80 reviews liked by Grapey
there's two elf sisters in this game named Oopsy & Daisy, very few games can compete with this
"He tries to picture his dad's face by looking at his own reflection."
After finishing my 2nd playthrough of DQV there's no way it'll ever leave my top 5 games. This is the perfect Dragon Quest game because of the way it encapsulates exactly what the series is all about: bigass adventures, heartfelt stories, and funny characters. It's such an emotional journey the entire way through it's really hard not to resonate with the story. I was getting choked up AGAIN during this playthrough which I guess goes to show howgood the story beats are much of a pussy I am. It's a struggle at some points seeing the most punished fucking protagonist of all time just have to keep going through it. This playthrough didn't take me very long either clocking in at about ~25 hours with very little grinding. I'd easily recommend this game to anyone interested in a 2D Dragon Quest game because it does more than just hold up today.
"You'll always be my lackey... Ha ha ha! No, you'll always be my dear friend."
After finishing my 2nd playthrough of DQV there's no way it'll ever leave my top 5 games. This is the perfect Dragon Quest game because of the way it encapsulates exactly what the series is all about: bigass adventures, heartfelt stories, and funny characters. It's such an emotional journey the entire way through it's really hard not to resonate with the story. I was getting choked up AGAIN during this playthrough which I guess goes to show how
"You'll always be my lackey... Ha ha ha! No, you'll always be my dear friend."
This review contains spoilers
It's hard to exactly state why Dragon Quest V is so important without spoiling the whole premise of the game itself so here it is. Dragon Quest V features probably one of my favorite twists ever in a JRPG, one that both encapsulates the spirit of Dragon Quest while being bold in its own right.
The story unfolds through the life of Abel (the "Hero" of this game, at least that's what people tell me his name is.) where he starts out as a child, unable to even read, as he follows his dad Pankraz along on his journey. Pankraz has true dad energy. He's strong, brave, and caring to his son along with everyone else, and he helps Abel decimate any threat along the way and even heals you. However things go dark a few hours in when after a failed attempt to save Prince Harry from a kidnapping, Pankraz dies to the evil Ladja but before he does he tells Abel his lost mother is still alive and then he gets blasted by a Kafrizzle. Abel and Prince Harry are then sold into slavery until they are in their teens whereby the help of someone else, they are able to escape in a barrel out onto the sea. From there, you get your typical Dragon Quest affair.
Then something happens, the time skips and Abel starts to rule a kingdom on his own, much as his father did. And he gets married to a choice of three different girls. And hey, guess what? She gives birth. Twins! One boy and one girl! And after another time skip, they grow old enough to become party members! And they're pretty good for being children too.
This is when sometime in the late game you learn something from another NPC, and that all this time Abel, your player character is not the almighty chosen one to take down the evil Nizmo that has been causing chaos around the country. No, it's your son instead.
That's when I got Dragon Quest V's message. It hit me like a freight train. Dragon Quest up to this point has always been about you, the player, destined to go out on this journey to a vast unknown land to take down an ambiguous evil entity and be the hero you were always destined to be. But here, Dragon Quest V tells you you're not this grandiose hero, at least not in the cliche "prophesized" way, no, you are a hero because you are like Pankraz.
Pankraz had a heart of gold from the start, he used to be a great ruler of his kingdom but more importantly, he was a true father through and through. He loved his wife and son more than anything, but he died a horrible, tragic death in an attempt to protect his son. All this time, you follow in your father's footsteps. You fall in love, you have children of your own to protect, you help those in need, and you even lead a kingdom of people. Your righteousness completely mirrors that of Pankraz.
So when Dragon Quest V states that it is your son that you raised that is destined to become the chosen one, that's not a cheap shot to get a subversive expectation in the script, it felt earned. Because in the end, your actions lead to that point. You may not be explicitly told you are "the hero", but a real hero doesn't need to be told that he is destined to be great, a hero is someone who is already righteous enough as is. Pankraz was a righteous man who kept his head up high until the end. He was a hero. His successor Abel, much like his father, is a hero in his own way too.
And I think there's something so genuinely wholesome about that, it keeps the essence of Dragon Quest's commitment to you being the hero but in a different more down-to-earth kind of way. I think that's the reason this Dragon Quest especially has stuck with me the most, because that message is just so relatable and pure it makes this almost 29-year-old game stand all of the time skips.
The story unfolds through the life of Abel (the "Hero" of this game, at least that's what people tell me his name is.) where he starts out as a child, unable to even read, as he follows his dad Pankraz along on his journey. Pankraz has true dad energy. He's strong, brave, and caring to his son along with everyone else, and he helps Abel decimate any threat along the way and even heals you. However things go dark a few hours in when after a failed attempt to save Prince Harry from a kidnapping, Pankraz dies to the evil Ladja but before he does he tells Abel his lost mother is still alive and then he gets blasted by a Kafrizzle. Abel and Prince Harry are then sold into slavery until they are in their teens whereby the help of someone else, they are able to escape in a barrel out onto the sea. From there, you get your typical Dragon Quest affair.
Then something happens, the time skips and Abel starts to rule a kingdom on his own, much as his father did. And he gets married to a choice of three different girls. And hey, guess what? She gives birth. Twins! One boy and one girl! And after another time skip, they grow old enough to become party members! And they're pretty good for being children too.
This is when sometime in the late game you learn something from another NPC, and that all this time Abel, your player character is not the almighty chosen one to take down the evil Nizmo that has been causing chaos around the country. No, it's your son instead.
