Nerd Mentality

Sea of Change

Posted July 14th 2007 by Jordan Mammo.

When Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Sky was announced for the Nintendo DS, the response seemed almost subdued in comparison to what I was expecting. This was huge news. Not only was Japan's biggest gaming franchise leaving Sony's home console for a rival system, but it was moving to a handheld! And it didn't even look like a traditional Dragon Quest game. There were no random battles, no overworld map (from what we could tell, though that would be a nice continuation of what was implemented in the eighth installment), no turn-based clashes, and there was even going to be four-player Wi-Fi capabilities. I mean, it basically looked like an action game!

I was surprised that a bigger deal wasn't being made of this announcement. It could be because I don't pay as much attention to the Internet anymore that I didn't notice the mass pandemonium breaking out. It could be because Dragon Quest isn't quite the force in the West as it is in Japan (vast understatement). It could also be that the news was not so hard to comprehend considering the Nintendo DS is laying waste to every system available on the market. Dragon Quest‘s move to the DS does make a point about the shift from home consoles to handheld development.

The action part, though. That proved to be bit harder to grasp than I imagined.

Dragon Quest IX looked to be a continuation of what the eighth game started, and what titles like Final Fantasy XII and even Contact experimented with: trying to make themselves into cohesive experiences. RPG battles have always been more abstract than encounters in other games. You walk up to an enemy (or you don‘t, in the case of random battles), the screen shatters, and suddenly the view changes and your party is facing a line of enemies. You select an attack for your character, watch as it's performed, and wait your turn again as enemies start clobbering you in the face. It's really kind of stupid. And you do it a lot, often in battles that mean nothing and seem to only exist to waste time. Games like Final Fantasy XII and Contact realized how absurd it is to press "attack" or "heal" countless times in every battle, streamlined the whole process, and also displayed all the action on the same playing field. I think they still kind of missed the big picture because they didn't make your encounters mean anything more, but they're smart, admirable efforts that -- at the very least -- made playing through their respective games much more bearable.

Since that announcement was made, Dragon Quest IX doesn't feature real-time battles anymore. Instead, Square-Enix has since reconsidered turn-based battles and has decided to play it safe once again.

This news is really disappointing. It disappoints me because before it happened, Dragon Quest IX was one of the only RPGs I was interested in at all scheduled for the upcoming year, and I don't even play the series regularly.

It's even more disappointing because Yuji Hori, the series' creator and producer, doesn't seem like a man who would make decisions like these lightly. After all, it took him eight installments and four generations of hardware to get this series into the third dimension when others were making the leap as soon as it was possible to do so. And even when he did, it still remained largely the same: random, turn-based battles, level-grinding and all. The Playstation 2 did allow him, though, to finally realize his 2D game world in 3D, and all of a sudden Dragon Quest became a little less abstract and a little more real. Like playing Super Metroid and finally being able to immerse yourself much more completely into its environment with Metroid Prime.

Now, I don't know if Dragon Quest IX's real-time system would have given battles a greater worth than any other title. In fact, it could've just turned the game into your average hack ‘n' slash. I do think, given the rate at which the series has strayed from its formula, though, someone like Hori wouldn't put aside an established system he's used forever in favor of another if he didn't think he and his team could do something with it. They deserved a shot. I also think that if turn-based battles were being considered, Square-Enix would've made mention of it after seeing fans get upset over a trailer that showed nothing but real-time combat. Instead, they remained silent for months.

Let's not forget this game is Wi-Fi-enabled. I can't imagine anyone sitting down and seriously suggesting that, you know, instead of letting the entire party explore the levels, cooperate, and attack monsters in real-time, we should just make them do it through menus and talk out their moves! Yeah, sounds like a blast.

I remember reading that the move to real-time wasn't exactly the most popular decision back in Japan. It's understandable, I guess. Change always has its share of doubters and dissenters. I never thought it was bad enough to change the content of the game, especially after something like Final Fantasy XII made it out of Square-Enix, though maybe I'm looking at that the wrong way considering what looks to be happening with its sequel(s). Either way, something happened along the way with Dragon Quest IX, and I think it was Square-Enix.

They caved. Maybe they were worried, but I'm not even sure I understand why they would be. Final Fantasy XII, despite the controversy, sold nearly 2.5 million copies in Japan alone. Dragon Quest IX was probably going to hit 3-4 million sold anyway, but Square-Enix knows what its fanbase likes better than any other publisher, and they figure they might as well keep them happy. I think it's unfortunate, because people such as Yuji Hori have ideas, and it's almost like Square-Enix is stifling them.

Either way, this wouldn't be something limited to Square-Enix. Numerous directors and producers have felt the squeeze of their employers before. Now, however, it seems that more and more of them have decided to take action.

Continued on page 2 

1 | 2

Posted in: Features

Comments (0) | Permalink | Digg | Reddit