DS GAME REVIEW
Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the ChosenSplit personality |
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Telling a single story from multiple perspectives is hardly an original narrative device. Books have been doing it for years, while the fact that it has become something of a trend in Hollywood in recent years shouldn't disguise the fact that film-makers like Robert Altman were using the technique decades ago.
And yet such smarty-pants narrative jiggery-pokery is still enough to have us punters oohing and ahhing with bewildered pleasure, like a caveman coming across a swanky Gaggia coffee maker. The reason is quite simple: we all like cleverly-constructed stuff, particularly when it makes us feel clever for enjoying it. It's this very same multi-faceted appeal that will draw you into Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen and past its extremely traditional RPG game mechanics.
The game sets out with a brief prologue, introducing you to a generic fantasy-RPG hero (whom you get to name) living in a typically verdant fantasy land. Wisely, the game moves on after mere minutes of play and switches its focus to another area of the world, placing you in control of the proud Royal Knight, Ragnar McRyan. Without wasting too much time you're set off on a mission to discover why the citizens of Burland are misplacing their children.
It's in this first chapter that you're introduced to the basics of moving about the world map and entering villages, castles and caves, engaging in conversations and buying equipment. The basic pace of walking around is pleasingly zippy, contributing to the sense of swift progression and momentum that the game so expertly creates.
It's also at this point that you're eased into the battle system, which is both turn-based (eek) and random (gulp). For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of your average role-playing game, randomly occurring battles that require you to take it in turns to attack your enemies (chess-style) are often seen as a bad thing, because they invariably become irritating and repetitive. Not so here.
Craftily circumventing rather than changing the standard RPG formula, Square Enix has kept the battles extremely slick and brief, without the laborious animations and labyrinthine menus of many other traditional Japanese RPGs. Levelling up - the process of improving your character's skills - is swift and rewarding, with new spells and abilities opening up constantly. While the system is neither particularly deep nor massively compelling (and the frequency of the battles is ever so slightly irksome) it's enjoyable and, most importantly, unobtrusive.
Back to the story and you'll no sooner have made a discovery in the case of the missing children and opened up a series of wider reaching questions when chapter one ends and you move onto chapter two, which concerns a precocious young princess. On you go for another couple of hours of entertaining adventuring and another sinister plot development before you're whisked off to yet another part of the game world for the start of chapter three.
In fact it's not until chapter five - some 10-12 hours in - that the game starts in earnest, as you resume the tale of your self-named hero. But you'll find something has changed since your underwhelming prologue meeting. This clichéd everyman (or woman) has somehow transformed into a mythical champion with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Your experiences over the preceding chapters - a snippet of incidental dialogue in here, a found text-book there - have partially fleshed out your reason for being, and you'll be desperate to fill in the blanks, and to reacquaint yourself with the characters you have come to know and love from this new perspective.
And it's character that stands as Dragon Quest's other outstanding achievement. Though fairly crudely drawn (this is a revamp of an 18-year-old game after all) the artistry with which the world and its characters have been rendered is outstanding. From the wide range of brilliantly expressive bad guys to the loveably wonky villages and varied terrain, you'll come to love spending time in this world. It's also received a welcome 3D make-over since the 8-bit original, meaning that you can rotate the camera with the shoulder buttons to get a better perspective on things.
This level of care and attention to character is displayed in the script, too, which is full of good-natured humour and plenty of chucklesome moments. Don't let the cutesy fantasy setting fool you: this English translation has been written with a sophisticated modern audience in mind. There's a layer of humour operating at a level far removed from fairytale castles and damsels in distress.
It's refreshing too to see a game incorporate regional European accents and inflections into the dialogue as opposed to the usual North Americanisms. It adds so much more flavour and personality to proceedings to enter a region and find the inhabitants speaking in a Scottish or an Irish accent, or to come across an ostensibly evil demon speaking in an exaggerated French-English drawl. Of course, it's only rendered through text, but it's so well written that you'll hear the voices loud and clear in your head. Previous Dragon Quest releases have been praised for this side of things, so it's wonderful to see the good work continuing here.
Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen is a very intelligently constructed experience. At its heart it's as traditional as they come, and a bullet-point summary of the game's core features shows it up to be a mechanically unambitious and derivative gaming experience. What is in no way common is the way in which it sucks you in and holds your attention during the crucial early stages by repeatedly cutting away to a new set of lovingly-created characters long before you've grown bored of the last lot.
By the time you hit the business end of Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen even those of you who are sick to death of traditional RPGs will be well and truly hooked on a sprawling adventure with a well written script and a likeable ensemble cast. It's a twist you're not likely to have seen coming. Very clever indeed.
Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen |
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A solid traditional RPG married to a refreshingly modern narrative, shot through with a lovely sense of humour
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Joined:
May 2007
Post count:
387
"randomly occurring battles that require you to take it in turns to attack your enemies (chess-style) are often seen as a bad thing, because they invariably become irritating and repetitive"
As opposed to Final Fantasy XII's gambit system where EVERY battle is the same until you change your gambits?!
Joined:
Sep 2008
Post count:
1
FF XII certainly did prove divisive.
One thing I think this game proves, though, is that there's nothing wrong with random turn-based battles as long as they're done with a bit of zip and verve.
Joined:
Sep 2008
Post count:
14
I am personally a big fan of turn based randomly generated battles in rpgs. Yes, I'm probably in the minority here but as you say as long as it's done well there's no harm in it.
Don't get me started on FF12...waiting during a faux 'real time' battle for a bar to fill up so you character can get around to making an attack was probably one of the most boring experiences I've ever had while gaming. Especially as the enemies didn't seem to have that problem.
Xv9q reaper | 27 March 2009
not intirly finnished yet, only at yggdrasil tree, but it is chalanging, best to have kiryl cast KABUFF so lots of physic type moves can take down to only 1hp or misses , alenas qwick and sometimes powerful, ragnar has huge attacks and if he is equipted right he can take ALOT, like the hero, the heros powerful(especially with the liquid metal gear and kiryl and the hero both lern good heal spells and eventually zing so in the dungions you can revive, plus kiryl learns wack and thwack that is useful if you cannot be bothered to fight much and still get xp,but sometimes it dosent work, try it loads on BAALZACK i killed him with wack and when you reach kirk buzzer get bora just for his sap ability!
follow that and you will get really far, make sure kiryl and hero know zing + fullheal for ESTARK and you will fly through!
follow them great tips and also i think that it is challanging but if you spend absolutly ages on it each day you will complete it soon!!!!!!!!!!
i like how it ramdomly sets up battles, but there should be a protection that prevents monsters 100% instead of crap useless magic like PADLE FOOT and HOLY PROTECTION i only used cheats at the diaobolic hall onwards REALLY REALLY CONFUSING, NEVER OF KNOW THE COLOSSUS WOULD CROSS THE LAKE AND ONLY PHYCICS WOULD FIGURE OUT WERE TO USE THE FLUTE YOU GET FROM BAALZACKS CASTLE AT ROSEHILL ON THAT SQUARE!!!!!! but some of the story is really dogy like how could you kill really importent bad guys and the monsters only knew you were still alive after fighting ESTARK, also when you play as ragnar first you kill the phyros pawn and at the beggining at the final chapter (5) HES FREAKIN THERE TO KILL YOU(read text when they invade your villige!!!!!!!!) so after a few really idiotic mistakes and a really weird story line its quite good!
ercl66 | 7 April 2009
Does anyone know where the damn steps are for the sky castle after you rescue the winged chick in the tree? I am not a total idiot I knew how to use the flute,and got the statue across the lake,yay me
ercl66 | 8 April 2009
never mind I got it