That's when I got Dragon Quest V's message. It hit me like a freight train. Dragon Quest up to this point has always been about you, the player, destined to go out on this journey to a vast unknown land to take down an ambiguous evil entity and be the hero you were always destined to be. But here, Dragon Quest V tells you you're not this grandiose hero, at least not in the cliche "prophesized" way, no, you are a hero because you are like Pankraz.
Pankraz had a heart of gold from the start, he used to be a great ruler of his kingdom but more importantly, he was a true father through and through. He loved his wife and son more than anything, but he died a horrible, tragic death in an attempt to protect his son. All this time, you follow in your father's footsteps. You fall in love, you have children of your own to protect, you help those in need, and you even lead a kingdom of people. Your righteousness completely mirrors that of Pankraz.
So when Dragon Quest V states that it is your son that you raised that is destined to become the chosen one, that's not a cheap shot to get a subversive expectation in the script, it felt earned. Because in the end, your actions lead to that point. You may not be explicitly told you are "the hero", but a real hero doesn't need to be told that he is destined to be great, a hero is someone who is already righteous enough as is. Pankraz was a righteous man who kept his head up high until the end. He was a hero. His successor Abel, much like his father, is a hero in his own way too.
And I think there's something so genuinely wholesome about that, it keeps the essence of Dragon Quest's commitment to you being the hero but in a different more down-to-earth kind of way. I think that's the reason this Dragon Quest especially has stuck with me the most, because that message is just so relatable and pure it makes this almost 29-year-old game stand all of the time skips.
dragon quest v is the best 'dad game' for understanding that, to be a dad, you need at first to be a son. it also understands how important a parent is to the formation of a child. it understands that, while people are gone, they live forever in our hearts and the impact they caused on us will remain till us gone, too. such a powerful experience, i miss the ones that are gone so much, but i love they a lot, too.
This is 100% the perfect version of this game, it is not even debatable. It is simply the most beautiful, fantastic and immersive way to experience one of the best stories ever told in the videogame medium.
It is such an special game with the way it delivers all of its messages that if feels almost too good to be true, i think this game touched my heart like no other and brought me so much joy and fascination that i will forever cherish the memories of everything i felt while travelling trough this world.
Also thank you a lot people who fan-translated it, that your lives may be forever blessed.
It is such an special game with the way it delivers all of its messages that if feels almost too good to be true, i think this game touched my heart like no other and brought me so much joy and fascination that i will forever cherish the memories of everything i felt while travelling trough this world.
Also thank you a lot people who fan-translated it, that your lives may be forever blessed.
eh
when taking into account all the flaws and masterstrokes in each game touched by the love-de-lic spirit, their totality making every one of them interesting in their own ways, let it be said that this game is kinda incoherent in how its constituent parts are stitched together. i like chulip more for making the town and its residents the center of the world, and how it feels more grounded of a story. even the ways chulip is a mess are more compelling to me than the ways in which moon is a mess.
that being said, in terms of raw passion of its developers and the heat of the moment in which it was made, moon hasnt been touched. its strange, insular kind of innovation came out of testing the hypothesis that video games must be worth /something/, its developers (a fucking SUPERGROUP of a team) expressing their love for the artform by changing the rules so drastically, to surpass everything holding them back. by changing an RPG into an adventure game, by having the player practice patience with the flow of time to understand others, by having the world's characters all driven by this thematic force that the designers desperately wanted to impart on you as something that must exist both inside AND outside the game, despite what other games in its time would have you believe. its "what if games were nice instead of mean" type message may come off as precious and hokey but i think the history around its development as a console game in 1997, and the genre-ambiguous space it establishes—built on later by other love-de-lic games, chulip, endonesia, nishi-directed games at skip—gives moon this mysterious and captivating aura, as well as a radical sincerity to explore into the core of what games really are and what they could be. the final sequence is incredibly poignant to me with this in mind
basically there is no other game that just...radiates heart as glowingly as moon, you can see it and hear it and read it and feel it. this game is the untold spark of so much, as the root of highly creative game design legacies from the names attached to this project. they can possibly make better games in different settings, but moon only could happen this one time.
that being said, in terms of raw passion of its developers and the heat of the moment in which it was made, moon hasnt been touched. its strange, insular kind of innovation came out of testing the hypothesis that video games must be worth /something/, its developers (a fucking SUPERGROUP of a team) expressing their love for the artform by changing the rules so drastically, to surpass everything holding them back. by changing an RPG into an adventure game, by having the player practice patience with the flow of time to understand others, by having the world's characters all driven by this thematic force that the designers desperately wanted to impart on you as something that must exist both inside AND outside the game, despite what other games in its time would have you believe. its "what if games were nice instead of mean" type message may come off as precious and hokey but i think the history around its development as a console game in 1997, and the genre-ambiguous space it establishes—built on later by other love-de-lic games, chulip, endonesia, nishi-directed games at skip—gives moon this mysterious and captivating aura, as well as a radical sincerity to explore into the core of what games really are and what they could be. the final sequence is incredibly poignant to me with this in mind
basically there is no other game that just...radiates heart as glowingly as moon, you can see it and hear it and read it and feel it. this game is the untold spark of so much, as the root of highly creative game design legacies from the names attached to this project. they can possibly make better games in different settings, but moon only could happen this one time.
I saw the awful 3D graphics and I was like ok i’ll play for the waifus. i experienced a mid combat system and i was like ok i’ll play for the waifus. i met all 20 love interests and i was like ok i’ll play for the waifus i can even make time for. i saw the hot milf and the game said: “no you cannot marry her” and that's where i draw the fucking line.
Resident Evil 4
2005
This game taught me that I'm not a lesbian
Nomura's Trick
