Dragon Quest VI first impressions
Oct. 13th, 2016 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tetsuro_hoshino999Even though I haven't finished playing Dragon Quest II and V yet, I tried to play some of Dragon Quest VI. A bit of it was because I'm both grinding for V and II but another reason was because of curiosity. Dragon Quest VI is often seen as the black sheep of the series, despite having of vocation system which in theory seems like an logical progression for the series. After playing it for sometime(I've got Milly/Muriel in my team), I got some good and some negative things to say about the game thus far. Off course since I'm not finished with this game my opinions can change. I can't really talk about vocations either since I'm not in that part in the game yet.
Pros:
I really love the graphics so far. The sprite work for the towns, the over world and battles look so detail. The Sprite work on the monsters do a good job of capturing Toriyama's art style and the backgrounds during battle take the whole screen. The music is nice too. Not too much variety thus far but it's fitting and solid. The monsters also have battle animations for every move which is a nice touch.
The battle system is the same old so it's pretty balance. I really like how physical attackers can learn skills(which are similar to spells). It gives them more versatility since they are not relying on their standard attack or an item that has battle effects.
Hassan/Carver is a nice character. He's not to deep and he's reason for joining your party could of been done much better(I'll get to that later) but he's a charming character so far. I'm glad to see a return of story based character requirement(I'm pretty lukewarm towards monster requirement in V) especially that I know that spending money on there equipment or training them will be helpful in a long run.
Neutral:
Although the battle animations are nice, they do make the fights feel very slow. It makes battling feel very tedious. However, since I have Muriel who can attack multiple enemies the fights do go by a little faster. But still I would of preferred the battle animations to be animated a lot more quicker since DQ does throw you into a lot of battles.
The Wells provide a nice sense of exploration but with very little warning they can have mini bosses in them that in some cases are way too powerful to defeat in your first encounter. It makes the game feel like there unfair difficult spikes where you least expected it. Due to this kind of difficulty spike, I wish it was handled like DQ V's pots where you were more prepare for these kinds of battles because it happened in later parts in the game.
Negative:
DQ VI has some of the weakest story and characterization in the Zenithia Trilogy so far. Plot points and your character's motivates are so loosely tied to gather, it's feels like the games story is really unfocused.
Here an example on how convoluted the plot points can get: The king tells you to search for the Mirror of Ra, then you try to find the Dharma because some guy Hassan helped gave you a hint and he knows nothing about the Mirror of Ra, then you go to the Dream World find that Dharma destroy, then you go to a town and find out some drama revolving about a maid being blamed for something they didn't do, then you figure out how to be visible in the dream world, then you find out that the girl being blame ran off, then you go to a ship and go to a kingdom where the dream world version of you is a prince, the king is ill and the Prime minster is taking advantage of it.
The story of this game is going all over the place. The game has a bad habit of giving one plot, neglecting it for something else and by the time they readdressing the old plot point, you probably already forgot about it.
Dragon Quest IV and V plot points move smoothly, and the events that happened in those games feel tied together. Instead of introducing tons of scenarios at once, they focus on one problem before moving to the next one. So it's jarring to see Dragon Quest VI have such a problem with this while the last two games didn't.
Even though I like the return of story based requirement, the reasons why characters join your party are non-events so far. Hassan joins your party, uh, because? Before he joins he was basically the guy you saw in church that's attending the same contest as you. You pretty much have one exchange in the solider contest in which the dialogue was basically "may the best man win". Then before you try to get the horse for an old person carriage, he just shows up and joins you permanently because he assume you need help for catching the horse( for the game's credit, you actually do need his help). I like Hassan as a character but they should of given him a better reason to join your party.
Muriel reasons was also poorly handled. She followed you and Hassan in your quest to become visible(she doesn't participate in any of the battles though) then she just join you...because she can? I also watched spoilers for Chamoro /Nevan and his reasoning isn't very well handled too as far as I can tell. I think the only character I've heard so far that has an interesting reason to join your party is Amos but he's optional.
Maybe these characters have more in-depth reasons to join but the developers just decided to keep it for later. But I think first impressions do matter when it comes to these things.
IV and V reasons for character's(outside of monster capturing in V) makes more sense. Even though the reasons were simple, they all make sense in the story line. Even when the character's motivations summed up by just a few sentences, it was enough to drive the point.
Cristo is an example of this as his dialogue when the player first meet him is enough to tell the player why he joins Alena on her quest.
http://66.media.tumblr.com/68703617be5ed0db3e43570ba46536af/tumblr_o9jft4VMEz1qkhirao1_540.png
http://66.media.tumblr.com/dfa97880f5e7fb8ce7aaa1baa9895b64/tumblr_o9jft4VMEz1qkhirao2_r1_540.png
It basically tells you that Cristo has a history with Brey and Alena(I mean why would Brey tell him about Alena's attempt to adventure out on her own if he didn't know them) and he care about Alena's safety. The fact that Cristo implies that he would be depressed if she get's hurt really badly/dies suggest that Cristo's reasons are more personal/emotional than just being assign to be her bodyguard and trying to fulfill that role because he's told to.
Maybe if they say something that implies that going on this journey with you is important to them, maybe having only a couple sentence won't be so bad. It's how you use your words, not how much words there are.
