In what I hope will be the last of the collected catch up mini-reviews now I’m starting to crawl out of the darkness it’s time to look at some games I played at the end of last year / start of this year, three JRPGs in fact, and on three different consoles to boot! Sadly with this trio none of them blew me away, and in fact one of them I didn’t enjoy enough to finish. Which one? Well…
This may surprise long-term readers on this site (if such a thing exists…) as Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake appeared on my Top 10 Games of 2024 list, where I mentioned how much I enjoyed it. Well, I kind of dropped out of it due to the amount of grinding needed, with the idea to come back to it when I was more in the mood or had something to do while grinding. Well, I finally did!
Dragon Quest III was something of a cultural phenomenon when it came out in Japan, but here in the UK the games barely made any waves… because they didn’t come out here at all. It was Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 before we had a mainline entry released here, so I don’t feel bad for having “slept” on the series for so long. They follow (and if we’re including the whole original trilogy, they created) the standard JRPG formula: you play a hero who travels across the land, fighting turn-based battles, talking to NPCs in towns, buying equipment and spells, and then tackling dungeons that are often extremely difficult if you don’t stop to level your characters up by doing random battles over and over again, a process known as “grinding”. Due to the modern features in games like the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series I’d forgotten what a, well, grind grinding is and it’s the reason I took a break. I have a full time job so dedicating some of my precious gaming time to walking back and forth to fight the same enemies didn’t always appeal. I can’t deny though that it looked great, and the proto-job system where you don’t get set party members but instead recruit people with specific roles was extremely fun.
There were a lot of fun screenshots I took but I think this shows how stunning the combination of pixel art work, 3D landscapes and great lighting is.
The story is, as mentioned, pretty basic (which fair enough for 1988). You play as a hero you name but who goes on to get the title of Erdrick, making this a prequel to I and II, where Erdrick is a famed hero from the distant past. You actually start off in a different world but after you defeat obligatory evil mage Baramos you fall into a portal and arrive in the world of the original two games, where you then tackle new overarching villain Zoma by collecting items from the previous two games (which was obviously lost on me…) It works well enough, but travelling the land with a party of your choosing is obviously the key here, not the story. The new graphics are stunning and the new soundtrack is well orchestrated though they stick to the old 8-bit constraints and so you only ever here the same few tunes across the whole game.
Overall I enjoyed my time with Dragon Quest III, but unlike some franchises that I have more attachment to, or that have a few options to speed things along for us older gamers with less free time, I had to take a few breaks from some of the more monotonous parts of the game, something I wouldn’t do if I’d become more invested. Can’t call it bad, but I doubt I’ll be playing again…
Xenoblade Chronicles is another one of those more recent JRPG franchises that I thought I’d check out now I’ve gotten back into the genre and I was hopeful that I’d get into it like I have Kingdom Hearts or Fire Emblem (okay that’s not a more recent franchise, but still…) Sadly, while I loved the story and world building, I did not get on with this one…
Xenoblade Chronicles has a long and odd history involving its original Wii release not getting a US port for a long time, which is why we ended up with our now classic British voice acting as we got the release first, but as this is a mini-review I’ll let you dive deep into that on your own if you wish! I found the game pretty amazing in all but one key area, which I may as well get out of the way now so I can end on at least a bit of a positive note: the combat. You move your character around but instead to pressing button to attack they sort-of auto-attack with you selecting special moves from buttons on the UI at the bottom of the screen, like an MMO. It was tricky to get used to, and then as the enemies began to get more difficult it became frustrating to the point where I just gave up. This is the game I didn’t finish, though I did find a “full story version” edit on YouTube and watched the story to its end, because again that was great, but looking at it I was about a third of the way through the game with 20+ hours and there was no way I was going to be able to stick it out. Obviously it’s a popular game so many people have gotten their head around the combat system but it was just the opposite of intuitive to me and I gave it many hours of work but it’s a long game and there was no point in “punishing” myself once it became clear it was never going to click with me.
One of the many examples of really great world design. Just realised I never mentioned the Manado, Shulk’s all-important future-seeing sword in my review… Oh well, that’s what makes them mini-reviews, I guess?
