I knew people liked Dragon Quest V. I knew people considered it to have the best story in the series. I even knew about the big tragedy that happens within the first few hours! But, what I didn’t know was just how wonderful and complex Abel, the silent hero of our story, would end up being.
I distinctly remember–about a year or so ago–a Twitter user complaining that, while they liked Dragon Quest, they felt the silent protagonists were disappointing and actively made the games worse. If I had only played Dragon Quest I-IV, I could maybe have seen where that user was coming from; the protagonists are more-or-less self-inserts at that point. (I could see an argument for III’s Hero being less so, but I digress.) Nevertheless, after playing Dragon Quest V, I can no longer let that comment slide.
DISCLAIMER: I’m absolutely going into spoilers. If you haven’t played Dragon Quest V for yourself, I wholeheartedly recommend you do so.
In Which a Child Becomes a Man
Allow me to introduce to you the Hero of Dragon Quest V: Abel.
Immediately, you probably notice a few things about his design–the weathered robes, the staff, the turban. He doesn’t have grand armor nor a legendary sword. Abel doesn’t look like your typical hero. And, well, that’s because he’s not the “hero” in this story. In every Dragon Quest game prior to V, you play a legendary hero that is meant to embark on a grand journey, rid the world of a great evil, and save the world. Dragon Quest V takes a different approach to this concept. To understand that, however, we need to look at where Abel begins his adventure–as a child.
A young Abel, along with his father, Pankratz, travel the world in search of…something. As you traverse the continent, you battle monsters and visit villages. Abel and his father make it back to Whealbrook, a small village which seems to be their main home in-between their trips, and then set off once more to the village of Abel’s old friend, Bianca Whitaker. After a grand adventure involving a haunted mansion, Bianca and Abel discover a golden orb and, wanting Abel to take it with him, Bianca offers him the orb as a keepsake. Thus, Abel and his father return to Whealbrook–and the first truly peculiar event happens. Near the church, Abel runs into a man who wears a strikingly similar garb to him. Once you talk to him, he asks to see the golden orb you just found. Abel, being the bright-eyed lad he is, decided to let the man inspect the orb; the man then gives his thanks and, almost awkwardly, asks Abel to take care of his father.
For the sake of brevity, Abel is not able to take care of his father. After a mission to rescue Coburg’s Prince Harry goes wrong, a sadistic monster known as Ladja forces Pankratz into an unthinkable position. Fight back against the monster onslaught and watch his son die, or endure the storm and save Abel’s life. With the player able to offer no input, you watch as Pankratz enters a battle and slowly lose his HP. Once he’s brought low, he manages to tell Abel about the purpose of their journeys–to look for Abel’s mother. Spitting that out, Ladja kills Pankratz with a single spell. With your life spared, Abel is forced to spend the next 10 or so years as a slave to the monsters that murdered his father. Eventually, you manage to escape your circumstances and reemerge into the world not as a child, but a man.
I give you this background if only because this childhood is crucial to Abel’s character and the overarching theme of the story: family.
Family is the driving force behind Dragon Quest V–that includes the joy of having a family, and the pain of losing one. Patkratz spent his entire life searching for his beloved wife, only to fail in that mission to save his son. And Abel knows that, now. Reading a note that he left behind, Abel learns that his mother was kidnapped by malicious forces the night following his birth. Pankratz immediately pursued with Abel in tow and spent the next 6 years trying to find her, the legendary hero, and the mythical Zenithian equipment. Of those goals, he only managed to find the Zenithian Sword. From there on, Abel takes on his father’s burden and attempts to do what his father could not. Abel then travels across the world, marries a girl of the player’s choosing (but if you don’t pick Bianca, you’re a monster), and ultimately has a pair of twins–a boy and a girl.
At that point, history repeats itself: Your wife is kidnapped following the children’s birth, and Abel, leaving his newborns behind at Castle Gotha, desperately pursues. However, things unfold differently. Abel manages to catch up to his wife, but Ladja appears once more. Taunting you, Ladja turns both Abel and his wife to stone, leaving them behind to watch the world descend into ruin. Not long after, looters appear and, mesmerized by the realism of the two statues, take you from the tower you just ascended in order to auction you off to the highest bidder.
And that leads us to what, I would claim, is one of the greatest sequences ever made.