Overall, DQ VI so far isn't bad game but so far it's story hasn't made much of an impression on me and it doesn't seem like it improves the series that much thus far. I'm hoping that the story would improve later on. I'm more gameplay driven than story driven when it comes to games, but I think this is pretty sloppy for DQ standards. Even if it doesn't improve in the story department, I hoping that vocations would make up for it.
Pros:
I really love the graphics so far. The sprite work for the towns, the over world and battles look so detail. The Sprite work on the monsters do a good job of capturing Toriyama's art style and the backgrounds during battle take the whole screen. The music is nice too. Not too much variety thus far but it's fitting and solid. The monsters also have battle animations for every move which is a nice touch.
The battle system is the same old so it's pretty balance. I really like how physical attackers can learn skills(which are similar to spells). It gives them more versatility since they are not relying on their standard attack or an item that has battle effects.
Hassan/Carver is a nice character. He's not to deep and he's reason for joining your party could of been done much better(I'll get to that later) but he's a charming character so far. I'm glad to see a return of story based character requirement(I'm pretty lukewarm towards monster requirement in V) especially that I know that spending money on there equipment or training them will be helpful in a long run.
Neutral:
Although the battle animations are nice, they do make the fights feel very slow. It makes battling feel very tedious. However, since I have Muriel who can attack multiple enemies the fights do go by a little faster. But still I would of preferred the battle animations to be animated a lot more quicker since DQ does throw you into a lot of battles.
The Wells provide a nice sense of exploration but with very little warning they can have mini bosses in them that in some cases are way too powerful to defeat in your first encounter. It makes the game feel like there unfair difficult spikes where you least expected it. Due to this kind of difficulty spike, I wish it was handled like DQ V's pots where you were more prepare for these kinds of battles because it happened in later parts in the game.
Negative:
DQ VI has some of the weakest story and characterization in the Zenithia Trilogy so far. Plot points and your character's motivates are so loosely tied to gather, it's feels like the games story is really unfocused.
Here an example on how convoluted the plot points can get: The king tells you to search for the Mirror of Ra, then you try to find the Dharma because some guy Hassan helped gave you a hint and he knows nothing about the Mirror of Ra, then you go to the Dream World find that Dharma destroy, then you go to a town and find out some drama revolving about a maid being blamed for something they didn't do, then you figure out how to be visible in the dream world, then you find out that the girl being blame ran off, then you go to a ship and go to a kingdom where the dream world version of you is a prince, the king is ill and the Prime minster is taking advantage of it.
The story of this game is going all over the place. The game has a bad habit of giving one plot, neglecting it for something else and by the time they readdressing the old plot point, you probably already forgot about it.
Dragon Quest IV and V plot points move smoothly, and the events that happened in those games feel tied together. Instead of introducing tons of scenarios at once, they focus on one problem before moving to the next one. So it's jarring to see Dragon Quest VI have such a problem with this while the last two games didn't.
Even though I like the return of story based requirement, the reasons why characters join your party are non-events so far. Hassan joins your party, uh, because? Before he joins he was basically the guy you saw in church that's attending the same contest as you. You pretty much have one exchange in the solider contest in which the dialogue was basically "may the best man win". Then before you try to get the horse for an old person carriage, he just shows up and joins you permanently because he assume you need help for catching the horse( for the game's credit, you actually do need his help). I like Hassan as a character but they should of given him a better reason to join your party.
Muriel reasons was also poorly handled. She followed you and Hassan in your quest to become visible(she doesn't participate in any of the battles though) then she just join you...because she can? I also watched spoilers for Chamoro /Nevan and his reasoning isn't very well handled too as far as I can tell. I think the only character I've heard so far that has an interesting reason to join your party is Amos but he's optional.
Maybe these characters have more in-depth reasons to join but the developers just decided to keep it for later. But I think first impressions do matter when it comes to these things.
IV and V reasons for character's(outside of monster capturing in V) makes more sense. Even though the reasons were simple, they all make sense in the story line. Even when the character's motivations summed up by just a few sentences, it was enough to drive the point.
Cristo is an example of this as his dialogue when the player first meet him is enough to tell the player why he joins Alena on her quest.
http://66.media.tumblr.com/68703617be5ed0db3e43570ba46536af/tumblr_o9jft4VMEz1qkhirao1_540.png
http://66.media.tumblr.com/dfa97880f5e7fb8ce7aaa1baa9895b64/tumblr_o9jft4VMEz1qkhirao2_r1_540.png
It basically tells you that Cristo has a history with Brey and Alena(I mean why would Brey tell him about Alena's attempt to adventure out on her own if he didn't know them) and he care about Alena's safety. The fact that Cristo implies that he would be depressed if she get's hurt really badly/dies suggest that Cristo's reasons are more personal/emotional than just being assign to be her bodyguard and trying to fulfill that role because he's told to.
Maybe if they say something that implies that going on this journey with you is important to them, maybe having only a couple sentence won't be so bad. It's how you use your words, not how much words there are.
Overall, DQ VI so far isn't bad game but so far it's story hasn't made much of an impression on me and it doesn't seem like it improves the series that much thus far. I'm hoping that the story would improve later on. I'm more gameplay driven than story driven when it comes to games, but I think this is pretty sloppy for DQ standards. Even if it doesn't improve in the story department, I hoping that vocations would make up for it.
