💭 Dragon Quest in my heart and the voices in my ears
Oh, hi, hello...can we talk about Dragon Quest? Because I love Dragon Quest so much. I really, really do.
I'm playing Dragon Quest VII Reimagined on the Nintendo Switch 2, and it is so beautifully set up to be this sort of episodic or chapter story, this cozy bedtime story. I love playing it at the end of the day, after my son has gone to bed. I boot it up and basically play through one island's mystery, and then that's the chapter. Sometimes it takes me two nights, but the chapters feel so contained at the moment that it's possible to do that in one or two nights and feel like, "Ooh, okay, here we go. We've got another chapter down."
I don't know how Dragon Quest does it, because there's something about it that feels really campy and almost childish, but somehow the writing also feels deep. Even when the words themselves aren't particularly deep, it still works. There's one island with robots where a man seems to have lost someone he loved and is now building his own robot, although I haven't finished that chapter yet, so that's just my assumption. Then there's another where a curse turns all the humans into animals, or a villager who sacrifices themselves after terrorizing the village because of their own pain. When I say these things out loud, they sound very fairy-tale-ish. Maybe that's why it works, but whatever it is, I'm really enjoying it. And the music is so, so good.
Having played Dragon Quest V before this, I can also see familiar things in the world map, like the way a castle sits in the landscape or the purple poisonous ground that damages you when you walk through it. Obviously, everything looks different in Reimagined, but the underlying idea of how it looked in V is still there, which has been fun to notice. I also find sailing the ship around so satisfying, and it's making me curious about Dragon Quest VII on the 3DS. However, playing both versions at once would probably be a bit much.
My brother and I have also picked up Monster Hunter Rise again, and we've been playing quite a lot online, which is not something I ever thought I would say. But the Monster Hunter Rise community has been really, really nice. People join our hunts, and a lot of them are way more overleveled than we are, but they're all very kind and very supportive. It's just actually really fun to play online, and I never thought I would say that. There's no voice chat or anything, and you can type text, but on a Nintendo Switch it's so much work that I'm always using the in-game presets. I think that's actually part of what I enjoy about it, though, because you're trying to convey how you're feeling, what you're thinking, or what you want to do through these little shared phrases. It reminds me of communicating in Forza Horizon, where we're using the same presets, but do they mean the same thing to both of us? Me saying "high five" could mean something slightly different from what the other person takes it to mean, but there's still this shared understanding because the words are "high five." I don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but it's a part of communicating in games that I really enjoy. But yeah, all that to say, it's a really fun loop, going out on a hunt, and I feel like now that our ranks are getting higher, we're getting some really cool monsters with some really cool gear. So it's been really, really fun.
Outside of those two games, I've removed YouTube from my phone again because it's such a time sink for me. Since doing that, I've noticed I have more time for other things, including starting a physical gaming journal, which has been a really fun, hands-on activity. I've been writing down thoughts, adding screenshots and cutting things out of magazines to glue into it, without feeling like any of it has to be perfect. It's also something I can do while listening to some of my favorite gaming podcasts, including MinnMax, Pew Pew Bang and Into the Aether. I'm currently listening to Into the Aether's five-hour beast of a 3DS retrospective, which, of course, is making me want to go back and play a bunch of 3DS games. I really enjoy the banter between the people on these shows, as well as their knowledge of games and the industry.
And we do need to talk about Nintendo Voice Chat, because I've been listening to that podcast since around 2013 or 2014. I have such good memories of listening while working in the stockroom at Ralph Lauren, folding clothes and putting them on the shelves. It's been part of my weekly listening life for a very, very long time.
Brian Altano and Seth Macy, two previous NVC hosts who were still guests and regular NVC personalities, were recently laid off by IGN, along with other people there. Still, these are the two notable ones for me personally. It was really sad to hear that these two people, who had been working at IGN for a very, very long time and had so much knowledge, were laid off. It is a little worrisome for gaming media in general.
They've also changed the cadence of NVC episodes. It's not going to be weekly anymore; it's supposed to be monthly, but it's unclear, which changes the whole setup of NVC. I can't confirm this, but if it's monthly, it will likely be more of a news roundup rather than thoughtful, in-depth discussions about Nintendo and what's happening during that time.
During the Wii U era, they'd always joke that literally nothing was going on with Nintendo. Yet they were still putting out an episode and coming up with topics and things to talk about. I feel like this is such a singular podcast, and I haven't found anything else in my podcast repertoire that is so focused on just Nintendo, with really, really great, knowledgeable people.
So I'm very sad to hear about the layoffs and the changes to Nintendo Voice Chat. I wanted to put that down because NVC has been a big part of my gaming life, especially as a young adult and now as an adult. I think it made me realize that, yeah, I am allowed to be a gamer. I am allowed to enjoy Nintendo as an adult, and I don't have to be embarrassed about it.
Often in my personal life, I don't really have people close to me besides my brother, who is into gaming, so it's always nice to hear voices that share a passion for things like this. Not to be parasocial, but I think that's why I'm so sad about it, because after listening for so many years, it's not just about keeping up with Nintendo anymore. It's also about spending a little bit of my week with people who get why I love this stuff so much, especially when I don't often get to have those conversations in my everyday life.