I've heard a lot about how mid Dragon Quest 6 is, but I was pleasantly surprised when I actually sat down and played it. I mean it definitely lags behind the best Super Nintendo RPGs, but it's still as well-made and fun (if already a little archaic by '95) as Dragon Quest should be...at least, in the first few hours. The music and graphics are also as good as you'd expect from a later SNES RPG. This has a slightly darker visual aesthetic to it compared to prior games, which I appreciate, and the music subtly sounds slightly more mature in a way as well. Really good use of leitmotif in this one.
Unfortunately the fan translation patch is really old and keeps crashing, and I don't really want to play a remake, so I'll just have to inch away at this one each time I work up the patience to retrace my steps from my previous wasted play-session.
Unfortunately the fan translation patch is really old and keeps crashing, and I don't really want to play a remake, so I'll just have to inch away at this one each time I work up the patience to retrace my steps from my previous wasted play-session.
Eu amei esse jogo, a arte é muito boa e a história também
6th Dragon Quest game I've played and this series is starting to bore me to death. The job system is neat but the gameplay hasn't changed at all besides it. This game does a much worse job at telling you were to go than 5 and the story was barely present. Does this series ever get good music?
Alright, time for me to stop fucking around. This is in the upper echelon of Dragon Quests, and it just has the raw deal of having to be the game that follows The One That's The Best. I found the story to be existentially morose and fascinating, a different kind of dark pretext than Dragon Quest usually has, and that lead to me playing this game far more intensely than I played 5 when I played through 5. I loved this game, and it's the DQ I think most about replaying.
Pretty great story and very good graphics. One you'll remember.
Starts strong and ends strong but the midgame is kind of a slog with some mildly exciting parts throughout. Probably the most Dragon Quest-ass Dragon Quest
DS版とはちょっとシステムが違うんだね、そういえば。
With this, I've finally completed a 3+ year journey to experience all of what I see as classic DQ (the originals of DQ1-7), so this will be a very long review since I'll be trying to collect my thoughts on some other games as well. It was something I enjoyed by and large, but now that I've experienced it all I am a bit more comfortable admitting something that seems almost sacrilegious for JRPG fans: I hate Dragon Quest combat.
(the below criticisms are of the series in general, though I feel that ironically that the fairest instalments in terms of difficulty were on the NES - DQ3 and 4)
Feel free to try and change my mind - it's very possible that I'm missing something and just suck at it - but the randomness of it grates a lot. The quasi-random turn order in the round-based combat means that I ended up having characters die before I could heal them a lot. Enemy attacks are not only random but also poorly-balanced. Many enemies will either plink one character for scratch damage, or do a massive AOE breath attack that hits your entire party and is strong enough to nearly oneshot your squishier characters. It is this imbalance between the strong and weak enemy attacks that makes me disagree with the notion that round-based combat incentivizes planning and strategy. I can't assume that the enemy will use the weak attack every time (I'll get caught with my pants down), but I can't assume that they will use the strong attack every time either (I'll run out of MP after two battles if I aggressively buff and heal even at full HP - which is required to survive some of the enemy volleys). So it turns into a guessing game. Every round, I just guess what the enemy will do, and hope I'm right.
Other round-based games found ways to work around this; the later Breah of Fire games seemed to give priority in each round to characters who were healing to reduce frustration, and the Lunar series had enemies telegraph their moves before each round, leading to a semblance of actual strategy. But Dragon Quest is unapologetically round-based and unapologetically random - and also very unforgiving considering the paucity of save spots and the lack of good means of revival until late in the game. The difficulty curves in general are pretty all over the place (again, 3 and 4 are the surprising exceptions), and in this game I more or less breezed through the entire last dungeon and got annihilated by the final boss, needing to grind for 2 hours on fast forward to even stand a chance against him.
(End of combat rant)
In the end, I still have to give a relatively high score to this game - it never forgot its roots as a Nintendo-hard game, with the difficulty spikes and grinding and cheap deaths seemingly intentional, and thus it seems almost churlish to give a low rating to a game that succeeded at what it wanted to do, even if I didn't like it. Besides, there are many other things I like about classic Dragon Quest, and this game is a shining example of many of them.
