Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation: Difference between revisions

| image = [[File:DQVI_Logo.png|320px|center]][[File:DQVI cast.png|320px|center]]

| released = '''{{Super Famicom}}'''<br />{{vgrelease|JP=December 9, 1995}}'''Nintendo DS'''<br />{{vgrelease|JP=January 28, 2010}}{{vgrelease|NA=February 14, 2011}}{{vgrelease|EU=May 20, 2011}}{{vgrelease|AUS=June 16, 2011}}'''Android & iOS'''<br />{{vgrelease|JP=June 10, 2015|NA=June 24, 2015}}

{{Translation|'''''Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation'''''|ドラゴンクエストVI 幻の大地|Doragon Kuesuto Shikkusu Maboroshi no Daichi|literally meaning; Dragon Quest VI: Land of Illusion}} is the sixth installment in the {{DQSeries}}. It is the penultimate title for the Nintendo Super Famicom as well as the last game in the [[Zenithia trilogy]], and the first game in the series to be developed by [[Heartbeat]], rather than [[Chunsoft]].   

An adventure filled with perils and phantasms, the mystery of ''Dragon Quest VI'' spans two massive worlds filled with ferocious monsters, devious demons, and soul-shattering realizations.  

Like every other {{Main Series}} game, the setting in ''Dragon Quest VI'' is very medieval, complete with castles, knights, and magic. The main world is divided into the [[Lower World]] and the [[Upper World]], each with a separate but similar map. To get from one world to the other, the party uses special warps (such as in wells) or by ascending/descending colossal stairs on the world map.  

If something cannot be found in the Real World, chances are it has appeared in the Upper World, such as with Spiegel's Spire , in the middle of the quest. Also, another similarity to much of the series is the [[Dread Realm]]. This separate map features a foreboding island with a psychedelic sea surrounding it and some of the toughest monsters in the game, including [[Mortamor|The final boss]]. Also, once the Archfiend is defeated, the player can access the [[Bonus Dungeons|bonus dungeon]] and the secret final boss, [[Nokturnus|a wide-awake nightmare]].

''Dragon Quest VI'' opens as the {{Hero 6}}, [[Milly]], and [[Carver]] approach the castle of Murdaw, the demon king. After Milly summons a dragon, the party enters the castle and comes face to face with Murdaw. Overpowering the trio, Murdaw appears to destroy each member of the party. The Hero wakes up in [[Weaver's Peak]], and cannot remember anything before the fight with Murdaw. Tania, a small girl from Weaver's Peak, insists that he is her brother.

On his way to [[Somnia (Upper World)|Somnia Castle]], where information on Murdaw can be found, the Hero stumbles into a strange portal which brings him to [[Wellshire|another unfamiliar town]]. However, no one can see or hear him. After finding a similar portal, the Hero reaches Somnia and meets Captain Blade, the leader of Somnia's army, and Carver, who appears not to remember the Hero. To defeat Murdaw they will need the [[Mirror of Ra]], and the captain sends them fourth to find the missing relic. The Hero and Carver discover another portal along their journey, which brings them to [[Port Haven]] where they can neither be heard nor seen. Milly, who does see them, reunites with the two and helps them become visible with the aid of [[List of characters in Dragon Quest VI#Major Characters|Madame Luca]].  

The party discovers a [[Somnia (Lower World)|Somnia Castle]] in the “[[Lower World|Phantom World]]” and learns that the prince is missing and that the Hero looks like him. They also meet Captain Rusty, who bears a striking resemblance to Blade. Gaining entrance to the [[Moonmirror Tower]], the party meets [[Ashlynn]], a woman who was invisible in the “Phantom World” as well and together they find the Mirror of Ra.  

