Yes. It's true. Well, sorta.
Dragon Quest IV, in terms of pacing and set-up, is really the exact opposite of Mother 3, a game that it obviously inspired. Whereas the former's beginning is mind-numbingly slow in order to delve into the respective character backgrounds, the latter begins with tragic events, an Indiana Jones-type excavation for a magical egg, and a fun little romp as a monkey. Honestly, it took me about ten grueling hours to get past Dragon Quest IV's opening chapters, but once the game explores the story of the actual hero, the rollercoaster ride takes off without a hitch.
Mother 3...personally, not so much.
No other game last year had me coming back, night after night, making me crave to see the story through to the end. Yes, there had been Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Valkyria Chronicles, but Dragon Quest exerted another type of pull...and I can't quite put my finger on it. I will say, however, that the Dragon Quest series has always had a perfect formula: fight difficult monsters, defeat them, obtain gold, buy better armor and weapons, and then kill so-called difficult monsters in one hit.
Repeat.
It sounds somewhat dull on paper, but in practice, the grind can be very addicting. Becoming stronger and "being the very best" has always been a good videogame incentive, and Dragon Quest is probably the master of this tactic. Once I got sucked in, I couldn't put the game down. And that's why I'm giving it 2008 GAME OF THE YEAR! That is, if I cared about GAME OF THE YEAR, but I don't.
This has somewhat opened my eyes a bit to the whole ridiculous Dragon Quest versus Final Fantasy debate -- and I have to say, despite being a Final Fantasy fan since I played X a couple years ago, Dragon Quest has nearly always bested its competition in each and every installment. The slime-slaying series relies more on telling a simple, down-to-earth story rather than delving into melodrama, and as I get older, all the tales revolving around attractive and stylish teenagers in Final Fantasy have become a bit silly. That melodrama silliness has become more and more evident over the years (and especially evident in the recent Final Fantasy IV remake). But don't mistake Dragon Quest's usually light-fared stories as entirely simple, throw-away adventures -- there's certainly depth there. You just have to look for it.
Probably the best, almost-seemingly scripted event in Dragon Quest IV had to be my battle with the Psaro the Manslayer, a multiple-formed, nearly never-ending bastard who made me scrimp and save my magic and dig into the recesses of my inventory just to beat him; in other words, he was the ideal final boss. During his fourth form, Psaro wiped out my ultimate party of Kiryl, Maya, and Alena, and the main character was the only one left standing. I knew within the next turn I was going to lose, and sure enough, the final boss took out the main character as well -- but something strange (and like I said, scripted) happened.
I had an item that, if whoever has it equipped is knocked out, revives all the other members who are out cold, too. So, as it were, Kiryl, Maya, and Alena all returned from the dead, ready to do battle with the bastard that killed them a few minutes before, while the main character lay lifeless on the ground.
He had become a tragic hero, really, like something out of a film or novel. The aspect that amazed me about the whole incident is that it wasn't the developers' intention to happen -- it was something that just occurred naturally during the moments when I was actually playing the game. Later on, I had Kiryl revive the main character, and my party went on to pummel the final boss into submission.
But to have a dramatic event happen randomly like that...that's quite something.
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