Games › Super Famicom › 1995
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1995 · Super Famicom
There are two worlds, and nobody in your party is sure who they are. Early on, the Hero finds that alongside the real world lies a Dream World built from people's dreams, and an evil power wants both. Crossing between them, you piece together your companions' lost memories and your own, and the discovery of how the two worlds connect drives the whole game.
Underneath is classic Dragon Quest: an overhead world, random battles fought in first person, turn-based menus and experience levels. The big system is classes. At Alltrades Abbey each character picks a starting class such as Warrior or Martial Artist; each class ranks up by winning battles, and skills learned stay with you when you switch. Master the right pairs and hybrid classes such as Gladiator open up, leading eventually to the Hero class. Around the edges sit casinos, a Slime Arena, a Best Dresser Contest, mini medals and a wagon for swapping party members.
Heartbeat developed it, taking over from Chunsoft, which had made the earlier games, and Enix published it on the Super Famicom on 9 December 1995. The series' core trio returned: Yuji Horii on scenario, Akira Toriyama on art and Koichi Sugiyama on music. It closes the trilogy of games known as the Zenithia or Zenithian trilogy. After a delay of more than a year, it went on sale at a steep price of more than 11,000 yen and sold 3.2 million copies, the best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, ahead of Chrono Trigger.
It was also the first Dragon Quest to give human characters special techniques that are not spells. An English version, reportedly planned as Dragon Warrior V, never happened: the 4MB cartridge was about as large as the console could handle, Enix had pulled out of North America, and translation would have needed even bigger, dearer chips. English speakers finally got it with the Nintendo DS remake in 2011.
It looks much better than Dragon Quest V, with monsters that animate when they attack, and Sugiyama's music is as warm as ever. The dual-world idea is clever, and the class system gives you real control over how your party grows. Levelling classes in the background of the main story makes long sessions feel productive, and Toriyama's cast has plenty of charm.
It is also a lot of Dragon Quest. Battles are frequent, class mastery needs many fights, and the two maps can make it hard to know where to go next. Critics have long called the class grind tedious and the twin worlds overwhelming, and both complaints are fair. The Super Famicom version was never translated, so the practical way in for most people is the DS remake.
Dragon Quest VI has a class system that always wants one more fight. Win enough battles and Warrior ranks up; master the right pair and Gladiator opens; keep going and the Hero class waits at the end. Critics have long called the class grind tedious. It also sold 3.2 million copies, the best-selling game of 1995 in Japan. Both are true, and the gap between them is worth a look.
Brain imaging by Matthias Koepp and colleagues showed dopamine release in the striatum while people played a video game. Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson's work shows dopamine is more about wanting than liking. That goes a long way to explaining the Alltrades Abbey habit: you may not enjoy the next random battle much, but you badly want the rank-up it brings. Worth noticing, not worth fearing. The game wraps the wanting in dream worlds, lost memories and a Slime Arena, so at least the pull leads somewhere with a view.
Read: Wanting, not liking: what dopamine really does when you play →
Verdict · 7/10
A generous, classic RPG with a smart class system and a real appetite for your time. Play the DS remake unless you read Japanese.
