Time Extend
How a JRPG grind taught us the value of mortality
How a JRPG grind taught us the value of our very mortality in Dragon Quest IX
Dragon Quest IX is a matter of life and death. In its structures it marks the passing and rebirth of a genre, or the realisation that the many ancient traditions enshrined in the series’ past must be remade in new forms. In its stories it wants to explore the effects and value of human finitude – and also the eternal role of the traditional JRPG hero.
Modern sensibilities are at the forefront of the game’s design. Random battles are replaced by visible monsters roaming the field, sidequests are clearly signposted and tracked, and combat is swift and accessible. Then there’s the wireless co-op play, whose introduction cannot but make aspects of the old formula obsolete. It all creates a sense of freshness, whether joining another player’s adventure, accessing regular DLC updates of quests and rare items, or simply going solo through the main quest. And surprisingly these changes serve to expand, rather than dilute, the narrative scope of the game.
The clearest risk Dragon Quest IX takes in realising its structural adjustment is to sacrifice the notion of the classic JRPG party. In accommodating the option for players to take their personalised avatars into each other’s worlds, there’s no room for the usual cast of misfit personalities and their accompanying backstories. Instead, the gang that goes into turn-based battle is made up of human players or hired help, neither of which can be written into the story. Even the user-defined main character has to remain an empty cipher, and is less substantial than a typical silent protagonist.
If a lack of central characters may sound disastrous for a JRPG, however, the plot in
Dragon Quest IX adjusts to suit. You are cast as an immortal guardian angel, sent from a heavenly realm to protect mortals and gather ‘benevolessence’ – a manifestation of their gratitude. You simply aren’t part of the social context of the main world, and your entire motivation is encapsulated in this duty. Before long, a mysterious attack on your home, the Observatory, sends you plummeting to earth at the expense of your halo and wings, rendering you visible to ordinary folk. But you remain a transient entity whose only aim is to help mortals in order to return home.
The effect of this setup is to force a focal shift in the narrative away from the player character and onto the lives of the game’s NPCs. Dragon Quest games often zoom in on the details of the locals’ stories, but here, cut off from the tribulations of the immortals for long stretches and with no traditional party to share the attention, the populations of the world’s settlements take centre stage. You help these people and they are glad of that, but in doing so the demands of your mission fade into the background.
As each village or city you visit functions as a distinct episode, what really links everything together is a thematic thread. And while it may be unexpected, given the game’s cheerful audiovisual veneer, the constant in that theme is death. This is not the sort that comes from terrible deeds, however, where a culprit can be identified and blamed; rather it’s the kind of mundane demise that comes from old age, illness or daily struggles. The people you meet have been struck by tragedy, sure, but rarely by injustice.
There’s the tale of the rogue undead knight who roams the land searching for a lost love long after her death. There’s the young researcher whose wife succumbs to the plague that he is desperately trying to cure; a girl in a fishing village left orphaned when her father is killed at sea; a wealthy but sickly child who dreams of leaving her mansion and making friends before she dies. In all these cases and more, there’s a single lesson that applies as much to the ghosts of the dead as it does to those who remain: they must accept their lot and manage to move on. For the living this means facing up to the legacies and reputations of their predecessors, confronting their guilt, or escaping the shadow of their upbringing. For the ghosts, it’s the realisation that they can no longer protect their loved ones, merely hope for their mistakes to be fixed and come to terms with their regrets.
