61 Frames Per Second : dragon quest

Dragon Quest X and the Wii Lifetime Equation

John Constantine — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

It didn’t hit me until today just how long the Wii is going to stick around. Forget the fact that Nintendo have sold millions upon millions of consoles in record time or that the box continues to sell in vast quantities on a monthly basis. The real metric is Dragon Quest.

Consider this: there have been just three new Dragon Quest games released in the last seventeen years. The shortest gap between games was the three years between Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI, the longest the five years before VII was released. Square-Enix plans to release Dragon Quest IX in July, a full five years after Dragon Quest VIII. This averages out to a new Dragon Quest every 4.25 years.

Dragon Quest X was announced for the Wii last December. It’s reasonable then to assume we won’t see DQX until early 2013. That’ll be the Wii’s seventh year and Dragon Quest X’s release will guarantee the system at least one million more consoles sold that year.

Dragon Quest X + Wii = Potentially the longest shelf life for a Nintendo home console.

Math is fun!

Related links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Dragon Quest III Remake Translation Patch Released
The 'Bout Time Report: Dragon Quest IX Gets a Release Date

Getting Medieval (and Evil) on PSP: Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman!

John Constantine — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Well, Sony, it’s about time. You publish two versions of Yuusha no Kuse Ni Namaikida for PSP in as many years and you don’t release either outside Japan? Come on, man! What could it hurt? Patapon and LocoRoco are weird, original PSP games and they’ve done okay. American nerds love RPGs and retro style. Where’s the love? WHERE IS IT?!

Ah, there it is.

It’s understandable if you missed Yuusha no Kuse Ni Namaikida (You’re Pretty Cheeky For a Hero, if you prefer) when it came out back in 2007. Even amongst import gamers, it was still pretty obscure. Here’s the score: you play as the evil, world-menacing bad-guy-demon-lord from Ye Olde JRPG. You build a large maze-dungeon on a 2D plain, fill it with monsters, and then hide in it. Eventually a hero will show up to try and kill you. You, naturally, aim to avoid him. Think Tecmo’s Deception meets Dragon Quest. Here’s a trailer to get your mind rolling.

Neat, no? SCEA has ignored its existence so far, but a new Sony trademark filing has the internet rumor mill thinking a Western release is on the way. The trademark in question is Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman!. Who doesn’t love Adam West-related puns? Pretty cute, I must admit. This is a rumor at the moment, so the five of us getting excited should probably chill out.

(Link: Kotaku)

Related links:

Yuusha 30 and Wario’s Micro Game Legacy
Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs
Let's Hitchike! - Another Weird Downloadable Game I Desire

Box Art Worth Remembering: Dragon Warrior III (NES)

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:30:00 GMT

Gamers are a resourceful species. We play our games, and then sharpen our claws on the box art. This has been our way for decades. It's an old practise, rich with tradition. I mean...look at this stuff.

North American box art has only recently stopped trying to hide the flavour of its innards. Anime character designs, for instance, were used very sparingly until the latter half of the PSOne's life. Instead, A-list titles like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Suikoden received jewel case covers that would have been well-suited for a “Count With the Count!” Sesame Street soundtrack, and an instructional CD on 108 ways to draw a generic hero.

Regardless, I think some interesting design choices came out of that strange era. When box art illustrators put forth an effort, the end result was comparable in quality to the original Japanese work. One of my favourite examples is from a title that remains one of my all-time beloved: Dragon Warrior III for the NES.

In 1991, Dragon Ball Z was still millions of years away from American audiences, thus rendering Akira Toriyama more or less nameless on this side of the pond. For Dragon Warrior III Enix of America chose a box design that was absent of any title characters—an interesting choice, given Dragon Warrior III's emphasis on character classes and large parties.

Dragon Warrior III's box art does reveal a couple of items that are key to the game. First and most obvious is one of the six Orbs needed to complete the adventure, towering over a field of weapons and flame. Second is the Hero's sword at the forefront of the illustration.

Speaking once more about interesting design choices, the sword's hilt is shaped like the Crest of Loto. Enix's localisation for the early Dragon Warrior games replaced the legendary Loto with the more manly-sounding Erdrick. Erdrick's crest was key to finishing Dragon Warrior, but whereas the Dragon Quest games made his family badge nearly as iconic as the Slime, Dragon Warrior did little with the heraldic symbol.

The box art for Dragon Warrior III has a sombre feeling about it. One of the things that surprised me most about the revitalisation of the franchise in America was learning how light-hearted the Dragon Quest games actually are. Enix of America's re-designs and translations always made events seem a lot more serious.

That's not entirely a bad thing, though. Video games were most certainly kids' stuff in the 8-bit era, and Dragon Warrior III's box art made you feel like you were about to undertake a solemn task when you opened up the package.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Dragon Quest IV: Re-Reading the Chapters of the Chosen

Please, JRPGs, Let Me Run Free

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:37:00 GMT

One of the Internet's favourite hobbies is complaining about the senility of the JRPG genre. The behemoth genre is in fact staggering, and it might not be long before its chest touches the ground. I think the wolves are feeding a bit early, though: JRPGs are a huge market, and it takes a long time for a disease to run its course through a big animal. Besides, there's very little wrong with JRPGs that can't be chased off with a few shots. The rambling stories can be re-written with a more consideration for subtlety, the characters can be given goals beyond being spokesgirls for moe, and random encounters don't have to, y'know, exist.

Where no such improvements are possible for whatever reason (laziness, fear of change, a deal with the Devil that ended with the developer being forced to play cruel jokes on players), I would settle for just one tweak. It's not hard to implement, and it's not too scary, but it could help save the genre.

Please, please, please, JRPG developers—all RPG developers—if you're going to make me suffer through random battles, at least guarantee that I will be able to run from them.

Dragon Quest games are justifiably held up as an example of how to do JRPGs right, but even Japan's most influential game series is guilty of holding down my party while monsters chew on their ankles. I don't bother trying to run away from enemies in the Dragon Quest remakes. It's not worth the heartbreak of inevitable failure.

Watership Down author Richard Adams developed a term, “tharn,” to describe animals frozen in harm's path by fear or shock. Good examples include a deer held by the headlights of an oncoming truck, or a basic JRPG party that's locked in by the wobbly eyes of a Slime. The player gives the order to run, but your strapping young warriors are helpless to do so.

It's like being in one of those nightmares where you can't seem to run away from the demon that's chasing you, but the difference is a dream usually lets you wake up before you're nailed with Kasap and have the flesh peeled off your bones fifty hit points at a time.

Please, JRPGs. I'm an adult. I know that if I run from every random battle, I'll pay for it in blood when I attempt a boss battle and hit a brick wall. I learned that lesson through a retro RPG that was very fair about letting me run from battle: Final Fantasy IV. I was perpetually poor (characters often drop gold when fleeing) and the moon literally swallowed my ass. But when I matured as a gamer and learned when to fight and when to take flight, I appreciated having the option.

It's a small thing, JRPGs, but it might save your life. Please consider it. I don't want to lose you forever. You do your part, and I'll start brushing my teeth after I eat pickled herring.

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs
Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum
Whatcha Not Playing: Persona 4

Question of the Day: Valkyrie Profile and the Need for Voiced Dialogue

John Constantine — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:00:00 GMT

My backlog is becoming untenable. There are games, games that I started months ago, sitting in a pile that appears to be growing of its own volition. Where the hell did that copy of Pro Evolution Soccer even come from and why is it sitting in the “to play” pile? No one in my home even likes soccer!

The worst of the lot is Persona 4. Rather than hide myself away like some horrid realization of gamer stereotype, refusing to venture into the sun until the game is complete, I’ve been working through Persona since early December, taking it a bit at a time. It’s starting to drive me crazy. A few days ago, I fired it up for the first time since mid-February and was treated to one of its scarce animated cutscenes. Turns out that bear suit made a dude! Yeah, not a dude wearing a bear suit. The bear suit formed a dude inside of it. More startling than spontaneous dude generation was hearing the characters’ voices. I had forgotten they could talk you see. This is because, with very rare exceptions, I always turn off the voice acting in RPGs. Why? Because the voice acting is almost always terrible. Dragon Quest VIII’s British cast and Final Fantasy XII’s gang of breathy stoics are exceptions to the rule. Most of the time, you have to deal with screeching whiners who insist on naming every single thing they do and I’ll have none of it. Honestly though, I wonder why voice is considered a necessity in modern design.

