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Discussions of faith always seem to make people uncomfortable, as most participants in such discussions are involuntarily thrust into the situation. “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute about Jesus?” Not all of them are religious, like the always awkward “Why don’t you have any faith in me?” Why do you think we see so few games willing to touch such a topic unless it’s some JRPG with a world full of inhabitants who worship the “world tree?”
Amidst all of this, there’s Dragon Quest IX, a game in which themes of faith -- religious and otherwise -- pervade each hour spent playing. In fact, this strange DS role-playing game even takes the theme of faith beyond what the developers intended. For me, the game had a quite profound and unexpected effect.
Dragon Quest IX restored my faith in traditional, Japanese-developed RPGs, and the game’s focus on themes of the restoration of faith had a lot to do with that. For the first entry in this two-part series, let’s take a spoiler-free look at why Dragon Quest IX has the power to make you love JRPGs again.
For those readers who have not played Dragon Quest IX and refuse rather vehemently to consider it due to its status as a JRPG, this initial part of the discussion may seem written as a letter to you. In a way, it is. I understand your position. I slogged through hour after hour of White Knight Chronicles after agreeing to review it, and watching a recent live stream of the game nearly made me slam my pinky toe in a car door.
In fact, does this match up to your own reasons for giving up on JRPGs? “If the combat system hasn’t already bored you into a coma, the mission design surely will.” “None of the incredibly boring characters makes the journey more bearable.” “It forgets the one thing that I love so much about JRPGs: charm.”
These are all lines taken from my review of White Knight Chronicles, and they perfectly sum up why I’ve been disappointed in the vast majority of JRPGs in the last ten years. I ended up hating Final Fantasy XIII long before its conclusion for the exact reasons above. Time and again, I’ve entered into a JRPG experience only to give up after it failed to capture my attention.
In the current environment of game design, which sees Japanese developers seeming to lose faith in themselves and suggesting that they need to be more like Western developers, it’s easy to see why this is happening. These games are trying to be something that they aren’t. It’s as if Japanese developers want to appeal to an image of the Western gamer that is more twisted and deformed than the figures in a Dali painting.
Because of this, that quality of charm that I mentioned before has nearly disappeared from RPGs, Japanese or Western. Hell, did anyone smile while they played Final Fantasy XIII? Aside from the beautiful introductory cutscene and the incredible music, I found little to smile about. Frocobo (the chocobo who lives in Sazh’s afro) was cute, I guess.
Still, no one can call FFXIII a charming game. Its story has little to no personality. While its characters aren’t the worst of the recent JRPG releases, they’re not much fun to spend time with, and their struggles and problems don’t feel particularly human.
Then there’s the gameplay, which I initially thought to be a nice way to streamline a game in a genre where the gameplay feels unnecessarily overcomplicated. After about fifteen hours, those thoughts were gone. Streamlining, in this case, meant taking away everything that I enjoy about RPGs: interesting progression, exploration, and the furtherance of an epic quest.
Again, none of these problems is specific to any one game. Instead, they represent what appears to be a future design theory that is slowly killing what used to be my favorite genre. In trying to evolve and meet the demands of a changing industry, developers are leaving us with products that aren’t nearly as enjoyable as the games they made fifteen years ago.
Then there’s the Dragon Quest series, which has somehow continued to get better as the years go by. Dragon Quest VIII was one of the most traditional RPGs released during the PS2’s life, yet it was also one of the best. Somehow, without changing the formula much at all, it managed to provide a much more enjoyable journey than those games that tried to stir the pot.
Dragon Quest IX is a similar story. Its turn-based combat doesn’t have any flashy additions to the typical formula: choose your action from the menu and wait as the fighting unfolds. On paper, its story sounds pretty basic: someone wants to destroy the world, and you have to stop it. Aside from the addition of multiplayer, the game sounds like it does nothing new at all. And, really, it doesn’t.
Instead, it just does everything well, which seems to be the major element missing in all of these evolutionary JRPGs that can’t seem to get anything right. There’s no value in doing something new if it isn’t any good. New does not automatically equate to good, and old does not automatically equate to bad. It’s the adherence to this philosophy that allowed Dragon Quest IX to restore my faith in the genre.
