JRPG Journey 2022: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (May)

Spring bonus game: Mother [Earthbound Beginnings]

June’s game: Tales of Legendia

Welcome back to 2022’s JRPG Journey. I’m still catching up on the reviews I missed while moving, but on the plus side, I’m only a month behind now. May’s game is Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, and it’s tough to decide where to start. Developed by Chunsoft, Japanese players revere this 1992 entry in the classic series almost as much as Dragon Quest III, but unlike that game, it didn’t see a Western release until far later, in 2009, when a localization of the DS remake reached our shores. More recently, we’ve received a mobile port of that version, which is what I played. You can’t do much better as far as mobile ports go, and I’d recommend this one if you’re unwilling to pay the insane price for a DS copy.

Not surprisingly, V plays the same as the first four games. Players either rag on Dragon Quest for this or it’s what they love most about the series, and I fall into the latter camp. I know what to expect with DQ’s core gameplay, structure, and even visuals, I like all of that, and V provides more of it. I do wish I’d played the Super Famicom version to compare with, as the graphics here are exactly the same the mobile remakes of IV and VI. That disappoints me a little, since I enjoy seeing how far developers push games visually as they get more comfortable with a hardware generation, and as consoles cycle through. When you play the most recent version of the first six Dragon Quest games today, they all look identical. Now, this complaint only makes sense if you value viewing games through a historical perspective, but I do, which means I’ll definitely check out the original at some point. It’s on the SNES, for crying out loud, a giant step up from the NES, and I haven’t fully appreciated that yet.

On the other hand, plenty of visual touches make their impact. Aside from series staples like castles, countrysides, deserts, and volcanoes, you now visit a welcome variety of settings, including a fairyland dreamworld, real to only the player, as well as saltier locales like a slave labor camp or pirate ship. Each location ties into the story, on which Chunsoft places a greater emphasis than ever; in fact, I’d call this the first JRPG with a story comparable to modern JRPG storytelling, which tends to focus on a single fleshed-out character, then adding other major characters, usually party members, as you go. You play as the son of a salty sea dog named Pankraz and follow your character, the Hero, from his birth all the way through adulthood, even marriage and having highly-plot relevant kids. The soundtrack, while not among my series favorites so far, appropriately highlights this literal adventure of a lifetime with vibrant classical melodies as you take to the sea and skies, or somber dirges when you’re at your most downtrodden, all courtesy of the late Koichi Sugiyama. It’s typical Dragon Quest fare, except this time there wasn’t quite enough of it. I could have used a few more tracks, anyway; it started to get repetitive in the latter half. My other musical complaint, as usual for DQ, is that there’s not enough tracks to keep me satisfied the whole time. I hope this improves as I delve deeper into the series.

Chunsoft fully stretches their legs with Dragon Quest V, using the power of the SNES to explore new ideas, all while retaining the series’s strong essence. Despite the emphasis on story and a new gameplay twist I’ll discuss in a bit, DQV’s changes by no means make for a departure or reinvention. It’s not like, say, Final Fantasy IV, which’s ATB system forever altered the course of that series by introducing a real-time element to battles. Instead, it’s an evolution that proclaims JRPGs are no longer about grinding through monsters to get better equipment to kill the big bad; now, they aspire to be something more, to try new systems and tell stories more complex than a paragraph. Some even call V’s story one of the best ever in a JRPG, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I’m impressed by how the writers at Chunsoft leapt from Dragon Quest III’s basic fantasy plot to a sprawling epic spanning generations—(Dragon Quest IV, although not made by Chunsoft, marks an interesting mid-point. It’s structurally more complex since you play through four character scenarios before a final chapter where the characters join together, but the plots are independent, short, and follow standard fantasy tropes… except Torneko’s, but he’s special.)—And Chunsoft did it all on the SNES, an especially impressive feat, even though there’s not a ton of depth beyond the main plot points. Thankfully, that’s where party chat comes in, albeit only for your party members.