A few weeks back, some folks were pretty upset when Square-Enix said they would not be adding an English voice track to Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume in addition to losing the game’s already completed Japanese voiceovers. A few years back, the entire internet flipped its wig when Eiji Aonuma said The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would not have spoken dialogue.

My question to you, dear reader, is what’s the big deal? Is voice acting necessary in every game these days? Does it actually make an RPG, or any game really, better or worse when you can hear its characters speaking? Should a game be criticized if it doesn’t have voice? What if it only has limited voice?

Let me know.

Related links:

Question of the Day: Ogre Battle and How Much Tutorial is Too Much?
Question of the Day: Your Ideal Controller?
Question of the Day: Yu-Gi-Oh! And Card-Based Videogames?
Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Bob Mackey — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

It may have taken 20 years, but Dragon Quest fever has finally hit the United States. True, it'll never be as intense--and, at times, frightening--as Japan's fascination with the series, but we only have to look at the past few decades for a reminder of how Dragon Quest used to be a forgotten and overlooked RPG footnote in comparison to cross-cultural hits like Final Fantasy. We've gone from Nintendo Power giving away unwanted copies of the first Dragon Quest (then known as Dragon Warrior in the States) in 1989, to Enix's American branch closing up shop in the mid-90s, to a small push for the outdated and subpar Dragon Quest VII back in 2001; but in 2005, shortly after the Square-Enix merger, the series was essentially re-launched with the phenomenal Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2. Now, nearly four years later, we're in the middle of a DS trilogy remake, the latest release being Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. And, just like DQ's last DS remake (Dragon Quest IV, released in September), DQV stands as proof that there's never been a better time for American Dragon Quest fans.

If you've played a few of the previously-released Dragon Quests, you're going to find yourself very much at home; DQV features the same basic elements of gameplay seen in previous games. Dragon Quest is basically built upon the oldest of old-school JRPG mechanics, including turn-based battles, exploring towns, dungeons, and caves throughout a large overworld, and fighting numerous monsters via random encounters in order to keep both equipment and character levels up to snuff. But, as with all Dragon Quest games, DQV has its own distinct twist on the formula to keep things fresh; this time around, the series offers a Pokemon-esque monster-recruiting system, which is far more interesting than it may initially sound.

"Pokemon-esque" might be a little misleading (and clunky), but it's really the best way to explain DQV's new party-building mechanic. Essentially, any monster you defeat in battle may ask to join your party; and, when accepted, these critters act just like any other party member in an RPG. They follow orders in battle, level up, learn skills and spellls, and can equip weapons and armor, like any human in your party. This system is a particularly huge change for Dragon Quest due to the typically prescribed nature of a DQ party; with DQV, your battle strategy isn't limited to what you can do with the few characters tagging along behind your hero (though you will have guests join your group from time to time). So, instead of having a typical fighter/healer/mage "balanced" party in the traditional Dragon Quest fashion, you can opt for any sort of strategy that you want--including some that are very situation-specific. And, to make things much easier on the player, during most points in the game, your monsters will gain experience even when they're not in the party; this comes as a huge relief to OCD weirdos like me who feel some sick desire to keep my entire team around the same level.

Of course, you're not doing all of this battling and monster recruiting in a complete vacuum; along with adding a slight twist to the mechanics of the game, DQV also tells its story in an atypical manner. Unlike DQIV, the entire game is played through the main character's perspective, though DQV differs from most RPGs in that you play through the hero's life in chronological order. The main character starts out as a child tagging along with his heroic father--who's really more of a DQ hero in the beginning than his son--and, through some surprising twists and turns, our hero journeys through adulthood, gets married (hence the "Heavenly Bride"), and even reproduces. It's a fascinating technique, and one that's far more refreshing than following your typical bunch of spiky-haired 17-19 year-old JRPG characters. Out of all the ways Dragon Quest has been ripped off, it's surprising that very few developers have plagiarized the series' quality of storytelling, which has only really been localized properly with the post-VIII Dragon Quest games. It's amazing to see the charming, storybook nature of the Dragon Quest world that was previously drowned out by the Early Modern English ("But thou must!") and/or workmanlike quality of pre-2005 DQ localizations.

On the subject of translations, it's also worth mentioning the game's "party talk" feature, which adds the same glossy coat of paint to the DQV's story that developer Artepiazza also applied liberally to Hand of the Heavenly Bride's graphics. Basically, if you have any other human in your party, with a simple tap of the "B" button, they will have something interesting to say about nearly every area you enter and person/creature you talk to. The sheer amount of text that went into this feature is mind-boggling--and the reason why it was cut out of the American DQIV DS remake--but it adds so much more to the already-adorable DQ atmosphere, especially when your main character never really has much to say (a DQ tradition). My typical, obsessive time spent chatting with townspeople after every in-game event was only doubled by the fact that someone in my party usually wanted to throw in their two cents as well. And when you consider that townspeople usually have two sets of dialogue (for night and day), DQV's attempts to give its world character are colossal--yet successful.

As a hardcore Dragon Quest fan, it's easy for me to give something like DQV a high score. But, if I try as hard as I can to sidestep my bias, I can safely say that, despite the whole "fifth game in the series" thing, Dagon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride is an excellent first step into the franchise for any DQ newbies out there. Even if you've given the series a go in the past and found it far too dated, DQV is fast, fun, and adds just the right amount of complexity and variation to the rigid Dragon Quest formula. And, at about 30-40 hours, Dragon Quest V is worth that steep 40-dollar price of entry--especially if you decide to ruin your life trying to track down and recruit some of the game's more elusive monsters. Just a hint: if liquid metal slimes are all you can see after closing your eyes, it may be time to call it a day.

Rating: A

Past Reviews:

MadWorld
Star Oean: The Last Hope
Killzone 2
Noby Noby Boy - part 1 & part 2
Big Bang Mini
Retro Game Challenge
Edge
Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaiden 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

Dragon Quest III Remake Translation Patch Released

Bob Mackey — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Today is a great time to be a Dragon Quest fan, but the mid-90s... not so much. Enix did their best to bring Dragon Quests II, III, and IV over to the States during the early years of the decade, but the series was poorly received by a populace who wouldn't really figure out what this whole RPG thing was about until Final Fantasy VII. And since DQ never really caught on in America until 2005's release of the phenomenal Dragon Quest VIII, we missed out on quite a few games in the series--most of which we either have now or are coming soon to the DS. One of these games, a Dragon Quest III remake made late in the Super Famicom's life (1996) didn't come here for reasons that should be obvious at this point--though it's important to note that a Game Boy Color port of this remake (stop me if this gets confusing) actually did make it out here in 2001, but it wasn't nearly as pretty as the post-DQVI work done on the Super Famicom version. But now, thanks to the work of talented people in the rom hacking scene (notably, DaMarsMan), the fantastic Dragon Quest III Super Famicom remake is now fully-translated in English for the sake of DQ freaks like me who don't want to learn an entirely new language to play a 13 year-old game. There's a limit to even my free time.

And in case you were wondering just how nice this remake looks, take a look at the game's intro.

Head on over to Romhacking.net to pick up the patch, and find out why DQIII is my favorite of the series--at least until I finish this review copy of V. Special thanks to the Retronauts Twitter for the news.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
Remakes I Never Got to Play: Dragon Quest V
Trailer Review: Dragon Quest IX

Whatcha Playing: Guadia Quest

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:29:00 GMT

“But Nadia! 'Guadia Quest' is just one part of the magnificent whole that is Retro Game Challenge!”

You're right, you little mathematician! But as fans of Retro Game Challenge are already well-aware, this DS title isn't merely a half-hearted mini game collection. That goes double for its RPG "parody."

