Dragon Quest VI -DS- 6.5

February 5, 2024

DQ6 on the DS, is - to my understanding - a very faithful port/update of the Super Famicom version that we never received here in the US. The story here revolves around the protagonist discovering that he is living in a dream world that is existing parallel to the real world. The idea of a dream world intertwining with a real world seems a little bit interesting at first, but the game doesn’t really do much with the concept. Certain key locations in both worlds are nearly identical, so sometimes exploring the two globes can feel a bit samey. The concept of the dream world/real world is not nearly as interesting as the themes explored in the previous DW/DQ games, which were all about family and connected generations.

The plot in DQ6 starts off semi-focused with your party exploring both worlds to find and defeat the villain, Murdaw. But after the first 12 hours or so, the main plot is practically dropped and you just go on a bunch of random side adventures that have nothing to do with any central narrative. Some side adventures are better than others. I did like the one in Castle Swanstone where a princess is trapped in a mirror, and you have to travel to a nearby location in the dream world to get her out.

But much of the time, the story can get a bit boring with its slow pace and meandering nature. There are long stretches where nothing much happens, except i nconsequential events with npc’s at various towns. Towards the end, a new main antagonist, Mortamor threatens the two worlds, and this gives some last minute focus for the story. But it’s too little, too late. The previous DW&DQ games meandered a little bit with side quests here and there, but not nearly as much as DQ6.

I really wish the game had focused more on a central narrative, especially after how well DW4&DQ5 established the lore for the Zenithian Trilogy. 4&5 connected to each other so well, that I can’t help being dissatisfied with how little DQ6 references them. The floating castle from 4&5 makes a return, but that was the only major connection I noticed.

I also did care very much about any of the characters here. None of them were memorable or had much personality. Therefore, I did not care when they celebrated victory at the end of the game. I didn’t even care much about the extra chatter during the party chat feature, which was added into this DS version from the SF version. This was a stark contrast to how I felt about the wonderful casts from 4&5, which both had some of my favorite characters in any RPG ever, and I loved using party chat in DQ5 every chance I got. The characters in DQ6 also did not seem to have any lineage stemming from the generations in previous games, and I also found this a little disappointing.

Despite my indifference towards the story and characters, the gameplay was just as solid as ever for this series. The class system from DW3 is expanded here with the vocation system. Level grinding and mastering the multiple vocations for each character was very engrossing, especially when preparing for the very challenging final boss, Mortamor. And even though some of the main towns in the two worlds are relatively similar, it was still fun to explore both globes to discover new modes of travel, such as the flying carpet, the flying bed in the dream world, and using Lorelei’s harp to submerge your ship underwater and explore the ocean floor.

The soundtrack is also worth mentioning in that it has some nice tunes, especially the palace theme. However, I must say that there were too few tracks for a game of this size. It felt like I kept hearing the same several tracks over and over.

In conclusion, the gameplay in DQ6 was solid, but I just wish i cared about the characters and story more here. It’s an okay game in the end, but it is unfortunately a noticeable step down from the standard set by the previous entries in the series. 6.5 out of ten.