Eight Years of Solitude
Surrounded by bidders in a desolate amphitheater, Abel is separated from his wife and sold—only to end up as yard decor to celebrate the birth of Georgie, your buyer’s newborn son.
The scene that follows broke me.
Abel sits there. In that spot. For years. And it’s not just that. You see, that would be too easy. Instead, the passage of time is illustrated by little Georgie. When Abel was placed in that yard, Georgie was just born. Soon, you are met with a scene of the boy taking his first steps. The player, at that point, begins to realize something dreadful as the passage of time begins to weigh down on you with every click of the action button. This shouldn’t be happening.
Abel shouldn’t be here—in a stranger’s yard watching a stranger’s child take his first steps. He should have been able to see his own children take their first steps. And yet, he isn’t able to. He’s alone.
Georgie grows older, illustrating that years have passed. The boy can even carry on a conversation with his parents now. Summer turns to winter; winter turns to summer once more. Abel is still alone. Throughout this entire sequence, you are only thinking about what you’re missing—your children and the joy of watching them grow up. And you know that Abel is thinking the same.
Years and years later, a miracle happens. Two children approach you; they ponder about the statue. The girl then timidly raises her staff and manages to thaw the stone encapsulating Abel. And, thus, Abel is reunited with his children. His children, grown old enough to fend for themselves, searched and searched for their father. And they succeeded. Abel is freed from his purgatory and reunited with the children that he never had a chance to know. On top of that, Abel’s son turned out to be the legendary hero and he had been searching for all along.
I’d like to emphasize something that I find fascinating: When I say that Abel is thinking the same, I really do mean that. Despite being stone, the game, in my opinion, heavily implies that he’s cognizant for the entire experience. Not only does Abel have a visible reaction noted by his daughter when your party returns to the auction site, but the game tells you that Abel is aware of his situation through the gameplay. Right after being turned to stone, the game freezes. I was confused, at first. Why wasn’t the game doing anything? Did it crash? Well, it wasn’t until I tried to move that the game explicitly told me that Abel was not able to move. You may think that’s just system text, but why didn’t the game just go to the next cutscene? Why make the player try to move? It’s my belief that the game wants you to know that it’s Abel that tries to move, but can’t. He’s stuck—sealed in stone and unable to do anything about it. It seems like this minor plot point is debated online, but I can’t see how you can reconcile these occurrences without Abel knowing what was happened to him. Doesn’t it just make sense for Abel to persevere throughout the years, despite the pain and longing attached to it? In a way, he’s finally experiencing what his father felt all those years searching for his wife. Abel, however, doesn’t have the luxury of still having his child by his side. He’s alone, and that’s terrifying.
It’s Okay to Cry
Everything explained about the plot up until this point was necessary to get to the heart of Abel’s character. Something that I adore about Dragon Quest V is its remarkable utilization of its Party Chat system. Introduced in Dragon Quest IV, Party Chat was a welcome addition, as it allowed the player to grow closer to the party members through their interactions with each other and their reactions to the events that occur and the places you visit. As much as I appreciate Dragon Quest III, you would be hard-pressed to say that the people members that make up your adventuring party had any substantive character. Therefore, it was a very natural step for Dragon Quest IV to take this idea of a larger party and fill them out with actual personalities. Party Chat was thoroughly entertaining during my time going through IV—my favorite interaction being, after deciding to track down her impersonator that was kidnapped, Alena casually comments:
There were many, many interactions like this in Dragon Quest IV’s Party Chat that made me burst out laughing; however, I found that that’s mostly where they began and ended—with humor.
Dragon Quest V’s Party Chat is funny, too, but it takes the concept a step further. Party Chat is used to actively show how Abel feels in a given moment, adding so much more depth and emotion to his character. It’s wild to say this, but some of the most emotional, touching lines in the game came from these optional, easily missed interactions. And I think that’s amazing. For example, there’s a moment where—if you return to now ruined Whealbrook with your children—your daughter tells you,
“If you’re feeling sad, it’s okay to cry. I’ll cry with you if it makes you feel better.”
She says that, what feels like out of nowhere. But then you start to think about it—and you realize that it’s not random at all. After all of these years, Abel steps into his old home, what he remembers as the old, rustic, lively Whealbrook. But what he’s met with contradicts what remains in his memory. Houses are broken down, few people remain, and noxious poison covers patches of the ground. How could he not have an emotional reaction to seeing what little happiness he had growing up trampled on by time?