Both my husband and I intended to play through Retro Game Challenge, but there is only one save file. We decided we'd split up the experience. I've been letting my husband to the lion's share of the work while I sit by and witness the outcome. I want to see what comes of Game Master Arino, the lonely Wizard of a digital Oz who went as far as to outfit himself with a paper crown from Burger King.

But I cannot chicken out by the sidelines for the entirety of the game. Someone needs to take up the sword and hack away at Guadia Quest. My husband doesn't know a hilt from a blade, whereas I was weaned on unicorn milk (and cocaine).

Guadia Quest is a loving tribute to the Dragon Quest days of olde...though drawing comparisons to Dragon Quest II might be more accurate, as both it and Guadia Quest are staffed by three warriors who are (kissin') cousins. To “complete” Guadia Quest and move on in Retro Game Challenge, you're required to grind to a certain level, collect a certain amount of money from dead monsters bodies, and slay a bad demon. I'm giddy over the whole experience; I feel like I'm ten again. Oh, for the days when I had to kill piles of slavering monsters just to turn their pockets inside-out for a few pennies.

Actually, I'm pretty okay with not having to to do that kind of thing anymore on a regular basis. Though it's kind of funny that I set aside Dragon Quest IV on the DS in order to play Guadia Quest. Is there a word in the dictionary for someone who defects from one nostalgic experience to another, deeper nostalgic experience?

Also, I named my warriors after swear words. Little Arino gave his opinion on the bottom half of the DS screen: “Oooooh! Interesting!”

Related Links:

Retro Game Challenge Is Out Today. You Will Buy It
The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge
Old Man, Take a Look at My Life

Old Man, Take a Look At My Life

John Constantine — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Somewhere over the American Midwest, on February 7th, I was playing through Retro Game Challenge. Five hours on a sold-out airplane, stale air, more screaming kids than tranq-ed adults, and surly Delta Airlines employees shoving headphones and stale bagels in your face every ten minutes makes for the perfect gaming atmosphere. You put on the best headphones you’ve got, jack up the volume, and play until the power runs out. The flight allowed me to access almost all of Retro’s faux-NES games. It wasn’t until I was plodding about its Dragon Quest homage, Guardia Quest, that I noticed my audience. Aaron was about five or six years old, a quiet kid peculiarly calm for such a long trip.

“I have a DS too.”

“Yeah, I saw.” I pulled off the headphones, but kept the DS open. Aaron had periodically busted out a DS Lite during the flight. He played quick, frantic sessions of Phantom Hourglass and stabbed the living hell out of the touchscreen. “Do you like Zelda?”

“Yeah. What is that?”

“It’s called Retro Game Challenge. See here on the lower screen? That’s you trapped in the past. To get back to the future, you have to play a bunch of games like the ones I played when I was your age.”

“Why do you keep doing the same thing over and over?” He pointed at the top screen, a paused random battle in Guardia Quest. To anyone my age, it looked like any other RPG. To Aaron it just looked like a bunch of names, numbers, and a googly-eyed orange frog. The little guy threw me. Why the hell did I keep going back into these games to complete Arino’s challenges? Forget the fact that the game targets my nostalgia centers with bullet precision, forget that I write about games day in and day out. What about these simpler games kept me interested?

“It’s fun to keep playing a game so you get better every time. Even when you beat it, you go back to it to see if you can do it faster. That’s kind of what this whole game is all about.”

“Yeah. It looks fun. I don’t like it when games just stop. Keep going.”

Aaron watched me play Guardia Quest until the captain turned the fasten seatbelt sign back on and all electronic devices had to be shut off. The kid turned his attention to pestering his older sister and I got to thinking about what it’s like to grow up with the Wii and DS like I grew up with an NES. Games do just stop. When Aaron finally finishes Phantom Hourglass, that’s it. No second quest, no harder difficulty. Playing it again will be the same thing it was the first time, no shortcuts. Guardia Quest, admittedly, is no different, but every other game on that little cartridge keeps on giving after the credits roll.

It’s more than nostalgia, this push back to NES-era design that’s been so prevalent in the past year. In twenty years, is Aaron going to be playing some Retro Game Challenge descendent packed full of lengthy, scripted 3D games? Or is he going to play something that mimics Wii Sports? I’d bet on the latter. Aaron and I, despite the age gap, understand something essential about games; the best ones can be played again and again.

Related links:

The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge
Retro Game Challenge is Out Today. You Will Buy It.
Trailer Review: Retro Game Challenge
Game Center CX is Charming as Hell

Remakes I Never Got to Play: Dragon Quest V

Bob Mackey — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The DS remake of Dragon Quest V is out this week, and that's an event worth celebrating--especially considering 1UP's recent beaming review of the game. Dragon Quest V, along with VI, are the two installments in the series we Americans missed out on thanks to Enix's lack of business luck in the States with winning titles like Brain Lord. But V is perhaps the sweetest plum in the Dragon Quest basket due to the fact that we missed out on playing the game two whole times: once on the Super Famicom, and again on the Playstation 2. Continuing the work they had done on the original Playstation back in 2001 with the first Dragon Quest IV remake, the Enix side of Square-Enix employed ArtePiazza, current developers of the DS remakes, to bring out a revamped version of DQV so the Japanese gaming public would have something to do until the release of DQVIII many moons later. I've recently come to discover that the Dragon Quest games work best in a handheld format, but part of me still wants to play the other DQV remake in English.

You can't really blame Square-Enix for passing on Dragon Quest V; it wasn't until the American release of Dragon Quest VIII in late 2005 that they really tried (and most would say succeeded) in re-establishing the franchise outside of Japan. And it wasn't the prettiest of remakes, either--ArtePiazza was never known for their graphical prowess, which is why the PS2 DQV looks like a high-res Playstation game. But to make up for the lack of visual fidelity, the remake features a fully-orchestral score, much like our improved version of DQVIII. It kind of makes me wonder if they were ever planning a DQVI remake; it was the one Dragon Quest before VIII that tried to out-pretty Final Fantasy, so a true 3D take on that game could be mighty interesting. Until then, all we can do is watch a trailer for the DQV remake and sigh deeply as we think about what could have been. Or not. I'm sure you have other things to do.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
Dragon Quest IV: Re-Reading the Chapters of the Chosen
The Why, God, Why Report: Dragon Quest IX Delayed in Japan

Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs

Bob Mackey — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Roundtable Discussion takes the intrepid 61FPS blogging team and pits it against itself in the search for deeper truth. The moderator for today is Bob Mackey.

This week’s conversation deals with the mythical and possibly endangered beast known as the Japanese RPG. The genre really seems to be suffering during this generation, for two major reasons: 1.) escalating development costs due to the new necessity of high-polygon, HD resources and 2.) developers’ inability to combat the most damning problems of the genre. Over the past few years, we’ve seen quite a few JRPGs hitting the shelves that feel half-finished at best; and even when a fully-realized JRPG comes along, I worry that the absolutely abysmal pacing the genre is infamous for will end up sucking all the fun out of what could be a fantastic game. To start us off, I have two basic questions: 1.) What does the genre need to do to become interesting again, and 2.) what do you think it will do?

On a side note, the only RPGs I’ve been interested in lately have been ports of remakes of classics. Is this a sign that the genre is becoming antiquated and only accessible to those (admittedly, quite a few at this point) with an understanding of its unique grammar?

Joe Keiser: I assume we're talking about current-gen console JRPGs here, as I feel the handheld JRPG field is perhaps the most vibrant it's ever been. To answer your questions:

1. Lots of JRPG ground has been broken on the PS2 in its twilight days. Final Fantasy XII, Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, and the Persona series all did fascinating new things with the genre that begged to be explored further. That's why it was very strange to me to see such regressive RPG design in the likes of Lost Odyssey and its brethren. There's so much excellent recent prior work to look at! So why do some of these games look back so far?

This is not a very creative answer, but JRPG developers don't seem to be particularly bold these days and I'm trying to be realistic with my expectations.

