#game-review #finishedgame2024 # Dragon Quest V  [Console:: Nintendo DS] [Status:: Beaten] [Approximate Start Date:: 2024-03-06] [Finish Date:: 2024-12-08] [Clear Time:: 34h 37m] [Total Play Time:: 34h 37m] [nReplays:: 0] ## [Rating:: 93] the dad game to end all dad games # Playthrough Notes - Playing on my Nintendo DSi XL :] It's so pretty - I definitely didn't get a Wagon and spent a TON of time after the Coberg arc looking for a reason why the ship wasn't showing up in the harbor. Seems like now I can recruit monsters at least! - Making my own family of monsters. - Bianca calls them my "weird pals" - somehow Sancho has ended up with like 4 tnt tickets - beat Bjorn and Mädchen always is dead when I beat the bosses. How annoying lol. # My Thoughts ## General Thoughts - I have to remind myself that Dragon Quest games are going to be very good at guiding you where to go, and they're more friendly than not. You're expected to struggle a bit, and falling in battle is not going to punish you severely. - I definitely went into [[Dragon Quest IV - Chapters of the Chosen]] with the wrong mindset: I wanted to rush it and play it perfectly, when I should've just taken my time and explored as desired. I ended up going everywhere in the first chapter anyways, so it's not like I missed optional side content. So I'm going to go into this game with that mindset. - Been stuck in this fuckin volcano because I don't have a reliable means of restoring my MP and these fucking Flamethowers do boatloads of spread damage dude, what the helllll - This is a game about being a dad, no doubt. - Yeah dude, you literally go back to where your Dad waited to have you to be born and you're waiting on your wife to give birth. - It's a game about what a positive masculine role model looks like (maybe a traditional masculine role model, but still). - I will be honest, the random encounters are not something I can reflect upon with fondness. It's not that I DON'T LIKE THEM, but I can't in good faith say they're not a problem. they do impair my experience with the game, even if the game is balanced around you fighting every random encounter. It often becomes a bit of a button mash. - Nah, this is actually fine, makes the game much easier to play in bed. - when did Mädchen get that much hp? They grow up so quickly... - I ALWAYS heal my kids before anyone else. I once healed myself before the kids and I felt like a real jerk. - Recruited Dwight Dwarf, da white dwarf.... such a good pun here - The dungeon that gave me the best cape gear for the protagonist, the dungeon with the blocks you push to cover all the beast grates, is a great example of how the dungeons in this game are attrition explorations. - Like with the way I approached the volcano to get the Ring of Fire, I have to understand what my resources are, and assess how long I think I can last in the dungeon before I need to conduct a strategic retreat back to Gotha. - Hoping and praying there's not a boss at the bottom of this dungeon, because wow I would not be able to handle it. There WERE Liquid Metal Slimes! - I found a Metal King Slime in the final dungeon! Didn't kill it though :[ - Beat Nimzo after a marathon of a final boss. At some point I just completely ran out of MP and ### Is the Zenithian Armor a metaphor for the powers a family's love gives you? - You get the Zenithian sword from a message from your dad, Pancraz - You get the Zenithian shield at the same time you choose a wife and marry her. - You can't wear the helm, but then you go to Gotha which was your father's kingdom and Bianca is pregnant with twins. - Your son is the hero! Bianca was the owner of the hero's bloodline, not you! you're just a guy - the "Father of the Hero". - You're not responsible for "saving the world" so to speak, but you are responsible with raising the hero that will save the world. So your responsibility is to be a good father. - Your son gets the Zenithian Helm - The Zenithian Armor is found in Crocodopolis which you can only get with a key you get from Briscoletti after defeating Bjorn in Monstroferrato. You are breaking a generational cycle in the Briscoletti family to get it. Showing that you're willing to be an example of change for your son. - You also find the stone Bianca in this space as well, a reunification of your family. - But we aren't the legendary hero, our son is. #### With respect to Parry, Zenithian Gear is a Demonstration of Love - The sword is from his paternal grandfather - The shield is from a secondary grandparental figure (if not outright maternal granfather) - The helm comes from your father's journeys through life - The armor comes from reuniting with mother and breaking generational trauma. ## I Played This at the Right Time in Life - I'm 25 - 26 and engaged while playing this game. I am just far enough away from my childhood to know I'm no longer in it in any capacity. I am about to start a family of my own. I am beginning to understand the meaningfulness having a parent has, and the continued meaning it gives us to