The fascinating thing about visiting Dragon Quest, one of the seminal JRPGs from this era, is that for all the predictable garbage that comes with it--the two most obvious being the laser focus on grind and the lack of consideration that went into its save system--I was surprised to find a lot to like in its design. Maybe it's just that the years have worn on me and, while I still love to be swept up into a long and engrossing game, my preferences over the years have generally leaned towards shorter experiences. But it's not just that Dragon Quest is short, it's also that its map feels manageable and curated so that there isn't really a lot of wasted space.
Now, of course that goes out the window the second you have to deal with any sort of experience check, and my god it's never been worse to me than it is here with the final boss. I didn't time the walk from the starting castle to the final lair, but as "small" as the world is when it feels good to explore and discover, it gets gigantic when all you're doing is making your way back to where you were when you died. I still can't believe the trek you have to make just to retry the final boss of this game; as someone who loves to play games "as intended" and tries to avoid the major conveniences of emulation like save states, I can't fathom playing the final stretch of Dragon Quest without those conveniences. That is, in fact, the moment I decided to start using them, so I could simply retry the boss immediately. The expectation, I guess, is that you'll just grind and grind some more, and I think there can be something satisfying about grinding even when the combat isn't super involved, but it's not that satisfying when it's a set-in-stone requirement.
And yet I still have surprisingly positive things to say after reaching the conclusion. It's often fun to work out what you need to do next, where items are hidden in the world, and so on. Those little moments of hearing information and jotting it down for later can make the world feel rewarding in ways that too few games understand. And there's enough personality in the enemy set, as limited as it is on the NES, that you can see the charm that would ultimately capture decades of attention.
Now, of course that goes out the window the second you have to deal with any sort of experience check, and my god it's never been worse to me than it is here with the final boss. I didn't time the walk from the starting castle to the final lair, but as "small" as the world is when it feels good to explore and discover, it gets gigantic when all you're doing is making your way back to where you were when you died. I still can't believe the trek you have to make just to retry the final boss of this game; as someone who loves to play games "as intended" and tries to avoid the major conveniences of emulation like save states, I can't fathom playing the final stretch of Dragon Quest without those conveniences. That is, in fact, the moment I decided to start using them, so I could simply retry the boss immediately. The expectation, I guess, is that you'll just grind and grind some more, and I think there can be something satisfying about grinding even when the combat isn't super involved, but it's not that satisfying when it's a set-in-stone requirement.
And yet I still have surprisingly positive things to say after reaching the conclusion. It's often fun to work out what you need to do next, where items are hidden in the world, and so on. Those little moments of hearing information and jotting it down for later can make the world feel rewarding in ways that too few games understand. And there's enough personality in the enemy set, as limited as it is on the NES, that you can see the charm that would ultimately capture decades of attention.