2. Fortunately, men who are much more creative than me have been given years to come up with ways to make things interesting again. I think they will. I think the real problem developers have been running into this generation (besides the general Japanese console development malaise) is that there hasn't been a leading title to come out and show the little guys that actually, there is a market for JRPGs on Xbox 360 or Wii. All we've seen so far is supposedly "exciting" titles like Lost Odyssey meet general apathy at retail, which couldn't have been heartening to anyone holding any sort of purse strings. When the Level-5s or Square Enix internal teams of the world release something that cannot under circumstances afford to fail (does the game I'm thinking of have a large roman numeral in the title? Maybe.) I think you'll see the floodgates open again. Heck, maybe Tri-Ace will do it!

Maybe.

John Constantine: Hear, hear on the handheld JRPG scene. How’s that saying go? Where Dragon Quest goes, so goes the genre! What’s most telling about the preponderance of remakes on the DS and PSP (the lion’s share of them coming from Square-Enix) is that it indicates the birth of a brand new audience being inculcated with the genres unique grammar. These re-releases pull in both lapsed gamers as well as sell to those new gamers just getting reared on what’s available for the system. For every Final Fantasy, Tales, DQ, Star Ocean, etc rehash that hits the DS and PSP, there’s two brand new JRPGs with decidedly fresh mechanics waiting in the wings. Just look at stuff like Riz-zoawd, Atlus’ just-released My World, My Way, Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da on PSP, and Yuusha 30. And how could I not mention that game we all love so dearly, The World Ends With You? Even Hironobu Sakaguchi’s DS debut, ASH, took some risks, as opposed to the stale traditionalism of his Xbox 360 games. ASH sucked, but it was different, right?

But this is the biggest Japanese genre in history, so what about the big, big systems. Given how reluctant the vast majority of Japanese developers have been to make anything for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (even the Wii really), it’s none too surprising that the few JRPGs to show up on those systems have been stale as week-old bread. Especially Mistwalker’s games. The Gooch made the type of games that made him famous, games that are just about two decades old now. It’s ironic then that Lost Odyssey was co-developed by the team behind the Shadow Hearts series, some of the freshest RPGs to grace the Playstation 2. Joe’s right: close to a decade old, and the PS2 is still seeing exciting new ideas in the genre. In addition to the examples mentioned, I think the most exciting evolution of the JRPG on the PS2 is also the exact franchise that has the best chance of bringing life to the genre on current home consoles. Yakuza, baby. The Yakuza games flat-out are JRPGs, just with a different kind of battle system. They’re fast, detailed games that succeed by foregoing some of classic JRPG design’s most tiresome tropes, i.e. having to talk to every single NPC, menu-based fighting, needlessly grueling level grinds. I sincerely believe that Yakuza 3 is going to be the game that finally pushes more devs into the next-JRPG-gen.

Yakuza also does precisely what I think needs to be done to make every other JRPG interesting again. It has legitimately good writing and plotting. Not okay writing. Not good-for-a-game writing. Just good writing. For a genre that’s sold itself on affecting narrative, the vast majority of writing in JRPGs is crap. But it has to be married to faster play, like you see in Yakuza, TWEWY, and FFXII to really make JRPGs great. Lost Odyssey had good writing but the game, what you played, was sllllllllloooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww. I genuinely think that’s what’s going to happen too. I’m an optimist. Like you said, Bob, that Final Fantasy XIII trailer, against all odds, was exciting. The old way of things will stick around too. Gotta re-release something, right?

Cole Stryker: Before I even begin I must request that everyone read this, one of the best pieces of game criticism I've ever read. JRPG fans should prepare to be offended. It contains the following money quotes:

Western CRPGs have kept evolving because there has always existed consciousness of a direction towards which to evolve; JRPGs, meanwhile, have been going round in circles ever since their inception -- Fallout is worlds away from Akalabeth; not so Rogue Galaxy from Final Fantasy.

The only kind of evolution JRPGs have undergone is of a cosmetic nature: Final Fantasy was no Ultima, and its endless sequels had to be justifed in some way -- and so they were. CG or anime-style cutscenes and countless hours' worth of voice-acting and orchestral soundtracks were the justification, piled up, stacked and shoved inside cartridges...

Now then. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of JRPG's. It seems to me that the things holding JRPG's back are the very characteristics that define the genre. So I guess this is another way of saying that the best way to make a good JRPG is to not make a JRPG.

Firstly, expensive poly counts have to go in order for this genre to mean anything to me. I'm happy to see that recent portable JRPG's have done this, though I haven't played any of them. They practically had to, with the limited graphical capabilities. It's interesting how a dearth of technology can actually amount to a better game because it allows developers to cut the fat.

Secondly, we've got to lose the cutscenes. Kierkegaard tells it like it is in an epic burn, calling Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, "a groundbreaking JRPG comprised of a single 106-minute-long cutscene, whose only flaw was that it didn't give players the option to skip it." Oh snap, son. The cult of celebrity that JRPG composers enjoy also brings the genre down. Focus on what's under the hood, please.

In order to push the genre into new territory, JRPG's should decide whether they want to be actual role playing games or strategy games rather than a mediocre mixture of both. I'd much rather play a proper RPG like Planescape Torment or a proper strategy game like Advance Wars than a JRPG which offers an hamstrung version of each. Even my favorite JRPG franchise, Earthbound, is super guilty of this. The combat system, even the rhythm based one in Mother 3 is pretty mindless. Developers need ways to mix up the combat mechanics. Use Ice Power to kill Fire Demons. Fight Night Wraiths with the Heavenly Light Arrows. Yawn. Chrono Trigger made these weaksauce mechanics obsolete well over a decade ago.

Make them shorter. I just don't feel like investing 70+ hours on a JRPG. The last one I played was Baten Kaitos, a reasonably fun card-based RPG. I burned out halfway through and haven't played one since (except for the nostalgic Mother 3, for which I made an exception).

Now that I've covered where I think JRPG's should go, I'll talk about where they will go: Nowhere. There are too many people out there content to play bad games. The continued existence of the Final Fantasy franchise is proof enough.

Bob Mackey: Well, there you have it; another week, another great discussion. Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments.

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: Where is the Handheld Version of Console Wars?
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 1
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 2
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 3

The Why, God, Why Report: Dragon Quest IX Delayed in Japan

Bob Mackey — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:30:00 GMT

I shouldn't have to point this out here, but Japan takes their Dragon Quest seriously. Very seriously. It's been quite a long time since the country has seen an installment of the franchise that's such a national craze; the mega-awesome Dragon Quest VIII came out in late 2004, which means that fans have now been waiting over 4 years to destroy cute little slimes in a whole new incarnation. And, unfortunately, it looks like they'll be waiting just a bit longer with today's announcement (via a NEOGaf tip) that Dragon Quest IX's release date has been pushed all the way back to July 11--quite a ways away from the intended release date of March 28th. It goes without saying that this is bad news for Japan, and bad news for us; I was personally hoping for a Fall 2009 release in the States, but this substantial delay could make that a bit tricky.

The silver lining to this otherwise dreary cloud is that now couldn't be a better time for a Dragon Quest delay, due to how much of the franchise we're being bombarded with lately. With the release of the Dragon Quests IV, V (coming next week), and VI remakes on the DS, it's not like we're at a loss for DQ content; in fact, this delay should give us Americans plenty of time to catch up on the two installments of the series we originally got shafted on thanks to Enix's lack of mid-90s luck in the States. So by the time IX eventually shows up on out shores, we'll all be studied Dragon Quest scholars, ready to play the game with a lit pipe and a furrowed brow. As for Japan, we can only help that all of the civil unrest doesn't tack even more months onto Dragon Quest IX's development time.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
Dragon Quest IV: Re-Reading the Chapters of the Chosen
The 'Bout Time Report: Dragon Quest IX Gets a Release Date

On the Importance of World Maps

Bob Mackey — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

One of the major reasons JRPGs lost me a little during the last generation was the stripping away of one of the genre's most defining features: the explorable world map, which was taken out of many games in favor of less resource-intensive travel options. Now, I'm still a little conflicted about this; on one hand, I do like the intuitive menu-based exploration of games like Persona, and I've repeatedly learned (especially this fall with Opoona) that making a player traverse large expanses of land is an excellent way to pointlessly stretch out a game for dozens of hours. On the other hand, including a Super Mario World-ish map in an RPG always felt a little cheap and cop-outey to me; when I saw this choice show up in Final Fantasy X, I assumed that Square had signed some sort of contract with The Devil himself (little did I know they had done this a few months prior with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within). It seems that the whole world map issue is entirely about fooling players into thinking your game world is more than a bunch of "rooms" stuck together, all while making sure not to bore them with interminable traveling.