Dragon Quest normally has a cliche overarching plot but great plot frames (think the time travel in 7) and great NPC characterization, where you get lots of nice little subplots - implied and otherwise - from the world's inhabitants, making them a lot more than simple exposition coupons. This game's plot frame is great (the presence of a dream world and real world which you can travel between at will). It leads to a very well-done twist about a third through the game, and also lends itself very well to telling stories about the NPCs, since you're able to learn a lot about them from visiting them in the waking and dream world. Some are superficial but clever - there's a guy who doesn't like his name in the real world and has a different name in the dream world, and there's a guy you first meet in the dream world who's been having memory lapses and it turns out it's because he's an old man in real life. Others will tug at your heartstrings (or actually make you cry if you're in the mood) - you meet a guy sitting in front of a grave in the dream world, and it turns out the guy is actually a dog in real life, who is also sitting in front of his human's grave. There are plenty of nice little touches like this which I obviously don't want to give away, but they're the best part of the game for me.
Dragon Quest's other strength is its mix of linearity and open-endedness. You get access to a lot of the world map from relatively early, though you have to unlock many of the locations and the events, and that creates a feel of going on an actual adventure where you have so many possibilites. This game was no exception - being able to explore two worlds and gradually access more and more of them is a great feeling, though it got a tad obtuse at times.
Finally, this game deserves credit for having probably the best QOL of classic DQ - it's the first DQ game where you automatically open a door if you have the right key in your inventory instead of having to manually use the key. The walking speed is much faster than its predecessors, and even the inactive members of your party get exp and job levels - a godsend in such a grindy game. I also find it a much smoother experience than DQ7, which had a slower walking speed and awkward camera control that made exploration a chore and gave me PTSD flashbacks to Xenogears. People rag on the job system in this game, but even though it wasn't as deep as in DQ7, it has the advantage of not needing 30 hours to unlock.
After experiencing DQ1-7 I can say that while the combat isn't something I've warmed up to, I really enjoy the way Dragon Quest games realize their worlds and tell their stories - this game showcases both my favorite and least favorite aspects of the series.
(the below criticisms are of the series in general, though I feel that ironically that the fairest instalments in terms of difficulty were on the NES - DQ3 and 4)
Feel free to try and change my mind - it's very possible that I'm missing something and just suck at it - but the randomness of it grates a lot. The quasi-random turn order in the round-based combat means that I ended up having characters die before I could heal them a lot. Enemy attacks are not only random but also poorly-balanced. Many enemies will either plink one character for scratch damage, or do a massive AOE breath attack that hits your entire party and is strong enough to nearly oneshot your squishier characters. It is this imbalance between the strong and weak enemy attacks that makes me disagree with the notion that round-based combat incentivizes planning and strategy. I can't assume that the enemy will use the weak attack every time (I'll get caught with my pants down), but I can't assume that they will use the strong attack every time either (I'll run out of MP after two battles if I aggressively buff and heal even at full HP - which is required to survive some of the enemy volleys). So it turns into a guessing game. Every round, I just guess what the enemy will do, and hope I'm right.
Other round-based games found ways to work around this; the later Breah of Fire games seemed to give priority in each round to characters who were healing to reduce frustration, and the Lunar series had enemies telegraph their moves before each round, leading to a semblance of actual strategy. But Dragon Quest is unapologetically round-based and unapologetically random - and also very unforgiving considering the paucity of save spots and the lack of good means of revival until late in the game. The difficulty curves in general are pretty all over the place (again, 3 and 4 are the surprising exceptions), and in this game I more or less breezed through the entire last dungeon and got annihilated by the final boss, needing to grind for 2 hours on fast forward to even stand a chance against him.
(End of combat rant)
In the end, I still have to give a relatively high score to this game - it never forgot its roots as a Nintendo-hard game, with the difficulty spikes and grinding and cheap deaths seemingly intentional, and thus it seems almost churlish to give a low rating to a game that succeeded at what it wanted to do, even if I didn't like it. Besides, there are many other things I like about classic Dragon Quest, and this game is a shining example of many of them.
Dragon Quest normally has a cliche overarching plot but great plot frames (think the time travel in 7) and great NPC characterization, where you get lots of nice little subplots - implied and otherwise - from the world's inhabitants, making them a lot more than simple exposition coupons. This game's plot frame is great (the presence of a dream world and real world which you can travel between at will). It leads to a very well-done twist about a third through the game, and also lends itself very well to telling stories about the NPCs, since you're able to learn a lot about them from visiting them in the waking and dream world. Some are superficial but clever - there's a guy who doesn't like his name in the real world and has a different name in the dream world, and there's a guy you first meet in the dream world who's been having memory lapses and it turns out it's because he's an old man in real life. Others will tug at your heartstrings (or actually make you cry if you're in the mood) - you meet a guy sitting in front of a grave in the dream world, and it turns out the guy is actually a dog in real life, who is also sitting in front of his human's grave. There are plenty of nice little touches like this which I obviously don't want to give away, but they're the best part of the game for me.