The four of them travel to Murdaw's [[Underkeep|castle]] in the original world. After defeating Murdaw, the Hero uses the Mirror and Murdaw then turns into the king of Somnia, confused and unaware of what happened. The king reveals that the "original" world is in fact the [[Dream World]] and the so-called “Phantom World” is the [[Real World]]. Upon traveling back to the Real World, the King of Somnia thanks the party for defeating Murdaw in his dreams, but that the real Murdaw lives and that the party must travel to [[Ghent]] to retrieve a boat to get to [[Murdaw's Keep|Murdaw's lair]]. In Ghent, [[Nevan]] the devout joins the party and allows them to use the Ghent Clan's sacred ship. Upon exploring the island, Carver discovers a statue bearing his exact likeness and realizes that Murdaw's actions in the opening scene separated his, Milly's, and the Hero's souls from their bodies, trapping them in the Dream World. During the fight with the real Murdaw, the Hero gets sent back to Weaver's Peak like before; however with the Mirror of Ra the Hero warps back into the battle and defeats Murdaw.

After the victory celebration back at the castle, the Queen of Somnia tells the Hero that he is the Prince of Somnia and that his current existence is incomplete--Murdaw's curse still lingers, and his dream-self has not returned to his body. Told to go forth and find himself, the party's journey leads them to [[Arkbolt]], where a [[Lizzie|terrible monster]] is blocking a nearby [[Wayfarer's Pass|tunnel]] to the rest of the continent. The reward for defeating the monster is the famed [[Sunderbolt blade|Sunderbolt sword]], but before the party can confront the beast a warrior by the name of [[Terry]] slays her, winning the sword.  

After travelling both worlds, the party learns that Murdaw was not the only evil in the world, having confronted several other powerful monsters that all seem to be connected. [[File:DQVI DS Ashlynn.png|thumb|100px|right|The sorceress [[Ashlynn]].]]

As the journey goes on, the party saves several towns and kingdoms from supernatural onslaughts and monstrous sieges, hearing legends of a forgotten city of magic known as [[Sorceria]]. Forebodingly, they also hear tales of a dreaded Arch-fiend who controlled Murdaw and the other powerful ringleaders the common monsters obeyed. After slaying a [[Gracos|demonic fish]] at [[Seabed Shrine|a shrine]] in the [[Undersea|depths of the ocean]], the ancient city of Sorceria is restored in the Dream World.  

In Sorceria, the party learns that this is Ashlynn's home. The elders tell Ashlynn that the Demon Lord is watching her and give her the powerful spell [[Magic Burst]] to fight him. The party also learns that the only way to get to the Demon Lord is through a tower known as the [[Pillar of Pegasus]], but to activate the tower they need to collect the sword, armour, shield, and helmet of legend. While doing so, the Hero meets his double in the real Weaver's Peak, who gets spooked, and speaks “Y-You. Y-You're m-m-me!”, and says that he must prove himself to be faithful to his family if he is to join powers. Returning to the real Somnia, the king and queen tell the Hero that he is indeed the prince. When he fuses with his clone, the Hero gains his memory back, much like Milly and Carver had done.

The party reaches [[Stormsgate Citadel]] and meets [[Dhuran]], who claims to have taken over the castle. He summons Terry to fight the party and then fights the party himself. Dhuran then reveals that all the enemies the party has faced were just pawns of [[Mortamor]], the Demon Emperor. Milly reveals that Terry is her brother and Terry decides to join the party and fight against Mortamor.

Once Stormsgate Citadel has transformed back into its true form, [[Cloudsgate Citadel]], the party speaks to [[Zenithia|King Zenith]] who informs them of Mortamor's doings and how to reach the [[Dark World]]. Mortamor plans on merging both worlds. The party’s horse fuses with [[Pegasus]], allowing the party to fly to the Dark World. With the help of two brothers, Isaac and Benjamin, the party enters [[Mortamor's Dreadlair]]. After solving many puzzles, they come face to face with Mortamor and defeat him. Isaac reveals that the Dark World is falling apart and Pegasus helps them escape.

In a similar fashion to {{Dragon Quest III}}, the hero's weapons and armour were renamed for this installment in the [[Zenithia trilogy]].  They are known as the {{Sword of Ramias}}, {{Armour of Orgo}}, {{Shield of Valora}} and {{Helm of Sebath}}.  After the events of this game, these armaments become the [[Zenithian Equipment]] and are renamed as such.