It's a tricky balance.

My preferred take on the RPG world map--and one you don't see very often--is when the "outside world" of the game is on the exact same scale as the rest of the areas you explore (towns, caves, towers, etc.). Obviously, if you're trying to make your game world a complete, explorable "planet," which is the choice with 99% of all RPGs, this is quite a tall order. Some of the more successful examples of this school of design are Earthbound, a game that felt much more colossal than the standard, epic, medieval RPGs of its era, and Dragon Quest VIII, which to this day feels like the only fully-realized RPG of the PS2 generation--and the fact that everything in the game is on the same "scale," so to speak, may have something to do with that. In fact, the game sort of brags about its epic scope with an early mission where a character asks you to retrieve something from under a red tree off in the distance; he doesn't tell you how to get there, and the entire trip involves careful exploration with nary a loading screen to be found. Very effective.

So, what's the verdict from the rest of you guys on world maps: an important element of the JRPG, or yet another thing I'm blowing way out of proportion?

Related Links:

Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum
Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

WTFriday: Dragon Quest Crotch Buddies

Bob Mackey — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Ridiculous accessories for video games have always existed--and if you think this trend ended with the Power Glove, then you probably haven't seen the chainsaw or slime-themed controllers that were actually designed and released for consumers to purchase. Yeah, that chainsaw controller has its own web site. Anyway, gimmicky video game accessories are still around and successfully targeting the demographic of "people who have no idea what to do with their money;" but until I had read this recent 1UP story about a baffling Dragon Quest-related peripheral, I had no idea how bad things had become.

Friends, allow me to introduce you to the Dragon Quest Crotch Buddy.

Ostensibly, this little, attachable Dragon Quest slime is supposed to act as a more powerful set of speakers for the admittedly weak sound system of the DS, but I think we all know who this product is really made for: those who've gone their entire lives fantasizing about having a fictional monster's face buried in their crotch while gaming. It's an oddly specific fetish, I agree, but with the insane number of Dragon Quest fans out there, these freaks have to account for at least 3% of their audience. And really, I don't see how you can argue that this product isn't made for this ulterior motive--with the way I hold my DS, this poor little slime would be getting a face full of crotch 24/7. And I think we all agree that Dragon Quest slimes have hard enough lives without getting their cute little mugs shoved into the business end of someone's jeans all day.

Related Links:

WTFriday: The Splash Woman Rap
WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros. Anime
WTFriday: The Soothing Sounds of Yoshi

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

Bob Mackey — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy.

It seems that surprise has been a common factor in nearly all of my top ten of 2008 entries; with quite a few of the games that ended up as my favorites this year, I either didn't know what to expect, or I wasn't expecting much. But the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV was a little different--after all, it was a Dragon Quest game, and those buggers are about as familiar as you can get. Of course, I assumed the same thing of Square's Final Fantasy IV remake earlier in the summer, only to find the impressive technical improvements outweighed by a baffling new skill system and an unwarranted increase in difficulty. Thankfully, Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen took a markedly different path; instead of warping its gentle features into the twisted form of a more modern RPG, the Enix side of Square Enix (and I can only assume the company is run this way) decided to preserve the super-fast, super-addictive game play of the original title by sprucing up the graphics a tiny bit, and generally making the already-simple NES RPG even more user friendly than it was in 1990.

For me, a lot of the joy caused by Dragon Quest IV came from the simple fact that I was finally able to play it. My story probably doesn't differ from most American console RPG fans who were getting into the genre at its least popular point: I had asked for Dragon Warrior III and IV for two different Christmases, but Enix's tiny print runs forced my parents to find alternatives (one of these was Crystalis, so I didn't have it too bad). And the original PSX version of DQIV's remake--which is what the DS version is based on--was promised in the American Dragon Warrior VII manual, but never actually came to America. When I finally got a chance to sit down with the game some 18 years after its original release date, I wasn't surprised to see how timeless it was--after all, that's what Dragon Quest is known for--but I was surprised to see how the dramatic departure from the typical Dragon Quest formula worked so well. Dragon Quest IX looks to be the same sort of shake-up, and I'm trying my best to stay alive for its inevitable American release. And you should do the same.

Related Links

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Audiosurf
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Braid
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Grand Theft Auto IV
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Fable 2
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Persona 3: FES
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Looking Ahead: 6 DS Games that I'm Looking Forward To in 2009.

Amber Ahlborn — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Yeah, this list didn't quite make it to 10. Maybe if I were more of a virtual pet fan I'd have had an easier time filling this list up. Talk about your over saturated genres, yeesh. I never even picked up Nintendogs. Well, without further ado, here are 6 upcoming DS games that I am interested in.

6. Moon – Again, I'm not the biggest FPS fan but I do still like to give them a casual play. For the real fans out there, Moon is probably a big one to look out for.

5. Big Bang Mini – Now this is more my style of shooter. It's a little like Space Invaders but with prettier colors...and bigger explosions.

4. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon – Like most people living in North America, my first encounter with Marth was in Super Smash Bros. Melee. I'm looking forward to playing the game he actually came from.

3. Rhythm Heaven – I predict this one is going to kill an awful lot of free time.

2. Scribblenauts – If this game really does what it says on the label then color me amazed. I'm looking forward to it even though I'm not entirely sure what the game play will altogether consist of.

1. Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Sky – This is arguably the Big One. I came to Dragon Quest extremely late in the series...number 8 actually, but I loved it. I'm definitely ready for a second outing.

Well, the DS list is surprisingly abbreviated but there will no doubt be games I haven't become aware of yet that creep up on me and take hold. Ultimately it's the oddball titles that have me the most excited right now. For those of you wondering where my PS3 and Xbox 360 lists are, well, I don't own those systems. However, there's an excellent chance I'll be picking up a PS3 in 2009, if the price is right. With that in mind, my final list of the year will reflect back on games I haven't played but would love to, if only they'd been released on a system I actually owned.

Related Links:

Trailer Review: Scribblenauts

Looking Ahead: 10 Wii Games that I'm Looking Forward To in 2009. part 1

Looking Ahead: 10 Wii Games that I'm Looking Forward To in 2009. part 2

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Love: Atlus Reprints Persona 2

John Constantine — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:15:00 GMT

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I’ve got issues with Japanese role-playing games. I tend to, well, disappear into them. And as much as they make our own Bob Mackey OCD within the confines of their battle systems, item management, and quaint townships, they tend to make me OCD in my waking life. When I start one that really gets its hooks into me, I don’t do much else with life until it’s done. Much like the troubles I had with Dragon Quest VIII back in 2005, Persona 3 ruined me for September 2007. Eighty-nine hours of level grinding, managing completely fictional friendships (whilst ignoring real ones,) and bouncing J-pop that nearly drove my roommates to murder me. It was my first time with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise and I couldn’t have been more impressed, or obsessed, with it.

Needless to say, I’ve been dreading Persona 4. Not because I think it won’t live up to Persona 3. No, I’m afraid of what it’s going to do my brain. And now, for seemingly no other reason than they are awesome, Atlus is making everything worse. The publisher sent out an email today announcing that they are reprinting Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, a Playstation 1 game, “to commemorate the upcoming release of Persona 4 and to thank you for your interest, dedication, and support of the SMT series.”

Who does that?! Who reprints an eight year-old game for a long-dead console? Someone who loves you, that’s who.

You can only get a copy through Amazon and Atlus says copies are extremely limited. Seeing as how original copies go for upwards of a c-note on ebay, I’d suggest you hop to it.

Ugh. My life is over.