be a parent. I am not a father yet, but I understand that I must be the best father I can be for my future children so that they can be strong, capable, intelligent and caring individuals themselves. - I mean, I was in the process of planning a wedding in real life and in my video game at the same time, for Pete's sake. That doesn't happen very often - The role-play of the anxiety of the night before choosing a bride is so real dude. - When else in a video game to you get to take a night walk to contemplate a major life decision that only impacts you? ## Gameplay Specific Thoughts - They put me on a boat to start in a confined space, and I checked everywhere. - That's the nice thing about Dragon Quest Games. The game teaches you that "you can explore, but you'll go there eventually anyways", and that's on full display here. - I've "blacked out" a couple times in Uptaten Manor, but I think that's the point. Even if I faint, I don't lose my experience, just like half of my money. I am grinding and growing every time I attempt and don't succeed. Eventually I will succeed! I'm just a kid with a friend, we're 6 and 8, investigating a haunted mansion. - When Pancraz guides us from town to town, it shows us the world, passively. Then when we return to it as an adult, we're already familiar with the space, but it's on us to remember the space and now explore it in greater detail. - The way I've been approaching some of the harder dungeons is knowing when to retreat. With Evac and Zoom I can assess how deep I want to go before I start to have obvious problems. This has been good to some degree, but does drag down the experience when I'm constantly leaving from Mostroferro for the Lava Dungeon, get 3 encounters along the way, and then even more along that same path through the dungeon because of the encounter rates. - That said, it has allowed me to grind up exp and money, which has made it so that I can thus buy stronger gear for my party of monsters. - I never felt like I had a "game-breaking strategy". Every strategy I had was at least somewhat in service to my skills in the moment, and the idea that I could test if I wanted to. There's a fantastic amount of precision that needs to be considered here. I wasn't ever over-levelled and when I was under-levelled, I never felt like that I couldn't catch up to the game. - I think about the volcano section getting the ring of fire, where I was probably more underlevelled, but was that not the point of the game? To demonstrate your mettle, and if you don't have it, to build it up, to convince Rodrigo to let you marry his daughter (even though I chose Bianca lol) - The final boss fight was a war of attrition of rationing MP and constantly healing to sway the momentum on my side whenever and however possible. - It's not that I was strapped for cash, it was that the economy of dragon quest v forced me to make real decisions with my money, which isn't something I've had to do in a very long while. ### Fairy Tales and Childhood In the child portions of the game you go on adventures that really sound like fairy tale stories from childhood. - You go investigate a spooky haunted mansion with a childhood friend and let the spirits rest in peace to stop the hauntings - You go to the realm of the Faeries to recover an item that saves the world from an Eternal winter brought on by the Winter Queen. - when you're an adult and you have kids, you can't actually see the faeries anymore. Instead, your children have to guide the way back to the Faerie realm. That's pretty cool. - And then it all gets ripped away once Pancraz is killed and you're sold into slavery. - As an adult, you can no longer find the Faerie Realm, and have to rely on your children to guide you. - Maybe this is the most obvious example that you aren't a child anymore. Though, you should've known this by now. This is the reality of life: things you could once do as a kid, you cannot do as an adult. But the inverse is also true, you can do a LOT of things as an adult that you couldn't do as a kid. - You've seen the horrors of reality and that fairy tales "aren't real". - When did we get so jaded? Did it happen just because we grew up? ### Rotating Party Members - Seems kind of fun to have a consistently changing party that reflects the comings and goings of people in your life, and how you can have friends at some points, - Oh and you can recruit monsters for your party too, a la Pokemon. - And wouldn't you know, they gain exp if they remain in the wagon, that's cool and good! No reason to store them unless you straight up don't have space for it. - It's also nice that they act like a second line of defense in the event that every member from your first party dies - I got hit with a Shell enemy (can't remember the name) using Whack and literally wiping out me, Sancho, Madchen and Parry in a single turn and my back up members all came into the fight. - I actually ended up using EVERY SINGLE party member in the final boss fight. I would use the Sage's Stone to heal people in