There are a lot of specific things that the game does to achieve this, and perhaps the most important simple thing is that elusive element: charm. Our own Jim Sterling said in his review of the game that it “exudes charm from every pore and reintroduces the concept of giddy excitement in games with each new step taken.” Indeed, this is one hell of a charming game, just as the series always has been. It isn’t afraid to keep those elements that make it this way, including the ridiculously named monsters like the “Meowgician” and the “Raving lunatick.” Games nowadays are terrified of being silly. Dragon Quest IX is not.
The charm enters into the fantastic writing as well, with even the most innocuous of characters adding to the world in some pretty hilarious ways. For instance, all over the world players find churches at which to “confess” and save their progress. Most priests are typical priestly sorts, who save your progress in a very proper manner and bless you before you’re sent on your merry way.
However, one of these priests in a random town just happens to be a total bro. Approach his altar and hear his holy words such as “Yo! Man, I am choked up! My eyes are filled with water. The words of the Almighty have spread far across the plains. Word! Perhaps you will open your ears to His words too. For sure they will help you in the sweet times and the wack.” Word, indeed.
It’s stupid, but it’s the most charming kind of stupid. You can’t help but smile as you come across this dude and hear his most righteous rap, and he’s just some copy-paste priest character model hanging out in a cave! Things like this make for a rich world that is far more fun to inhabit for the often extended running time on an RPG.
And while the game eventually tells the story of a group of adventurers saving the world, its initial adventures are far more rich and original. You play as a Celestrian—essentially a guardian angel—who can travel to the world below and perform good deeds for people, though they cannot see or interact with you at all. It’s actually a very startling beginning; RPGs always put us right in the spotlight, but the first time you help someone in DQIX, half of the people don’t even believe it.
As you travel and continue to help the world’s populace, you’ll come across some pretty amazing situations involving incredibly rich and original characters, and their stories are actually far more human and emotional than you’ll find in the typical overwrought RPG story. You won’t find every other character crying for stupid reasons in this game. The emotion is left up to the situations themselves and the player’s understanding of them.
The game is initially set up as a series of short stories that the player participates in—you’re not actually aware of the overarching “save the world” plot until late into the game. For instance, there’s a quest near the middle of the game to assist a town that has been ravaged by a terrible sickness. A man’s daughter has fallen ill, and the man has locked himself away in order to find the cure. I won’t spoil it here, but it doesn’t exactly turn out like most RPG quests do. Other quests involve finding a man who has recreated an entire town in stone and a woman whose unique powers allow her to control a monster fish, compelling it to provide the townspeople with food.
The point here is that you’ll actually get invested in each town and each set of characters you come across. Even in this very traditional RPG, quests are set up so that you don’t feel like you’re doing the same useless tasks over and over again that have some loose, unstated connection to “helping.” Your voiceless character and your three voiceless companions enter into these stories and leave as quickly as you came, but the effects are lasting not only for the town and its inhabitants but also for you as a player.
What Dragon Quest IX really proves to me is that a game can achieve a sense of JRPG whimsy and tell rich stories at the same time without resorting to a bunch of melodramatic blubbering. That sentence there really sums up why Dragon Quest IX gives me hope that there are still people out there who love making good JRPGs the right way, capturing everything that we loved about the genre in the first place. It truly restored my faith.
It’s strangely coincidental that DQIX achieved this, since it is a game in which the theme of restoring faith is so prevalent from start to finish. I’m going to take a good look into the story of DQIX and how this theme is used in the second part of this series, so stay tuned. In the meantime, go play Dragon Quest IX or, as bro priest would say, "go forth and have your faith restored in a totally radical way, homie."
Contest:
4:00 PM on 08.14.2010
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This game is the sign that you're talking about. Yes, it's only one sign, and you could call it a small hint if you want to. But it's there, thank the gods.
@Electrium: If you've already played the game, you'll definitely get more out of part 2. Hope you enjoy it!
100-year-old man dies reading jrpg shit
even shin megami tensei phoned it in with strange journey so it's nice that dragon quest is at least dependable for a good time
also dig the new direction their writing is taking (though a lot of people are disgusted by all the puns i guess)
After all, no matter if you're a believer or not, a good story can always be told and this is definitely one of them. ;)
Despite there not being a single voiced word in the game - it's all text - and very little anime-scenes, it's still surprisingly engaging and charming. I got to love being a guardian angel and just helping the characters in the game - it just felt good and like the right thing to do. In recent Memory, I played no RPG that managed to fascinate me as much.
