I picked up Dragon Quest IX while I was recently in Tokyo. I bought the game for two main reasons. One, because it’s a new Dragon Quest. And I love me some Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior on the NES in the States).

This is the same reason I will buy every new Bon Jovi album, the same reason why new books (on old topics) are printed every day, the same reason why new games are released, the same reason why Google ranks pages higher if they have new, fresh content. The same reason why you buy the latest gadget. Because humans like new stuff, or the perception of new stuff.  And humans really like new stuff from the same brand/author/artist they are already familiar with. It feels like home, it feels like a new conversation or story with an old friend you have built up a rapport with. Ah…

Anyway, I love RPGs, even if they are the old cliche turn based battle with dragons (the same reason why Square-Enix keeps remaking their older titles with the latest hardware… okay, enough). If there is a new twist to the story of gameplay, all the better. Dragon Quest IX has all of the above. Hot damn.

The second reason I bought it is because it is fantastic for studying Japanese. I’ll touch on that too.

The game starts as your traditional RPG with character creation. This is a bit of a step backwards as far as the Dragon Quest series, as they were recently heading in the Final Fantasy direction (this is where you are just given characters with abilities based on the story character itself). However, it is extremely satisfying and reminded me of the original character selection in Dragon Quest I-III on the original Nintendo/Famicom.

Once you start the game, the story unfolds in a really weird fashion. Your character is an Angel. You start out in what seems to be Heaven. But only Heaven for all the other Angels. You’ve recently graduated to being a Guardian Angel for a certain village. Your first Quest/Tutorial begins with you heading down to Earth and visit your Village to help someone in trouble. You do so and collect their thank you prayers. This thank you prayer, you take back to the Heavens. At first, I was reminded of the old Super Nintendo game Actraiser. But this is where the story gets weird. 🙂

When you arrive back in the Heavens, you realize that all of the Angels are stuck in their little Angel village. They have no contact with God anymore. Their duty is to collect as many prayers from people on the Earth as possible and take those prayers to the Tree of Life (possibly translated as a Mana Tree or similar in the English version, we’ll have wait and see). The more prayers you give to the tree, the more fruit it will bear. Once the tree bears enough fruit, the Heaven Train (Soul Train, whatever, it’s wacky) will arrive and allow the Angels to travel to real heaven again and have contact with God.

Honestly, my Japanese is only at an advanced intermediate level, so I could be a bit off on my translation/summary, but I think I’m pretty close.

With all that weirdness going on, you go down on your first solo mission to collect some more prayers. You do so and then head back to Angel Heaven. You give your collected prayers to the tree, it finally bears fruit. The Soul Train comes to Angel Heaven and then… –BAM!! Earthquakes and lighting and all sorts of hell breaks loose! The Soul Train’s tracks get destroyed, the train falls, Angel Heaven gets rocked and your character gets knocked down to the Earth, losing his wings and waking up as a human. The story is just beginning.

From what I have played from there on (about 25-30 hours), your goal is to try and collect prayers even as a human, finding the wrecked Soul Train and restoring it, and getting back to Heaven. Then figuring out what the hell happened, then fixing that.

The story is super unique and I’m still really enjoying it.

The graphics on the DS are simply amazing. If you played Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2, you’ll feel right at home. In some ways, the visuals are actually better than the PS2 game. Stylistically, it’s very bright and cartoony, using lots of cell shading techniques and brilliant textures which fit the mood of the game very well.

Aside from the opening movie (which I’ve skipped every time) and sparse in-game movies (5-10 seconds long), all of the cutscenes and stories are done with the game engine and the animation and camera direction is brilliant.

Gameplay is actually quite linear, following the story (which is good), but also has non-linear gameplay with side-quests which will pop up in every town which you may have to back-track to another location or wait until later in the game before you can complete them. This is pretty much a standard in RPGs for many reasons. If an RPG is too open ended (think Fable), you can’t have a very long, convincing story, and players who do follow the story will beat the game in 1-2 hours (Fable) instead of spending all their time on Sandbox play. Which, honestly, is what the Grand Theft Auto series does well, but that ain’t an RPG (err… not in the strictest sense).

