A new passion kindled!

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride/Tenkuu no Hanayome (DeJap) is the first Dragon Quest game I've ever played. I've heard nothing but good things about them, but I was a Final Fantasy Fanboi and spent all my allowance there. Even the few DQ games that reached American shores never even got a look from me for reasons I'm not sure about. I know they existed. Did I just never think to go find one? Did I ever find one to begin with? Regardless of my eyesight, intelligence, or finances, I can already tell skipping the series was a massive misnomer in my life.

What didn't I like about Dragon Quest V? The first person battle system. I like seeing my characters attack. I want to see that sword or hammer move across my screen. Here, though, it's a flicker of light on the enemy. It's a lot boring. Other games at the time had numbers pop up over the heads of the hit target. I'm not one to bemoan reading, but seeing "Abel hit for 50 damage" for 25 hours gets boring and tedious. It's cool to let things automatically go. There's too much B Button pressing.
Inventory management sucks. Just, in general. I understand in games like Fallout, but the limited slots in RPGs at this time will get painfully annoying when you want to move several items around at once. And selling items one at a time gives me nightmares. It's just more button mashing!
I don't care about monster hunting. This was before Pokemon, so I won't compare the two, but I have no interest in lugging largely irrelevant creates with me. I want to know more about the people. What's Bianca's favorite food? How do Alus and Tabitha feel about each other? What type of surrogate parent was Sancho and/or Objeron? Instead of that, we get a significant amount of code for monsters. Monsters who we can't even see in battle! And this goes into my next topic, as well.
The few human characters are pretty bland. Again, I know it's 1992, but Final Fantasy IV, 7th Saga, Illusion of Gaia, and Ys are contemporaries that did this very well. One dimensional characters are a thing of the NES! What type of kids are these royal orphans with heroic blood flowing through them? They made a manga about it, so I wish they'd have added some scenes to the game. Typing this really makes me regret the DS version would have ran on my computer. I know there's an option to talk to party members there, which would have made this a moot point. Ultimately, I won't let this tiny detail ruin my enjoyment because that's all I found "bad" about the game.

So let's talk about all the great things it does!

Unlike most games, Dragon Quest V has you play a character from his youth into this teenage life and ends in (what should his been) his middle ages. There are a few modern games that do this, but here's the first instance that I know of. Wikipedia says it's the earliest pregnancy in video games, so there's that. You don't play everything, but I'd imagine a slavery mini-game would be 1.) tacky and 2.) boring. As would standing still as a statue for eight years. This is a slightly elongated way to say that Enix really pushed the envelope in a few places. Even if trying new things fails, which this did not, you always have to give a perk to companies and people who try to advance whatever they're doing.
As much as I didn't care for monster hunting, you have to admit it's a big task to program so many monsters with levels, spells to learn, AI, and catching traits. Pokemon came out four years later with 200 percent more monsters but a lot less of the features. Pokemon get four moves, whereas DQV's get a lot more. Field moves, battle moves, inventory, and sex. Pokemon, at the time, had a lot more flash but less soul. And the monsters had color pallets.
I mentioned before my qualms with the graphics, but that was before I saw the magic animations. Zap and Bang blow anything the first few FFs had. They're prettier than a lot of golden era effects, too.
I really enjoyed the music. I'm beginning to learn I have a thing for sea travels since, once again, I love me some ship music.
The plot and characters are great! They're not THAT one dimensional and do have plenty of growth. It feels rushed at times, but King Henry has more to him than the entire cast of FFXII, Marievel, and Chu-Chu put together. You see characters grow from event to event. A few second guess themselves, change, and have reasons for doing so. Bianca and Flora are both smart and question this marriage before helping out of the kindness of their hearts. Henry isn't the snot-nosed brat he was before. I'm not saying slavery is the key to troubled teens, but I'm glad he wasn't the obnoxious kid from when we first met him. It makes sense for him to have changed, and it's okay to show and not tell us that. Sancho explains why he never told Abel the truth when he was little. And so many secondary and tertiary characters change as the whole world changes! Oracleberry is a place I didn't go to while a kid, but I've read it's a dump if you do. Ten years later, it's a boomtown. We see other characters go from sexy barmaids to mother sprites. A "lazy" husband turns into a dutiful shopkeeper. Bianca has a whole world of twists and turns in the years after she met Able. The guy who taught Abel the Return spell goes from an energetic old man to a man about to die. It's sad that it happens, but that's life, and the game isn't going to shy away from it. The real world won't. Maybe this could have been expanded with new buildings in more locations, but it's hardly a deal breaker.

I absolutely loved this game, but I seem to be having some writer's block. All I can think up are things I've said again and again. I'll try to finish fast, then. I didn't want to stop playing Dragon Quest V at the end of the night. The three hours flew by, and all I wanted to do was boot it back up. I wanted to know more about the story, meet old friends, and see how it ends. Would Able get to know his mom? When does Bianca rejoin the party? What new twists are there on this planet? My next game schedule has been slightly messed-up, so I don't know what I'll play next. It was supposed to be FFVI, but I already played that, and I kinda want to play another Dragon Quest game. I'm probably gonna play another Dragon Quest game. I've said in the past that a game should make you want to play more games like it, and DGV has done this better than anything else I've played in n long time. A few years ago, I played most of the Ys games in a few months, and I'm really wanting to try that again with this series. I love finding new loves!