As mentioned though everything else about the game is good, great even. The world of Xenoblade Chronicles is set on two massive creatures/mechs that fought to a stalemate, their inactive bodies being the world these characters live on, which in itself is a really interesting idea and leads to some great eye candy and world building. Shulk I often found annoying in Smash I grew to like as your classic kind-hearted and naïve protagonist, and his group of allies consisting of goofball best friend Reyn, kind love interest Fiora, “bad ass” father figure Dunban, more straight-laced female sniper Sharla and “high-born who comes to like a more freeing life” Melia were all well realised, voiced and bounced off each other well. Could’ve done without “silly animal sidekick” Riki the Nopon, but you can’t win them all. Villains are good too, and as we move further up the pecking order they only get more interesting and layered until we get to the classic “possibly over thought and with too many twists but who cares I enjoyed the ride” finale. I also have to praise the soundtrack too, some absolutely stunning tunes in this OST.
Basically if I were to give this a score based on it as a standalone story it would probably be a Five, but given this is a game and I didn’t like the actual gameplay I can’t. I think I’ve played enough of it to give it a fair rating but I’ll hold off, both to stop any arguments and because maybe there was a way I could’ve gotten my head around the combat and I was just doing it wrong. Who knows?
Score: N/A
The last game on this mini-review list is the next in line in my first play through of Kingdom Hearts with “Dream Drop Distance”, or 3D! Do you get it? Because it was on the 3DS, you see! … Anyway, I was going to play the “HD” version I have on the PS4 collection but I enjoyed my playthrough of 358/2 Days on the DS so much I thought I’d play this in the same “pop it in my pocket it and play it here and there” method as well. I’m glad I did because there were a lot of things I didn’t like here so having to sit in front of my TV for longer play sessions would’ve been worse…
First thing’s first: I still enjoyed the hack and slash combat, the returning Command Deck system from Birth by Sleep and the weird and crazy world and the characters that live in it, so it’s not all bad by any means, and in fact the new “Flowmotion” system where you can glide from objects, walls and lampposts in a satisfyingly fluid manor was a really fun addition as well, but there are two major gameplay additions I had serious issues with (plus I didn’t enjoy the mini game where you fall down a long portal thingy and have to dodge and attack stuff, which was just using the 3D for using the 3D’s sake…) First off: you play as both Sora and Riku, seeing various stories play out through both of their perspectives, which is a good idea but sadly you swap between the two frequently and sometimes not by choice. You see each character has a “Drop Gauge” that when it hits zero they fall asleep and you automatically switch to the other character, as well as the ability to “Drop” anytime you want. So having to pick up “Drop Points” because you want to continue playing the section of the game you’re on lest you be thrown to the other character is just not a very fun idea and it would’ve worked better with just two selectable campaigns.
I took this screenshot during the first hour or two of the PS4 version, before deciding to switch to the 3DS, which I can’t take screenshots from, so… Enjoy this non-reflective-of-the-game screenshot of the game! …. Huh?
The second annoying part is in place of sidekick characters you have to create and train “Dream Eaters” that act like Pokémon, including feeding them, petting them and playing touch screen mini-games with them. Really got in the way of wanting to play an action RPG, thankfully they weren’t super-necessary, or at least you didn’t need to grind to get a really powerful one to beat the game on normal anyway, thankfully. I still enjoyed the gameplay more than hated, but there were times when these gimmicks got annoying. The story is fine, it’s the “interquel” between 2 and 3 for Sora and Riku (as the other handheld spin off titles were all important but featured other characters) so we see them training for their “Mark of Mastery” exam to become Keybalde Masters, visiting worlds from Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron, Fantasia and the old Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers movie, plus some Kingdom Hearts-original worlds one of which where you meet characters from The World Ends With You rather than Final Fantasy ones, which is a shame but it’s better than no Square Enix characters at all like the next game, so I hear. A lot of it is set up, we see multiple versions of Xehanort, we hear how the characters from Birth by Sleep must be rescued, we see the former Axel-turned-Lea be on the good side, and more. It’s fun, I like the new Disney worlds and it sets up KH III quite nicely.
Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance had some fun gameplay and as always the bonkers plot kept me going, but some of the new gameplay mechanics left me cold. Not sure why each handheld game has to have some weird gimmick but hey-ho, still liked it more than I disliked it… just.
Onwards to actual console games next! Looks like I will finish the series before KH IV comes out after all, as it’s set for end of 2027, so that’ll be fun, joining in on a new game with everyone else for the first time.