(Link: Gamer Tell)

Related links:

RPGs Make Me OCD
Going There: Persona 4 and Feeling the World
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Persona 3 FES
Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete

Trailer Review: Dragon Quest IX

John Constantine — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

As October wears on and the fruits of game season, grand experiences like Dead Space and Fable 2, start to illuminate my living room with an incandescent and warming light, I find myself not looking forward, but back. 2008 has been, to date, a year overflowing with great games and even though it’s been less than a month since I finished it, I’m already looking back at Dragon Quest IV fondly. The characters, the leveling, the music; it was glorious. But, as it is with JRPGs, it will be a very long time before I ever attempt to complete that particularly glorious remake again. (If ever. Role-playing games are a steep time investment as is, a fact I’ve discussed many times in the past.) But this trailer, only recently presented in high-quality after its debut at Tokyo Game Show, fills me with hope for the future. Dragon Quest IX will be awesome. Oh yes, it will be so, so awesome.

Which isn’t to say it hasn’t previously. It’s just that this is the first look at what the game is going to look like in a complete state. The 3D engine does a truly impressive job of replicating DQVIII’s luscious cel-shading and the character designs, the mix of super-deformed characters and more human proportions, have evolved nicely since 2005’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. It’s still up in the air whether or not DQIX’s multiplayer will be a quality addition or distracting from Dragon Quest’s inherent, and generally solitary, merits. But the trailer assures us of two things: the game will be beautiful and it will be chock-full of Dragon Questly goodness. Bring on the slimes, Mr. Horii.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

TGS Trailer Time: Resident Evil 5
Retro Game Challenge
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
House of the Dead: Overkill
Riz-Zoawd
Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
The Past and Future With Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter 4
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge

The 'Bout Time Report: Dragon Quest IX Gets a Release Date

Bob Mackey — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The Dragon Quest games have never been known for their timeliness; Dragon Quest VII in particular had a development time so troubled that when it eventually came out, the game had a sorry first-gen aesthetic in a world where both Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross existed. But according to Kotaku, the upcoming Dragon Quest IX finally has a release date--nearly two years after the shocking announcement that the game would be exclusive to the DS. In this case, the DQ team's lack of promptness won't affect them much--as if it ever did before. The passing of time has only seen millions more DS systems sold, which means that Square-Enix is well on their way towards taking over the world.

The reveal of DQ on the DS two years ago was a bit of a surprise, but it actually made sense when you stopped to think about it. Dragon Quest was never a series that prided itself--or relied--on visuals; despite what a show-stopping blockbuster VIII ended up being. When it comes to the franchise in general, VIII was a definite deviation; all of the standard DQ trappings still existed, but they were dressed up in the trappings of a lavish late-gen PS2 game--and even more so in the renovated US version. As much as I'd love to see another game in the same vein as DQVIII--which felt like the only authentic RPG of that generation--the format of IX doesn't really matter. Even with a game as relatively ugly as the DS remake of DQIV, that same addictive DQ formula is present regardless of the graphics.

With a March release date in Japan, I'm guessing that we won't actually see DQIX in the States until next fall at the earliest--unless Square-Enix is going for a simultaneous launch in multiple regions (very doubtful). But we are going to see it; Square-Enix is definitely making a concerted effort towards making Americans aware of the series. The upcoming remakes of DQV and DQVI are both coming out here, so--unless those games see some catastrophic sales--there's no reason to believe that they'd hold back on IX.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen
Anticipation Time: Dragon Quest IV
Square-Enix: Reeling in the Devotees For More, Playing the Console Market With Aplomb

Chiptune Friday: Bed ‘N Breakfast

John Constantine — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:30:00 GMT

It’s been raining today here in New York, a cold harbinger of October keeping us city dwellers indoors, putting on sweaters, and craving hot cocoa. Personally, I’m trying to gear myself up for tonight’s Presidential debate, but I’d be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t truly desperate for a nap, one preferably under a thick comforter and near my DS for some more Dragon Quest IV. It’s in that spirit that we present this week’s Chiptune Friday, not a single track, but a compilation of soothing tones to ease one’s weary soul and refill their hit points.

From Dorkclub.com comes this selection of Inn Themes from various RPGs. For the unfamiliar, inns have been the go to spot to refill your adventurers’ stats after a long day of level-grinding. And since the dawn of the genre, resting at the inn has invariably been accompanied by a brief, often lovely melody. From Animal Crossing to Xenogears, you’ll be hard pressed to keep your eyes open. Stay warm and sweet dreams, 61FPSers.

Previously on Chiptune Friday:

Chiptune Friday: 8bit bEtty Tastes the Rainbow
Chiptune Friday: Helix Nebula
Chiptune Friday: Do the Monster Mash!
Chiptune Friday: A Link To The Past
Chiptune Friday: Return of the Blue Bomber

The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen

John Constantine — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I’m not going to lie to you. Dragon Quest and I have history. It goes back some twenty years at this point, but our relationship today isn’t one based on nostalgia. Back in 2005, you could say that Dragon Quest and I were in, to put it delicately, an unhealthily codependent situation. Dragon Quest VIII had just come out in the United States, fresh faced and full of gorgeous cel-shaded graphics, newly minted menus and music, and voice work of unprecedented quality. But Dragon Quest has never had much clout on this side of the Pacific, and this was its first time going by its real name instead of Dragon Warrior. It needed someone, anyone to play it. Me, I was a recovering role-playing addict, coming off of a decade of Squaresoft devotion, trying my best to stay off the ability trees, the melodrama, and the menus. I lapsed occasionally into turn-based adventures to save the world. I’d been doing good up until that November, hadn’t touched a JRPG since Shadow Hearts: Covenant the previous winter, but I could feel myself weakening. I just wasn’t strong enough. So Dragon Quest VIII and I found each other at our weakest.

Between November 15th and December 1st, I clocked just under ninety-six hours playing Dragon Quest VIII. Yeah, that’s right. Four days of my life.

And I loved it.

Each Dragon Quest, since the first game sprung from Yuuji Horii’s succulent brain in 1986, is an exercise in purity, a defining marquee in a genre known today for its decadence, bombast, and tedium. Dragon Quest is more often noted for its resistance to change rather than its consistent quality across the years. It’s true, Dragon Quest has remained, across its sequels, spin-offs, and numerous remakes, largely the same game it was two decades ago. The essential play – explore a large fantasy world, fight monsters in a first person perspective, collect items, talk to every single person you meet – has never changed in the core titles. But every iteration finds its elegant formula incrementally refined, and to great effect. Dragon Quest II introduced multi-character parties, III a job system that went on to become a genre staple, and so on and so forth. Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, a DS remake of a Playstation remake of the NES original, could be viewed as a step back from the lavishly produced (though still familiar) Dragon Quest VIII, a retreat meant to acclimate players to the series’ transition from home consoles to portables. Surprisingly, Chapters of the Chosen isn’t a retreat at all. It is instead a perfect model of the JRPG as Horii envisioned it, immediately accessible, streamlined from the menu-juggling, command-selecting rigor moral, and trimmed of the excess narrative fat that’s typified the genre since Hironobu Sakaguchi began emphasizing drama over play in Final Fantasy.

That said, Chapters of the Chosen’s story shouldn’t be undersold. While it isn’t full of lengthy dialogues, it isn’t without dramatic instance. The original Dragon Quest IV’s variation on the DQ theme was its narrative structure: following a brief prologue wherein you play as the classic silent-protagonist of your choosing, the game is broken into the titular chapters, each one devoted to the seven other party characters that ultimately make up your adventuring party. These chapters allow you to play and experience the inciting incidents that introduce these characters into the game’s arching save-the-world narrative. Despite the limited characterization, this allows you to form deeper attachments to these characters than you would if the game followed the JRPG formula of the protagonist being the inciting incident that draws these characters into the adventure. It’s both a unique take on JRPG storytelling as well as a way to better facilitate play; since you are playing these characters individually during the game’s first half, you aren’t tied to “level grinding” them later (or having their levels superficially bumped up to match your protagonist’s.) Even after entering the game’s fifth chapter and having gathered the disparate characters together, Chapters of the Chosen is never structured to serve the story. The story is developed just enough to encourage more play, more exploration, more fights, more collection. This is why Dragon Quest IV, and its parent series, is the model of Japanese role-playing. It is, first and foremost, a game, rather than an interactive anime or fantasy novel with a lot of fighting thrown on top of it. There aren’t enough kind words to give to its presentation, from Koichi Sugiyama’s re-mastered score to Akira Toriyama’s endearing art, not to mention Square-Enix’s remarkable colloquialism-laden localization. But they’re all just icing on the proverbial cake.