I do have to mention the two screens of the DS. One constantly being used as a map, the other for gameplay. While this is not new, it is still awesome and perfectly tailored to RPG games. Perhaps this was Nintendo’s design of the DS all along 😉

Menus, on the other hand, are verbose and overly complicated. Typical of most Japanese RPGs. This is great to expand your Japanese vocabulary (although most of the menus and items are in カタカナ from English), going through 5 screens to use a healing herb is silly.

Battles are turn-based and have the standard leveling and magic system found in every Dragon Quest game since Dragon Quest 1. Aside from the flashy new graphics and animations, I wouldn’t be surprised if the underlying battle engine is still the same one they used 20 years ago. Not that I’m complaining 🙂

Speaking of characters, your main character is the only one which is relevant to the story. The other 3 people in your party you have to recruit. This hearkens back to older D&D type games, such as Neverwinter Nights. This is cool as you get to assemble your party how you wish (Mage, Healer, Fighter, etc), but kinda weak on the story side. Especially when you travel back to Heaven with your Angel character and your party, uh… disappears (they can’t go to heaven, right?). Because they are not part of the main story, you also miss a lot of the dialog which would happen between your party during key events.

They solved this by adding a fairy character that travels with you (who turns out to be the pilot of the Soul Train, but I don’t want to ruin too much). Who comes out and makes very stereotypical girlish アタシさ… comments on key events (since your main character doesn’t speak… I hate games that do that. This may be why Duncan in Arvale speaks so damn much). This actually works pretty well, if at some times annoying.

The music is… damn amazing. It’s Koichi Sugiyama (椙山 浩一). The same composer for all of the Dragon Quest games, and with good reason. He’s brilliant. He is possibly the most skilled composer for video game soundtracks of all time. Yes, even better than Nobuo Uematsu (Uematsu is a much better song writer though, there is a huge difference). Listening to his music you will hear his style immediately (he makes use of a lot of weird time and key signatures, chordal changes, dissonance, and atonal stuff, but makes it all work effectively and seamlessly). The town music, battle music, overworld music all fit with the game and sometimes make you want to revisit an area simply to listen to the music. It’s that well written.

The game also has some multi-player head-to-head thing which is reportedly awesome. I can’t verify that since I have no one to play with in Phoenix 😉 In Japan however….

I mentioned Japanese learning, because I’m an addict. I’m always looking for new ways to enjoy learning Japanese more and playing games is a great one. However, most games either have too much 漢字 (with no ふりがな）or too little 漢字 using all ひらがな which makes it difficult to read. This game has a excellent balance of the two and has ふりがな over every single 漢字 in the game. And a step above Zelda: Phantom Houglass (also highly recommended), you don’t have to tap on every single 漢字 to get the reading, it’s just there. So it feels more like you’re reading a good 漫画 Manga. 🙂

As mentioned above, you’ll get loads of new vocabulary simply by checking the menus and items, and of course, while talking to characters. Battles will also give you instant repetition of many terms (and you can adjust the text speed from the menu). RPGs were simply made for language learning, I’m sure of it.

The other reason this is awesome for Japanese learning is your going to find a lot of different dialects and slang in Japanese. You know when an RPG is in English and you start talking to a farmer who speaks funny ‘It gits a wee bit hard tillin’ this ole farm o’ mine.’ or a young punk ‘The hell youse lookin’ at you ugly freak!’ You may wonder how the English version ever came about. In Japanese you actually know what every character is like from their first two sentences, really. Based on if their politeness level and how they use お前、俺、僕、わし、アタシ、拙者、等々. It’s actually really amazing how much extra dialogue and stuff needs to be put in the English translation simply to get the same idea. If you aren’t familiar with 大阪／関西弁 (Osaka/Kansai dialect) before you play Dragon Quest IX, you will be after playing it 🙂

All that being said. Awesome game. Awesome RPG. Awesome Japanese learning tool.

If you don’t care about Japanese, you can still wait for the translated version which will still be an awesome RPG. Last I checked it’s coming out… uh, TBA 2010. So, ‘soon’. 😉

Even if you’re a beginniner in Japanese (just finished かな or in the middle of Heisig), you’ll be able to get so much out of this game, I highly recommend picking it up and playing it as soon as you can.

