The Future That Awaited Me (Day 232)

I have conquered the beast that is Dragon Quest. It was much shorter than I expected. I doubt it clocked in at more than 10 hours--about half as long as Final Fantasy, its primary competitor. I've heard these two games compared a lot over the years, but they're actually pretty different games. Final Fantasy is a class-based RPG in which you control a party of four characters of your own creation. In Dragon Quest you take control of a single character with predetermined stat growths and spells. They're both fun games, but I'd probably give the edge to Final Fantasy here.

The true form of the final boss.

  Ending credits.

I wasted no time in moving directly onto Dragon Quest II. I have almost no preconceived notions about this game, so this should be interesting. After playing for about an hour, I discovered that this entry is the first party-based title in the series after acquiring Prince Ronaldo as a team member. Like Earthbound, each party member seems to have an inventory to store items. This is a welcome change from the first title where I was frequently low on space for items.

Dragon Quest II

The gameplay of Final Fantasy II compared to its predecessor was a radical change. Other than the addition of party members, the gameplay in Dragon Quest II seems largely unchanged--although I've not made it far yet. My new party member Ronaldo seems to be able to cast spells whereas our unnamed protagonist has lost the ability to do so--although it's not the same guy this time around. It's another descendent of the great hero mentioned in the first game, but evidently about, oh, 100 years have passed. It's always 100 years.

If Dragon Quest II is even close to as short as the first game of the series, then I'll probably be done with it within a couple days. I know a ridiculously small amount about this series as a whole, so it's going to be really interesting to play through it. I know that some of the later games are extremely long, so there's a pretty good possibility that my progress will stall as I continue on--but I'm still interested to see how I progress.