These are stories of monsters, curses and magic. Yet they are also highly relatable tales of missed opportunity, familial pressure and independence. Their poignant outcomes stay with you more than the major plot twists, and the repeatedly reinforced theme is more powerful because there are no
strong protagonists to get in its way. Some episodes are less substantial than others, but don’t outstay their welcome, and still build on the central idea. And if at times their pathos clashes with the game’s translation, with its daft puns and phonetically transcribed regional accents (the plague story, for example, set in the town of Coffinwell with characters called Dr. Phlegming and Catarrhina, might have benefited from a gentler touch), at least the range of voices emphasises the sense of universality, and the humour ensures the tone is never overly morose. In fact, despite its focus on death, Dragon
Quest IX’s message is one of optimism. It is ultimately a celebration of mortality, depicting death as not only an end but also the beginning of a new cycle of human endeavour, as people forge their own paths based on the knowledge and experience passed on from the previous generation. Mistakes are made and selfish actions lead to terrible suffering, but the reverse of this is always the potential to do things better, to learn and grow.
Most of all, the lives of the immortals put human flaws and misery in perspective. These are lives with no cycle, only an endless flat existence, and no internal contradiction to inspire change. All the celestial beings have is their responsibility, and otherwise appear to persist in a state of pious abstinence. And in the game’s main villain it becomes clear that the potential for suffering in everlasting life far outweighs the tragedy of death. This is another fallen immortal, Corvus, who spends centuries rotting in a forgotten prison cell, contemplating his betrayal by humans, eventually unleashing his anger on the world and threatening to destroy it. The worst part of his fate is his inability to die or evolve as the world moves on outside. Without death there is no resolution, no forgiveness.
So what does all this say about your role as a protagonist, if you can call it that, who is after all also an immortal? More than anything, even with the eventual worldsaving plotline that emerges, it’s a sign of your limitations. Throughout the game you help mortals, both living and deceased, to cope – by delivering messages, finding lost items, exploring nearby dungeons and overcoming bosses. But all this comes with a constant reminder that you’re powerless against the rhythms of mortality itself; that no hero, however great they are, can truly fix the world.
A subtle reversal of the JRPG, or the idea that the player character is the agent of the world, and NPCs are one-dimensional automata who merely aid the player’s quest, is at work here. As a guardian angel it’s you who have no interests, cares, ambitions or even ethical conviction. All you do is complete your assigned goals. Conversely, the NPCs at least appear human in how they adapt to their circumstances through the
IT IS ULTIMATELY A CELEBRATION OF MORTALITY, DEPICTING DEATH AS NOT ONLY AN END BUT ALSO A BEGINNING
narrative. This is the underlying truth of the genre, where players are in effect always guardian angels – beings who can never really die and exist to fulfil a range of externally imposed objectives without question or meaningful choice. For players, experience is measured in levels and stats. For the NPC, experience is the fuel of maturity, deeper bonds and moral reflection.
Dragon Quest IX’s story is a reminder that all the succour you offer those NPCs is nothing more than a transaction. Guardians help people in return for benevolessence, and even when your objectives change as the story develops they remain reward-oriented. The mortals may be weak, unreliable and self-interested, but they are also capable of acting with empathy, or even sacrificing their lives. Your help is never an act of kindness; it is a job that demands tangible progress or better equipment as a result.
In the game’s finale, the main character becomes a mortal of a kind, and after the credits roll returns to the world. Here you’re introduced to a torrent of post-story content in the guise of further sidequests and procedurally generated dungeons where tough monsters and valuable crafting materials reside. There’s also a range of super bosses, many in the form of antagonists from previous Dragon Quest games, that can be beaten countless times to test your prowess. It’s an immortal’s paradise, with nothing to do except battle endless monsters to collect infinite treasures and watch the completion percentages on various lists gradually build towards 100. If you get pulled into this addictive loop, it’s easy to forget that the human stories ever really mattered.
The result is a strange juxtaposition. On one hand, a superb immortal simulator that boils the JRPG hero down to its essence with a never-ending checklist of things to do purely for their own sake. On the other, a game that dwells on the advantages of mortality, in your ability to grow personally by forging relationships with others, even if they are doomed to end in tragedy. But if these two sides seem irreconcilable, it should be remembered that this is a game built to be shared. In that co-op functionality a touch of humanity is injected into the grind itself, and makes you a little more than a mere immortal.