Video Game Blog 005: Fifth Time's the Charm!

Welcome to my year-end wrap up of video game posts. This is a way of me working through my backlog of planned posts to clear my slate for the coming year. My intention with this section of The SoraRabbit Hole was to throw out a brief post talking about what I’m playing currently and to do this throughout the year. Unfortunately this year didn’t work out that way. I got bogged down and hit a bit of a slump, so here I am playing catch up. Oh well. Next year will be better.

One of the games I rediscovered this year was Dragon Quest V. This was because I watched the movie from 2019, Dragon Quest: Your Story. Also, Cocoashade got me into Dragon Quest Tact on mobile. Both of these reminded me of how much I love Dragon Quest and the fact that I never got around to finishing Dragon Quest V.

Pankraz is a straight-up badass. (Credit: Square Enix)

Dragon Quest may not be as well-known and full of rabid fans with vehement opinions as Final Fantasy, but it has a healthy and devoted following all the same. Since this is just one of my short video game posts I won’t go in depth about the franchise, but I will say I’ve been slowly playing through the series for years now. As with many games where it really doesn’t matter, I’ve been playing in sequential order… except for DQ8. When that came out I hadn’t (and still haven’t) played 6 and 7 or finished 5. But it was one of those rare games I purchased new, so I felt obligated to jump right into it. (Just to reiterate, playing in sequential order really doesn’t matter to anyone but me. These games do not continue off each other and most of them actually take place in different worlds from each other, as is the case with Final Fantasy.)

I remember playing the first game in the series back on the original NES, although I didn’t finish it until much later. I played through the first four, but got stuck when it came to part 5. This is something I hope to finally rectify with this playthrough.

No Whacka, hit the slimes with your comically oversized hammer. (Credit: Square Enix)

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was released in 1992 exclusively in Japan. Although the first three installments were fairly successful in America, the 4th through 6th were not released overseas until many years later. This was due to programming issues— I’m thinking differences in the Super Nintendo as compared to Japan’s Super Famicon. In 2009 DQ5 finally got an official North America release. (Before that fans had to rely on ROMs and fan subs.) I am currently playing through it on my iPad, as they released ports of Part 5 and 6 for mobile. (I have Part 7 on 3DS so I won’t have to worry about hunting for an old expensive disc and playing it on my PS2. What an age we live in!)

The game is very ambitious in scope, especially considering when it came out. It takes place over roughly 30 years of the main character’s life, beginning with a cut scene of his birth. The hero goes through several phases as you play, from childhood, to teenager, to adult. (All with the same stylish purple cloak and turban.) The game has interesting mechanics, such as allowing you to choose a romantic partner and recruiting enemy monsters to your team after defeating them. (Sounds an awful lot like a certain monster-recruiting game you may have heard of that appeared 4 years later…) In the version I have there are 71 possible monsters to recruit. Recruiting monsters became a staple of Dragon Quest after this game, even spawning the spin-off series Dragon Quest Monsters. In addition to monsters, the hero has friends (and his potential romantic partners) who can join his party. Later in the game, the party can be rounded out by the hero’s children, a boy and a girl.

There was also a night and day mechanic, which was pretty novel at the time and first appeared in DQ3. As with the earlier games, as you play time would pass and day would turn to night, changing events in towns. (For instance you can only buy your wagon at night because that’s when the shop is open.) It takes 120 steps on the overworld to fully change from day to night.

Questionable situation for a child.. (Credit: Square Enix)

In brief, the story involves the hero searching for his mother and the legendary hero that will save the world from a great evil. He carries on this quest from his father Pankraz, who sacrifices himself early in the story to save his son. (If Pankraz hasn’t died, the game would be way too easy. Pankraz is way OP and one-shots monsters.) After this the hero is captured and forced to toil as a slave for an evil cult with his friend Prince Harry until he escapes and continues his quest. From that point the game opens up and you can begin recruiting monsters reconnecting with your childhood friend, and finding clues about your mother and the legendary hero.

