequences, while the rarer stuff is just something for insane, or very lucky people to get. Unfortunately, while RPG's are generally about just choosing the one thing that works for you the most, I do wish I was incentivized to switch my monsters around more. Some of the recruits completely paled in comparison to the one that I warmed up to using for the rest of the journey, the Golem. An absolute beast of a tank, that had better stat growths, defense, and attack power than any other recruit I received, yet through its 1/4 chance of recruitment, was very easy to obtain.

And I mean, it's cool at first, but it makes you retrospectively look at the entire recruitment system and realize just how uneven so much of it is, with so many recruits that you're gonna try out for an hour and then switch back to the Golem every single time. There are many mediocre recruits. And there are only two or three really good ones. As for the rest, prepare to grind for hours if you ever wanna see them, but why do that if Golem exists? Personally, if there was a better system implemented that didn't require on just pure RNG chance, and allowed me to have better control over how I recruited monsters, DQ5 wouldn't have needed to run into the problem of having to compromise its own system by just giving you the best shit through the lowest possible amount of effort.

This review has been kinda all over the place, which is exactly how I view DQ5. A game that shot for some really big things, a game that I'm pretty sure I enjoyed throughout most of my runtime, but I kept asking "Man, wouldn't it better if they did it like this?" Outdated design just comes with the territory when you're playing an early SNES RPG, but when you make your world way more huge and sprawling, you can't just leave your NES jank as is, you gotta speed it up to accommodate this kind of scope. I don't think I'm gonna touch the original version of this game again, however, I get the strong feeling that all of my gripes will be addressed by the time I get to the DQ5 remakes. It is then that my praise for the story and the monster recruitment system is likely gonna outweigh my amount of complaints.

I felt like Phantasy Star III did the generational thing a little better since it made the choices feel more concrete but I enjoyed this variation as well and it felt like a logical continuation of IV. Graphics were a little behind the times but they worked fine and the enemy characters were the standouts. I played the 2002 translation and it had several typos but I got the general story fine I think... just kind of amateur-ish but I can't blame the game since Enix didn't translate it until the DS version. Overall very fun. Still too much grinding but I enjoyed it enough to give the updated version a try. Beat on Mister

Despues de haber probado un mal JRPG quise probar algo que me quitara ese pesimo sabor de boca y me decante por este titulo, Dragon quest 5

no soy bueno con las introducciones, asi que ire al grano con lo bueno y lo malo

lo malo:

1-apesar de que esto pasaba en los anteriores titulos tambien y ademas de que hay una magia que te permite identificar informacion de los objetos, aun asi no son claros con sus efectos secundarios

2-quedo un cabo suelto con la desaparicion de un personaje en la historia

y ya... ... ... xd

realmente se me hace dificil en pensar defectos para este juego, quizas es porque recien lo termine y me gusto pero no tiene ningun problema serio, al menos a mi criterio

Lo bueno:

1-mejoras de calidad de vida: lo tipico, mejoras en la interfaz y movidas para comprar objetos, almanecar y retirar, comparar, etc etc

2-reclutamiento: me sorprendio esto pues ahora puedes reclutar con cierta probabilidad a determinados monstruos, unos mas utiles que otros, dependera de ti manejarlos, equiparlos y ver cual llevas, esto da mucha variedad a la aventura y la mayoria son buenos, ademas de un sistema para cuidarlos como cajas del pc en pokemon

3-Historia: todavia me cuestiono si es mejor que la del 4 pero puedo dar por hecho que quizas esta historia pegue mas con la gente ya que es mas personal por asi decirlo, vemos al protagonista desde pequeño hasta adulto pasar por momentos tristes y felices, todo el tema del legado de su padre me parece genialmente wholesome junto a la busqueda de la madre, mi unico pero con la historia es que siento que le hizo un par de capas mas de atencion a los hijos, pero no estan mal

4-la musica: chida y apropiada, la musica melancolica y triste tiende a ser la mejor en esta franquicia por algun motivo

