Originally released in 1992, and having already seen a 3D remake on the PlayStation 2, it is this most recent remake - at the time of the 1001 list - of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride that should grab our attention.
A blend of 3D environments and 2D sprite work, along with a few more additions and enhancements to the game itself, this version of Dragon Quest V should serve fans and newcomers well. Does it?
Fun Times
I'm emulating this one, and it doesn't take too long to notice that Dragon Quest V looks pretty darn good here, evoking the old-school look and feel of RPGs of the past, but packing in an almost ridiculous amount of detail into its dual screens.
The crisp and zippy text informs us that we've just been born. Huzzah! The scene fades to black and when it reappears, we're definitely not in a castle any more and are being told that we've had that dream again. Oh well. At least we get a ship to explore.
And what a ship she is. At the press of a shoulder button, the view rotates, and not in set increments to make things easy for the game to keep track of, but in all 360 degrees. If you want to play at a skewed angle, go ahead. Dragon Quest V and the Nintendo DS can more than accommodate your decision and carries on running like it's no big thing.
Maybe that means I'm unaware of how good the Nintendo DS actually is under the hood, then...
Anyway, we've a chance to stretch our legs, snoop around in cupboards, smash open barrels and chat to the sailors until we trigger the next step of the story.
It's not amazingly cinematic, but we have just got a sweeping view of a 3D ship departing to destinations unknown in what has always been a 2D RPG, except when it was remade into a 3D one before it was remade again into this hybrid of the two.
I've not seen either of the previous versions of Dragon Quest V, but this seems to be doing well in terms of impressing me. The story so far, not so much. It seems to be a slow burn, and I'm itching for the fuse to be lit in the first place.
One single step later...
Do I look rather young in that profile picture? I'm not a child, am I? I don't tend to like RPGs where I'm young. A young adult I can more or less manage. I suppose Link is usually a child, but he's a capable one. This child still has baby fat on his cheeks.
Keeping us a little closer to his side, Pankraz takes us north to the village of Something Or Other. Not its real name, I'm just drawing a blank.
It is here where we meet, not for the first time, apparently, Bianca. We learn a few things from our brief encounter: She's 8, we're just 6, and neither of us can read. I guess literacy isn't high on the list of things to teach in these lands. Wherever we are.
I don't know why we're here or what we're doing, but Pankraz leaves us to ourselves once again and goes off to do his own thing. I guess we can't get up to much trouble in a village, right?
Think again, father.
Frustrations
To the north of the village is a cave, clearly the only point of interest, and the best place for us to learn how combat works, which is simple enough. Pick an action, wait for it to happen, hope you've timed it all right to not get hit before you heal yourself.
In truth, I don't know how the combat system is timed, I just pick an action that I want to perform and hope for the best. When you swing a weapon, you pick a target species, if there are multiple, and the game will then select from one of that group to deal damage to.
It appeared to always target one then the other, rather than spreading out the hits and therefore keeping more enemies around to return the compliment, but it does give off the idea that combat in Dragon Quest V is happening under the hood, and that you can only prompt it in one direction over another, rather than actively take part in it, if that makes sense.
You can equip weapons and armour, and they'll increase your relevant stats and attributes, as will herbs and trinkets and doodads, but at no point did I feel like I was swinging my weapon or using my shield. Numbers went out, numbers came in.
If too many numbers get hurled your way, this lovely guard will whip you out of the cave and heal you up a little. There's a shop in town to spend whatever money you've found or earned through combat on weapons and items, and you can find new and improved gear in treasure chests too.
Without really knowing what to do, I think I bought a stick and went back in - only this time, I made more use of the flee from combat option, because these random encounters were rather frequent.
It's a good job I did because towards the end of the cave network was a guy stuck under a rock, who happens to be the fella with the medicine that Bianca's father needs, meaning if our 6-year-old muscles can just haul this rock off this guy's legs, we can make progress with the story, which, so far as I'm concerned, still hasn't started.
