Tag Archives: Dragon Quest

May the Fear Be With You

Your average gamer doesn’t break a sweat upon seeing a Balrog in Moria; we’ve been slaying giants for so long that it might as well be a rabid bunny. There’s no sense of fear—not from appearance alone. Titles don’t convey power either; Dragon Quest VI features Mortamor, the King of Demons, but who shudders at his name without personally battling him? No one. Your average gamer hears “King of Demons” and says “Oh, please.” DQVI and Dragon Quest IX themselves make sure that he’s no big deal by introducing a bigger and badder dude who mocks the poor sap. Direct quote from DQIX describing one of the bonus bosses:

“Brutal bad-dream demon from another dimension. So strong that he makes Mortamor seem more like Snoretamore!”

Hey Dialga, can you work on your time control? You keep getting hit by the other trainer's attacks and it sure seems like Rayquaza and Lugia and Mewtwo and Mew and Latias and all kinds of other legendaries are faster than you. I'm almost starting to think the time control thing is the real legend here. Palkia can control space, but can it see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Also, does this mean that it can shrink itself so that the living space inside a Poké Ball becomes gigantic relative to the Pokémon? That was a problem for the Genie in Aladdin, you know! You have to think about these kinds of things.
Dialga and Palkia may be capable of destroying the world, but breaking out of a tiny ball is a tough order.

After killing Death a dozen times in Castlevania and enslaving creatures who control time and space in Pokémon, we’re all Gimli from DM of the Rings. We see an elder dragon the size of a whale and our first thought isn’t “AAAHHH!!!” It’s more like “you’re going down” or “huh, pretty cool-looking dragon” or “I’ve seen better.” Or maybe it’s something else entirely.

So after I came back as a megastar who saved the village from the ultimate threat like the superhero I am, the first reporter who interviewed me asked what was going through my mind when I first saw the Ceadeus. Was I marveling that his teeth were taller than me, she asked, or was I worried about drowning before I could slice him up, she asked, or was I terrified of being crushed by the water pressure, she asked. No no no! Not at all! I was thinking that with the lack of underwater lighting and the way my photographer suddenly swam off to a distance, I couldn't properly show off my adorable new sandals. The girl from the guild 'recommended' them just before I left--well, I mean, I happened to see her wearing the cutest shoes and had to buy a pair for myself. You know how it goes. Or maybe you don't. I'm always on the lookout for new clothing to accentuate myself because I am, of course, the best picture of beauty on this planet. My legs are to kill for. My shoulders? Sublime. My eyes are amazing and my form--just divine! My arms are toned and impressive; my hands are pure grace. My hair is finer than silk, the only touch worthy of my face. But even with the quintessence of cute right before him and even with his camera zoomed in all the way, my photographer wouldn't come close enough to get the right shots. It just ruined every photo op. This was the best picture we got, which is kind of sad, and--oh, what's that? The Ceadeus? Oh, him. He was a pushover for me. You should know by now! I'm unstoppable. Simply unstoppable. Now, let me tell you about the most perfectly photogenic, spectacularly stylish sword and shield I've ever seen...

A monster hunter takes a dive in her best swimsuit only to swim across the Ceadeus. Not pictured: shortly afterward, she shrugged and continued enjoying her tropical vacation.

A monster can be memorable simply for its size, but imposing fear on players requires substance. Just like movies, stories, and plays teach the audience what to expect as they go along—a comedy usually opens with humor and makes minimal use of dramatic moments; a drama does the opposite—the challenge in a game directs players’ expectations. A monster’s real fear factor is rooted in gameplay.

You're brave enough to keep reading. I can see it in your eyes.

Dedicated Video Game Music Targets the Driver’s Seat

The phrase “video game music” means something to most people—and something different from the phrase “movie music,” for example. The question is what it means and why. The skeptic might say there’s no such thing as video game music, only music that happens to be in video games, but even if that was true, it wouldn’t change the way people think and feel. This is a matter of word association, but also prototype theory and a pinch of Plato’s Theory of Forms.

The question is what the term brings to mind and why. In order to say “Yes, Virginia, there is video game music,” games must have carved out their own musical genre with unique characteristics.

I chose a sampling of twelve pieces of game music with these criteria:

* I consider the theme excellent in its own right.
* No 8-bit music. While chiptunes are a recognizable invention of the industry, there must be more to video game music than its instrumentation.
* No more than four well-known themes. I want most listeners to be unfamiliar with at least a few compositions so that they won’t already have mental associations with gameplay and can judge on their own merits whether the tunes sound like “video game music.” Only four pieces come from franchises that have sold five million or more copies.

