Chasing the Echoes of an Elusive Age
It’s near the end of December 2020, I have recently lost my incredibly stressful phone job in the middle of the worst time in modern history. After coming out of what was almost a 2 month depressive haze from the aftermath, I took the copy of Dragon Quest XI S off my shelf and booted it up for the first time. Soon after the intro movie started playing, underscored by Dragon Quest’s iconic Overture, I started to sob. I didn’t know at the time why the music and visuals made me well up, but I know that when I look back, it was a release of so many emotions that my body needed to let out. Not just an involuntary reaction as I had initially thought.
The root of those feelings, along with my first encounter with Dragon Quest, can be charted back to my childhood, 2006 in this instance. One spring Friday, I asked my mother the dreaded question I asked almost every Friday: “can we go to the video store?”. After a little bit of whining on my end and grumbling on her’s, I hopped in the passenger’s seat of her 2000 Ford F-150 (in a color she referred to as “Tough Girl Blue”) to head down the street to the Family Video, the larger of the two local video stores. The other store was a block or two away and she preferred it as that meant that I could walk down there myself. However this store, the Felpausch Video Time, did not have the game selection that the Family Video did. Though to Video Time’s credit, they did get games that Family Video wouldn’t every once in a while.
After maybe a couple minutes and a little talk of if we’d grab Taco Bell on the way home, we pulled into Family Video’s parking lot, denoted by a large, light emitting glass monolith that greeted you at the door. Faster than my mom could tell me not to slam the car door, I ran through the doors and straight to the back of the store, the resting place of the plentiful game room. I started scanning the shelves for games I hadn’t played yet or wanted to revisit, while my mom started hunting for the newest film starring her hunk, Dennis Quaid. After a few minutes of scanning, I focused on Dragon Quest VIII. Fascinated how much it looked like Dragon Ball Z and remembering that I had seen it on G4 at my Dad’s house. I picked up the black case rental case and met up with my mom, who probably rented Frequency again. My mom paid the teller and we were on our way home, though whether we got Taco Bell that night is a mystery left to time.
My mom was kind enough to let me plug my Playstation 2 into the main tv downstairs, something I didn’t get to do often. I had a TV in my room, where I did most of my game playing. Once I had it all set up, I inserted the disk into the Playstation’s tray and we got going. I didn’t quite understand where I went though. At this point in my life, I had played a few games where I got to name my own character, but I always went with the default. It didn’t seem right to me to name a character something other than what was “correct” or “canon”. I played Final Fantasy X as the default “Tidus’’, and also hadn’t played a Zelda game at this point. The default name being “Hero” baffled me.
Like what was the right name to put in? I ended up just using “Hero” and being thrusted into this fantasy world outta nowhere. What’s a “Yangus”? A cursed frog man? what? I remember only a sea of green grass before entering a combat encounter where I was perplexed by how little health my characters had. “Only 20 hit points? Final Fantasy characters have at least 200 to start.” My hazy first impression of the game led me to soon turn off the game in frustration. I later took my Playstation to my room upstairs and went back to playing my own copy of Kingdom Hearts II. A game, along with Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Game would be some of the last I would play on the system before it stopped reading disks.
The breakdown of my Playstation 2 was almost like a good friend moving away. My weekends back then most often consisted of waking up around 10 am, making my bed, and playing games till I was told that it was time for bed. My mom would regularly pop in with a grilled cheese to make sure I was still alive up there. I played through many games this way, Jak and Daxter, Ape Escape 3, Sly Cooper, Kingdom Hearts II, Rayman 3. Those last two titles I remember blowing through over the course of a single weekend. Which is impressive given Kingdom Hearts II is at least a 40 hour game. It was a time where I didn’t have to worry about much and homework wasn’t really a big deal yet. Looking back at it, I definitely felt like I was that kid who gravitated to the tv because I didn’t know what else to do. I was a handful growing up and my folks often didn’t always have the best solution in dealing with that. I didn’t particularly care for school either. I guess eventually I ended up playing games in my room as an escape from the difficulties of school and a family that wasn’t well equipped to help me through my troubles. I turned inward and it most likely led to a bad habit of bottling up my feelings as a result. Games, especially ones of the Playstation 2 era, were the warm blanket that meant I didn’t have to think about my home and school troubles.
The opening hours of Dragon Quest XI brought me back to those days of playing Playstation 2 games in my room. Like then, though for more pandemicial reasons, I find myself in my room all day. Being significantly older now, that much time alone gets you thinking about your entire life. What you actually want, what you should work on, things that you’ve been trying to let go of for years. The reintroduction of Dragon Quest into my life was that warm blanket from my childhood somehow finding itself on my bed, all these years later, in a time where I think most people could go for a quick reminder of warmer times. Surprisingly, Dragon Quest XI wasn’t my proper reintroduction into Dragon Quest, as the blanket had crept onto my toes a year earlier.
June 2019, It wasn’t long after I had started working my stressful phone job and realized that this job was only a peer into the void. Most of my co-workers had been there for five to six years, bitter that any attempts to move up were met with “but this is your important place in our family ”. I didn’t want that for myself, but I wasn’t sure of what to do. I spent my weeks trying to distract myself with games after hours, but only one really managed to calm me down. Dragon Quest VII on the 3DS.
I had picked it up on a whim. It was shortly after the Hero of Dragon Quest XI was announced to be joining the newest Super Smash Brothers game. Though most of the reaction from North American Smash fans was “we knew about this lame sword guy. He’s a wasted slot”, it was completely minimized by the awe inspiring reaction from Japanese fans of Dragon Quest. The love and pure excitement that poured out from them stuck in my head for days. A good friend of mine had mentioned numerous times that “Dragon Quest is the shit”. With those words and feelings in my mind, I happened upon a copy of Dragon Quest VII while doing some shopping at my local Target. I didn’t have a 3DS at the time, but the sweet deal they had going on and the extra money I had squeezed out of the call center blood stone had me scoop it up.
Though not the explosive reaction I had to XI, Dragon Quest VII put me at ease with its charming world and characters. It was a perfect way to cap off a day of nightmare inducing stress. It became my bedtime game, per the suggestion of writer Tim Rogers in his many video essays gushing about the series. As soon as I walked through the door each night, I would make a beeline for the shower. I would soak in the hot water for a bit before throwing on jammies and the kettle for tea. I’d flick on my 3DS’ power switch to start my adventure for the night. Not long after, I would set the system down for a moment to grab my tea. After an hour or two, I was ready to conk out. I’d take my party to their local house of worship in order to pay their respects to who I believe to be their lord and savior, Son Goku. From there I could save and go to sleep. This was my life for about two months or so, before I found myself falling deeper into the call center stress void… and buying what other Dragon Quest games I could for later.
By the time I finally crawled into the Dragon Quest XI blanket, the game had been sitting on the shelf for at least a year. Only really touched to take off the plastic wrap. Since starting it up, I’ve found myself returning to my routine of getting ready for bed with Dragon Quest. True to its subtitle, Dragon Quest XI, regales me in the echoes of an elusive age. A time where I didn’t have to think about my troubles, the world being on fire, or my homework. When I could spend my entire weekend playing games on my Playstation 2. Though my Mom isn’t able to check in on me with a grilled cheese these days, at least I can make myself one to make sure I’m still alive up there.
