'Dragon Quest: Your Story' completely crashes down in the end

by Katherine Simon Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for the ending of Dragon Quest: Your Story Dragon Quest is one of the most prolific franchises in all of gaming. Since the first game was released in 1986, the series has become a cultural phenomenon in Japan and the foundation for the JRPG genre as we know it today. The franchise has also maintained a decent cult following in North America, which is continuing to grow after the Hero’s introduction in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the success of Dragon Quest XI. Personally, I didn’t become a huge Dragon Quest fan until I picked up XI for the Switch and got sucked into the game’s world. While the Dragon Quest series doesn’t have the thematic or mechanical depth of most modern JRPGs, its simple mechanics and engaging stories help the series withstand the test of time and remain fresh while sticking close to its roots. But I’m not here to gush about how great Dragon Quest is, I’m here to talk about the recent film that dropped on Netflix, Dragon Quest: Your Story. Now, this film is very interesting for numerous reasons, the first of which is that it’s an adaptation of Dragon Quest V. DQV is one of the most influential and beloved entries in the series and is credited for helping popularize the monster-collecting mechanics present in other popular franchises like Pokemon. The other is that when the film was released in Japan back in the previous summer, audiences hated the movie (warning: spoilers in the link). Considering how much of a monolith the franchise is in its home country, it’s a pretty big deal to have a piece of Dragon Quest media that wasn’t well-received upon its release. So now that the film is available worldwide via Netflix, the question is, did the film deserve the insane amount of backlash it received, or was it a decent flick that hardcore fans were too harsh on?

A disjointed story draws near!

For those unfamiliar with Dragon Quest V, the story chronicles the life of the Hero, who is named Luca in Your Story ’s canon. The film starts with him as a child traveling the world with his father Pankraz, who is on a quest to find his missing wife. However, after a tragic event, Luca is kidnapped and forced into slavery for 10 years until he manages to escape. After escaping, he sets out on his own quest to find his missing mother, and along the way encounters some old friends from his past and grows as a person in this classic coming-of-age story.  Video games have always been a tricky medium to translate into film due to how much of a time commitment they are. Your average RPG can range anywhere from 30 to 100 hours of playtime, which really isn’t something you can condense into a two hour film without making a ton of compromises to character development. Unfortunately, since Your Story is a direct adaptation of the roughly 30 hour long Dragon Quest V , a lot of corners had to be cut in order to fit the story into the film’s nearly two-hour runtime. The most notable compromise is with the first ten minutes of the film, which is delivered through a quick exposition dump made up of clips from the original Super Nintendo game. The main purpose of an opening scene is to get viewers acquainted with the world and introduce them to the cast, which Your Story fails to do as a result of skipping over a lot of important events in the beginning. This is especially egregious when Luca’s childhood friend/love interest, Bianca, shows up later in the film and viewers are expected to already be familiar with her despite barely having three seconds of screen time at the beginning.  It could be argued that because Your Story was made for Dragon Quest fans first and foremost, introductions aren’t entirely necessary as most of the audience is already familiar with the characters. While that might be the case, the film’s use of assumed audience familiarity as a crutch hurts the story’s value as a stand-alone product. Had the film been more newcomer-friendly, it could have acted as a great starting point for those curious about Dragon Quest and get people interested in the games. Think about how many Pokemon fans started off watching the anime series and then moved on to the games, or how the recent Netflix Witcher series led to more people buying The Witcher 3 . Good adaptations that get newcomers acquainted with the world of their franchise can be a great avenue for creating new fans. While that might not have been Your Story ’s end-goal, keeping that in mind would have helped the film stand out as its own product instead of as a companion-piece to an already existing narrative. This is a problem that persists throughout most of Your Story ’s first half. It frequently jumps from one period of Luca’s life to the next, giving the movie a weirdly episodic feel as it jumps between various plotlines that have little to no relation to each other. The best way to describe it is that it feels like a long recap episode for a Dragon Quest V anime adaptation that doesn’t exist, which leads me to believe that this story would’ve worked far better as an animated series rather than a movie.  Eventually, the film does settle into a rhythm around the halfway point, which is where it starts to become more enjoyable. The characters are actually allowed time to breathe and their personalities start to shine through. We see glimpses of fun character interactions and banter throughout the film that help give the cast of characters distinct personalities, but nobody really gets to shine due to the breakneck pace of the film not allowing them to become fully fleshed-out. Still, the latter part of the film puts way more emphasis on letting each character get their time in the spotlight, which makes it easier to get attached to them. I actually found myself getting really invested in what was happening at this point in the story and the film ended up hitting some real emotional high points. Not taking into account a certain event that unfolds towards the end of the movie, the story overall is fairly solid, if a little scatterbrained at points. 

