Dragon Quest: The Zenithia Trilogy Review (DS)

The Dragon Quest games have always been in the shadow of other RPG’s in the West due to rarely being released outside of their homeland. Dragon Quest VIII did make it across on the PS2 and garnered enough interest for Square-Enix to consider releasing their back catalogue. From 2008 to 2011 Dragon Quest IV, V and VI were remade for the Nintendo DS. Collectively known as the ‘Zenithia Trilogy’ (The name of the castle in the sky found in each game), they were renamed as ‘The Chapters of the Chosen’, ‘The Hand of the Heavenly Bride’ and ‘Realms of Reverie’ respectively.

Each of the three games is fairly similar in terms of core mechanics. Combat is turn based with party members having the option to attack, defend, use items or flee. Four party members can be used at once with others being able to be swapped in and out to allow the player to configure different types of configuration. Combat is initiated through random encounters as your party travels around dungeons and the world map

There’s nothing particularly complex to learn and the games represent a good starting point for gamers who want to get into RPG’s for the first time. They are also quite forgiving with death as players will find themselves back at the last save point they visited when they die with any experience points they have earned intact – though your gold will be halved. This means that you are never really losing any progress and if you stick at it long enough you will eventually overcome any obstacles. It’s a system that works well as it never punishes the player severely for pushing forward or exploring.

The stories of the games are based around the idea that a great evil is awakening and a nameless hero will eventually vanquish it. This involves traveling the world and finding sacred weapons and armour which allows entry to Zenithia. You will then be able to access the underworld where the evil awaits to be defeated.

There are of course differences between the games and they each have their own way of telling the tale and offer up different gimmicks to keep things interesting. ‘Chapters of the Chosen’ is split into five chapters with the player experiencing the story of different party members as they find their way to the hero. The fifth chapter then puts the group together for the final battle. An extra chapter becomes available after completion which furthers the story and allows a new character to join the party.  There is also a town building sub-game where players can persuade villagers to move to their town. However, this requires some input from other players via sharing which will be difficult now.

‘Then Hand of the Heavenly Bride’ follows the Hero through three stages of his life as he grows up. You will also pick a wife and your eventual child will also join the quest. Monsters can also be recruited to the party and players can find and display various knick-knacks that have been collected from around the world. 

‘Realms of Reverie’ changes things up a bit by giving players the ability to train their party in a wide range of different roles. It’s a similar job system to something like Final Fantasy III and alters the characters core stats and gives the unique learned abilities to them. Once a certain job has been completed more advanced vocations can be taken on which lead to some very useful tools for players to play with. Monsters can no longer be recruited at random by there are a host of slimes to be found in the world who you can talk to and get to join your party. There’s a dragon hidden away somewhere as well. There’s also a slim combat arena and fashion parade to get involved with if you so wish.

All the games contain the same visual style, shops and enemies. There is a church to save your game and resurrect party members, the inn, casino and various shops which serve the same purpose throughout the series. There are also wells which can be looked into and the mini-medals to be found which can be taken to a specific castle and exchanged for rare prizes.

Each of the games is focused on its main story and though there are things like building the town and slime arena there isn’t much out in the world in terms of real side quests. This is generally ok as each town you visit tends to be different from the last and the games move along at a pretty good pace. Each game takes around forty hours to complete and each then gives extra content like dungeons after completions for players to dive back into.

Overall, the three games in the series are pretty much all on a par in terms of their quality. They each offer up a solid adventure which has some good and bad moments as you go along. All the games are great for both newcomers and hard-core RPG fans and they all have great localisations with accents and humour coming through perfectly. If it’s a traditional RPG that you want then the three games here should offer up more than enough to keep you interested.

Overall –

Dragon Quest IV: The Chapters of the Chosen 8/10

Dragon Quest V: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride 8/10

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie 8/10

Dragon Quest: Journey of the Cursed King Review (PS2)

Dragon Quest was Enix's signature series before they merged with Squaresoft some time ago. This is the first Dragon Quest game after that merger and sticks with the theme of having funky anime style character design with a Dragon Ball Z twist to it. At the time, Dragon Quest games had never made it to the UK before - even though it rivals the Final Fantasy series in Japan for popularity - and so we were a little surprised to see this one being heavily promoted with television spots and poster and magazine adverts.

The distinct graphical style will be immediately apparent and if you're opposed to all things brightly-coloured, it may not be for you. Both the game world and the characters are 3D, but their cel-shading hides this somewhat, There is plenty of treasure to be found around corners and under shadows with the landscapes being well thought out to capitalise of the art style. In contrast, Towns all look very similar and there aren't too many locations in the game that stand out as different. Whereas Final Fantasy sends you to many locations with their own distinct look, these do not really have that charm.

The protagonist of this RPG, surprisingly, does not have spiky hair; he also never speaks throughout the game. Simply put, the hero of the piece is meant to be the player. Our unnamed Hero is a knight to the king and is helping him on his quest to return himself and his daughter back in humans (they have had a curse put on them, transforming the king into a strange Yoda look-alike and the Princess into a horse). To start with, Hero is joined by Yangus, a short, fat, straight-to-the-point cockney, who follows Hero wherever he goes... for reasons we find out later in the game.

The plot starts fairly simply, and through flashbacks you see what has brought us to this point and that our travelling band are searching for an evil Jester named Dhoulmagus. The basic premise is that our group must travel around the world looking for people who can help them in locating the said evil jester, who can then be swiftly dispatched so the King and Princess can return to normal. Later in your travels, two other companions will join you. Of course, this being an RPG, things are never exactly as they first appear.

