Dragon Quest has always existed as a blind spot in the Western critical understanding of games. It exists primarily in our cultural consciousness as “that boring RPG that Japanese people like”, as a series that is undoubtedly “good”, but also just as undoubtedly likely to spawn phrases like “it’s too slow”, “there’s too much grinding”, and “it’s not for me”. As I’ve been slowly working through the Dragon Quest series, I’ve come to the realization that Dragon Quest’s appeal lies not in spite of its slow pace - quite the opposite. Dragon Quest is beloved for its slowness and perceived anachronisms. Yuji Horii, in Dragon Quest, has created the most accessible game franchise of all time, one where time invested is always rewarded with progress, as a game series without a fail state. Players who have never played a video game in their life are as equipped to complete a Dragon Quest title as a seasoned series veteran. Combine that with Horii’s intuitive understanding of immersive narrative design, Toriyama’s timeless artwork and character designs, and Sugiyama’s iconic compositions, and what you get is an intensely popular cultural juggernaut, one which is as ubiquitous as it is an actual quality experience.
Before I specifically begin explaining my thoughts on Dragon Quest V, I want to outline why exactly Dragon Quest’s battles are so genius. As a Megami Tensei Freak, I personally enjoy battle systems with great amounts of nuance and strategy. Dragon Quest is very much lacking in nuance and strategy. Generally, the best strategy for every encounter you come across is selecting the FIGHT command and ensuring that your party members are all fully healed, while occasionally using stat buffing magic against tougher bosses. Before playing my first Dragon Quest, I expected the lack of combat depth to hinder my enjoyment of the franchise. Instead, what I was treated to was one of the most delightful and relaxing systems in any game I’ve ever played. For my money, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne is the gold standard of RPG battle systems. It’s fast, tactically rich, and it requires your full attention at all times. Dragon Quest battles are the exact opposite, yet they produce encounters which are (almost) just as fun, because Dragon Quest games are universally very fun to hang out in. I love listening to the battle music, I love all the animated monster sprites, I love the sound effects the various different weapons produce. Dragon Quest operates with the full understanding that at the end of the day, the most primal satisfaction which may be gained from an RPG is the simple spectacle of watching your guy’s numbers go up. Nowhere is this adept understanding more clear than in the level up tone, a composition which is more or less identical in every Dragon Quest installment, a triumphant trumpet tone bombastically harkening in new strength, bringing with it about as much dopamine as a game can realistically produce.
Those who deride Dragon Quest as being “boring” are missing the point: the games are long, but in a different way than most contemporary fifty plus hour timewaster RPGs. You’re supposed to savor these games - binging them for hours at a time is bound to lead to boredom, so playing for an hour or two at a time, taking a break, and coming back later will lead to a better experience. There’s a reason the priest gives you the choice of turning off the game every time you save. Underneath Dragon Quest’s seemingly simple systems lies a profound confidence that the adventure will hook the player, regardless of how long it takes them to finish, and a patience that no matter what, the game will always be there, regardless of how much progress one makes. There’s no flashing indicators of your next location, no quest log, no constant reminders begging you to make progress at all costs. This can be a frustrating experience - our modern conditioning tells us we need to be progressing at all times, that getting lost is a waste of time, that we need to hurry up and finish this game so we can move onto the next - Dragon Quest’s simplicity gently beckons us to chill the fuck out, to take it slow, to walk around aimlessly talking to people. (because getting lost is an intended part of the design!) When you get tired of playing, shut it off and come back later. It’s just a game, after all.
Okay, let’s talk about the actual game now. Dragon Quest V’s narrative is leaps and bounds above Dragon Quest IV’s already remarkable achievements: despite my playing the DS remakes, the jump up in quality from the Famicom to the Super Famicom is extremely noticeable in terms of scale and character depth. In my Dragon Quest IV review, I talk a lot about how Horii uses a trick of immersive narrative design to endear the many non-hero characters to the player in lieu of giving the party members specific narrative depth. This approach was largely rooted in technical limitations regarding the amount of dialogue and story each party member could realistically achieve. Dragon Quest V, as a next generation title, takes what was amazing about that style of narrative design and improves it further by dialing up the specificity and focusing in on the main character and his family. V retains IV’s massive party size through the monster capturing mechanic, a system which is a stroke of absolute genius. Through this system, the fun of being able to try out a wide array of strategies is retained while allowing the narrative to more closely follow a small amount of characters. IV’s cast feel more like ideas of people, and require a lot of imagination on the behalf of the player to characterize them, whereas V’s cast has (an admittedly not super deep) sense of emotional depth. That sense of depth is due in part to the increased role the main character plays in the narrative.
