I bought Dragon Quest when I saw it advertised on Facebook. This
was not a series I had any investment in, or even many games for – one for the
Nintendo DS that I haven’t played. But I like RPGs, and within the last few
years I’ve been quite interested in the first iterations of long-running series.
This is partly because of my almost OCD-like desire to play games in sequence,
but I also find it fascinating to see the progression of games as a series: Where
the story went, what mechanics were introduced, where the games were good and
where they weren’t.
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| The box art has a certain charm... |
Dragon Quest, then, is the first in a long-running series of
what later became known as JRPGs – Japanese Role-Playing Games. As an opening
statement of intent, it does the job well enough. You play as a stranger who is
descended from the legendary hero Erdrick, who has journeyed to the land of Alefgard.
Upon arrival, you are informed that the Princess has been captured by a dragon,
and that the land has been overridden with monsters and danger from the
Dragonlord. The hero then goes on a quest to rescue the Princess, follow in his
ancestor’s footsteps, defeat the Dragonlord and bring peace to Alefgard. As
plots go, this is as basic as it gets, but in many ways that’s a positive thing
– there’s no massively contrived plotlines, no twists, no wandering around the
world trying to remember what’s going on. Here’s the dragon, here’s the
princess, here’s the Dragonlord, what are you going to do about it?
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| If you can get around the outskirts of the town without actually leaving, you'll meet the key seller... |
The gameplay is fine; it’s a top-down role-playing game that
became the standard in the mid-80s to mid-90s. It is interspersed with a random
battle system that pitches you against monsters of increasing difficulty depending
on how far you are into the game. Both are quite simple; exploration is nothing
too taxing, except for one or two of the secret areas that are necessary to discover
to get to the end of the game. As a nice touch, most of the dungeons you can
explore aren’t lit, requiring you to use torches – and later, magic – in order
to be able to see more than a few feet. Some may call this a faff, but it puts
a simple resource management mechanic into the game. The combat is turn-based
and not difficult; you attack, the monster fights back, and who ever runs out
of hit points first loses. This is for the best as Dragon Quest is very grindy
and you will be in combat a lot to be at the required level. Magic is introduced
later in the game but it’s mainly for healing; attacking spells are not
particularly helpful in any way I that I noticed. Levelling up just happens
once you’ve reached a certain number of experience points – there’s no assigning
points or anything like that.
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| This is my evidence that I have no imagination at all when it comes to naming my characters. |
It’s a basic game that does its job well – but the Switch
version has got a rather jarring art style. From what I understand, it’s a port
of a version of the game that appeared on mobile devices, and some of the graphics
are off-base. It’s rare for me to complain about graphics; I’m usually fine
with anything if the art style is consistent. But that’s not the case here. The
overworld looks like a slightly overdone Super Nintendo game. The monsters have
cutesy Kids TV look to them – faithful to their original design but reducing
their implied threat somewhat! And the fonts look like the most basic Arial font
on Microsoft Word. It doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t look bad – it just looks
wrong. And I guess it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the game. Neither does
the sound, which works well, if a little repetitive. Even the dialogue, which presumably
is a cringe-inducing American interpretation of what Olde English sounded like,
works. But with a little re-working, polish and consistency, this version of
Dragon Quest could have been so much more.
Dragon Quest is a good game, if a little grindy and lacking
in polish. I don’t feel any particular need to return to it – but I would very
much like to see where it’s going in its sequel…
Final Score: 3/5: Worth a look.
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