Thanks for reading!

Oh, and I stole a bunch of the screenshots from this site here (interesting site, btw, so go there if you want more).

As I’m finishing up the rest of the game I just thought I would post an update on a bunch of the new maps in the game. Above is Phrygian Falls (fans of Arvale II may remember the location). Some of the following pictures may or may not be a work in progress, hell, they may not even end up in the game, you know the drill. Just enjoy: 🙂

Arhaeldem Aqueducts. I never get tired of completely botching up Olde English for the comedic Entoquian Accent 😉

Zomfot Desert. Cool (wait, hot, definitely not cool, well, not in the temperature sense) desert dungeon.

Still looking for the Soap in Arvale: Journey of Illusion? It’s still here in Thimpote! 🙂 (it even survived the town being destroyed)

That’s it for now.

As far as game progress: Most of the maps (including dungeons and puzzles) are finished in the game and all of the music is done. Really what’s left is adding in a crapload of text NPCs, story, triggers, and a few leftover sfx I have to finish. Oh yeah, and experience levels, monsters, economy, balancing, that sort of stuff.

After racking my brain for different titles for several months, I finally decided on a name (and a font). This honestly took up most of my day (sad, but true).

I wanted the title to reflect upon the story’s main character (Duncan) and his dilemma (recovering his lost memories) in the new title while keeping a nice Fantasy Adventure (RPG, Treasure, etc) flavor to the title. I think Treasure of Memories can be read several different ways and really works well. In addition, it matches the past naming convention of Journey of Illusion and Ocean of Time with a three word title. The acronym also works out to ATM, which is great and easy to remember. 🙂

Finding a font to capture the Arvale feeling was just as much work. Keeping the fantasy feel without being archaic or using gothic fonts, having a light-hearted feeling without being too cartoony is difficult to balance. It also helped in finalizing the title between Memory and Memories (the Y in memory would cross over the R which looked bad). The R in ‘Arvale’ crossing over the F in ‘of’ was pure coincidence but I think it’s a nice touch.

A few really useful tools I found for testing fonts are the STC font browser: here Which let’s you type in a phrase and test it out quickly with any installed fonts on your computer (if you’re a graphic designer, you no doubt already have thousands and it much faster than prototyping in Photoshop). The other was the font browser on myfonts.com this allows you to type in your phrase and then view it in every font they have available.

So… what do you think? Do you like the title? I sure do 🙂

A bit of a status update on the new Arvale game. I’m right about half way through completion. I’ve just finished an awesome underground aqueducts/sewer dungeon and finished reconstructing the town of Arhaeldem.

Arhaeldem has been featured in Arvale 1 (as a ruins dungeon) and Arvale 2 (as a city which you just can’t get into; Past, Present, or Future). In the new Arvale, the ruins have been half-reconstructed into its former glory as a large town, and will soon become the future of real politics on the Entoque continent.

I thought it would be interesting to compare some screenshots of the games to show the different phases Arhaeldem has gone through.

This was the front (in the iPhone version) as they were ruins of a destroyed town in Arvale 1.

This is the front in the new game, of the partially reconstructed town.

The front of Arhaeldem in the Future World of Arvale 2 (which you can’t actually enter). DeMenchev is hiding behind a tree 🙂 In the future, two statues stand before the front (the bottom left/right blue things in this pic)…

One of which has already been put up in the new Arvale (which I will finally name this Friday).

The backside of the Arhaeldem dungeon/ruins in Arvale 1.

Contrasted with the backside of the Arhaeldem city in the new Arvale.

I hope that’s enough of a teaser to keep your appetites whet for now.

See you soon!

I just received some lovely new character art (for the new Arvale) in my email this morning. Her name is Sakyra. Here is some background info on her:

Sakyra works at a local entertainment club in the town of Thimpote. She has a light-hearted sense of humor and seems to get along with people quite well. Despite her career choice and unique appearance, she is actually quite a sensitive and caring woman. Her background is a bit murky and Sakyra doesn’t like to talk about it much.

