KENTA

So as I alluded to in the earlier post, I have never completed the Zenithian Trilogy. 4 being an NES game, it was always the odd man out in my RPG gaming. I started with V and quickly moved to 6, enjoying what they were as a kid. I assumed that 4 was bad because it was old, and 5 and 6 were great because they were SNES master race. With the DS remakes I really got to experience all three for what they are and what I found was surprising.

Dragon Quest 4: Chapters of the Chosen is so very different from every Dragon Quest. It was the first one where you were chosen but few people really knew it. It was the first one where the side characters had fleshed out stories. It was the first one where you could interchange your party members. And it's the only one to have the Chapter system. The Chapter system works wonders for this game. It lets you dip your feet into the waters of DQ4's difficulty without blowing you apart. It gives you different scenarios while tying them all together fairly neatly. You get this sense of foreboding the entire time until you finally get to control the Hero. I won't lie to you and say DQ4 is perfect. The characters aren't very deep. The world isn't extremely memorable. The villain is cliche. But it amazed me with what it was. It was charming. It was well built. It was fun. With how the spells and skills were divvied up it wanted you to cycle your characters, and it rewarded you for doing so. I ended up clearing the final boss in the very low 30's because of judicious item use and swapping out. I was rewarded for being smart and learning patterns. This was really the case the entire way through the game. Some bosses were very hard, but none were ever a "grind it out" road block. I never felt I was being stopped by the almighty number generator, only my lack of creativity and knowledge. By the time I beat Psaro's final form(that entire fight was an absolutely wild ride that I won't forget) I had a sense of accomplishment that very few RPG's give me. The final boss is usually a pushover and the beginning of the game is the hardest. Because of its story structure DQ4 was able to crescendo to an absolutely epic conclusion. I'm rambling. That's how much I love this game and what it gave me. Go play it if you haven't.

Dragon Quest 5: The one with the Waifus. I liked this game as a kid a lot. It was very charming. I love this game as an adult. It's full of feels. It has mother feels, father feels, husband feels, wife feels, son feels, daughter feels, friend feels, slave feels, random fucking stranger feels, ALL THE FEELS. The introduction of talking to your party members takes a rather bland outfit and transforms it magnificently. The hardships the Hero goes through are amplified when you talk to your(few and far between) human party members. You go back to where you were born and you're touched because of how your otherwise dry and stoic character reacts(while never saying a word). You can see the transformation of your wife(unless you pick the wrong one) into a new person thanks to your relationship. There's a wonderful moment that you don't even realize is heartbreaking until near the end of the game. This is to say nothing of the battle system, which takes a fun step forward with monster recruiting. Because of the recruiting aspect your teams can be wildly different every play through. This was actually the first game I ever recruited a metal slime, and it made an otherwise difficult game a relative cakewalk. But, at the same time, I never recruited a healing monster so it was a different kind of cat and mouse than I'm used to. The postgame content is lacking, but you shouldn't care. You should care about the end game and how you got there. Because it's amazing.

Dragon Quest 6: Fuck this game. Fuck everything about it. Fuck the lame characters. Fuck the complete lack of structure. Fuck needing a guide to do anything. Fuck the grinding it forces down your throat. Fuck rather mediocre class system. Fuck the character designs. Just fuck everything about this game. I remember liking it as a kid for all the stuff you could do, but as an Adult I realize you can't do fucking anything. You still have to do everything on a predetermined path, it just feels like you're free to do what you like because there's no connection between anything you do. In earlier dragon quests you're given a clear goal from the start and it evolves as you go. In dragon quest 1 and 2 it's "kill this particular demon". You do it, it's great. They're both fairly vague about how you do this, but if you ask around you can find out. 3 is find your father. You're lead from A to B fairly well and you shouldn't need a guide too often if at all. 4 has various quests, but it all comes down to "Kill the Demon Lord". And you do. And it's great. 5 is "Find your mother". And you try. And it's heartbreaking. Then there's 6. You go to X Castle and talk to the king of said castle. They will all literally say "SO YOU'RE ON A QUEST TO KILL MONSTERS EH?! I HAVE A MONSTER FOR YOU TO KILL!" and it's fucking awful. I hope for my sake 7 isn't as garbage as this, where you literally have to go to the in game guide for everything. Rough guess says it isn't. It can't be.



Can it?