Dragon Quest V’s main character is shockingly well implemented. As somewhat of a Silent Protagonist Hater, I was pleasantly surprised by my having no qualms with the main character’s utter silence throughout the entire narrative. In Dragon Quest, the player holding the controller IS the main character. There’s no half baked attempt to characterize the main character through little dialogue boxes or otherwise non-verbal flair. In fact, Dragon Quest V does not acknowledge the player’s existence at all. There’s zero direct tutorialization: townspeople will give you gameplay tips, and the sections towards the beginning of the game where you travel with your father teach you the basics of combat and the importance of healing, but there’s never a moment when the flow of the game is broken with some dumbass message like “Combat Tips 01: When Your Hit Points (HP) Runs Low, Use A Spell Or Medicinal Herb To Heal!” Dragon Quest is able to respect the player’s intelligence so handily because the game’s systems are easily intuitable. By refusing to ever break the flow of the immersion with system to player dialogue, Dragon Quest V is able to craft a world which feels novel-esque not in terms of literary depth, but in the actual physical quality of reading. Just as novels do not provide reading or critical analysis tutorials, Dragon Quest is able to craft a world which is at once self-explanatory and engrossing.
It is a somewhat painfully obvious fact to me upon finishing Dragon Quest V that it is one of the best RPGs of all time, and would be the best RPG on the Super Famicom if Earthbound and Chrono Trigger didn’t exist. Yet and still, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound owe their entire existences to the Dragon Quest series, with Chrono Trigger being written by Yuji Horii and Earthbound essentially being a Dragon Quest game with a Shigesato Itoi paint job. As my awareness of the Dragon Quest franchise increases, I’m starting to see the series’ DNA in all sorts of preceding titles. Dark Souls, and especially Elden Ring, are Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy, despite being something of a commercial competitor to Dragon Quest, owes DQ nearly its entire existence. It’s no wonder, then, that Final Fantasy VIII, the one that’s the most like Dragon Quest, is the best Final Fantasy! Pokemon especially is Dragon Quest, like egregiously so. I’m in the process of working on a larger project relating to a Pokemon game, and I’m very excited to get into the many similarities between the two franchises - it’s given me a new sense of respect for a lot of the pre-3d era Pokemon games. Dragon Quest games are amazing, and are absolutely worth the time of even people who claim to dislike RPGs. If you come in with an open mind, I promise you that you will be completely blown away.
Before I specifically begin explaining my thoughts on Dragon Quest V, I want to outline why exactly Dragon Quest’s battles are so genius. As a Megami Tensei Freak, I personally enjoy battle systems with great amounts of nuance and strategy. Dragon Quest is very much lacking in nuance and strategy. Generally, the best strategy for every encounter you come across is selecting the FIGHT command and ensuring that your party members are all fully healed, while occasionally using stat buffing magic against tougher bosses. Before playing my first Dragon Quest, I expected the lack of combat depth to hinder my enjoyment of the franchise. Instead, what I was treated to was one of the most delightful and relaxing systems in any game I’ve ever played. For my money, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne is the gold standard of RPG battle systems. It’s fast, tactically rich, and it requires your full attention at all times. Dragon Quest battles are the exact opposite, yet they produce encounters which are (almost) just as fun, because Dragon Quest games are universally very fun to hang out in. I love listening to the battle music, I love all the animated monster sprites, I love the sound effects the various different weapons produce. Dragon Quest operates with the full understanding that at the end of the day, the most primal satisfaction which may be gained from an RPG is the simple spectacle of watching your guy’s numbers go up. Nowhere is this adept understanding more clear than in the level up tone, a composition which is more or less identical in every Dragon Quest installment, a triumphant trumpet tone bombastically harkening in new strength, bringing with it about as much dopamine as a game can realistically produce.