*{{Hero 6}}: A lad with blue hair who lives in the mountain village of Weaver's peak with his sister [[Tania (Dragon Quest VI)|Tania]].

*[[Carver]]: A wandering martial artist first encountered in the kingdom of Somnia, where he enlists alongside the hero in the military.

*[[Milly]]: A mysterious waif who apprentices under the famed fortune teller Luca Luminesta, and aids  the hero and Carver in Port Haven.

*[[Ashlynn]]: An amnesiac girl who forces herself into the party at Moon Mirror Tower whose a dab hand at spell casting. She warms up the hero rather quickly.

*[[Nevan]]: The prodigal grandson of the head priest of the Ghent tribe. It takes a moment of divine intervention to motivate him into joining the group.

*[[Terry]]: A wandering swordsman with a smug attitude and skills to match. Doesn't speak much to the party at first, but he always leaves Milly speechless.

*[[Amos]]: The local hero of a backwoods burg who joins the party after an optional sidequest.

*[[Lizzie]]: A prehistoric powerhouse who nests in the wayfarer's pass near the kingdom of Arkbolt, putting local travel on lockdown until she is evicted. Less brutish than her appearance lets on, she has a soft spot under her scales for Terry.

As the sixth installment to the ''Dragon Quest'' series,  the graphics and sound presentation were improved significantly from {{DQ5}}, which was criticized for being too similar to the 8-bit installments and not taking advantage of the {{SNES}} hardware.  

Once the party reaches {{Alltrades Abbey 6}}, they have the option of becoming one of nine base vocations. Once a character takes up a trade, his or her class causes certain attributes to increase and decrease. To learn new abilities or spells associated with a trade, the character must fight a set number of battles in that trade in order to improve their rank. These gradients are measured from 1 to 8, and marked with a star (★) that can be seen on the status menu. Not all battles will qualify for position advancement, with a character's level being checked against the area's limit: if the level exceeds this limit then none of the battles fought therein will accumulate.

Changing vocations will not cause a character to lose any spells or skills from the old class, but special powers such as the Thief's [[Thievery|ability to steal items]] will be lost when the character is not in the appropriate vocation.

If a character masters two or three of these occupations by increasing their rank to the maximum of eight, they may upgrade to a second tier vocation that far exceeds the sum of its parts. For example, mastering the warrior and the martial artist vocations allows a character to become a gladiator. Not all characters are suited to every class, as their natural stats may be too low to be effective even after the increase from joining the class.

*[[Mage]]: Most attributes go down, except wisdom and MP. {{Attack}} and debilitating spells are learned.

*[[Priest]]: Many attributes decrease, but the priest is less frail than the mage. Restorative, support, and woosh spells are learned.

*[[Dancer]]:  All attributes save for style and agility drop significantly, and a variety of status inducing dances are learned

*[[Thief]]: Agility goes up, but most other stats go down, and skills that help outside battle, such as Eye for Distance, are learned. The thief may also steal an item from an enemy at the end of a battle.

*[[Monster Master]]: All stats go down except for agility, wisdom and style. Several breath skills are learned, as well as the puff spell. In the original {{SFC}} version, monsters may join the party when there is a monster master present, and in the remake there is a chance that enemies will be asleep at the start of battle.

*[[Merchant]]: Wisdom goes up, but most stats go down, and a random assortment of skills are learned. At the end of battle, a small portion of extra money is added to the party's income.

The Best Dressed Contest has eight ranks, which the player enters in order. Depending on rank, the contest may be limited to men, women, or monsters. While the contest is one of the mini-games in ''Dragon Quest VI'', the party must win the third rank of the contest to gain an important item that will advance the plot.

*There is a system to memorize speeches made by the townspeople. Pushing a button after speaking to someone causes their text to be remembered. Then casting the [[Remember]] "spell" will cause the memorized conversations to be replayed. At higher levels, the Hero can replay more messages or delete messages from the list. This system is also used in the {{SNES}} and {{GBC}} remakes of {{Dragon Quest III}}, but not in any later games.