KAKAROT!!!!!
Good stuff Andrew.
Wow. That's just flat-out wrong. Like, 100% completely incorrect and self-absorbed in the extreme.
Hope is literally the only young teenage male in RPG history to actually be written as a young teenage male. He's by far the most realistic teenager in RPGs. Ever. Name one other teenage kid in an RPG who's written that he understands that he's weak but has nothing else to do about it but to push forward.
Snow is another good example. Name another hotheaded hero who only acts that way to cover up his own fear of failing and killing everyone who follows him. Who only goes through with the mission because he feels someone needs to. He understands his own weaknesses.
13 had some of the most human characters ever.
The fact that you say DQ9 restores your faith because it just stays lighthearted and doesn't push the story a whole lot just tells me that what you enjoy is lighthearted and quick stories to begin with. What you're looking at is that you are a casual RPG fan. It's fine. I love DQ9 and it's a fantastic game. But seriously, you're examining this in the wrong way.
No one huh? No one at all? I thought it was awesome, and you did mention Sazh, who is one of the more human characters in recent memory. A single father with a ton of depth, moving between really dark themes, comedy, and the desire to save his kid.
"let’s take a spoiler-free look at why Dragon Quest IX has the power to make you love JRPGs again."
I've liked them all along. Even if you only like simpler, old-school RPGs, the DS has had a steady stream of them for years. There really is no reason to suddenly act like DQ IX is the only good JRPG just because you haven't played the others. Hell, even if you only play DQ, they have been coming out on DS for a while now and have all been pretty great.
Ever played Persona? That has tons of charm. 4 Warriors of Light is all charm. Atlus pumps out a steady stream of charm on PSP and DS. Furthermore, Lost Odyssey and Nier are some of the best JRPGs this gen, and they are the opposite of charm, but rather are extremely mature and dark.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game. But I'm just so tired of people ripping into JRPGs every single time they are even mentioned. You can't even compliment it without spending half the story ripping into it, and even throwing in some jabs at FFXIII. Believe it or not, JRPGs are enjoyed by lots and lots of people. Just because they don't impress you doesn't mean that the entire genre is duty-bound to cater to you. You can simply move on and play something else, since there are supposedly so many other superior games.
And saying that the "problem" with JRPGs is that they change too much is laughable amnesia. The running narrative for years now has been that JRPGs are stagnant, and never ever evolve. So then a handful of them do evolve and suddenly they should be as old school as possible - the Dragon Quest series. In reality, whatever they do, people will still troll them. They just invent a new reason when it is convenient.
I too hope it restores my love of the genre in the wake of Final Fantasy XIII. It's the game currently glued to my PS3, but I cant say I'm enjoying it as much as any of the recent instalments - more slogging through the game out of a necessity to get it done. Twenty hours in and layers continue to add themselves to an already complex plot that I can't keep up with. Twists are unleashed that I don't care for because the narrative doesn't do a great job at explaining itself, and I'm still unsure of what I'm supposed to be fighting. The character development can be quite good, but the characters themselves ring hollow. Suffice to say, I look forward to getting back to a simple RPG experience!
Demon's motherfucking Souls is the jrpg game of the generation and the proof that some jdevs still have great ideas that aren't too traditional.
Skits rock!
lol, "your opinion is wrong because it isn't mine". Good job, kid.
That you claim Hope is the only teenaged male to act like a teenaged male tells me that not only have you not played very many JRPGs, but that you may have never encountered a real live teenaged male in your life.
The combat of the Dragon Quest series hasn't changed much in the past twenty years, and that's where my biggest problem lies; I just can't enjoy the fights at all. Where is the strategy? The engagement? Every battle boils down to buffing and debuffing where applicable, using the element which is most effective and then healing when necessary, and I don't think that's enough. That's simple logic; you would have to be really, really dense to not know to do those things automatically. I ask for one of two things: speed, or strategy, and Dragon Quest IX offers neither of those in its combat. There's no dynamism in combat, and that bores me.
