My Daughter Takes On 'Dragon Quest' and Wins

A few weeks ago Nintendo sent over the new Dragon Quest game for the DS and as usual I just opened the package and handed the whole thing over to my 12-year-old. I can't even begin to understand these video games – it may as well have been a box filled with parts to build a pony. Although at least with a pony I could point out things I recognized, like 'ear' and 'bladder' before my daughter stepped in and said, "You're doing it wrong, mom."

This time Nintendo sent over several copies of the game so that my daughter could have her friends try it out, too, and it just so happens the package arrived the day before she was having a slumber party. How perfect is that? Unfortunately her friends all think that they'll get a new DS game every time they sleep over, and now they're just hanging out on our front porch till all hours just waiting for me to invite them in. Funny, they were never this enthusiastic when I handed out my pizza rolls.

(I will say this, though – those girls played this game for hours on end, nonstop that weekend. I woke up at 4am to find them all awake in the living room, their little DS screens glowing. There were also empty soda cans and potato chips strewn about – it was a tween girls' version of a frat party.)

The people at Nintendo wanted some sort of video reaction to their game, so not only did my daughter write an eloquent review but she put together this video with her best friend. We had just seen 'Inception' so it's a sort of homage to that, as much as a homage as two tween girls could muster after staying up till 4am and getting hopped up on root beer and Cheetos.



Here is the review my daughter wrote. It's a 100% her. Please read through to the end for the important life lessons she gleamed from this.

As I’ve heard, the Dragon Quest games are quite popular in Japan, as well many other role-playing action games. Although I’m not a big fan of action games as much as I like a game with a story-line, Dragon Quest quite generously balances them both.

When you first start off, you get to create your character known as a Celestrian. You can pick out the eyes, the hair, etc., either way creating an adorable hero to represent you through the game. Celestrians are basically angels, that are guardians to the many towns in the game. They go through the town and help people, gathering benevolessence, otherwise known as gratitude gained from helping the mortals in your town.

Your oh-so-adorable Celestrian hero guards over the small (But big in heart!) city of Angel Falls, where you invisibly float around listening to the many “Oh no he didn’t!"s and collecting benevolessence that you give to the great tree, Yggdrasil. The tree eventually bears magical, golden fruit, known as Fyggs, that can make the consumer’s desire come true. The bearing of the fruit also means the Starlight Express will arrive and take the Celestrians to the world of the Almighty. But, when the Yggdrasil finally bears fruit that’s when it all goes wrong. Right when The Starlight Express arrives, purple blasts of light shoot up, followed by many “Oh snap!"s as you plummet to the ground (Along with the Fyggs) without your wings or halo.

For all of the adventures, I think the stories that go along with it are very interesting, although sad, and make the game interesting and fun. The downside of the stories is that each one usually involves a death and creepy ghosts wandering around.

I’ve also found defeating the many monsters extremely difficult, in which some take days to defeat. Of course nothing is impossible, so after many tiring days of sitting on the couch fighting fictional monsters, I eventually defeat them.

I think one of my favorite things from the game is the clothes. You can explore different towns for their clothes and decorate your characters to match their personality. Cause I mean, when you’re fighting to your death, you might as well die fashionable.

Overall, I think the game is very creative, and while the entire story is quote confusing, the smaller stories are sweet, and give important messages as in: “Don’t eat magical Golden fruits from strangers.” and “Don’t go fighting Dragons after dark.”

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