*Walking pace is quickened in towns, castles, and dungeons. The screen no longer scrolls off the edge of a town map; instead the party will begin to move towards the edge of the screen, moving the message window if necessary.

*All monsters are fully animated in battle, with most having three frames per action.

*The infamous “learning period” experienced through the artificial intelligence has been abolished, with A.I. controlled party members immediately recognizing the resistances of monsters from the first turn. However, characters will never use items when using the A.I.

*The ''Show No Mercy'' strategy has been added, which tells characters to defeat enemies as quickly as possible with no regard for MP.

*[[Pegasus]]

[[Monster recruitment|Monster companions]] are treated more like human party members in this game; they stay at [[Patty's Party Planning Place]] and can change vocations, but they will not join the party unless one of the active PCs belongs to the Monster Master vocation. Monster Companions are less valuable in this game, because there are a large number of human characters, who can learn through vocations most of the same skills and powers monsters obtain via leveling up .  However, each bestial buddy boasts resistances that humans do not. There are 18 types of monster that can join the party, but Patty has only 15 seats for monsters in her bar, considerably less than the fifth game.

Monsters of the {{Slime}} type can fight in a special arena dubbed [[Slimopolis]]; one chosen slime fights a series of three battles in a tournament (controlled by the AI), and if it wins, the party receives a prize dependent on the level of the tournament (which ranges from rank A to rank H). Winning the Rank H tournament twice will allow the slime to participate in the Championship battle.

The scenario designer, like always, is [[Yuji Horii]]. As in all other ''Dragon Quest'' games, the art work and design are made by [[Akira Toriyama]] of ''Dragon Ball'' fame, who also worked on ''Chrono Trigger'', ''[[Tobal No.1]]'', and ''[[Blue Dragon (series)|Blue Dragon]]''. This is the last game in the series to belong to the [[Zenithia]] or the Tenkuu no Shiro (Castle in the Sky) trilogy.

After the release of ''I + II'' in 1993 development of ''VI'' began in earnest, with a goal of returning to the more adventurous, less on-rails structure of the [[Erdrick trilogy]] and also parodying the ''very'' common trope of the "hidden world" scenario that RPGs and adventure games employed in the 90's. By introducing the concept of the Upper and Lower worlds within the first ten minutes of gameplay, Horii avoided the cliche of the late-game introduction of a hidden area where the cast would be forced to explore before confronting the final evil, and allowed ''VI'' to carry an air of genuine mystery from beginning to end.

In order to balance the heavy plots and characterizations that {{IV}} and {{V}} enjoyed with the player's ability to explore at their leisure, the vocation system from {{III}} was re-implemented and given a substantial overhaul. Instead of defining a character in a fixed role, ''VI's'' vocations gave players the ability to completely customize their party as they saw fit.  

In July 2007, Square Enix announced a series of remakes of {{DQ4}}, {{V}} and ''VI'' for the Nintendo DS. This marked the first time the game was available on another console and outside of Japan. Prior to this, it had only been available through [[fan translation|fan translations]].  ''Dragon Quest VI'' was the final game of the subseries to be released, following {{Dragon Quest IV}} in 2008 and {{Dragon Quest V}} in 2009.   

*A prequel, {{DQM}} (''Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland'' in Japan), was released in 1998. This game featured Terry and Milly years before the events of ''Dragon Quest VI''. It was released in North America the next year, even though ''Dragon Quest VI'' was never released in North America. Along with Terry and Milly, several of the main enemies, including Mortamor, reappear. However, their previous roles have been eliminated, making them appear as just normal enemies. Mortamor and Murdaw (Mudou in the game) do appear as very challenging, very late in-game bosses, though.

*Enemies have 75% HP and give 120% EXP compared to the SNES version. Some enemy groups have been increased in number to compensate for this. This change was decried by some fans for making the game too easy.

*[[Magic Burst]]'s damage multiplier is reduced to 2x MP (similar to later installments), instead of 3x MP.