Like in the mobile version of DQIV, talking to a party character at any time reveals their thoughts on the most recent piece of dialogue or story event. There’s a huge amount of this text; dozens of lines for each location, since it updates whenever you talk to a new person, and even more astoundingly, all of it’s interesting. It’s my favorite part of the game, especially when you meet and choose your future wife, who, yep, becomes a party member. Depending on who you pick—there’s three options in the remake and two in the original—you’ll get a heaping dose of her personality. I went with Deborah, the remake-exclusive wife who I heard was hilarious, and she didn’t disappoint. She’s a real ball buster, a tsundere with very little of the dere dere and no lack of judgmental opinions on any given person or situation, and even though you meet each girl at different points in the story, the writers manage to bring them together in a logical way, then make your choice the correct, plot-relevant choice. The most fitting English subtitle in the series so far, “Hand of the Heavenly Bride” might seem straightforward, but you’ll be able to glean a few deeper meanings from it after playing the game.

Aside from story upgrades, Chunsoft added an entire freakin’ monster catching system to the game, reminiscent of Megami Tensei. If it’s strange I haven’t mentioned that yet, well, it’s treated almost as a hidden mechanic. A rabid sabertooth cat joins your party early on, but eventually leaves, and after that there’s no overt indication that more monsters can join. You’ve got to meet a few conditions to unlock it, and while all the info is in the game, it’s overly convoluted. I can easily see someone playing the whole game without ever figuring out you can catch monsters, which would be tragic, since monsters are incredibly useful, and V continues the series’s tradition of frequent large difficulty spikes. Even worse for an unprepared player are the long early- and mid-game stretches where you’re stuck with only one or two party members for hours at a time. Without any monsters for these parts, you’re asking to burn yourself out grinding. So while monsters will play a crucial role in battle for most players, they also feel tacked on, since there’s no way to customize or do anything other than battle with them, and they’re optional.

Thankfully, Dragon Quest V doesn’t skimp on difficulty. It’s still not a hard game, but I’d put it on par with the earlier entries in the series. A wider variety of useful items makes fights easier, but bosses hit particularly hard to compensate, with plentiful party wipe attacks common by the endgame. Fortunately, DQV’s got more party customization than ever, letting you choose any combination of your wife, son and daughter, dozens of monsters, even recruitable NPCs. I was happy with my family and pet Slime Knight, so I didn’t try any of those, but it’s cool how Chunsoft snuck that feature in, again with no overt mention, and how they’re all characters you’ve gotten to know during your journey—another example of how DQV strives for—and achieves—cohesion, rather than DQIV’s disjointed approach. You might never know these NPCs are recruitable, but it makes sense why they join you, if they do.

Of course, most party choices only become available as you near the end of the adventure. Most of the time, you’ll have a set party as you journey through a section of the Hero’s life, and Chunsoft gets creative here. Surely inspired by Final Fantasy IV, which came out a year previously, you’re never in one place for long, constantly moving from location to location and set piece to set piece, dropping and swapping party members as the plot demands. While cutscenes aren’t as elaborate as FFIV’s, they’re a solid leap over Dragon Quest IV’s clunky action, and if you play the modern remakes of DQ IV and V back to back, you can tell V is a SNES game. There’s just more to it: more action, more visual effects, more characters, more everything, and like for most 90s games, that’s a good thing. Likewise, the writers aren’t afraid to explore dark topics up close, like slavery. There’s a whole sequence where the Hero gets captured as a child, sent to a work camp, and abused for years. It’s not a cutscene; this is a lengthy chapter of the game that you have to play out and experience. And I’m not trying to revel in the macabre; there’s plenty of uplifting sequences, like when you gain control of your own mighty ship. I mentioned this in my DQIII video, but Dragon Quest makes you feel like the hero more than any other JRPG series by avoiding characterizing the hero too much. Instead, it lets you imagine it’s… you in the game. If you’re into that kind of interactive experience instead of a pure story, well, Dragon Quest does it best.

Lastly, I hope I haven’t oversold Dragon Quest V’s story. While it’s a charmingly executed tale of wonder, hope, loss, pain, and strength, it won’t satisfy you like a novel would. It’s good, for a JRPG, but if it weren’t part of a game, I wouldn’t care. What makes DQV great is how its other elements tie into each other through the cohesive narrative, everything contributing to the game’s goal of letting you experience this Hero character’s life. The story could only be interesting in the context of a game, and I’d say that’s a decent recipe when writing a JRPG.

Wow, I had a lot more to say about this game than I thought. I hope you enjoyed this one. Join me soon, when I finally catch up to what I’m currently playing with Tales of Legendia.