Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation brings the classic console title to the Nintendo DS.

Release Date: Feb 14, 2011

The most sought-after Dragon Quest title never to hit stateside finally sees a U.S. remake and release. Read on for our full impressions of Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation.

What we're talking about: Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, the forthcoming remake of the sixth title in the popular RPG series, which has been exclusive to Japan until now.

Where we saw it: During a demo at Nintendo's Redwood City, California offices.

What you need to know:

• This iteration of the long-running RPG series allows gamers to jump between the real world and the dream world, similarly to the way players jumped back and forth between the light world and the dark world in A Link to the Past. The story focuses quite a bit on the relationship between the dream world and the real world, as the player character realizes that some things which seemed to be real were, in fact *gasp* existing only in his dreams. Things are reasonably less realistic in the dream world, where giant flying beds can be used for transportation across the land.
• Dragon Quest VI resembles last year's Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies in a few different ways. The visual treatment that the remake's undergone resembles DQIX, and the fully 3D world really jumps out of the small screen. Battles more closely resemble past Dragon Quest titles, with the enemies centered and characters only represented by their thumbnail image.
• Realms of Revelation utilizes minimal stylus control, though the developers put it to great use during the game's minigames. "Slippin' Slime" events consist of many different mini-games, such as Cliffside Chaos. This game resembles Olympic curling, tasking players to navigate one of DQ's iconic slimes through precarious courses, where one wrong swipe of the stylus could lead to a deadly drop off the cliff for your slime.
• The game's battle system allows for up to eight characters to enter the fight at once. Preposterous, you say? Well that's because four of the characters actively fight at any given time, and four are available to switch in. The good news: all eight characters receive experience points at the end of the fight. Additionally, various slimes can be recruited to join the party.
• Dragon Quest VI's vocation system includes 15 jobs, as well as a number of unlockable jobs. Unique to VI is the ability to carry over both skills and spells acquired from one vocation to the next, allowing players to substantially diversify their party. Unlockable vocations require mastering two or more vocations first, such as Paladin, which requires a master Martial Artist and Priest.
• Players can create their very own dream dioramas to share with other players, in a similar way that DQIX players used the share function. In dioramas, players can share info about themselves, and use dreamscapes found within the game to give their personalized areas a little flair.

Point in development cycle: The game is due out on February 14th, and looked to be feature complete when we saw it.

My take: Dragon Quest VI is one of the most critically-acclaimed games in the series in Japan, and has even sparked some outlandish nerds fights over whether or not it is the best in the series. Strange threats aside, Dragon Quest VI for the DS looks to be a fitting remake of the well-regarded SNES game, and players who may have just jumped on board the Dragon Quest boat with last year's Sentinels of the Starry Skies can know look forward to experiencing a revamped edition of one the series' most loved titles from the past.