Reviewing a Dragon Quest game from an American standpoint is an interesting prospect. The long-running RPG series is a cultural phenomenon in its native Japan. Those in the Japanese gaming industry consider it Japan’s national game, with new Dragon Quest games selling up to four million copies. The series has received live-action ballet adaptations, and its music has been performed annually in concert halls since 1987. There’s even a bar in Tokyo modeled after Liuda’s Bar from the games, where fans can go to swap stories and collect treasure maps.
Why, then, has this series never caught on in the States? Sadly, there were barriers from the start. The first game in the series had to be released under the title Dragon Warrior for copyright reasons, but Nintendo still thought it could rustle up the same excitement as it did in Japan, promoting the game heavily in its magazine Nintendo Power. Dragon Warrior garnered generally good reviews, but sold so poorly — half a million copies, only a third of the number sold in its homeland — that Nintendo had to resort to giving copies away. Nintendo then decided to let U.S. publishing duties fall to Enix, the studio that created the games. The next three games, also released under the Dragon Warrior moniker, sold less copies combined than the original. Following this, Enix opted not to release any of the Super Famicom DQ’s in the States, eventually shutting down its U.S. operations completely.
All of this leads us to Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. By this point, Enix, now merged with fellow gaming giant Squaresoft to become Square Enix, was determined to make the series a hit in America. For the U.S. release of the game, Square Enix commissioned all-new voice acting and a fully orchestral soundtrack to replace the synthesized score of the Japanese release. They also packaged the game with a demo of the upcoming Final Fantasy XII. For the first time the game could be released under its proper Dragon Quest title. The game was released on November 15, 2005, and became the biggest-selling PlayStation 2 game ever in Japan. It was the first game in the series to receive a 39 out of 40 in Famitsu. U.S. critics praised the graphics, voice acting and music, but the game sold only 430,000 copies in America, a successful haul compared to previous efforts, but still a fraction of the 4.9 million total worldwide copies sold.
Now, ten years after the original Japanese release, Dragon Quest VIII has made it onto iOS. The game itself is still fantastic: the animation is wonderful, the music memorable, and the gameplay solid and addictive. But the port has a few issues.
The game has been set in portrait mode. This allows the player to enter all commands with one hand. This is welcome in battle, as it makes the menu-based combat system incredibly easy to use. But in the name of convenience, the game has sacrificed some of its scope. This is a title known for its grand scenery, visuals that would look fantastic in widescreen on an iPad, featuring vast plains, broad mountain ranges, and oceans that stretches as far as the eye can see. On the iPhone especially, the game feels cramped. On the iPad, however, it has more room to breathe, as the player’s fingers take up significantly less space. Yet all you get for this is a better view of the ground. More often than not, you’ll still wish you could see more than what you’re seeing. A widescreen option seems unlikely, as it would require reformatting the whole game, but it would be more than welcome in a future update. It is worth noting that this aesthetic quibble is the biggest problem with the port.
The voice acting and orchestral soundtrack have been removed, with the original synthesized Japanese score in its place. These not surprising changes were probably done to keep the size of the game in check as the game file is 1.39 GB, a sizable chunk of space for any phone or tablet. It would be nice to see these features return in a later update, but this seems even less likely than a widescreen format. The menus, meanwhile, are functional, but rather ugly and inelegant compared to the original PS2 release. Again, however, these complaints are nowhere close to game-breaking.
There have been other small changes to make the game more user-friendly on tablets. For example, the Alchemy Pot, which allows players to combine different items to create new ones, now works instantly rather than forcing the player to wait. Pressing a tab off to the side of the screen brings up a menu of all your different transportation options. These changes are welcome.
It should be noted that this game is optimized for current generation devices. It can be played on older equipment (I ran it on an iPad 2 and iPhone 4S) but the frame rate suffers and the game will occasionally crash. If you’re going to take the risk, be sure to exit all other programs and restart your device before running the game. And of course, save frequently!
With all that out of the way, how does the game fare? As noted above, it’s wonderful. The cel-shaded animation style is lovely and the story is a classic RPG tale: you play the silent hero who must band together in a party to save the world from an evil force. It’s hardly groundbreaking, but it’s well-written and the characters are surprisingly nuanced. Koichi Sugiyama’s music is spritely and memorable, and the character/monster designs by Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama are downright charming. The game has one of the best virtual sticks I’ve ever encountered.
Playing the game today, one also cannot help but notice the involvement of production company Level-5, who were responsible for last year’s fantastic Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and the similarities between the two games. Besides the distinctive animation style, there are elements from this game that pop up nearly unchanged in Ni no Kuni, such as the Alchemy Pot, and the casino which offers several of the game’s best weapons and armor as prizes. There’s also a Monster Arena, in which you fight teams of monsters with your own monster team. While the entire combat system of Ni no Kuni is based around training monsters, it’s interesting to note the concept’s possible genesis here.
This is an absolutely essential game, especially for those who’ve never played a Dragon Quest game before. The gameplay feels even more classic today than it did ten years ago, but it’s so well-executed I doubt any RPG fan will mind. Due to the formatting and issues with the music and voice acting, you should play this game on the PS2 if you can. However, should Square Enix provide us with a widescreen option somewhere down the road, we’ll have a near-perfect port of a near-perfect game.