
	Platform DS Genre Role-Playing Publisher Square-Enix Developer ArtePiazza ETA February 17, 2009
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Dragon Quest V

Growing up, I really liked playing the various Dragon Warrior games on the NES. Eventually, when the SNES came out, the popular Final Fantasy series made its way to the platform in the US. As such, it seemed perfectly logical to a young, teenaged Mr. Nash to assume that the Dragon Warrior series would follow suite. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and Westerners started what would be a long drought of Dragon Quest games in our region, and as if this kidney punch to our RPG-loving souls wasn’t enough, the years that followed saw Enix release what seemed like every SNES RPG in their library to the US except Dragon Quest games. Paladin’s Quest? Check. 7^th Saga? You bet! Act Raiser? Of course. Brain Lord? Sure, why not. Dragon Quest V (or any other DQ game for that matter)? No dice. Sure, we could download a translated ROM of the game, but that doesn’t undo the dearth of DQ games not being released in the US during the 1990s. Now, well over a decade later, we’re finally getting an official release of Dragon Quest V on this side of the Pacific, and better still it’s getting all dolled up as a DS remake similar to what we saw with Dragon Quest IV last year.

The game, like all of the others in the series, follows the adventures of “The Hero”, which is meant to be named by the player, and whereby the identity is foisted on the person playing the game. In this installment, players follow approximately 20 years in the hero’s life, and all of the subsequent adventures that pop up over the decades. It starts when the hero is a boy, and traveling with his father, to later when he finds love, eventually has kids, and in time is presented with a position of power. What is particularly interesting about the plot in Dragon

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Quest V is that it has a much more personal quality to it. In a lot of RPGs, players are presented with a situation of grand importance that usually involves save the world, or stopping an evil tyrant (or both), but in this game, while there are constant sources of great evil that need to be dealt with, everything comes back to the hero, and the life he lives.

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We also see some early signs of the Dragon Quest series flirting with allowing players to recruit monsters into their party while adventuring in DQV. Sometimes, after an encounter, a monster may want to join the hero. This is something we’ve seen relegated to various side story, spin off games, but it’s interesting on a historical note to see its beginnings here. This does give players a little more variety in how they go about combat, as new abilities become available from the monsters in their party, and helps to jazz up what is otherwise Dragon Quest’s traditional approach to battles. There are also a number of mini-games that will be available to play, as well as various doodads to collect and trade with friends via the DS’ wifi over the course of the game.

Like we saw with Dragon Quest IV on the DS last year, part V is getting a hefty facelift in the graphics department for this remake. Gone are the sprite-based, tile-centric visuals of old, now replaced by plump, juicy, polygonal, 3D characters and environments while exploring the game, and some very pretty 2D portrait work showing off Akira Toriyama’s talents during the battles.

I was steaming mad when I first learned that Dragon Quest V wasn’t coming to the SNES, and now, almost 15 years later, it looks like I’m finally going to have the chance to play the thing. If it’s even half as good as the DQIV remake was, I reckon that it’ll have been worth the wait.

Mr. Nash
February 2, 2009