*The hero's conversational memory spells have been removed.

*Party members' natural resistances are now gone. However, [[Lizzie]] and slime companions retain the native resistances of their monster counterparts.

*The [[Ranger]] has been slightly buffed, now gaining +20% MP instead of losing 30%.

In terms of contributions to the series as a whole, ''VI'' is considered by several fans as being very significant: the addition of skills allowed further refinement to combat and added significantly more layers of depth to battles, the bag reduced the amount of frustration players could face by putting an end to shuffling items between characters, and the Hero's ability to memorize and recall lines of dialogue directly lead to the creation of [[Party Chat]] in {{VII}}. Furthermore, the raising of stat limits from 255 to 500 allowed for more dynamic character growth and battle potential, complimented by a significant increase in stat-enhancing accessories. Smaller touches also enhanced the quality of the series from then on, such as the four tone vocal range for men, women, children, and monsters, as well as the mini medal exchange program becoming one where awards are dispensed based on the total collected rather than being used as an alternate type of currency.

The game is strongly implied a prequel to {{IV}} and {{V}}, based on small details and hints scattered throughout the story. In typical Horii fashion, many of these hints are not concrete and are up to the player to decide for themselves. That being said, the similarities between Zenithia and Cloudsgate Citadel are objectively clear even at a cursory glance, and the speculation has all but been confirmed with the Nintendo DS remake, which expressly refers to two of the possible versions of [[Reaper's Peak]] as being based on future events.

===Scenario & game design===

*[[Yuji Horii]]

 

===Character design===

*[[Akira Toriyama]]

 

===Music compose===

*[[Kōichi Sugiyama]]

 

===Director===

*[[Manabu Yamana]]

 

===Main Programer===

*Manabu Yamana

 

===Programers===

*Jinji Horagai, Katsuya Teshima, Yasushi Watanabe, Jun Sakamoto

 

===Monster designers===

*Akira Toriyama, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru

 

===Graphic designers===

*Shintaro Majima, Takashi Yasuno

 

===Sound designers===

*Tsukasa Tawada, Hitoshi Sakimoto

 

===Scenario assistants===

*Fuminori Ishikawa, Sachiko Sugimura, Kazunori Orio, Masayo Fuda

 

===Program assistants===

*Akitaka Shigeno, Yuko Miura

 

===Graphic assistants===

*Yasumasa Kawasaki, Masahiro Wada, Norikazu Masaki

 

===Play testers===

*Hiroomi Tanaka, Mariko Numajiri, Hirofumi Kuroda, Michiyo Nukina (M. Nukina), Kazunori Ōwada (K. Oowada), Minoru Kakizawa (M. Kakizawa), Kan Ikeda (K. Ikeda), Daisuke Ishizuka (D. Ishizuka), Yoko Kagaya (Y. Kagaya), M. Iwakiri (M. Iwakiri), M. Endo (M. Endo), Yoshinori Yamagishi (Y. Yamagishi), Shinji Futami (S. Futami), Yuuchi Kikumoto (Y. Kikumoto), Jun Toda (J. Toda), Yasuhito Watanabe (Y. Watanabe), Kenjiro Kano (K. Kano), Hiroki Fujimoto (H. Fujimoto), Y. Saito (Y. Saito), Noriko Nakanome (N. Nakanome), K. Saiki (K. Saiki), Etsuko Shimamura (E. Shimamura), M. Nagase (M. Nagase), Daisuke Kobayashi (D. Kobayashi), Shinji Wachi (S. Wachi)

 

===Public relations===

*Daizoh Shimamura, Hideki Yamamoto, Tomoko Miyazaki

 

===Artwork===

*Takashi Ōtsuka, Naoki Oishi

 

===Technical support===

*Sadao Yahagi, Yoshirō Takeshita, Kazufumi Honma

 

===Production assistants===

*Taichi Inuzuka, Mariko Iida, Youichi Hayakawa, Keiji Honda

 

===Producer===

*Yukinobu Chida

 

===Publisher===

*Yasuhiro Fukushima