I stopped carrying the Nintendo DS on my morning commute recently, worried that I was becoming illiterate after playing videogames during every literal moment of my free time throughout the day. I knew Dragon Quest was coming though. I’m not a strong man. We fell back into our old routine in the past week since its release. To be honest, it’s remarkable I was even able to stop playing long enough to write this. It’s wrong, really, to let a game, even one as great as Chapters of the Chosen, take you over.

But it feels so, so right.

Grade: A

Previous 61FPS Reviews:

Metal Gear Solid IV
Ninja Gaiden 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Wii Fit

Games You Keep Coming Back To

Bob Mackey — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

There are a few games out there that I know I'll never finish, but will continue to perpetually play for the rest of my life. The greatest offender (in the nicest of terms) for me is Final Fantasy XII; I bought it the day it came out in 2006, and to this day I still play it ten hours at a time in shifts five to six months apart. Even now, nearly two years later, I'm thinking of picking up my old save to try out some of those trickier hunting sub-quests, mainly because my brain has been completely ignorant of the game's story since pre-2007. I know it has something to do with evil twins, but I might be confusing FFXII with an episode of The Patty Duke Show.

Honestly, I can blame Final Fantasy XII itself for my bipolar feelings; director Matsuno gave the franchise a much needed shake-up (which will be all but forgotten by FFXIII), but the game's skill system is in dire need of refinement--which is why it was refined, in a Japan-only re-release. As things currently stand with America's only version of the game, all the characters in your party are basically the same, and any kind of planned specialization soon falls apart when you realize just how counter-productive this strategy is. With the addition of refined license boards built for specialization in the aptly-named Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System, it's possible that XII might actually be my favorite Final Fantasy; but I'll really never know.

Final Fantasy XII isn't the only game that I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with; while there are many games that I never finish and which subsequently haunt my dreams, I've come crawling back to quite a few others after months of downtime.

Dragon Quest VIII is the first one I can think of; nearly an entire year passed between me putting it down and picking it up to play to completion. Even today I haven't finished the post-game content, so DQVIII may end up breaking FFXII's record for the longest period of time I've played a game from start to finish. I had a similar experience with The Wind Waker on my first playthrough; as soon as I could map out every square of the ocean, I did... Only to realize that later in the game I'd have to sail back to every island the map for the various trinkets and doo-dads necessary to complete Link's quest.

My most shameful example: I have a 120+ hour save of Dragon Quest VII on a still-alive PSX memory card; for the past six years, I've actually toyed with the idea of going back to the game. I need help. And maybe you can be my support group. Am I alone in this?

Related Links:

Anticipation Time: Dragon Quest IV
Know Your Final Fantasy IV Trivia. It Could Save Your Life.
Would You Play a Final Fantasy VII Remake? Hmmm?

Anticipation Time: Dragon Quest IV

Bob Mackey — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

For as much as we like to bitch and moan about innovation in gaming, sometimes it's just nice to be face-deep in a big ol' nostalgia pie--especially if said pie was almost given to us six years ago and then snatched away without the promise of future pie time. What I'm trying to say with this strained analogy is that the remake of Dragon Quest IV is finally coming to the US on September 16th, and we should all be thankful.

If you're unaware of the scandal behind the Dragon Quest IV remake, it's important to know that we almost got it six years ago; released for the Playstation in Japan, Enix promised to bring the game to the States on the back of the US-released Dragon Warrior VII's instructions. Unfortunately, Heartbeat, who "programmed" both VII and the IV remake, folded, making the necessary localization re-programming more trouble than it was actually worth. But honestly, Heartbeat's implosion was really for the best; it allowed Enix to pass the franchise to a much more qualified team (Level 5), and Heartbeat's take on the series kind of buried the magic of Dragon Quest under a load of crummy graphics (even for a game rooted in nostalgia) and sloppy, buggy menus. VII was already a turd of a game, but Heartbeat didn't help matters much.

My favorite Dragon Quest game is III, just because it feels like the absolute peak of old-school RPGs; it's sprawling, complex, and even self-referential, tying up what could have been contained in a trilogy. IV makes some different choices, scaling back on the globetrotting a bit to offer up charming, individual stories that eventually tie into each other for an epic finale with a fittingly epic amount of party members. But the neatest parts of Dragon Quest IV are strictly non-epic, like the chapter that throws you into the shoes of an RPG merchant; you're forced to tend shop and sell goods before you can set out on any kind of quest.

The game still looks a little rough around the edges; but things are crisper on the DS screen, and for some reason the amatuerish 3D graphics feel more at home on Nintendo's handheld than on a system capable of handling Vagrant Story and Metal Gear Solid. Whatever the case, it's all very charming, and seems far less bloated and swimmy than Final Fantasy IV's recent remake. Check out the trailer and dare to tell me that it won't warm the deadest of hearts:

Related Links:

Square-Enix: Reeling in the Devotees For More, Playing the Console Market With Aplomb
Would You Play a Final Fantasy VII Remake? Hmmm?
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter

Time Investment

John Constantine — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Nerve, that monolithic purveyor of literary sex and cultural commentary that spawned 61 Frames Per Second from its lurid brain, has, broadly speaking, a pretty open mind about everything. We are free wheeling folks accepting of both things that are not stupid and many, many things that are stupid but still fun. Great cultural criticism and stunning new fiction? We love that heady stuff. Brainless celebrity gossip? We love that too (well, some of us. Frankly celebrity culture confounds me. That is, unless the celebrities in question are, like, Brenda Brathwaite. Or Prince. Or Optimus Prime.) What I am trying to express is that we are not easily shocked.

Earlier today, videogames managed to shock our fearless editorial leader, Will Doig. He stumbled upon a story that’s been making the internet rounds of late concerning the discovery of a boss in MMORPG Final Fantasy XI that takes close to a full day of constant play to beat. Not just one player, mind you, but an entire team. The intrepid adventures in Beyond the Limitation, the name of the FFXI crew in question, spent eighteen hours straight fighting the Pandemonium Warden, stopping only because, according to one member, “People were passing out and getting physically ill.” They also apparently vomited later on. They didn’t even win the fight. This staggered Commandant Doig to the point where his only comment about the story was, “Physically! Ill!”

I’m right there with him. But it concerns me that I can imagine spending that kind of time playing a game, though maybe not in a single fight in a role-playing game. The time investment required to play most games is a difficult issue to tackle. Twenty years ago, the average action game took twenty minutes to an hour to complete, while today it’s anywhere between ten and twenty hours. Time was games were designed to be played standing up in an arcade but when consoles and PCs became the venue of choice for gaming, designers began to lengthen the experience to increase both product value and the boundaries of what a game could be. I’m no stranger to long games or long play times, especially when it comes to some JRPGs (Dragon Quest VIII caused some, well, problems. There were a couple of days where I played for almost twelve hours straight. Hey, at least it wasn’t playing a single fight.) But when does it become too much? The high cost of high-definition game development has curbed game length somewhat in the past couple of years, but, on the whole, most still take time to learn, time to play, and a lot more time to complete.

How long should a game be?

