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Dragon Warrior: Begin a New Quest Review by Animebryan

Here is my review for Dragon Warrior: Begin A New Quest
I'll be breaking this down into 5 categories:

Story: How original & well thought-out the story is.

Gameplay: How easy is it to navigate the menus & interact with different things like npcs & events.

Graphics: How good the graphics are.

Audio: How good the music is.

Difficulty: How difficult the game is. Optional side-quests are understandably hard.


Here we go.

Story:
The story is very well thought out & has interesting plot twists. I'm not going to give away any spoilers. It definitely felt like a fitting story for a Dragon Warrior fan game. One thing I will say is that its a shame that Fairy/Holy Water not being available in the game is actually a part of the story. I would've liked to have the 'Repel' effect in the game. It even follows the usual primary antagonist & secondary antagonist setup that you see in modern Dragon Quest games.

While just about any fan-game will be inspired by the official games of the series, this game seems to be heavily inspired by Dragon Quest/Warrior 2. In the game, you'll eventually have to track down the 5 Crests of Rubiss (just like in DQ/W 2). However, unlike in that game, where you could find them in any order, these crests have to be found in a certain order. Each one gives you an ability that opens up a new path to look for the next one.


Gameplay:
The gameplay is very similar to the previous Dragon Quest/Warrior games, but without the tedious command menu. As far as battles go, it seems the Enemy Group concept is still too hard to implement, so spells can either target 1 enemy or all enemies. Another concept that seems a little off is how the inventory is handled. In the Dragon Quest/Warrior games, each character has their own inventory & in modern DQ/W games, there's also a bag that can hold an unlimited amount of items. But in this game, characters have a preset number of equipment slots followed by only 4 'item' slots to hold usable items.

As if that wasn't bad enough, in DQ/W games, there are items & equipment that can be used to produce certain effects (mostly spell effects), like a Staff of Thunder or Staff of Resurrection. However, this feature is also missing from this game. Instead, if you want to use equipment for special effects, you have to equip it & then it gives you the ability in the form of a 'Special' skill. In DQ/W games, you could use a piece of equipment without having to equip it. This becomes a problem with a certain magic user who has a weak attack. You have to choose between having a weapon with decent attack power or equip a weak staff in order to use its special effect.


Graphics:
The graphics are rips from the classic games, but that isn't a bad thing. I truly feels like an NES era Dragon Quest/Warrior game. The monster sprites are rips too, but the strange thing is is that some of the monsters are mixed between 8-bit sprites from the NES games & 16-bit sprites from the SNES games (and also some 32-bit sprites from PS1/2 games). While they still look good, the differences are noticeable. The battle HUD however is the default VX Ace battle HUD (without the TP bar). This disappointed me because I know there's a script that applies a DQ/W styled battle HUD & Wonderslime didn't use it. Regardless though, it still feels & plays like a proper DQ/W game. There are also some custom sprites that are used but I didn't care for their art style (and some of them are too big, like the plant ladies), but I understand the need to make original sprites, especially main antagonists exclusive to this game. I just wish they matched the art style of the original sprites (the moon-shaped enemies are especially horribly edited).


Audio:
Most of the music is ripped too, but there are also custom tracks thrown in as well. I felt waves of nostalgia listening to the old tracks & remembering which games & areas they came from. The only people who wouldn't appreciate the old tracks are people who haven't played the old games. Not much else to say about the music.


Difficulty:
The game is fairly decent in terms of difficulty. However, there are some boss fights that get really hard (especially late in the game). Some of these boss fights get really cheap in difficulty. Be sure to read the 'readme & FAQs' that comes with the game. Both the FAQs & certain npcs clue you in on how to deal with these bosses (it'll still be difficult). Also, some of the dungeons can be really confusing (like the dark cave). I've wasted HOURS trying to find my way through that dark cave or a certain optional dungeon. Wonderslime uses the excuse that the older games were often vague with clues on how to figure out puzzles or where to go. Any self-respected game designer would know better than to repeat the mistakes made by the series' original creators. As a fan-game maker, you should learn from the mistakes made in the originals & use that insight to make your fan-game somewhat better in certain aspects.

The real problem I had as a completionist was finishing the Alchemy side-quest & the Super Bosses you unlock by finding all of the Monster Entries. Some of the Alchemy ingredients required are extremely rare. In fact, be wary of what stuff you come across & are thinking of selling off. You may regret it when you stumble upon a recipe that calls for one of those items & you have trouble getting another one. Some of those items require grinding for enemy drops (which can get tedious & repetitive). The Super Bosses can be cheap as hell. Apparently, they were designed for players who power grind to absurdly high levels (Lv 60+). However, the majority of the game is fairly challenging.


Overall:
Despite the game's short-comings, its still a great Dragon Quest/Warrior fan-game (I wouldn't have played it all the way if it wasn't). I normally would've done a Let's Play but when I started it, I wasn't planning on playing it seriously at first. I was just testing it out to see what it was like. Before I knew it, I became addicted to it & just kept running through the game. The only other Dragon Quest/Warrior fan-game I've played was Dragon Warrior Classic, so I don't have much to compare it to. While those who have grown up & played the original games will appreciate this game more than those who haven't, I still recommend this game even to those who have never played a DQ/W game before. It's that good! Overall, I rate this game a 4 out of 5 stars. I hope Wonderslime makes more DQ/W fan-games in the future & improves the quality to be even closer to the real games.