Dragon Quest's other strength is its mix of linearity and open-endedness. You get access to a lot of the world map from relatively early, though you have to unlock many of the locations and the events, and that creates a feel of going on an actual adventure where you have so many possibilites. This game was no exception - being able to explore two worlds and gradually access more and more of them is a great feeling, though it got a tad obtuse at times.
Finally, this game deserves credit for having probably the best QOL of classic DQ - it's the first DQ game where you automatically open a door if you have the right key in your inventory instead of having to manually use the key. The walking speed is much faster than its predecessors, and even the inactive members of your party get exp and job levels - a godsend in such a grindy game. I also find it a much smoother experience than DQ7, which had a slower walking speed and awkward camera control that made exploration a chore and gave me PTSD flashbacks to Xenogears. People rag on the job system in this game, but even though it wasn't as deep as in DQ7, it has the advantage of not needing 30 hours to unlock.
After experiencing DQ1-7 I can say that while the combat isn't something I've warmed up to, I really enjoy the way Dragon Quest games realize their worlds and tell their stories - this game showcases both my favorite and least favorite aspects of the series.
Fascinating game.
I think in some areas this is the best Dragon Quest of the first 6, but when looking at the complete package it sits at the worst.
The story is very interesting and fun, the graphics are amazing, the music is great, the quality of life improvements are so great they've added them to basically every remake of the previous games.
I feel like a few things drag it down. The mechanics are interesting and ambitious but feel undercooked and lean more towards tedious than fun when it comes to the job system. It feels like it overstays its welcome and the final parts of the main world map to explore just aren't that interesting. Finally, it just doesn't feel like it captures the charm of the previous games- it's basically impossible to follow up 5 anyway, but something is missing here and it feels hollow.
Some of it may be due to the unfinished translation I played (a lot of the return visit dialog wasn't translated, for example) and maybe the remake with an official translation would fair better but I really loved the unique way the SNES version looked compared to the DS remakes that all looked the same as each other that I had to play that one first.
Not a bad game at all though! Dragon Quest continues to be a solid series, just felt like I was forcing myself to finish it near the end and it just kinda sat there with me having just the final boss to conquer.
I think in some areas this is the best Dragon Quest of the first 6, but when looking at the complete package it sits at the worst.
The story is very interesting and fun, the graphics are amazing, the music is great, the quality of life improvements are so great they've added them to basically every remake of the previous games.
I feel like a few things drag it down. The mechanics are interesting and ambitious but feel undercooked and lean more towards tedious than fun when it comes to the job system. It feels like it overstays its welcome and the final parts of the main world map to explore just aren't that interesting. Finally, it just doesn't feel like it captures the charm of the previous games- it's basically impossible to follow up 5 anyway, but something is missing here and it feels hollow.
Some of it may be due to the unfinished translation I played (a lot of the return visit dialog wasn't translated, for example) and maybe the remake with an official translation would fair better but I really loved the unique way the SNES version looked compared to the DS remakes that all looked the same as each other that I had to play that one first.
Not a bad game at all though! Dragon Quest continues to be a solid series, just felt like I was forcing myself to finish it near the end and it just kinda sat there with me having just the final boss to conquer.
Game Review - originally written by Grave Wisdom
Intro:
Ok, let's go back in time a bit…say 10 years or so? The Year is 1995, towards the twilight of the 16-bit era. You are Enix, creator of the record-selling,ground breaking RPG series Dragon Quest. Now, it's been 3 years since the series last outing, the incredible Dragon Quest 5. Obviously, Enix was presented with a challenge. How can you improve upon a game like Dragon Quest 5? A game that had such things as a multi-generation storyline, monsters joining your battle party, numerous mini-games and other distractions. The answer? Take most of what was good about it, and expand upon it even more. With the exception of the multi-generation aspect, everything you loved about Dragon Quest 5 has returned here intact, and in some cases…improved. A welcome addition is the return of the class system, last seen in Dragon Quest 3. However, unlike Dragon Quest 3, you can now freely switch your characters between classes, and work them up to new advanced level jobs. Each class, as you'd expect has special abilities and spells, to make each one useful in a different way. Now, besides that…the game brings several other firsts. For one, the game features not 1 ,not 2, not 3, but 4 different worlds to explore. Also , it's the first game in the series to feature monster animation, and better than average graphics.