Sakyra seems to have many skills normally attributed to thieves, such as stealing, climbing, and special range weapons. While she recently found luck making a decent living in Thimpote by entertaining men with her uh, talents, she originally wanted to be a Zookeeper (don’t ask). Sakyra usually gets what she wants from any guy simply because of her looks, but Duncan seems unaffected by this 🙂

I think the artist did a great job of balancing her physical attractiveness with how her personality and soft side will appear in the story. Click on the image above for a closer look. What do you think?

While I lay awake on someone’s couch in Budapest, staring at the ceiling and wondering where my luggage is (Poland), I received this wonderful art for new Arvale game.

The characters name is Cyper and he is the new Royal Advisor to Entoque Castle. According to the story so far, he was appointed by Duncan to watch over the king, and lately to watch over Duncan himself (since he has lost his memory). Not much else is known about this mysterious character other than he seems well versed in everything…

Well that, and since I commissioned the art, he must be an important enough character to the plot that he will probably be a playable character at some point 😉 I think the art for his character captures his mystery and sophistication quite well. What do you think?

I’ve just finished the final music for the new Arvale game and I’m damn proud of it.

The original castle music from Arvale 1 is a classic and really opens up the feel of the game when you start out in Entoque Castle. Since the new Arvale will be starting from the same castle, I wanted to keep the same feel and touch on a few motifs but without reusing any of its melodies.

The music combines lots of Strings, Marching Percussion, some solo Flute, and French Horns plus Trumpets to round out the brass section. I was very excited to squeeze some Baroque Harpsichord in there too. What do you think?

New Arvale Castle music here: castle_preview

You can compare to the original Arvale 1 castle here: arvale1_castle

With that said, all of the music is finished (aside from two cutscene themes which I will piece together later).

Next up, I will begin working on maps. I have no idea how I will blog on the progress of that without spoiling too much of the game, but I’ll figure something out.

In addition, I’m headed out to Europe tomorrow. I’ll be visiting Budapest, Amsterdam, and Portugal to conduct some heavy drinking business. I’ll be sure to take some shots and keep you updated on that as well 🙂

See you soon!

Photo Credit: PhillipC

Just wrapped up the second village/town music for Arvale.

It is a bit of a contrast from the first town music, which is mostly upbeat and gives the feeling of walking around and talking to people. This piece is a bit more serene and gives the feeling of walking through a nice, quiet, countryside village (complete with a lush, green backdrop, a gentle breeze and blue skies). Just listening to it makes me want to go outside and stare at the clouds for awhile. How does it make you feel?

Listen to the peaceful village music here: town2_preview

Next up, castle music! 🙂

Photo credit: Georg Parthen

I’ve just received some excellent new character art for Silk. If you’ve played the first Arvale, you may already be familiar with Silk, the female half-elf character. Some background story on Silk’s role in the new game:

In the new Arvale, it is several years later and she has since returned to Invyl to help run the blacksmithing guild there. She will wield some sort of magic and she has become quite adept at using a bow. One of her parents was human while the other was elf which gave her some difficulties while growing up (which led to her feisty attitude and her dangerous lifestyle in Arvale 1). Her great, great, great grandfather rules the town of Invyl as the Guildmaster. She helped Duncan take down Sorcynth by her participation in an underground group named Veritaes. Since her adventures in Arvale 1, Silk’s hair has grown longer and she has changed her physical appearance a bit more towards the feminine side (this may be due to her advancing age or returning to a town full of elves), however she still retains a very strong attitude. Her reasons for leaving Duncan and returning to Invyl are still a bit of a mystery.

I think the new art for her is great and captures Silk’s character quite well (click on the above image for the full view). What do you think?

There were quite a bit of females who played Arvale and enjoyed it, and I received quite a bit of comments from females over the years. I pretty sure they enjoyed Arvale very much because of the amount of interesting characters and dialogue in the game (among other reasons, of course!). Also, in Arvale: Short Tales I received a several comments from female players who really enjoyed playing as Lotus, the female magician, as it enabled them to identify themselves with the character a bit more.

So I’m excited that Silk will be playing an active role in the new Arvale, and I know many females (and males, of course!) who enjoyed the original game will be happy to hear that she will be a playable character in the upcoming series (among several other female roles). 🙂