What I absolutely adore about this little interaction is that this likely isn’t the first time Abel returned to Whealbrook following his enslavement. After all, you’re supposed to go back in order to retrieve the Zenithian Sword, the only piece of legendary equipment that Pankratz was able to locate. At that point, though, Abel either accompanied by his friend Harry or his monster allies, and you don’t particularly get this deep dive into his psyche. Returning to Whealbrook with his children–reminiscent to Pankratz leading Abel into the village at the beginning of the game–clearly breaks something in Abel.
Let’s look at the line itself. From the way she says it, Abel’s daughter can tell that he’s holding something back. He isn’t crying just yet; she tells him that it’s okay to, if that’s what he needs. Abel’s daughter, through her Party Chat lines, shows an emotional maturity that I wasn’t expecting from someone her age. She’s able to recognize her father’s pain, and is able to provide him the comfort that he needed in a vulnerable moment. What a good character.
And that’s what is so powerful about this story: the emphasis on family. This family that the player follows throughout the game is there for each other. Even when Abel and his wife were separated from their children, those very same children never gave up on finding their parents someday–just like Pankratz never gave up on finding his wife, and Abel never gave up on finding his. The interactions between this family reflect Abel as a proud, yet traumatized man who never surrenders to the overbearing circumstances of his life.
How do we know that for sure? Well, Abel himself tells us so.
Coming full circle towards the end of the game, Abel is forced to retrieve the golden orb that he and Bianca found as children by using Zenithian magic to travel back in time. The setting is nostalgic. The buildings are whole, the village is bustling, and the ground is not toxic. It’s home once more. If you were like me, I immediately had Abel run to his old home. And what waited for him is exactly what you thought would be: Pankratz, alive and well. You then have the opportunity to make Abel try to explain who he is and convince Pankratz not to make that trip to Coburg through a series of yes or no questions, but to no avail. Still, Pankratz notes that Abel has his wife’s eyes, so he’ll take extra care on his trip. Just…tragic. Remembering your goal, you guide Abel to the spot where you once found the mysterious man all those years ago, and you come face-to-face with Abel’s younger self.
After using some sleight-of-hand to take the golden orb from young Abel, your Abel gives the boy some advice–which you can decipher based on the boy’s response:
“Yeah, I won’t give up…no matter how hard it gets. Just like you say.”
How touching is that? From this one line, Abel conveys to the player just how tough the events of the game have been on him. His father’s death, his years of enslavement, missing out on his kid’s childhood… It has been hard on him. Yet, despite the pain, he’s able to give himself that push, that motivation to continue past the tribulations that he knows the boy will face. Despite not saying anything, Abel is able to convey so much about himself and how much he cares about his family through those he interacts with, and that’s what I find so impressive about this silent hero. That’s why, in the end, the beautifully simple ending affected me so much.
May I Have this Dance?
One could say that Dragon Quest V’s final moments are anticlimactic; I could say they’re wrong–and I do. The game doesn’t end with some grand fanfare celebrating our heroes like the first three games. Instead, it ends with a dance. Abel and his family return to Gotha Castle, and they take the floor to dance along with a multitude of other couples. With Abel’s children looking on–and Abel’s parents looking down on them, proud–a bridal waltz starts to play and Abel and his wife begin their dance. After every tragedy that Abel goes through, he’s finally able to do what his father wasn’t able to do: reunite with his wife and just…be happy. So, they dance. The pair dances and the credits roll. A hopeful ending to a tale full of hardship.
And So, We Rest
I knew people liked Dragon Quest V. What I didn’t know what how profound its themes and protagonist would end up being. Family is at the heart of the story, and Abel’s journey, pain, and development is the driving force behind that theme’s success. He’s a testament to how silent protagonists can be compelling–how they can be just as memorable as voiced ones.
Dragon Quest V has become one of my favorite games.
But, honestly, I think Dragon Quest V is one of the greatest games ever made. What it manages to accomplish for a game made 1992 is–and I cannot understate this–the most impressed that I’ve ever been with a game thus far. If you enjoy JRPGs, or just love strong stories at all, you owe it to yourself to give Dragon Quest V a try.
I know that I’ll come back to this story eventually, but, for now, I plan on letting Abel and his family spend some quality time together and rest.
Rooftop Talks with Zerker 