Dragon Quest VI - Maboroshi no Daichi

Dragon Quest 6 is one of the best selling Super Famicom games. The Dragon Quest series in Japan is wildly popular. However, even though Nintendo heavily marketed the original, the series never caught on in the United States, and none of the Super NES Dragon Quest games made their way here. Through the tireless efforts of rom hackers, this game is now mostly translated to English. I have played about half way through the game, and provide a detailed review of the game. By: Evan G

The hero awakens around a camp site. Two companions await the journey to the final battle. Using a mystical tune, a they summon a might dragon. The party reaches an ancient castle. It is too quiet in the castle, though the crew pushes forth. Finally, the door to evil lord looms. Upon entering, the demon lord casts his spell, immobilizing the party. The party is suspended and then....

The hero's sister wakes him up. "You must retrieve the crown for the festival!" Was it a dream? Who were those companions? What became of them? Who was the demon lord? These are questions that the hero must determine.

Dragon Quest VI is the second original game to appear on the Super NES. It features substantially improved graphics from its predecessors, though the core gameplay is essentially unchanged. It introduces a new job system that made its way into Dragon Quest VII as well. Plus, the game is incredibly long. The game sold over 3 million copies in Japan, but it never found its way to US shores.

The game starts with the hero going on a quest to retrieve a crown for the town festival. Along the way, he accidentally stumbles into the shadow world. The people in the shadow world cannot see the hero, but the hero manages to find a way back to the real world. After getting the crown, the hero returns to the town, and tries to find out about the meaning of the shadow world. After a mysterious message during the festival, the hero sets out on a quest to find his destiny. Throughout the game, you piece together the mysteries of the shadow world, and fight the growing evil that created it.

The party travelling by ship

Though the hero starts off alone in his quest, he eventually meets several commards. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and you will need to utilize them. You can also recruit monsters later in the game using the Beast Master skill.

This is certainly not like the Final Fantasy series, and there are many battles where you will perish. If all your characters die, you lose half your gold points, and you must pay for the revival of all your characters besides the leader. You can prevent monetary loss by keeping your GP in a bank, though.

The battle system stays true to Dragon Quest IV and V. You have up to 4 characters fighting a battle at any point, but you can switch any character with reserves in your wagon. There are many battle tactics that allow you to have your characters fight automatically, though you can also control them manually. The battle options allow you to attack normally, use a special non-magic attack, or use magic.

New to Dragon Quest VI is battle animations. Rather than having static enemies and flashing screens for magic attacks, everything is played out explicitly. The enemy animation is fluid and sometimes humorous. It adds a nice level of interactivity that was a bit lacking in previous games in the series.

Probably the biggest innovation in Dragon Quest VI is the job system. At a certain point in the game, you gain access to the Dharma Shrine, where you can set a job for your characters. Jobs increase or decrease your stats appropriately, and after a certain amount of fights, your character learns skills relevant to the job. The only caveat is that you must fight monsters that have a similar skill level to your own level, so you cannot just fight a bunch of slimes to increase your skill. By completing several skill levels, you can advance to better skill types. If you have played Dragon Warrior VII, the system is identical.

Battle screen

Since Dragon Quest VI was never translated, NoProgress went through and hacked the game to put in an English script. The patch is roughly 90% complete according to NoProgress, though most conversations are translated. The only thing I noticed that was not translated was when you sold items. The most glaring issue with the patch are some crashing bugs. Most notably, the game will crash if you try to back out of the Status --> All or the equip menus. Also, the amount of GP you have is not displayed in the status window. If you open a menu in the field, your characters show right through them. These issues should not prevent you from playing this game, though. The translation is very well done, and the script flows nicely. It is a shame that it will likely never be finished.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics are typical of a late snes-era rpg. The character graphics are about on par with Final Fantasy VI, but pale in comparison to Chrono Trigger. The map graphics are simple by FFVI standards, but they do the job and are improved from DQV. The menus are still as simple as the first game, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your view. The most impressive graphics are the battle scenes, where the monsters finally go through full animations when they attack. The backgrounds in battles are well drawn and set an excellent backdrop. Some might argue the graphics in this game are better than the blurred 3D landscapes in Dragon Quest VII for the Playstation.

Sound: 8/10

The music has always been top notch in the Dragon Quest series, and DQVI is no exception. Syphonic scores are a treat to the ears, though I still think that Dragon Warrior IV still has the best music in the series. The sound effects accurately reflect the spells and attacks, though the score is knocked down a bit due to the fact that they still use the same annoying high pitched effect for menus that they have used since the NES era.

Play Control / Gameplay: 8/10

The controls are simple, as Enix did not mess around with the traditional Dragon Quest system. All actions are menu based, though thankfully they include buttons to open chests and talk to characters. The score is not perfect, as it is a bit clumsy to go through the windows in a battle command options. It would be nice if they could make the commands more compact, instead of having spaces where unlearned commands go.

Overall Score: 9/10

Dragon Quest VI is one of the best snes rpgs. It is incredibly large and has an enthraling story line. Unfortunately, the scale might be enough to turn a lot of people off. I played this game for about 25 hours, and the end was certainly not in sight. Also, like Final Fantasy VI, the game is largely non-linear about a quarter of the way through. If you are an rpg fan, these factors are probably not detractions. The character building aspects are far more involved than any of the previous games. The game is more challenging than the popular Final Fantasy games, but not so much as to be frustrating (like The 7th Saga). I would recommend this game to any snes-era rpg fans.