the wagon while the others did some incremental damage, and then swap people out once they were at full HP - Even Gumdrops the Goodybag got usage with the MP Absorbing Spell to give Parry just enough MP to cast Multiheal once or twice. That's all I needed to last just a little bit longer. - Admittedly, I didn't try very hard to recruit a variety of monsters, rather I focused on a set of Monsters I brought through out. I'm sure I could've searched out for more, but then again, I don't know. I liked using my family members and my childhood pet. And Sancho. - I kept my children out of battle for as long as I knew they couldn't handle it. They still got experience though. Eventually I slotted them in and they were QUITE powerful. ### Post-Coberg Freedom Reflecting Maturation - After you say farewell to Harry and Maria after the situation in Coberg, you'll have effectively explored every area on the continent. I've solved a lot of the local problems from your childhood, that ten years has provided you the opportunity to fix. But then once you've done all that, what do you do there? You set sail for somewhere new to create a new meaning for yourself. If's a lot like growing up: it's important to acknowledge your home, and where you grew up once you become an adult, but then afterwards, you're encouraged to set forth on a new adventure to find what it means to truly be yourself, and not simply live in the world in which you were raised. - And then when you finish the work at Hay and go to Zoomingale, you find out your bro Harry got married, and then you immediately get the Zoom spell so you can go say hi and celebrate. - What a great way to introduce fast travel. - You could walk, but why would you? ### Choosing a wife - When I am now in the process of courting a wife from Rodrigo Briscoletti's process, Deborah's upstairs and Nera has a suitor long before then who has been friends with her since they were kids. am I really going to be "mr. Steal yo Girl" with Crispin? I don't think so. I think I'll be a good dude and go marry Bianca instead. - But I'll make a save at the decision so that I can go back there and choose Nera or Deborah too. - Apparently Deborah has a LOT of physical strength? - I found Bianca in Stockenbarrell and ol' Whitey said that he'd like me to look after her - Does she need someone to look after her? - I want to know: who in their right mind doesn't see Bianca as the CANON love interest in the game. I don't think I could possibly go for Nera after learning that Whitey's growing ill, and was never her biological father to begin with, and that her mother is dead already. Like, yes, I am sure she could find someone else in her life, but I feel like it's a natural story arc to marry Bianca here. - I feel like going after Nera feels wrong, like I'm an interloper. Like a transactional arrangement. Maybe there's something to be said there if I were to explore the story, but if I'm playing honestly, Nera and Crispin are already established, and it's clear Nera cares about Crispin a lot. Who am I to waltz in and woo her father instead of her? - On the night before the selection, Nera lies in bed, eyes open, waiting, unable to sleep. Bianca is out in the villa watching out the window for you to see if you're going into the Briscoletti Manor too. I think these are both perfect encapsulations with each girl's opinion of you, the player. I mean, how could you not choose Bianca at that point? - I married Bianca - She's not terribly romantic, but y'know, that's okay. - The Wedding veil also being in Stockenbarrell is fun because I can go back to Whitey and tell him that I was marrying Bianca. - And once you get married, you get a ship that lets you explore the world. Is it any coincidence that the world opens up to you the same time you get married? #### What Other JRPG Lets you Start a REAL Family? Dragon Quest V is a cool game because you get to go through with a legitimate wedding ceremony around halfway through the game. That's not something that *just happens* in any JRPG, let alone one that came out in 1992. Sure, later games like [[Fire Emblem Awakening]] allow you to marry another unit and "have kids", and [[Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War]] follows a family over the course of generations, but Dragon Quest V is a game where you not only get married, but also do all the preparations leading up to the wedding ceremony too. You court a wife, you go get the rings, you go get the veil, you go tell your partner's family about it, you go through a whole wedding ceremony, and everything. Even in [[Linda Cube Again]], the marriage is simulated in Scenario B, and then done off screen in Scenario C, and the game ends with Ken and Linda starting a family. But Dragon Quest V allows you to play through the process of starting a family as well. You get the true experience of being a Dad. You have a family beyond the "aesthetic sense" Dragon Quest V is the only game I have ever played where the protagonist and I share the exact same life