We're in another town, the village of Rooohsomething, and have been set loose to explore our surroundings once again. I guess it's good that Pankraz trusts us to be able to deal with villagers but not monsters, but has he checked this village for caves first?
Through talking with the townsfolk, we learn that something strange is happening in Uptaten Towers to the north. Talk of ghosts has swept through the village, and these kids, who are basically abusing this cat for no reason, have challenged us to defeat them, so I guess we've got our first quest.
In the dead of night, Bianca wakes us up and we head out to find these ghosts, all while our father is definitely, honestly, asleep. Ignore his open eyes.
I know my destination is north, but I was expecting north for a few steps before the spooky house on the outskirts of the village comes into view, but there is nothing of the sort here. Uptaten Towers are nowhere to be seen unless I explore north, through hills and forests, dodging or defending ourselves against the monsters of the night.
We've a combined age of 14, remember...
I'm clearly not prepared for these fights. I used too many healing herbs in the caves, didn't replenish my stocks by rummaging through barrels and cupboards or going to the shops, and don't really know the first thing about fighting effectively, though I do have an excuse for that: being 6 years old.
Bianca drags me back to the village. I guess we haven't saved that cat from more abusive children.
So get to it I do - by immediately going to bed, getting woken up by Bianca, sneaking out past Pankraz's open eyes and doing it all over again.
You'll note a few things. Did I spend the day regaining strength, buying and selling equipment? Do I even know where these bloody towers are supposed to be?
With no preparation once more, I set out in the wrong direction, got into too many fights that I couldn't flee from, got Bianca killed, got myself killed, and got brought back to life in a church.
Final Word
At that point, about an hour in, I was a little bit fed up with Dragon Quest V. What had looked quite promising hadn't really gone anywhere. Partly through me being largely inept, but partly through the story just not having been kicked off.
There are other games whose story takes a literal age to get going. Persona, for example. But Persona is captivating. Dragon Quest V is old. It does things how they did things in 1992. Even if it has bells and whistles now, it's still rooted in old-school.
However. There is an awful lot of Dragon Quest V that I've not seen, and may well not get to see first hand for reasons I'll get to, but they are quite important things to note.
Firstly, we're not a kid for the whole game. We'll actually get to grow up, decide who to marry, and have a family of our own before the story even comes close to finishing. That's ambitious for 1992, no? But it's not all.
Eventually, there will come a point where you can recruit monsters in the middle of combat to join your party. Not just here and there, but any of some ridiculous number of monsters can be brought in and levelled up to make your life easier and, I guess, more personal to you. It is Pokémon before Pokémon, and the Nintendo DS remake ups your party size to four, from three, giving you even more possibilities in showing them off.
The family feature doesn't really appeal to me, but that monster stuff does... Or it would if the monsters weren't so weird, or generic, or soulless. I mean, many Pokémon fit that bill these days, but I hope you get the point. As great an idea as this is, it seems like it'd be hard to fall in love with a vicious rabbit with a unicorn horn.
I guess I will have to play Dragon Quest V some more, and properly, to get a better idea of how this monster stuff works, and where my family fit into things, but to do that, I'd have to be interested in the story, and I've no idea what that story even is.
I've not even gotten hints as to what it is about yet. We're clearly going to save the world, but how, and from what? A dragon? Am I excited to find out? Not at all, unless it is a dragon, I guess.
Long story short, Dragon Quest V has some interesting elements that I ought to take a look at, but even with a fancy remake or two, I'm not feeling it. I'm not in the mood to try. Dragon Quest VIII had more success in convincing me this series had something to look out for, but then I pretty much immediately died when given control, so was put off from playing.
Somehow, this post will get an update. Will I have played more of Dragon Quest V or just watched it? Answer me that, future me.
Fun Facts
An additional love interest, Debora Briscoletti, was added to the Nintendo DS remake. She was designed with the intention that nobody in their right mind would choose to marry her. Anyone want to take on that challenge?
Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, developed by Chunsoft, ArtePiazza, first released in 1992.
Version played: Nintendo DS, 2009, via emulation.