Dragon Quest VI definitely isn’t a game for the faint of heart (or for those unwilling to wait on anything else awhile). However, if you’re willing to put in the time, you’ll find a cool world filled with a fun collection of characters and problems to fix.
When I say long haul though, I mean it. By the time I’d finished, I’d clocked over 60 hours into the title. The time passed quickly early in the game, but near the end, a lot of that time was admittedly spent grinding for DQ VI’s job system. The game has a number of jobs available, but several powerful jobs are locked behind weaker ones you must work through first. It’s a neat system, but you’ll find yourself having trouble if you’re lacking a certain skill and have to grind more than one job in order to learn it. For those aren’t as fond of grinding, the system can get tedious in later parts of the game. The flip side is that you have a considerable level of freedom in how you design your party. While certain characters are better suited to one class over another, each character is capable of learning every single class within the game. You can practically develop a team of demigods by the time you finally roll up to the final battle at the end. It’s a lot of fun playing with the job system as a result and seeing how far you can take your characters. You just have to be able to push yourself through the grind to get there.
Combat is much like the last few DS Dragon Quest titles. Turn-based, with a first-person perspective whenever you enter combat. You select spells and attacks to target groups of enemies and gain experience through defeating them. Nothing new, but it does make jumping into the game easy for newcomers to the series. Six does very little to change what you see in IV and V. The art style is similar, battle system almost identical, and most of the spells and attacks you’ll have seen before.
This also goes for most of the music. The tracks are all pleasant, but you can expect to hear a lot of the same music repeated throughout the game. I can take that a step further, actually. You hear a lot of the same music that played in the last two games. To be fair, I never got annoyed with it, and the town theme has gotten itself stuck in my head a few times in a pleasant way, but soundtrack isn’t a big thing for this Dragon Quest game. The only new tracks I can recall hearing (or at least ones I couldn’t remember hearing before) were the pieces that played during key story moments. Dragon Quest VI isn’t a game too heavy on story, so these were quite rare.
Speaking of which, if story or dynamic characterization is extremely important to you, DQ VI probably isn’t for you. While there is quite a bit of fun dialogue within the game, both with the characters you meet in each town, as well as within your party when you initiate party dialogue, little changes throughout your journey among your party numbers. The cast you play with is largely the same from start, only showing any real character growth at the very end of the story. It’s a shame, as the dialogue is really well done for each character, and I would’ve loved to see them evolve some more aside from the two characters we see real change with by the time the credits roll. The world itself is a bit better.The story side of things is slightly better. The world is split into two parts: a real world and a dream world. Your job is to switch between the two worlds, solving problems in each town as they crop up and progressing to the next area. It’s fairly straightforward, but you get to enjoy some genuinely heartwarming stories from time to time. It does leave you feeling a bit disconnected from the larger problems in the world as you progress at times, but the game ties the events in the with the overarching story well enough as you progress further in the game. In a way, it really does feel like you’ve gone on an epic quest to solve a mystery the kingdom doesn’t understand enough about. I just wish the party had grown more with the story.
Luckily, the games elements come together well enough to make up for my gripes. The grindy combat didn’t completely get in the way of me enjoying the job system and experimenting with character builds. The music was always pleasant, and the story was a fun ride, with a surprisingly poignant ending that I wish the game would’ve explored a little more. If you’re a patient gamer like me looking for good DS RPGs, then Dragon Quest VI is worth your time. Is it the best DQ entry to start with? No, that honor still goes to number five. However, it’s a more than adequate entry for someone looking to further explore the series.