Sorry Monty, could you repeat that? I was distracted by your bunny girl assistant. (Credit: Square Enix)

Upsides: The game has a sprawling story, colorful characters, and a huge variety of monsters to add to your party. The monsters have auto generated names, can level up, and gain equipment and weapons, making them feel more like proper party members. Following the main character throughout the stages of his life, getting to choose the woman he marries, and see his children become heroes in their own right all makes the game feel more personal and helps you to get invested in the story.

Downsides: There is a lot of grinding in this game. It takes forever to level up and everything costs so much gold. It is not a fast game if you want to grow your characters properly. There is a casino, which many RPGs of the time had in order to get powerful weapons or items. I do not like casino mechanics in games, as it stalls the action and takes too much time.

So, yeah, it’s not perfect, but I love it anyway. I purposely left Dragon Quest V as my fifth video game post. This was not only because it’s the fifth game in the series, but also because this is my fifth attempt at completing it. So far it’s not going so well… I started off excited, but then didn’t touch it for months. I got too busy and kept getting distracted. But I plan to focus solely on it after finishing Pokemon Omega Ruby.

If I love this game so much, why haven’t I finished it? Well, the first time it was because my system crashed and took my save file with it. I was pretty close to the end at that point, which was frustrating, so I didn’t touch it again for a long time. The later playthroughs were abandoned simply because I got distracted and moved on to other games. Then when I go back to play I decide to start over rather than try and figure out where I left off.

Currently my playthrough is going slowly because I got too much into playing Pokemon and I was also too busy completing my holiday posts. Also it’s a little inconvenient playing on my iPad. You have to go into a town to save with a priest. The game only auto saves on the outer world, which means any dungeon takes a time investment I don’t always have. Plus now I’ve reached Fortuna, the big city with the casino, so I’m playing the slots again to try and get enough tokens for two Metal King Swords and a Gringham Whip. Getting these will make the next part of the game much easier, but to buy all three I need to rack up a total of 350,000 tokens. I currently have 44,300. So… yeah. It’s gonna be a while. (The game always slows down around the casino, but I prefer to get it out of the way rather than keep coming back. And the Metal King Swords are so far beyond anything I can get in this half of the game, so it’s worth the annoyance.)

After I finish with the casino, I plan to grind for gold and hunt down a Slime Knight to replace Wacka, who’s kind of worthless. (I had a great Slime Knight in my first playthrough named Jacques. He kicked ass and I used him throughout the game. At least until I got the kids. Earlier ports of this game only allowed three party members, this one has four.) After getting past these roadblocks, the rest of the game should go more quickly.

Just a boy, a prince, a slime, and their wagon. (Credit: Square Enix)

I feel as strongly about the Dragon Quest series as many do about Final Fantasy. Which I also love, don’t get me wrong. But Dragon Quest has always been one of my favorite RPG series. It’s colorful, familiar, and easy to dip in and out of. (The latter is an increasingly important quality for me as my life gets busier and my time for gaming becomes more limited. That’s probably why I’ve been binging so much Pokemon over the last couple of years.) Akira Toriyama (from Dragon Ball fame) designed the monsters and characters, and his distinctive art style is a big reason of why I enjoy the games. (The slimes in particular are iconic… they’re pretty much the mascots of the series and are usually the first monsters you encounter.)

Although I had a blast playing Dragon Quest 8, and plan on going through it again eventually, I would have to say my favorite installment so far is Part 5. It has an epic story, great characters, interesting mechanics, and overall it’s just a fun, immersive game. I look forward to finally finishing it.

I’m a big boy now! (Credit: Square Enix)

Thank you for reading my review and thoughts on Dragon Quest V. If all goes according to plan, you should get five more video game posts before the end of the year. Wish me luck!

This is the kind of content we can all appreciate. (Credit: Square Enix)