(snes version)

A lot of what Dragon Quest is known for both mechanically and tonally was set up here--it's lighter than the original, with a greater emphasis on ~adventure~ and imaginative locations and fun little episodes, as well as more complex battles--and there were lots of moments where I could see the vision and was tricked (for a few minutes at least) into thinking it might be a masterpiece. Discovering the land from the first game, the bunny girl colosseum, the prince getting sick...was soul-breakingly mean but also charming, the haunting metaphysics of the final dungeon...so many places and moments that will stick with me.

Unfortunately this thing just ain't tuned quite right! It's a real blockbuster style sequel to the deeply contained, considered original, casting its net wide and catching less. It's too big for its own good, too bloated, and the near spiritually perfect number crunching of the first is now kind of a mess. Worst of all, in-between those great moments is...not much, emotionally. It's like 80% tonally empty, melancholic weight replaced with the dull reality of adventuring the world.

More water, more mountains, more slimes, and less to show for it all.

(snes version)

All but perfectly composed. The way the world folds out from your central location (the place you save), the magnificent numbers tuning where a 5 is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, the hum of combat stripped to its essentials and the light open-world design that encourages interacting with its residents...Dragon Quest basically one-and-done'd it all. About the only thing I have any desire to ding it for is that magic is largely useless outside of healing and traversal, half your arsenal profoundly unnecessary in a game otherwise so tightly formed.

But honestly who cares when faced with Dragon Quest's greatest strength: its tone. Despite the image DQ has accrued of being lovely and charming and nostalgic and warm, this game is a profoundly sad experience. The world is dead. Towns are in ruins. Poison litters the ground as naturally as water and there are more bloodthirsty, alien monsters than there are people anymore. And every person you talk to time and time again puts it all on you: you have to save us, you are the only one who can. There are no party members, it's a journey of solitude. No friends to make, no campfire stories or wacky hijinx to get into, just the one thing you were born to do. You have no choice; it's in your blood. You can't even die, fate and duty so strong that you are brought back again and again until you succeed. Every inch of this game is oozing a melancholic weight heavier than just about anything in gaming. It's no coincidence that Koichi Sugiyama's (god not rest his soul) overworld theme here, the song you are treated to the most, brings to mind the fog before a rain more than any idea of adventure.

Palpable stuff! Stuff that is astounding in its own right but which also builds to a transcendent release at the end, one of the great narrative moments in a game, when you finally accomplish your goal and the world explodes into flowers and all the monsters vanish and everyone celebrates and you, the hero, freed from the grip of responsibility and expectation, life now perfectly without purpose, wander off to new worlds. (something something about killing the dark fascist lord and then rejecting your noble monarchal position to live free from systems of power)

I repeat: all but perfectly composed.

A game I was done with a good 15 hours before it was finished and which I've only become more done with the more time that passes. Absolutely at its best when it's acting as a non-stop comedy adventure flying between wildly incongruous tones in this goofy road-trip cat-and-mouse chase. The characters? Charming! The jokes? Funny! The thrills? You better believe they're thrilling! Unimpeachable combat and constant amusement park minigame switching makes for a cotton candy delight that borders on transcendent and at moments had me convinced it was the best game ever.

Problem with cotton candy though is that you put it in water and realize: oh it's actually nothing. Rebirth is packed to the gills and yet completely empty, gutting the original's story for sophomoric multiverse shenanigans that flatten any emotional or thematic depth. Worse, the game is too scared to actually do anything with the new ideas it does have, constantly pulling back at even the slightest glimpse of genuine intrigue until the entire game is rendered a purgatory of non-movement. Nothing happens! Please let something happen!! The dungeons are a bore and just about every other event is so blatantly shoehorned in to fill for time that even if you ignore sidequests and mainline this thing, the pace is genuinely baaaaad. Just the most "too much" game I've ever played, maybe.

So yeah, loved it at points, gave me a dull headache at others, and is spoiling like milk in my brain. (Yuffie great tho--they did justice to my girl)