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Dragon Quest VI DS: TGS 2009 Hands-on

By Janelle | September 24, 2009 at 8:52 am

The Dragon Quest VI booth had two demo files available: a demo of the prologue, and a Level 27 file with a full party. I opted for the prologue file, which began with the hero and his two friends preparing to attack a castle under the cover of darkness to defeat someone named Mudo. After a dragon-summoning sequence that made good use of the DS’s dual screens, the trio arrived at the ominously empty castle.
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In an obvious ambush, the intrepids go charging into the throne room to defeat Mudo, but are absolutely overpowered by his magic and scattered to faraway locations. The hero wakes up in a lone town, rather amnesiac about the whole ordeal. From this point on, it was pretty standard fare: go through a cave to deliver something, fight vicious Toriyama-designed monsters. The monsters had some really great animation, much better than still images.

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The graphics were nice, the interface was clear, and beyond that, I’m not sure what else more to say about the demo. It’s a Dragon Quest game, and played exactly like one. That’s not a bad thing, and the demo was fun enough. I guess it says something about the notoriety of the series when “Dragon Quest-like” can be used as a descriptor and people know what you mean. Dragon Quest VI has a turn-based, first person RPG battle system, saving at churches, and a level grinding style of progression. If that’s your thing, you’ll probably love it and have boatloads of fun with it. I know I enjoyed it.

The only thing the booth lacked was headphones: the Tokyo Game Show easily drowned out the DS speakers, so I couldn’t hear the sound at all.

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Topics: Dragon Quest VI, Previews, Tokyo Game Show 2009