Dragon Fantasy: The Volumes of Westeria (PC) Review

Turning the game on, almost immediately, the story kicks in, and requires a step back. It is very cookie cutter, but in the most tongue-in-cheek way. Dragon Fantasy: The Volumes of Westeria frequently makes jokes at itself, almost poking fun at its inspiration. An early quest, for instance, is meant, more than to teach the mechanics, to inform how seriously the game takes itself. It's very refreshing, and honestly, one of the smartest executions of satire in modern gaming.

One frequently raised point in the medium of video games is that funny titles are usually not funny at all. Games like to poke fun at the player, and unless handled correctly, can alienate them more than make them smile. Dragon Fantasy fortunately dodges this, mostly making fun of the genre it falls into. It's refreshing for the first few hours.

Gameplay is entirely derivative of the RPG genre of the late 80s/early 90s. Random encounters litter a world map that uses poor collision. Walking across the continents and discovering that an invisible line cannot be crossed at the most random places is more frustrating than anything. Random encounters were an often reviled portion of the turn-based RPGs from yesteryear, and, sadly, they are implemented here in the same fashion. While enemies are invisible on the world map, in each dungeon they can be seen moving around, so while the map does feel like Final Fantasy or Pokémon, the dungeons feel more like Star Ocean. The enemies, even when seen, are hard to avoid if needed, as just standing within a cube space of one will trigger the fight.

When enemies cannot be seen, they crop up just short of constantly. Random encounters should be, by their vary name, random. While they are random here, they occur so often it begins to dramatically impede the sense of excitement. The fights are so rudimentary that the only nostalgia the fights bring in is a reminder that some "retro" game features are better left in the past.

One of those features that is nice to see from time to time is the art style, and Dragon Fantasy does this the best it seems it can. While the gorgeous pixellation covers the characters, towns, and landscapes perfectly, it falls apart in battle. Enemies frequently look like they may have been created in Illustrator and had a pixel filter layered on them. It's not so much bad as it is really odd, and takes the player out of the game tremendously, as it no longer feels "retro."

The soundtrack is fantastic, and really drives the game further. While Dragon Fantasy frequently makes fun of itself, its soundtrack seems as grandiose and vivid as though it had the production value of the Mana series, or even Final Fantasy IV. It does frequently loop in the areas it's in, but it takes a while to get boring and repetitive.

What is "retro?" The Muteki Corporation seems to have an idea in mind to answer that. While it may be the idea many people have when they think retro, Dragon Fantasy still stands tall as an excellent piece of satire. Unfortunately, it is also a reminder that some of the improvements made to the medium over the years have been welcome. As far as being a great blast from the past, it definitely can holds its head high, and Dragon Fantasy: The Volumes of Westeria should not be overlooked unless older games really aren't liked. However, for those who appreciate the Nintendo era of RPGs and are looking for a way back or always wanted to try them out, this is definitely a great place to begin.