Related links:

She’s a La-day, Whoa Whoa Whoa: The Top Twenty Women in Games
Whatcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots
Easy Access
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone
The B.Beard All-Stars: Hour Eight of Pokemon

Trailer Review: Riz-Zoawd

John Constantine — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

I like me a good Japanese RPG. Actually, let me rephrase: I love Japanese JRPGs. Like many a youth twenty years back, I received a free copy of Dragon Warrior with my Nintendo Power subscription. I didn’t actually play Dragon Warrior myself, I played it with my older brother, start to finish. It was, as I believe was the point of the game, epic. The experience from level one to defeating the nefarious Dragon Lord really did feel like a vast journey, a true hero quest. But I never got around to playing another JRPG until I was fourteen. That game was Chrono Trigger and it turned me into a slavering addict. These days, I only get to play one JRPG a year. They typically require a massive investment of time and, so, I’m forced to pick and choose. I’m not sure if it’s going to come to the US at this point, but if it does, I might have to make Ris-Zoawd the JRPG I play next year. Media.Vision, creators of the I’m-shocked-it’s-still-going Wild Arms franchise, are behind it. Riz-Zoawd is 3D DS RPG that might just be the most beautiful polygonal game on the system. The music in this trailer is gorgeous, the first person battle system is delightfully old school, and the Wizard of Oz premise is a novel stroke of, well, not quite genius, but it’s certainly inspired. I can’t wait.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
The Past and Future With Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter 4
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge

Related links:

Play It Again, Sam
The Chrono Trigger Port: Are You Excited or Disappointed
OST: Chrono Cross
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter

Good Grief: Snoopy DS

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Square-Enix has obviously found a great deal of success in the Nintendo DS with six Final Fantasy titles (including Tactics, Fables and Crystal Chronicles), four Dragon Quest titles, two Mana titles, The World Ends With You, Space Invaders Extreme, Arkanoid DS, Super Mario Hoops, and many others. With at least two more Dragon Quest titles on the way to the dual-screened portable, along with Kingdom Hearts, Valkyrie Profile, and Chrono Trigger, you might think the kids at S-E had just about run out of old and new properties to fit on those tiny game cards. Well you would be wrong, because Square-Enix is hard at work bringing Charles Schulz's classic comic strip to the party with Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends!

For those of you wondering what kind of enchanted armor Peppermint Patty should wear before engaging the kite-eating tree in combat, fret not, Snoopy DS will be more of a mini-game collection, though from the looks of this trailer you will actually be able to design your own Peanuts character and interact with the whole gang. Playing casual games with the characters from the comic strip certainly seems like a surprisingly pleasant jaunt after magical bouncing balls and World War I dogfights.

Related articles:
Would You Play A Final Fantasy VII Remake? Hmm?
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter
Will Song Summoner Be the First Good iPod Game?
The Chrono Trigger Port: Are You Excited or Disappointed?
Whatcha Playing: With a Little Help From My Friends

E3 Day One: Microsoft, Sony, Final Fantasy, and For Whom the Bell Tolls

John Constantine — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:00:00 GMT

There was a very brief period of crossover time, between 2002 and 2006, when E3 was still a gargantuan, money-wasting event and high-speed internet access was ubiquitous. During these years, gamers across the English speaking world regularly crashed websites following videocasts and liveblogs of press conferences as the biggest game announcements of the year hit the public. In the wake of the old E3’s dissolution and 2007’s lackluster event, the press cycle for the games industry seemingly changed forever; game announcements, platform holder initiatives, and publisher events have been spread out over the last eighteen months, no longer restricted to only a handful of days in the summer leading up to the usual holiday deluge of high-profile releases. The days of “breaking the internet” appeared to be over.

Then Microsoft announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming out for the Xbox 360 and it was the good ol’ days all over again.

Today’s big reveal has not only overshadowed all other big E3 news so far, including all of MS’ other announcements, it’s emblematic of a genuinely important shift in the way we as players are going to consume games going forward. As development costs have risen, third-party game exclusivity has been declining. Square-Enix’s commitment to multi-platform releases is one more nail in its coffin, if not the final one. What this is ultimately going to mean is that videogame consoles are going to further diversify beyond the current generation. It means that consoles are going to stop trying to compete solely on the software front and move into the realm of unique experiences, a la Nintendo’s Wii.

What the announcement means for the current console cycle, where software exclusivity is still the central competition between Microsoft and Sony, is that Sony is in a legitimately dire situation. Disregarding the hyperbole getting tossed about that Final Fantasy XIII was literally all the company had left to hook a mass audience, it was the last of Sony’s third-party exclusive stable. They have now lost Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, and Dragon Quest, the three most-important non-Nintendo franchises in Japan. Their remaining first-party exclusive franchises with a serious global audience are God of War and Gran Turismo, games that simply do not have the appeal of a Halo or a Wii Play.

Tomorrow is going to be a very, very interesting day.

The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 1

Peter Smith — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:30:00 GMT

More than any other creative medium, videogames rely on sequels. Unlike serial fiction (television, comics) or film franchising focused on continuing narrative and familiar characters, videogame sequels — at their best, mind you — are not just the next chapter of a story or the return of a popular protagonist. The most successful gameplay designs are perfected through revision. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. And while sequel-as-business-model more often than not leads to stagnation, sometimes pandering to the audience reveals a vein of creativity richer than that found in the source material. Sometimes, a good idea needs to be demolished and rebuilt over its original foundation to become great. This week, 61 Frames Per Second takes a look at gaming's ten most adventurous sequels: direct successors that significantly alter the fundamental design, aesthetically and mechanically, of their predecessors. Some of the entries on this list are great successes, others failures. But they all broke the mold to change our ideas about play. — John Constantine

Adventure Island IV

Even as an old-school die-hard I've always been pretty indifferent to the Adventure Island series. Sure, it's solid hop-and-bopping, but without much aesthetic or architectural distinction. Does anyone feel passionately about Adventure Island, really? More people might if Adventure Island IV had come out in the States. IV melds the series's standard run-around-whacking-stuff-with-other-stuff mechanics to an ambitious Metroid-esque superstructure, in which newly acquired items must be used to open previously inaccessible sections of a large, continuous map. (The snowboard you pick up in one area gives you passage through a snowy field, and so forth.) This is a familiar tactic today — see recent Castlevania games, for example — but at the time it was unusual, and certainly not where you'd have expected a staid platforming series to go. — Peter Smith

Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario Bros. USA)

Quiet down. I know Super Mario Bros. 2 is Doki Doki Panic. As soon as those sprites were transplanted into Shigeru Miyamoto's platforming follow-up to Super Mario Bros., it became a Mario game, and SMB's first true sequel. Even Nintendo went on to re-categorize Takashi Tezuka's Japan-only Super Mario Bros. 2 as little more than an expansion of SMB (it was re-released in 1993 as Super Mario Bros: For Super Players in Japan and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels in the west.) What's remarkable about Super Mario Bros. 2 is not its unorthodox development; it's how it warps the fundamentals of SMB (and even J-SMB2) while maintaining familiarity. The aesthetic shift from SMB risked alienating Nintendo's still-growing fan base but it made Mario and his friends even more recognizable as icons. Play wise, it expands on the multi-character abilities of J-SMB2, and re-defines progression through levels. In SMB, the goal is merely to get to the end of a series of stages and then get past Bowser at the end of castle. In SMB2, the completion of levels is usually tied to items, whether it's procuring keys to get past locked doors or retrieving a magic orb. The game also has multiple antagonists that have to be physically defeated as opposed to just avoided as with Bowser. It was also pretty adventurous to have a transgendered dinosaur in a game for kids. Risky! — JC

Final Fantasy II

The old joke is that, by rights, Final Fantasy II shouldn't even exist. In 1987, Final Fantasy was intended to be a young Hironobu Sakaguchi's swansong, an experiment in the rising role-playing genre made popular by Yuji Horii just a year before. Its success has kept the Gooch making games for two decades now, but the series, and JRPGs broadly, owes many of its enduring characteristics to the sequel that never should have been. Final Fantasy II was designed by Akitoshi Kawazu, best known for the SaGa series. While the first FF, with the exception of a few aesthetic flourishes, was more or less a clone of the first two Dragon Quests, Final Fantasy II placed an emphasis on story and character that was absent from the genre previously. Rudimentary as the tale of empire and resistance was, the story of Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon in Palemecia was a drastic shift from the western-style hero-epics that typified the genre in 1988. Kawazu also made some decidedly ill-advised changes to play. As opposed to the traditional system of gaining experience points through battle to build character's statistical attributes — a foundational aspect of role-playing games, digital and non — each action in the game improved only through use. Increasing defense requires defending against attacks, increasing attack power requires attacking, and so on and so forth. This system of growth was applied to every interactive aspect of the game and quickly became tedious. But it was one more new idea in a game full of them. — JC

Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.