Plot exposition and dialogue do not dominate as heavily as some may fear and Dragon Quest is not a game that will bore you to death with 30 minute cut scenes. It quickly swings into action by giving you a good hard slap in the face as soon as you try to fight anything. In battle, the initial learning curve is quite steep; though there are not too many level-up 'walls' in the game (i.e. difficulty barriers requiring extra training to pass). Unfortunately, the first one appears right at the start and you'll just have to brave the few hours needed to progress. Furthermore, whenever you die, you are returned to the nearest village with any experience points you earned still intact - meaning, if you are willing to put some time into the title, anyone can finish it.

The battle system is quite simple - you have a standard attack, a power up, magic and items. Power up uses that turn to empower your character by tensing them up with the pay off being in the next turn they can unleash this tension and send the enemy flying! Do this quite a few times and they will get super-charged and hit insanely hard. You can win quite easily by repeatedly pressing X and remembering to heal occasionally, so battles can be a bit boring. Boss battles aren't that much different either. If you get stuck, it's often more effective to just level-up than it is to try a different fighting strategy.

The customisation aspect of your characters affects what weapon they specialise in. When characters level-up, they gain points that can be spent on a specialist skill. For example, if one character specialises in swords, they will do more damage with swords, hit more often, critical hit more often and learn special sword-only abilities.

The music is absolutely mad, and we have never heard anything so happy and constantly upbeat throughout a game before. It is so ludicrously joyful, prepare to be rolling around in happy fits of laughter. There are virtually no serious tones in the game, apart from big boss battles. While you would think that being battered with tunes that make the Sound of Music look miserable would be some kind of hell, somehow it all just manages to stay on the right side of horribly cute.

In terms of longevity, Dragon Quest is a decent-sized adventure. It will probably take you forty hours for a basic run through, though the side quests will add another ten or so on top. Then, when you have completed the game, you get the option to start from the point right before you kill the last boss. Doing this unlocks a new dungeon which allows players to find out more about Hero as well as allowing you to find all the weapons you missed out on, master your weapon skills and complete the monster arena - an arena where you can capture monsters from the world and then pit them against other monsters.

Dragon Quest is good fun and a well put together game, although it seems to have a slightly mixed target audience. The team have gone to the trouble to include 'teleport' spells and spells that clear areas of monsters to stop frustrating back tracking and exploration of areas you have already visited which encourages newcomers. However, there are those level-up 'walls' where the only thing you can do is go and get experience points for a few hours in order to proceed. Luckily, these only pop up on two or three occasions and rarely spoil things. The best way to sum it up would be to say that Dragon Quest is a casual RPG for the hardcore gamer. If that sounds like you, or you've enjoyed other Dragon Quest games, then chances are you'll love it.

7/10

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime Review (DS)

 

Whatever is a hero to do? Rocket the Slime was quietly gooing about his business when the evil Plob turned up and kidnapped all the residents of Boingburg. Now it's up to Rocket to return everyone and rebuild the town. Yes, this can mean only one thing... it is going to be a very silly game.

Rocket Slime is an adventure game set in the Dragon Quest world, but is not a classic Dragon Quest-style RPG. Apart from the name and the creatures present, there is hardly anything here recognisable from the franchise with not a turn-based battle or random encounter in sight. Rocket Slime is an adventure more in the Zelda mould, but even that comparison is somewhat misleading. Indeed, what we have here is something very rare: a collection of original ideas.

The game is split into three main parts. First, there is the town, which will gradually be rebuilt as Rocket rescues Slimes. Here you can talk to people and save the game along with the usual town-based activities of buying items and upgrading equipment. Then there is the actual adventuring part; after picking a location, you will go off to bounce around and see what you can find. Any Slimes or items found must be put on rafts or carts that run through each level and take things back to the town.

 

Last but not least are the tank battles. After a level or so, Rocket will find a huge slime-shaped tank which he will need in order to fight Plob's machines of destruction. The items you send back to the town invariably end up as some form of ammunition for the tank battle which occurs in real time. Here, Rocket and his crew of three (who can be given different orders) must run around the tank picking up the ammunition that comes out of various chutes, then throw it into one of two cannons.There are lots of different types of ammo, all of which behave differently, and you can even jump into the cannon yourself to try to get inside the opposition tank in order to sabotage it. Once the enemy's tank has lost its hit points, you have to run over and try and smash through the machine's metal heart to destroy it. It is a unique battle system and one that works very well.

Rocket himself has little need to carry around items or weapons and most things he picks up are only useful as ammo for the tank. The only real exception is the slime knight who sits on Rocket's head and can be used to slash at enemies. Without one of these, Rocket must stretch himself out and then spring back like an elastic band to attack monsters. Pretty much anything can be picked up and stuck on a raft or cart; even the monsters themselves can be sent back to town where you can then go and talk to them as they run around. Once enough of one type of monster is caught, a statue of them will be built in the library.

The game is not particularly long, or difficult. Realistically, it will probably take no more than about ten hours to finish the main story and the few side quests that are available (which normally involve finding a certain amount of a particular object). Furthermore, Gamestyle did not actually die until the last level itself, and that was in a tank battle (though admittedly there where a few close calls along the way). This aside, the adventure itself is very enjoyable and each level has something unique and distinctive about it that makes them all fun to play.

What we have here is arguably the first real adventure game on the DS, and a very good one it is as well. You would expect Zelda to have a little more to it when it arrives, but everything Rocket Slime does, it does very well and is one of the most enjoyable titles to arrive for a fair few years. It comes highly recommended and everyone who wants an adventure title with some new ideas should not think twice about picking up a copy. We can only hope that later entries into the series will be as fun and original and also that the tank battle system makes its way into a full fledged Dragon Quest game at the next available opportunity.

8/10