Now, far be it for me to be FFXIII's champion, but I found it far more entertaining than DQIX. Was FFXIII flawed in a lot of ways? Undoubtedly. The too-linear level design, the paper-thin plot, etc. But one of the ways that it succeeded was its combat. In almost every fight in FFXIII, I felt like I was being engaged and challenged in some fashion. It wasn't the most cerebral of exercises, but it asked you to have swift fingers and the trade-offs different paradigms offered filled the gaps most nicely. I never got bored in FFXIII's combat, and consequently I never got bored with FFXIII. Yes, the areas are too tight for their own good, but I found that where the game lacked in interesting level design it partially made up for with beautiful areas which I could wonder to look at from time to time.
I used to love JRPGs of all forms. When I was twelve, Golden Sun was my favorite game, and I was enamored by Lufia and Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest and the like. I emulated most of the classics, of course, and frameskipped through all of the combat; once I started playing them on consoles, however, I realized how flawed I found almost the entirety of the genre. The combat is insipid, asking for about as much thought as my nine year old brother can provide (he's playing through Chrono Trigger right now and thoroughly trouncing the game), and, for me, that kills the whole experience. DQIX is just a continuation of the problem, and I really can't stand it.
The combat of the Dragon Quest series hasn't changed much in the past twenty years, and that's where my biggest problem lies; I just can't enjoy the fights at all. Where is the strategy? The engagement? Every battle boils down to buffing and debuffing where applicable, using the element which is most effective and then healing when necessary, and I don't think that's enough. That's simple logic; you would have to be really, really dense to not know to do those things automatically. I ask for one of two things: speed, or strategy, and Dragon Quest IX offers neither of those in its combat. There's no dynamism in combat, and that bores me.
Now, far be it for me to be FFXIII's champion, but I found it far more entertaining than DQIX. Was FFXIII flawed in a lot of ways? Undoubtedly. The too-linear level design, the paper-thin plot, etc. But one of the ways that it succeeded was its combat. In almost every fight in FFXIII, I felt like I was being engaged and challenged in some fashion. It wasn't the most cerebral of exercises, but it asked you to have swift fingers and the trade-offs different paradigms offered filled the gaps most nicely. I never got bored in FFXIII's combat, and consequently I never got bored with FFXIII. Yes, the areas are too tight for their own good, but I found that where the game lacked in interesting level design it partially made up for with beautiful areas which I could wonder to look at from time to time.
I used to love JRPGs of all forms. When I was twelve, Golden Sun was my favorite game, and I was enamored by Lufia and Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest and the like. I emulated most of the classics, of course, and frameskipped through all of the combat; once I started playing them on consoles, however, I realized how flawed I found almost the entirety of the genre. The combat is insipid, asking for about as much thought as my nine year old brother can provide (he's playing through Chrono Trigger right now and thoroughly trouncing the game), and, for me, that kills the whole experience. DQIX is just a continuation of the problem, and I really can't stand it.
As an addendum, though, I want to say that while I found FFXIII's core plot lacking in a million different ways, I thought its characters were amazing and endearing. Hope grew in a realistic and inspiring fashion, Sazh is probably one of three or four decent father characters in video games, and the rest of the cast just struck me as great people who I loved following. And as many issues as I have with FFXIII's design, I think it's probably my favorite game of the year, just because what it did well (characters, combat, music, art) it did so very well.
I had a great time with FFXIII, and I'm currently having a great time with DQIX. Don't take the fact that a game didn't appeal to you and construe that to mean that something is wrong with it.Thats as illogical as me taking the fact that I didn't enjoy reading The Red Badge of Courage as some kind of proof that it's a bad book. I love whimsy and charm, but every RPG doesn't have to be charming or whimsical to be great. FFVI wasn't charming, it was mostly grim and dour. Chrono Trigger was occasionally lighthearted, but it was quite serious and bleak for the majority of the story. My point is that there's more than one way to make an excellent RPG, but all those way aren't going to appeal to everyone.
No that that little rant is over, I'm off to see if I can get my gf to turn off The Tudors and play some DQIX with me.
