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Above: Unlike its predecessors, we haven't seen much in the way of remakes for Dragon Quest VI.  So far, it has only been remade for the Nintendo DS (Japanese box art pictured above)

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie

In Dragon Quest VI, we saw quite a number of changes come to the long-running series both inside and outside of the game. First, the studio who had worked on all of the previous Dragon Quest games, Chunsoft, was no longer involved with the series. Instead, Heartbeat developed this game. Moreover, we saw a number of new gameplay features included in this sixth installment, such as the inclusion of a number of mini-games, a new, and improved class system, and the concept of certain events only taking place at night. This was also the final game in the Zenithia trilogy.

While the basic story in Dragon Quest VI's story is about a hero gathering a bunch of adventurers to defeat a big, bad evil in typical fashion for the series, there are some interesting elements that pop up, helping to bring a little more depth to this game's story in comparison to previous titles. This comes from the game taking place both in a real world and a dream world that are similar yet different to one another, and that many of the characters suffer from amnesia early in the game.

Above: Dragon Quest VI never got a US release on the SNES (just like Dragon Quest V), here is the Super Famicom box art

The game starts out with the Hero, and his companions, Mireyu and Hassan, battling the demon king, Mudo. However, the group are defeated, and the hero awakens to find himself in the town of Lifecod, with no memory of his life prior to the battle, and meets a little girl named Tania who insists that the hero is her brother. A short time later, the hero learns that he can get information on Mudo at Reidock Castle. Along the way, he manages to fall through a portal that makes it so no one can either see or hear him. Luckily, though, he finds another of these portals to pass through, which remedies this. Upon reaching Reidock, the hero meets Soldi, the commander of the kingdom's military, as well as Hassan, who also appears to have lost his memory, and as such does not remember the hero. Here the hero learns that he will need the Mirror of Ra in order to defeat Mudo. With that the hero and Hassan set off to find the mirror, and wind up passing through another portal that takes them to the city of San Marino, and once again they cannot be seen or heard. Fortunately, though Mireyu happens to be there, and although she has lost her memory as well, she is able to see them, and eventually helps them to shift into that world properly.

Above: (Left and Right) the Nintendo DS versions of the game; (Center) the original Super Famicom version of Dragon Quest VI

From here, the party starts to figure out that there is both a dream world and a real one where things are the same, yet different. In this world, the prince of Reidock has gone missing, and the Hero bares a striking resemblance to him. Upon starting to look for the mirror the party meets a woman named Barbara who was also invisible in the world for a time, and together they retrieve the artifact.

Mirror in hand, the party travel to Mudo's fortress in the real world, and defeat him. Using the mirror on Mudo, the creature suddenly turns into the king of Reidock, completely unaware of having been Mudo. The king is able to properly explain the difference between the dream world and the real one to the party, however. As it turns out, they are currently in the dream world, so they decide to report back to the king of Reidock in the real world, who thanks them for what they've done so far, but explains that Mudo is still around in the real world, and will need to be dealt with.

In order to reach Mudo, the party will need to go to the port town of Gent and get a boat. Here they meet Chamaro, who joins the group as its healer, and, coincidentally, he also has access to a ship, so off they go, and defeat Mudo. After this, the queen of Reidock tells to the hero to discover his true identity, since he's still suffering amnesia. This leads the party on an adventure that has them passing through the town of Arcbolt. Here a monster has been causing problems for the town, so it is offering the Sword of Thunder to whomever can defeat the beast. Just as the party is about to win, another warrior named Terry comes out of nowhere, and lands the killing blow, and thus wins the sword. It's around this time that the group starts figuring out that there are still an awful lot of monsters around, and they sure are organized, so perhaps they're working for another evil power stronger than Mudo.

Continuing on their way, minus on Sword of Thunder, the party passes through Calberona, Barbara's home town. Here the town elders tell Barbara that the Demon Lord is watching her, so they give her the spell Madante to fight him with. If the group is to defeat the Demon Lord, they will need to go to the Zenith Tower, but to gain entry they will need a legendary set of armor and weapons. While traveling to gather these, the party visits the real Lifecod where he meets his double. Eventually the two merge into one being and this causes the hero to regain his memories (Mireyu and Hassan had to go through the same process in order to restore their memories).

Eventually the group gain access to the tower, and reach Cloud Castle where they meet a powerful enemy named Duran. First he summons Terry, the chap who pinched that sword earlier to fight for him, and later he joins the fray himself. After the battle, Duran explains that the Demon Lord is called Deathtamoor, and Mireyu explains that Terry is her brother, resulting in the warrior joining the party.

With Duran out of the way, King Zenith reclaims the Cloud Castle, and tells the adventurers that they will need to travel to the Dark World to defeat Deathtamoor before the Demon Lord can merge his world with the others. To get their the party's horse combines with a pegasus from the dream world and carries them to the Dark World. Shortly thereafter, the party defeats the Demon Lord, and escapes before the Dark World collapses on itself.

The gameplay itself sticks to a lot of the traditional JRPG features, especially in terms of battles. There are a trio of mini-games at players disposal, as well as a fairly robust class system. Characters start off with access to fairly simple classes, but as they become skilled in them, newer, more powerful ones become available, resulting in some interesting hybrid classes for players to sink their teeth into.

Dragon Quest VI did quite well for itself upon release, selling 3.2 million copies on the SNES. It has only been remade once so far, on the DS, having only been released in Japan so far, but with plans for it to come to North America and Europe eventually as well.