Thank you, Akira Toriyama
Famous manga artist (manga-ka) Akira Toriyama recently passed away. All over Twitter (X) my page was filled with others talking about him. Nostalgia and reminiscing on the things he did and was still doing. A moment that many in the world shared. The world had shifted again.
Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) is the first piece of media that comes to mind for me and many others when his name pops up. His specific art style was why I started playing Dragon Quest VIII (DQ8). A child with a PS2 seeing a character who looks like Goku in a video game that wasn't DBZ. It came with a demo for Finally Fantasy XII, another game series I've heard of but not played. I was dead set on getting it, with my father even asking if I was sure since it was number eight in the series. In retrospect, that did not matter as the stories were not connected; they just shared similar game designs, a detail neither of us knew. I did not care that this was number eight in a series; I had to play.
The closest thing to a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) that I played at the time was Pokemon. I definitely had trouble understanding that I needed to "grind" or level up my characters and not just straightly follow the story. Coming back to this game multiple times, starting fresh and getting farther each time. Getting to a point where I thought the game was ending soon. Story-wise, it made sense; we were about to finally beat the guy we had been chasing all along. On the map, there were areas we had not visited, but I just assumed that was extra content after the main game. I was wrong.
The moment that I thought was the "end" was actually the midpoint. A twist, as a child, I could not have seen coming. There was a bigger, badder enemy that we still had to stop. The person we had been chasing was not the final bad guy, even with his evil transformation and second phase. If you have played other games in the series or even the other popular games from the company Square Enix, this kind of twist is not new. The main villain at the end is usually some earth-destroying monster or god-like creature that needs to be stopped. But as a kid seeing this for the first time, I was hooked.
Dragon Quest VIII will always hold a special place in my life. I have played the game multiple times and know the general story from memory. For me, it's a comfort game. With the recent passing, I've decided to go back and play it again. And I am excited.