Your characters, being all created by you, naturally have no personality, and the overarching plot is so barebones and dull that it might as well not even be there. The game in general is really easy, so you don't need to apply much strategy in fights, and despite the simplicity, it revels in grinding. There's no reason in a game that encourages you to reset your characters to level 1 in a new class, that lower leveled characters should receive less exp in fights. It just does it to make you grind longer. The alchemy system is pretty big as well, but in order to make things, you need to gather from points scattered about the world. This wouldn't be bad, except that once you gather from one, you need to wait an unspecified amount of either game time or real time (who knows) for it to respawn if you need more. With the expansion of alchemy from the previous game, they also had it take over almost all the bookshelves that in DQVIII contained interesting bits of world-building information as well.
I really wanted to like the game, as DQVIII was my favorite PS2 RPG, but lacking any of the characterization or challenge of that title, I really just couldn't get into it.
Seriously this is easily one of the best articles I've readed in this month. Unfortunately not many people has opened or tried to see the "Charm" that this game offer. Not emo characters, not pretentious stories or plots, not predestined things to do, you decide how you can make it, the player is the one who decide who challeging a game could be.
@EToaster
No challenging or customization? I've found a lot of them in this game, actually I liked the way that the game asigns the exp points, and about the jobs, each of my characters dominiates 3 jobs in this moment. For the alchemy, well the there are many ways for obtain the items tha you need for creating something and that adds challege.
This is a really charming game wich combines very well the old school elements with some new ones and it feels great.
"There’s no value in doing something new if it isn’t any good. New does not automatically equate to good, and old does not automatically equate to bad."
This was my favorite line, and I think that many game developers needs to read it. We have heard of games wich tried to do some new ideas, but in practice turns really bad. DQIX has let me use my imagination, one thing that unfortanetaly many gamers have forgotten.
Again nice Job Andrew, that was a really awesome read.
That's one of the things I like about DQ in general: it does all the things JRPGs usually do, but it does them in ways that aren't obnoxious at all. The games don't have this need to be melodramatic about every single thing; the series is unfailingly modest and kind to the player. It reminds me of that Patton Oswalt routine about the old Black Angus ads versus the new Black Angus ads. DQ is not and has never been up its own ass, and that's what makes it great.
One thing I was thinking about recently: part of what I love about DQ is the simplicity of the combat. One thing that's gotten to be more and more of a problem with JRPGs in recent years is the proliferation of confusing "systems" with nonsensical Engrishy names like the "Critical Synergy System" or the "Murder Break Time System" or whatever. And they're shit, frankly. They're almost always a ridiculously convoluted hindrance to enjoyment. When you're fighting a tough enemy, the last thing you need is for, say, the Emerald Muster System to decide that you can't use swords for five rounds or something because of some arbitrary under-the-hood stat calculation. Even the best of these systems are often exhausting, because sometimes you just wanna press A until the fight's over.
In DQ, you do not have to give a solitary fuck about the combat system if you don't want to. If you want to just choose the Attack command for every party member until you're level thirty, you absolutely can. You'll lose half your gold a bunch of times, but you can totally do it. Conversely, if you're a total stat-wonk, there's actually a lot of depth to the combat. It's just never shoved in your face. The Tension System, for example, is a brilliant system not just because it's immediately clear what it is and how it works, but because you don't have to pay attention to it at all if you don't want to. You can just watch your party lay down the smack. The game doesn't punish you for not engaging with its mechanics, and it only rewards you for engaging with said mechanics. You know?
I would also like to point out to the other commenters that "mature" and "dark" are not necessarily the same thing, and that some of us actually like the combat in DQIX because it doesn't make any ridiculous demands of us or force us into any one strategy like other JRPGs do. I like complexity - I'm playing and loving STALKER right now, and I absolutely adore roguelikes. What I don't like is feeling like I'm being fucked with for not playing by a set of rules that I know nothing about. I don't like being forced to waste time because some asshole developers wanted to stretch their game out a little. If I want to waste time grinding until I get my Miracle Sword in DQIX, that's my choice; the game is not forcing me to do that.
For anyone not sure about getting DQIX, let me make this easy for you: the game is an unpretentious and charming version of Oblivion with better combat and writing and it's portable and BUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ITTTTTTTTTTT! :D
I love it!
DQIX is worth every penny. Seriously.