Those who deride Dragon Quest as being “boring” are missing the point: the games are long, but in a different way than most contemporary fifty plus hour timewaster RPGs. You’re supposed to savor these games - binging them for hours at a time is bound to lead to boredom, so playing for an hour or two at a time, taking a break, and coming back later will lead to a better experience. There’s a reason the priest gives you the choice of turning off the game every time you save. Underneath Dragon Quest’s seemingly simple systems lies a profound confidence that the adventure will hook the player, regardless of how long it takes them to finish, and a patience that no matter what, the game will always be there, regardless of how much progress one makes. There’s no flashing indicators of your next location, no quest log, no constant reminders begging you to make progress at all costs. This can be a frustrating experience - our modern conditioning tells us we need to be progressing at all times, that getting lost is a waste of time, that we need to hurry up and finish this game so we can move onto the next - Dragon Quest’s simplicity gently beckons us to chill the fuck out, to take it slow, to walk around aimlessly talking to people. (because getting lost is an intended part of the design!) When you get tired of playing, shut it off and come back later. It’s just a game, after all.
Okay, let’s talk about the actual game now. Dragon Quest V’s narrative is leaps and bounds above Dragon Quest IV’s already remarkable achievements: despite my playing the DS remakes, the jump up in quality from the Famicom to the Super Famicom is extremely noticeable in terms of scale and character depth. In my Dragon Quest IV review, I talk a lot about how Horii uses a trick of immersive narrative design to endear the many non-hero characters to the player in lieu of giving the party members specific narrative depth. This approach was largely rooted in technical limitations regarding the amount of dialogue and story each party member could realistically achieve. Dragon Quest V, as a next generation title, takes what was amazing about that style of narrative design and improves it further by dialing up the specificity and focusing in on the main character and his family. V retains IV’s massive party size through the monster capturing mechanic, a system which is a stroke of absolute genius. Through this system, the fun of being able to try out a wide array of strategies is retained while allowing the narrative to more closely follow a small amount of characters. IV’s cast feel more like ideas of people, and require a lot of imagination on the behalf of the player to characterize them, whereas V’s cast has (an admittedly not super deep) sense of emotional depth. That sense of depth is due in part to the increased role the main character plays in the narrative.
Dragon Quest V’s main character is shockingly well implemented. As somewhat of a Silent Protagonist Hater, I was pleasantly surprised by my having no qualms with the main character’s utter silence throughout the entire narrative. In Dragon Quest, the player holding the controller IS the main character. There’s no half baked attempt to characterize the main character through little dialogue boxes or otherwise non-verbal flair. In fact, Dragon Quest V does not acknowledge the player’s existence at all. There’s zero direct tutorialization: townspeople will give you gameplay tips, and the sections towards the beginning of the game where you travel with your father teach you the basics of combat and the importance of healing, but there’s never a moment when the flow of the game is broken with some dumbass message like “Combat Tips 01: When Your Hit Points (HP) Runs Low, Use A Spell Or Medicinal Herb To Heal!” Dragon Quest is able to respect the player’s intelligence so handily because the game’s systems are easily intuitable. By refusing to ever break the flow of the immersion with system to player dialogue, Dragon Quest V is able to craft a world which feels novel-esque not in terms of literary depth, but in the actual physical quality of reading. Just as novels do not provide reading or critical analysis tutorials, Dragon Quest is able to craft a world which is at once self-explanatory and engrossing.
It is a somewhat painfully obvious fact to me upon finishing Dragon Quest V that it is one of the best RPGs of all time, and would be the best RPG on the Super Famicom if Earthbound and Chrono Trigger didn’t exist. Yet and still, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound owe their entire existences to the Dragon Quest series, with Chrono Trigger being written by Yuji Horii and Earthbound essentially being a Dragon Quest game with a Shigesato Itoi paint job. As my awareness of the Dragon Quest franchise increases, I’m starting to see the series’ DNA in all sorts of preceding titles. Dark Souls, and especially Elden Ring, are Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy, despite being something of a commercial competitor to Dragon Quest, owes DQ nearly its entire existence. It’s no wonder, then, that Final Fantasy VIII, the one that’s the most like Dragon Quest, is the best Final Fantasy! Pokemon especially is Dragon Quest, like egregiously so. I’m in the process of working on a larger project relating to a Pokemon game, and I’m very excited to get into the many similarities between the two franchises - it’s given me a new sense of respect for a lot of the pre-3d era Pokemon games. Dragon Quest games are amazing, and are absolutely worth the time of even people who claim to dislike RPGs. If you come in with an open mind, I promise you that you will be completely blown away.