5-tiene una dificultad apropiada, ni demasiado facil ni demasiado dificil, no se siente injusto y si sabes como son estos juegos se te hara aun mas llevadero

al principio tenia conflicto con el hecho de que solo puedas usar 3 personajes al mismo tiempo en una pelea y no 4 como en los 2 anteriores juegos, pero lo de reclutar varios monstruos lo compensa

no tengo nada mas que decir, recomendadisimo

casi lo olvido, arreglaron el pedo de la IA obligatoria del 4, ahora puedes manualmente escoger las ordenes de tus aliados como en los otros juegos, que bueno xdxd

On a pure subjective level I prefer my rpgs with characters that have a lot more depth to them, and that's probably why I love dragon quest 11, and I am very interested in 4 and 8 for this reason.

that being said, the way this game does focus on the main character does impress me in a charming way, and I can see why its the most popular dragon quest game as well as one of the most influential aside from 1 and 3.

seeing your child character make friends and a pet and grow up get married have kids of his own that are your main party is a lot of fun, it also introduced the monster catching mechanic. while I have an issue with how every monster you recruit is back to level 1 as well as your children, it is a bit tedious but some monsters and especially the children are worth grinding because they become on par with the protagonist. playing as just some kid really brings out some nice twists in both gameplay and narrative though, almost being a npc in the world of the main characters, while still being the playable protag.

But as for the monster knowing which ones are worth grinding and buying equipment for is the hard part, but I can't be too hard on it because if they focused on just the monster mechanics it would probably work better, but lo and behold its how we got the dragon quest monsters series got made which means the devs knew this as well.


the characters are small but charming seeing little things come back and the game is very easy at leading you to where you need to go for the most part minus 1 or 2 parts of the game.

the worst part of the game that I see unfortunately is how dated the writing of women is in this game, dragon quest as a whole can be a double edged sword with it but all of their "tomboy" characters are still super feminine but know how to fight I guess, while Alena from 4 is very charming with her kicking down doors, the game really wants you to marry Bianca and tries to guilt you that she'll be all sad and alone that she can't marry the guy she went on one adventure with as a kid, and no matter who you marry they get pregnant and kidnapped for that entire portion of the game. so marrying the tough tomboy or rich girl who says she cant fight, really have no difference makes Bianca seem kind of boring and lame, this did make me take a huge break from the game for a while because while the marriage idea is cool that does lead to better romance systems in rpgs down the line, and I don't mean to be so hard on it, but I wanted to say how I felt about the game.

aside from this one gripe the pacing is really good and the leveling and feeling of getting stronger is standard for dragon quest but satisfying none the less. going into the game with a mindset of not expecting much from the writing but the novelty of what it did is a good thing to do

Having beaten the first five Dragon Quest games, this is easily the best. Part of this is the upgrade in presentation compared to the NES games, but the beautiful storyline steals the show. The generational structure is of course brilliant. There are some really sweet and just powerful moments, and taken as a whole, it really does feel epic. I wasn't really choked up at any point, but the theming is genius, and the twists are great too. This game's sentimental feel is greatly complimented by the lush soundtrack, which definitely hits a certain nostalgic vibe.

The gameplay introduces some major conveniences over previous Dragon Quest entries, like auto-targeting the next available enemy, using L as a context-sensitive button, smoother movement in the overworld, and having vastly more inventory space. The dungeon designs are mostly greatly improved as well.

The game design does still have some of that old crust on it though, particularly in the late-game when the sense of direction gets too obtuse and dungeons really lay it on thick with the random encounters. The appeal of Dragon Quest's gameplay for a lot of people is its bread-and-butter classic turn-based combat, but I've played a fair few other JRPGs with more interesting twists on that, and I definitely noticed myself getting bored with battles later on, save for some intense boss fights. (Granted, this is coming off an elongated Dragon Quest marathon beginning with DQ2.)

I don't think Dragon Quest V is one of the very best RPGs I've ever played, but it is still a great game, and it's a shame it didn't come out in the US when it was new in Japan. I think it would've made quite an impact considering there still aren't many games that cover one person's story from childhood to parenthood like this.