People just like to pigeonhole JRPGs into a narrow definition so that they can continue to criticize it. I've never understood it personally, considering that WRPGs only consist of about 2-3 games right now: Morrowind clones, Diablo clones and KOTOR clones.
i thought that stuff sounds interesting, i wish we had a chance to have it flourish like it did in Japan, where everyone has a DS/PSP and strangers are doing random multiplayer all the time. "monster hunter quest?? its 30 minutes till i have to get off this train!" thats awesome
So i read a developer quote that they wanted this game to be more attractive to Western gamers, hence the fallen angel story. it was aite...i dont think i related more than other RPG storylines...
To simply brush FFXIII off by saying no one can call it a charming game is quite disheartening and not to be insulting but slightly ignorant. i loved it to bits and pieces, and it was quite charming. because people knew it was going to be linear they spent 90% of the game whining that they'd be walking down halls, when in actuality that's all you do in RPG's whether the halls are overly complex and filled with unnecessary battles, or visible enemies, have puzzles or are straight forward.
while it did have minor flaws what it did well it did brilliantly.
One of its flaws were not it being linear every final fantasy is linear aside from 12 and x-2 and every game ever is linear if you actually want to finish it as it was designed, this one did "linear" for a few hours longer than average, nor its plot. In this game more than any of the previous entries its VITAL you actually go into the in game dictionary and such to unravel somethings for yourself, its not really served to you(every detail of the plot)
i think we need that everyone who has an opinion on the game should state whether they went in expecting a typical final fantasy or were open to playing something entirely different not looking at the name final fantasy and coming up with some expectation to be met.
And to say that DQ 9 restored you're faith in JRPGS means that you only want the classic. that leaves no room and no mobility.
everyone would have bitched to no end had FFXII been XII but shinier, but DQ typically follows a formula that why it has a following.
I dont have a DS so i can't jump into praise this. but DQ's aren't all that drastically different, nor are they that great to me.
DQ8 while it had mild charm was too easily outclassed by even my least favorite ps2 rpg FFXII.
The complaints of melodrama? Sometimes it's necessary. Some of the complaints i read are essentially that modern RPG's are trying to hard to engross you, i on the other hand feel it's necessary.
i don't want to mash A during battles, i don't want to battle for 2 hours to go up level and not necessarily learn a new skill to make it fun. I want to feel threatened every time i see a new enemy, i want to feel what the characters feel, i want an engrossing story that doesn't necessarily need to be realistic.
i want drama.
Im just really bothered by you saying 'this game does everything right" followed by "current Rpgs get nothing right"
The persona series alone has issues with what you're saying.
i could pick everything apart you said but i feel this is sufficient, i respect you're opinion I just felt too many of my fellow RPG lovers have this mindset and it isn't doing those of us that like new Rpg's any favors, when every game gets bashed for "not doing old school things" like having you only save at churches. I HATE THAT.
"i think we need that everyone who has an opinion on the game should state whether they went in expecting a typical final fantasy or were open to playing something entirely different not looking at the name final fantasy and coming up with some expectation to be met"
I see where you come from, but looking back over the series, I don't think there's any clearly defined form that Final Fantasy games have taken since probably VI on the SNES. Since then, they've all offered vastly different experiences per instalment, some ringing well with series fans, and others not so much. (VIII and XIII being the highlights of the latter)
For me personally, XIII is probably the first game in the series that for the most part I haven't really been enjoying: not because I was expecting some kind of enhanced template of older titles though, but because design-wise based on what it is, it just doesn't do it for me. The previous XII was very different to any other JRPG I'd played, and I absolutely adored that based on the strength of its combat system. I even like VIII, even though I'd say that the core junction system is an utterly broken tool! Back to XIII though, there's something about the format of running down the straight and narrow to the next battle/cutscene that I just find a bit dull. It certainly has its moments (like many, my favourite character is Sazh) but I wouldn't immediately recommend it to any of my RPG enjoying friends, like I would other series instalments. The plot and structure require a lot of patience to keep up with, which many people wont have. True marmite gaming.
Well that wraps up my long winded justification of the game's criticism. Sure its a bit much to say "nobody could find XIII charming," because a lot of people enjoy it, but I don't hold anything against Andrew for the phrase. I guess the main point I've made is that there are a lot of different types of RPG players, with varying degrees of what they want.
PRO TIP: Homie is not in a bro's vocabulary, guy.