The quiet fishing village protagonist, his friend Prince Kiefer, and childhood annoyance friend Mabel live a peaceful existence on the only island in the world. In doing so, they stumble upon a room full of portals which leads to other lands, accessible by shard fragments the heroes find during the course of the game. Unbeknownst to them, initially, these lands are a part of their shared world, but they exist in the past. With every emergence, there are past histories to discover. New cultures and people appear. And each portion of land brings its own terrible backstory weighing down its world with NPC cast members at the center of its turmoil. All of these narratives extend throughout time with consequences that shape the future—for better or worse. This oversight on my part was fortunately corrected when I played the Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past. But I was worried when I first began playing. Dragon Quest VII was one of the biggest games of its time, a significant leap over its predecessors … Newer JRPGs have embraced experimenting with battle systems and moving away from high enemy encounter rates as a means to grind and level-up characters. For these reasons, sinking time into an older game felt daunting. Improvements were made for the remake, such as updated character art and a story recap feature intended to help players remember where they left off. But completing Dragon Quest VII can take over 100 hours. I was right to be apprehensive. Despite its interesting concept, I was also bracing for the predictability a JRPG from its narrative to its characters. But in spite of its few negatives, what I was not anticipating was discovering just how brilliantly and unconventionally Dragon Quest VII tells its story. It Breaks A Few Established JRPG Norms Games, such as various entries in the mainline Final Fantasy franchise and it should be noted, one that started after the Dragon Quest series , follow a JRPG formula in which a powerful sometimes convoluted major plot is facilitated by a sometimes fascinating villain. The heroes are typically a likable, memorable cast of playable characters. Dragon Quest VII, on the other hand, has a distinctive narrative structure that embraces experimentation which breaks with that more traditional approach to the genre. Its presence is felt through a rise in evil forces overtaking the land, albeit with less of a fleshed out personality. Even more fascinating is that these stories are tied to the main plot and major evil but done so with seemingly inconsequential thin narrative threads. In turn, many of its stories are presented as strong, standalone, focused narratives which are wholly intriguing in their own right. In the third world: a quiet village—silent because its once living residents are all stone statues, cursed when an evil magical rain fell. Inspection of the statues tells our protagonists that the statues are very weathered. Dragon Quest VII has a clever way of setting some of its stories into motion. Those are just a few examples of the gutting tales Dragon Quest VII dishes out. Each land is a unique story beset by sadness. Iconic games such as Chrono Trigger, and 2009's Radiant Historia, make excellent uses of time manipulation to tell their stories. Dragon Quest VII should also be counted as brilliant for its intricate weaving of science fiction to do so. The protagonists sometimes meddle to right wrongs which then shape the future, or they may observe narrative threads unfurl in the past with consequences revealed in their own timeline. Over the course of 100 hours of playtime, things can happen early in its past or present timelines only to be revisited much later for significant, blindsiding impact. It cleverly uses time travel to give the game this illusion of throwaway stories which are in fact deeply rooted into its overall plan. But time travel also bolsters a curious tactic used by Dragon Quest VII—by foregoing placing all of the detailed focus on its protagonists to mold them into relatable cast members, it instead allows its NPCs and their stories to develop and shine. The main characters are important in that they will ultimately save the world, sure. In addition to certain NPCs and social links for relationship building, the main characters each get a their own story arcs to ground their motivations and make them more fully formed. And so, apart from the couple of main playable characters whose importance is weaved into the narrative, it leaves the heroes—including the one you control—in a predicament. One that mostly removes them as lauded characters with in-depth personalities and backstories. For all the world changes that the heroes engage in or oversee, their good deeds are sometimes forgotten in history. In one village they become scapegoats as part of a lie that portrays them as evildoers. With a history to record, the village instead places blame on your main character and his party for the crime, branding them as would-be murderers. In some cases, their personalities are negative, driven by fears that cause them to become antagonists of each of the episodic adventures. Even your teammate, Maribel, is nasty to your main character. There are some who are actually decent characters. These characters, along with certain nicer NPCs—as with the case of the man who really loved his cow Daisy—are often downtrodden heroes in their own right. Still, while many NPCs may carry specific dialogue that only serves to trigger events in their towns, Dragon Quest VII makes them feel distinctly human even if gruff, unlikable or wicked at their cores. When I played, I was struck by a small comfort as I was haphazardly making my way from one point to another in my hometown of Estard. My main character is a hero, even when so many characters treat you as scum or forget your deeds. The Hero class often felt like the validation of my purpose when that recognition was otherwise muted by peers, and those saved in-game. In the first few hours of the game, Kiefer and the main character need an specific item to open ruins doors. It seems easy enough—your drunk uncle has a mysterious glowing orb called the sizzling stone that seems to fit the bill. There is a background story for your main playable character which eventually comes into play. But Dragon Quest games also have a way of turning the Hero stories on their heads. I enjoyed being strung along to uncover all its complexities, and being surprised when I found them. After a few hours of play, I believed Dragon Quest VII fell into a story pattern produced by its time travel. Little did I know I would be eating those words later in my adventure. It did it with a town called Nottagen—a joke that took me way too long to get—which promised some light-hearted humor only to dash those hopes.