First up is a trio of intro music. We begin with the Monster Hunter Main Theme and I can’t imagine any better illustration of what doesn’t come to my mind when I think of video game music. The gradual build and drawn-out notes remind me of the majesty of Jurassic Park or the grand scale of Star Wars. It reminds me of something that makes me stare in awe, not jump in and participate.

Wild Arms delivers an amazing intro scene on animation alone, but runs stronger still with Into the Wilderness backing it up. Inspired and classic music. Specific to video games? Not a bit. Unlike the Monster Hunter theme, this theme does make me want to pick up a controller and start killing enemies, but this could have been seamlessly slotted into any Western movie.

After four games stuck in Japan, Sakura Wars V made it overseas in the seventeenth hour. It’s apparent within ten seconds of its opening theme, Warriors of the Earth, that we’re in for a big band jazz piece. Sakura Wars has always drawn from all music genres even from an in-universe perspective, so this isn’t the series to turn to for dedicated game music.

Keep the rhythm and click here!

Ten Breeds of Memorable and Immortal 2D Sprites (part 2)

6. Beastly Screen-filling Sprites

Long before Shadow of the Colossus and Monster Hunter, 2D game developers understood the power of monsters too big to be contained in a TV. After the player grows used to smaller enemies, a large one leaves an impression.

EarthBound proves that enormous enemies don’t even need to look especially threatening:


Developers typically save this technique for late-game bosses, so I won’t ruin the surprise by directly showing some of my favorites, but other examples of capital-sized enemies include Secret of Mana, EarthBound, Chrono Trigger, and Mother 3. The Etrian Odyssey series has also taken this idea to another level, but I’ll reserve that for another day—and a post to itself!

One major series that doesn’t take full advantage is Pokémon. The third and fourth generations of games, Ruby and Sapphire and Diamond and Pearl, had a cool Pokédex feature comparing the height scale of a human with any Pokémon the player had caught to demonstrate how small a Diglett or how large a Wailord is, but during battles, size differences only show in the home console games. In the main portable games, almost every fully-evolved monster looks about the same size as any other, whether it’s the fourteen-foot-tall creator of the oceans or a dancing 4’11” Mexican pineapple duck.

We know that Kyogre doesn't like Groudon too much, forcing Rayquaza to step in and stop the two of them from destroying the world, but what happens when Kyogre swims around the ocean it created and runs into Lugia, the guardian of the seas? If Kyogre assigned that role to Lugia, maybe they hang out together. If Lugia took on that role without being commissioned, does Kyogre have a problem with it? Ever thought about that? Ludicolo is a ridiculous design if there ever was one, though that's part of why I love it. More of why I love it is for being the underdog who's destroyed most Kyogre movesets since 2002.

The appearance of a legendary Pokémon could inspire awe if drawn to scale, so this could be considered a missed opportunity. Still, the sale of 215 million games makes it obvious that players already love Pokémon and its artwork to death (and I’m one of them), so maybe leaving well enough alone is for the best. If nothing else, the absence of visible size differences helps convey that most Pokémon can contribute to a victory under the right circumstances.

The final four await!

Martial Arts Are For Girls

Ryu and Ken may rule their street in the fighting game genre, but monks and martial artists have become a feminine archetype in RPGs. Since the 8-bit era, at least one heroine from a high-profile, genre-important, worldwide million-seller RPG in every generation of game systems doesn’t settle for standing on her own two feet. She kicks with her own two feet, punches with her own two hands, and furthers the idea that in the RPG universe, every lady with working arms and legs should do the same. Forget Beauty and the Beast. From medieval tomboy princesses to prehistoric hut dwellers to modern girls living in dystopias, Beauty is the Beast and her killer instincts are a tale as old as time.

Even a girl who dresses like a bright and colorful witch can be a fighter. By the way, she'll always be Princess Alena or even Princess Arena to me. That Tsarevna stuff... I think not! Ayla carries a club for show, style, and flavor, but the real threats are her fists, especially after they evolve into Iron Fist and Bronze Fist when she reaches level 70 and 90. Tifa looks much tougher in her Final Fantasy VII form, but I thought the style clashed with Akira Toriyama's art for Alena and Ayla. I also prefer this outfit, so raspberries to anyone who wanted FFVII Tifa here!

Above: fighter girls across the ages. Chronological by game release date, not her own in-universe era!
Alt/title text available to those who hover.

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