Throughout the multitude of genres in gaming, none have resonated with me more than role-playing games. In particular, I have found myself most drawn to turn-based console RPGs, often referred to simply as JRPGs. This specific brand of RPG primarily gained prominence following the Japanese release of Chunsoft’s Dragon Quest back in 1986. Helmed by Yuji Horii, a game designer who found themselves greatly inspired by western RPGs such as Ultima and Wizardry, Dragon Quest was created as an effort to simplify and translate the ideas present in these western RPGs for the Japanese console market. With renowned manga artist Akira Toriyama producing much of the artwork while composer Koichi Sugiyama handled the music, Dragon Quest managed to receive enough commercial praise and recognition to allow it to develop into the internationally beloved and influential series we know today.
I’ve played many entries within the Dragon Quest series over the years but somehow never found myself playing through the first entry until the recent release of Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake. Of course, this quality of life filled remake is certainly not the same experience released on the 8-bit Famicom 40 years ago; however, it still managed to capture my imagination and invoke my curiosity for the history of both Dragon Quest and console RPGs as a whole. What stood out to me most during my playthrough was how much of a solitary experience it was. For the duration of the adventure, you are effectively traveling entirely alone, left to fend off a seemingly endless supply of monsters as you march your way across the world in pursuit of the nefarious Dragonlord. With the pressure resting entirely on your (mostly) silent protagonist’s shoulders, it’s hard to not put yourself into their shoes a bit; the tension is palpable as your crawl your way through dungeons and the joy felt upon a successful discovery of a secret is paramount. There’s just something unique and enticing about taking on the world entirely on your own that manages to further emphasize the unbridled sense of adventure commonly associated with Dragon Quest as a series.
The gameplay implications of a one-person party in a turn-based RPG are not quite as easy to romanticize, however. While the combat in Dragon Quest I HD Remake was exhilarating at times, especially during the boss encounters, there were also plenty of occasions where it felt fairly mindless. While I feel this can be true in many RPGs to some degree, only being able to make one decision per turn cycle definitely feels limiting in terms of finding expressive solutions to encounters. Many of the battles will tend to consist of repeating your most powerful attack while only breaking to heal when your health drops below 30%, rinse and repeat until everything is dead. In defense of this remake, it has notably added significantly more options for the protagonist compared to previous iterations through a generous list of skills and abilities that are unlocked as you progress; still, the one action per turn limit prevents you from getting especially creative.
With these musings in mind, I can’t help but wonder if we will ever see a major turn-based JRPG released with only a single party member in the near future. In many ways, I feel as though solo adventuring RPGs, for lack of a better term, still very much exist but have long since veered into the action-RPG genre — think games like Nier, Dark Souls, or more recently, Final Fantasy XVI. This transition in genre seems to me like a reasonable means of maintaining the excitement of solitary exploration while ensuring that the gameplay stays at the forefront of the experience. Even so, I just can’t help myself from imagining what sort of innovation could bring a turn-based single party member RPG back into the limelight.
What do you think? Should more developers experiment with creating single party member RPGs? Should they be left in the past entirely? Please share your thoughts with us on our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.
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