A treat for the senses

If there is one area Your Story absolutely excels in, it’s presentation. The film was animated by Shirogumi Inc., the animation company that’s best known for producing the Stand By Me Doraemon film. Your Story was also directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who directed the Doraemon movie as well as the animated Lupin the Third movie. It’s clear that the team behind this film are extremely talented in their craft, because this film is a visual treat. The environments look just as gorgeous as something from a big-budget console JRPG and the character animations are incredibly expressive and lively. The particle effects in particular stand out and give the iconic Dragon Quest spells a ton of visual flare. While some might be disappointed that Akira Toriyama’s iconic art style was pushed aside in favor of something that looks closer to a DreamWorks film, the characters still look great and translate very well into the new art style. While I personally would have preferred the Toriyama designs since they’re more visually distinct, that doesn’t stop the film from looking fantastic. The soundtrack is also really strong, mainly consisting of orchestral tracks from the game’s soundtrack composed by the legendary Hatsune Miku herself (no, we do not acknowledge Koichi Sugiyama in this house and this will be the last time I mention him by name). While there is a noticeable lack of noteworthy original tracks, fans are sure to get a kick out of the familiar Dragon Quest V tunes, and the tracks do a great job accompanying the film’s tone. If I’m being completely honest, considering how Smash Ultimate and the original PS4 release of Dragon Quest XI got the short end of the stick in terms of music quality, I’m just glad the original composer who shall not be named didn’t force the film to use low-quality MIDI tracks in an attempt to boost concert sales like he usually does. Unfortunately, this film ended up with a way worse problem than MIDI tracks, one that hampers the overall quality of the film and left a sour taste in my mouth...

An ending that is really Whack

From this point on, I will be going into heavy spoilers for the last few minutes of the film. I usually try to avoid major spoilers in these reviews, but considering that my main criticism of the film stems from how the ending was handled, it’s impossible for me to not bring it up. So you know how the film is titled Your Story instead of being named directly after the game its based on? Well, that’s because the title was alluding to the film’s big twist: it was an isekai this whole time. Near the end of the film, it’s revealed by a virus infecting the game that the whole story was actually a virtual reality game and that the film’s world wasn’t actually real. Luca is just a regular guy who’s playing a VR remake of his favorite nostalgic game and none of the characters were actually real. Luca eventually defeats the virus after giving a hokey “the game is real to me” speech that feels like it was lifted straight from Sword Art Online and is able to live happily ever after with his fictional waifu. Now, there’s a lot to unpack here with this ending, and the obvious thing I want to point out is how the twist just completely invalidates the story being told up to that point. Personally, when I’m told that the story I’ve been experiencing up to this point never actually happened within the film itself, any investment I had in the world or characters just completely vanishes as I realize that I wasted my time with a story that ultimately had no payoff. The twist in Your Story is literally just the “it was all a dream” trope, but even more insulting because it’s worked into the film’s climax and the film tries desperately to convince you to still care because… the game meant something to the protagonist? At that point you’re just showing me a glorified commercial for Dragon Quest V , and that just feels incredibly sleazy, even as someone who likes the game. The worst part of this twist is that it was completely unnecessary. If the film had just been a straight adaptation of the original game without the isekai twist, it definitely would not have received the backlash that it did. Aside from the slightly scatterbrained pacing, there wasn’t anything offensively bad or fundamentally broken about the film and I’m sure most fans would look on the film fondly if not for how it ended. The ending was also a bizarre choice considering that Dragon Quest is known for being an incredibly straightforward franchise that sticks with its traditional fantasy settings. Nobody goes into a Dragon Quest movie expecting isekai nonsense; they go into it expecting a fun fantasy story with an aggressive amount of wordplay and cute monsters that you feel bad about beating up for experience. The ending twist just feels incredibly tone-deaf to what fans wanted out of a Dragon Quest V adaptation and I’m beyond baffled that anyone thought including it would be a good idea. 

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