Story:
A pretty good story, but not quite as good as DQ5's. The game begins in a rather strange fashion. With you, and your fellow party members being massacred by Uglypeople.com Spokesmodel, and all around not-nice guy, Mudo. As you can probably guess, this is not a good thing. But just when you think the games over before it even begins, you wake up! The whole ordeal was just a dream. But still, it leaves you with many questions. Who were those other people who were fighting with you? And more importantly… who was that big tough-guy who kicked the crap out of your dreaming arse?! So you set out on a quest to find answers to those questions, and many more. Overall, it's an interesting and engrossing storyline. Of course, since it's a Dragon Quest…don't expect much in the way of character development. But the main over-arching story will keep you guessing what will happen next.Very good, but still room for improvement in some places.
Gameplay:
Classic Dragon Quest here all the way! The menu's are as simple and easy to use as ever. No real changes from the previous games here. Anyone with even the slighest experience with previous games in the series will have no trouble getting used to the controls. Of course, there were some changes here and there…but nothing major enough to make you have to re-learn everything. The biggest difference in gameplay is in the re-introduction of the newly expanded class system. Unlike before however… there are now advanced classes, as well as more variety in the basic ones.
Challenge/Difficulty:
The game starts out easy enough, but eventually things gets more and more challenging. Although this may not be THE HARDEST RPG you'll ever play, it can rank up there pretty high. My best tips are the obvious. Keep leveling up, and buy all the latest equipment. Besides that, save often. And even then, you shouldn't be playing this game expecting a walk in the park. This is old-school difficulty that will leave the youngsters raised on the modern fluff running home to mommy and daddy.
Graphics:
The first Dragon Quest that put effort into trying impress us visually. Not only are the overall graphics of a much higher quality than DQ5's, but the game takes a chapter out of Sega's Phantasy Star series by implementing monster animations! Something every Dragon Quest game since, original or remix has had. Overall, this is a pretty game.
Sound:
As usual, Sugiyama never fails to impress. In fact, this may be one of his best works ever. A great emotional, and moodsetting soundtrack. You gotta hear the Orchestrated Soundtrack CD as well. Not a bad song in this game!
Replay Value:
You'll play it and replay it. There's plenty of little extras here and there to keep you coming back. Bonus-Dungeon upon beating the game, loads of mini-games and things to collect. What more could you want?!
Overall:
Ok, so you must all think i'm biased for giving every Dragon Quest a VERY favorable review. While that's true, I try and give every game what I think it's deserving of. Dragon Quest 6 has so much to offer, missing out should be a crime. Play this game already!
Intro:
Ok, let's go back in time a bit…say 10 years or so? The Year is 1995, towards the twilight of the 16-bit era. You are Enix, creator of the record-selling,ground breaking RPG series Dragon Quest. Now, it's been 3 years since the series last outing, the incredible Dragon Quest 5. Obviously, Enix was presented with a challenge. How can you improve upon a game like Dragon Quest 5? A game that had such things as a multi-generation storyline, monsters joining your battle party, numerous mini-games and other distractions. The answer? Take most of what was good about it, and expand upon it even more. With the exception of the multi-generation aspect, everything you loved about Dragon Quest 5 has returned here intact, and in some cases…improved. A welcome addition is the return of the class system, last seen in Dragon Quest 3. However, unlike Dragon Quest 3, you can now freely switch your characters between classes, and work them up to new advanced level jobs. Each class, as you'd expect has special abilities and spells, to make each one useful in a different way. Now, besides that…the game brings several other firsts. For one, the game features not 1 ,not 2, not 3, but 4 different worlds to explore. Also , it's the first game in the series to feature monster animation, and better than average graphics.
Story:
A pretty good story, but not quite as good as DQ5's. The game begins in a rather strange fashion. With you, and your fellow party members being massacred by Uglypeople.com Spokesmodel, and all around not-nice guy, Mudo. As you can probably guess, this is not a good thing. But just when you think the games over before it even begins, you wake up! The whole ordeal was just a dream. But still, it leaves you with many questions. Who were those other people who were fighting with you? And more importantly… who was that big tough-guy who kicked the crap out of your dreaming arse?! So you set out on a quest to find answers to those questions, and many more. Overall, it's an interesting and engrossing storyline. Of course, since it's a Dragon Quest…don't expect much in the way of character development. But the main over-arching story will keep you guessing what will happen next.Very good, but still room for improvement in some places.
