Dragon Quest V review

 Remember when RPG's were fun? You'd get a hero or a band of heroes, and you'd run about the world killing everything that got in your way? Remember when you didn't have some angsty-emo-teen as a main character that wielded a sword the size of a box truck? Well, Square-Enix smartened up for a change and remade several classic RPG's from the NES and SNES days. Final Fantasy IV, Dragon Quest IV and this title in question: Dragon Quest V. Unfortunately I never learned Japanese or got my hands on a translated ROM version of the original installment, so I can't compare how it is now to how it was. But I can tell you that this version is outstanding!

Story, music, characters, things to do... This game seems to deliver on all fronts! The fact that you can recruit monsters to fight on your party adds a bit of randomness, which is nice. You can change up your party many times and get a slightly different feel for combat each time. One thing I noticed is a distinct sense of humor here: It feels rather Japanese, which is nice. To me, that means they probably kept the translation as close to the original as possible. I could be wrong, but that's just an impression I got.

In an RPG, I look for two things mainly: memorable story and strong gameplay. Dragon Quest V supplies both in spades.