circumstances: being engaged and preparing for a wedding. That's not something you get form just *any* game. And then you get to have that moment where you're waiting to have your children be born. Like. What JRPG lets you hear your wife say "I love you" moments before going into labor huh? That doesn't happen in just any game? It's all so *real*. Then getting turned into a statue and watching someone's else's child grown up in front of you must've been so painful. It's the generational cycle of losing a parent.. Luckily you can break free from this generational curse eventually, and spend the time with your kids that you never got with your father. The final sequence involves you bringing your family on a triumphant tour of all the places that left an impact on you growing up, before you return home to celebrate your true homecoming. ### Gotha as a Home Base in the last third of the game Gotha really starts to feel like a home base of sorts. After every outing I go back there and heal and save and then plan out where to go next. I think that's kind of the point. I am so glad that they gave me a place to feel like "home" after my childhood home got destroyed. And then I can use the magic carpet to fly around and figure out the best ways to get from one place to another based on their relation to Gotha. To build on that, I now think of everything in relation to Gotha... guess I live there in game now, huh. I AM the king of that domain, after all. But I always find myself returning home to Gotha to heal, hit up the bank and do all my preparations before setting out. I am starting to think of places in the world with respect to Gotha. (Lofty Peak is NORTH of Gotha). I definitely started feeling this way the most once I get the Flying Carpet. The idea of Whealbrook being the "place I grew up" and not "home" isalso a subtle change. Maybe it's made easier by the fact that by blood, my player character is the heir to the throne of Gotha, meaning there was always a reason to go beyond the place where I, the player, grew up. #### Static Home Base Rather than Moving One - Gotha has everything you might want out of a home - including - a free heal - a bank, - a means of organizing your recruited monsters, and - a basic set of item and gear shops. - It's not all encompassing, but does have the basics. If you want more specialized gear than you just have to go and pursue it yourself. - It would be really cool if you could recruit people / artisans from all over to come to Gotha and use their skills in your kingdom. - While you have Zenithia as a means of traversing the world, that doesn't ever feel like a home base. It's more like a big fucking airship. - Compare against other contemporary RPGs that give you an airship, for example. - The Blackjack and the Falcon in [[Final Fantasy VI]] immediately comes to mind, which is your home in the World of Ruin. #### A King's Triumphant Homecoming - I also thus understand the idea of a King on a questing party, leaving and returning and all the fanfare that comes with it. - Every time I would return from exploring, I liked to imagine the rumors going through Gotha "oh the king is returning!". They really got my hooked. - This made the ending of the game so good, when you finally get to return home and have your people celebrate you and your life's accomplishments. You have accomplished your father's dream and through his support you have made it, and now you have to do the same for your son and daughter. ## Falling Actions in JRPGs After beating Grandmaster Nimzo I got to go on a tour of all the places I had left an impact, or that were impactful to me over the course of the game. I got to talk with everyone and feel like the story was coming to a close after all was said and done. This really felt like a meaningful and triumphant way of doing a closing chapter compared to some of the other games Iv'e played. Some games just end immediately after you beat the final boss (i.e. you don't control your player anymore and you watch a single cutscene or two), others have falling actions that feel WAY more drawn out than they need to be. Dragon Quest V's is just the right length here. - [[EarthBound]] has that falling action where you go and visit everyone you met after all is said and done, and they celebrate yo too, and then you return to your life once again. # Favorite Moments / Memories - Lots and lots of puns. They're always good - "Count Uptaten" and Miss Count - Da White Dwarf -> Dwight Dwarf. - There's an Ogre that lives up in the light house, but no it's actually just an ugly guy named Ogar. - The wedding was very cool, I was grinning like a silly goose the whole time. - MAGIC CARPET WOOOOOO # What were you doing when not playing this? - Watching Oscars 2024 during the storming of Uptaten Manor - watching [[Amazing Race 8]]'s later legs while fighting the imposter queen Dowager - [[Amazing Race 9]]'s later half right before deciding on a bride # Relevant Links - Archive of all the carddass set: https://archive.org/details/DQV-Carddass/