Gameplay:
Classic Dragon Quest here all the way! The menu's are as simple and easy to use as ever. No real changes from the previous games here. Anyone with even the slighest experience with previous games in the series will have no trouble getting used to the controls. Of course, there were some changes here and there…but nothing major enough to make you have to re-learn everything. The biggest difference in gameplay is in the re-introduction of the newly expanded class system. Unlike before however… there are now advanced classes, as well as more variety in the basic ones.
Challenge/Difficulty:
The game starts out easy enough, but eventually things gets more and more challenging. Although this may not be THE HARDEST RPG you'll ever play, it can rank up there pretty high. My best tips are the obvious. Keep leveling up, and buy all the latest equipment. Besides that, save often. And even then, you shouldn't be playing this game expecting a walk in the park. This is old-school difficulty that will leave the youngsters raised on the modern fluff running home to mommy and daddy.
Graphics:
The first Dragon Quest that put effort into trying impress us visually. Not only are the overall graphics of a much higher quality than DQ5's, but the game takes a chapter out of Sega's Phantasy Star series by implementing monster animations! Something every Dragon Quest game since, original or remix has had. Overall, this is a pretty game.
Sound:
As usual, Sugiyama never fails to impress. In fact, this may be one of his best works ever. A great emotional, and moodsetting soundtrack. You gotta hear the Orchestrated Soundtrack CD as well. Not a bad song in this game!
Replay Value:
You'll play it and replay it. There's plenty of little extras here and there to keep you coming back. Bonus-Dungeon upon beating the game, loads of mini-games and things to collect. What more could you want?!
Overall:
Ok, so you must all think i'm biased for giving every Dragon Quest a VERY favorable review. While that's true, I try and give every game what I think it's deserving of. Dragon Quest 6 has so much to offer, missing out should be a crime. Play this game already!
a great journey about self discovery with the expected dragon quest flair, one of the better parties in the series, and some beautiful overworld environment art all but completely make up for a bad fan translation and a lack of worthwhile villains after mudo. the reveal about the lower and upper worlds is one of my favorite concepts in the series and i had enough of a good time that the 6 hero isn't even my least favorite hero design in the series anymore. dragon quest 6 and 7 are forever proof that 90% of the time if a game is a "black sheep" of a jrpg series it's actually pretty good and that some gamers just get scared when a game stops holding their hand or has a slower pace to let itself breathe
My thoughts on this entry are conflicting but I would not hesitate to call it a step down in the overall experience compared to Dragon Quest V. While the game has its strengths, it is brought down by a disjointed plot that undercooks ideas frequently, and gameplay that takes two steps forward and one step back. I could see the potential this game had in those areas but unfortunately it tries to do just a little too much with them and falls flat as a result. The presentation holds up well with great looking sprites and music, and Eternal Lullaby (the credits roll theme) is one of my favorite tracks in the entire series. At the end of the day, if you're a fan this is worth at least a proper try, but I would not recommend this to newcomers to the series.
A massive disappointment after the previous episode. The story is uninspired and not riveting, while the clear ripoff of A Link To The Past's light / dark worlds mechanisms is not working at all as it is incredibly hard to differentiate both worlds since they look the same. It ends up being confusing and annoying. A true letdown.
Likeable enough, fun world idea, but kind of just loses its pacing about 1/3 through and bored me. The pulpy/campy fantasy story seemed promising, but... the game's just so long.
There's not much interesting tension to the dungeons, etc. I mean they feel different and you have to go through multiple times but it gets repetitive. An interview said the game 'really starts' at Dharma temple but come on I'm like 10-15 hours in and I'm not there yet, I've played plenty of RPGs that Really Start in 5 minutes. I'm still putting the game on 8x and holding attack to win every random battle. If I had Nothing Else to play I would probably stick it out but I think I'm Good.
Music is great but there's still the problem where Sugiyama doesn't write enough songs so every dungeon and town feels the same despite the efforts of the artists/writing team.
There's not much interesting tension to the dungeons, etc. I mean they feel different and you have to go through multiple times but it gets repetitive. An interview said the game 'really starts' at Dharma temple but come on I'm like 10-15 hours in and I'm not there yet, I've played plenty of RPGs that Really Start in 5 minutes. I'm still putting the game on 8x and holding attack to win every random battle. If I had Nothing Else to play I would probably stick it out but I think I'm Good.
Music is great but there's still the problem where Sugiyama doesn't write enough songs so every dungeon and town feels the same despite the efforts of the artists/writing team.
I don't hate it, but it's still not very good. The biggest complaint I have about the game is the job change system itself. It averages out and dilutes the differences in character personality/performance.
Hassan is a very strong and good character who is still relevant today.
Hassan is a very strong and good character who is still relevant today.