My Review of "Dragon Quest: Your Story"

I have to admit that I loved playing Dragon Quest when I was younger. It's saying a lot because I generally don't like playing role playing games at all. Fortunately, I was first introduced to Dragon Quest III back when the Gameboy Color was hitting the height of its success. I forgot about the Dragon Quest series for quite some time and then Dragon Quest VIII for the Playstation 2 came into my life. That game sucked out so many hours of my life. Again, I don't even like role playing games.

I was enamored by the charismatic characters and how everything was designed. The art direction was fantastic. Though the story was quite simple it still sucked me in. This was a long time ago and I haven't touched a Dragon Quest game since then. That was 2004, so you can say I've lost touch with the series. I still do have fond memories of those games though.

Fast forward to 2020 and there's an announcement that Dragon Quest would be getting it's own movie on Netflix! This I have to see. The artwork looked like it even fit the Dragon Quest look and feel. I was intrigued especially since I didn't have to spend over 100 hours to go through the story.

Then again Dragon Quest never really had great storylines. Part of the excitement was the strategy of the game. Still, maybe it would be like a quick playthrough of a video game.

This movie starts off knowing that it's a movie about a video game. There's the 8 bit sprites and graphics and they're telling the atypical role playing storyline. I start to get nervous at this point because that would be quite boring and played out.

Up to a certain point, the real adventure happens and you see the real hero of the movie Luca. He's the son of this magnificent swordsman. After his father is defeated in battle he discovers that his mother is still alive and he is put on a quest to save her. The problem is that he's enslaved by the enemy right at the start of his quest.

The way this movie plays out you start wondering what is really going on. I even had questions as to who the true protagonist of the movie was going to be. At one point I thought it was Luca's dad, then I thought it was Luca and then I thought it was Luca's son. There is some real pacing issues with this movie. They will go through huge time warps in a matter of minutes.

For all of those that love the Dragon Quest series, you'll all notice the familiar sound effects and music sprinkled throughout the movie. There's tons of nods to fans of the series throughout the movie and this really is a movie for them. This movie is very self aware and people that love the Dragon Quest series might totally fall in love with this movie.

I loved Dragon Quest but I'd have to say this movie was far from a masterpiece because of all the messy time editing. The ending was also somewhat of a letdown. I know this movie is self aware but come on...

Still this movie does have its perks if you're a fan. The characters are still as charismatic as ever. You'll also feel like you're watching cut scenes from a Dragon Quest game. The voice acting of this movie are very reminiscent of video game cut scenes. Fans will ignore the fact that Luca is just going to meet random strangers and recognize them even though he hasn't seem them for over 10 years.

Overall, watching this movie was a little bit of a blast from the past but also made me aware of the low standards I had in the past. I still had an okay time watching this but if you're not familiar at all with Dragon Quest I would say steer clear of this movie because it might be a confusing mess for you. As for me, I understood it but only liked some of it. I'll have to give this movie a 5 out of 10. I really wish this movie was a bit more polished. They should have had people watch this and make final edits before they released it. There was big potential to this movie that was wasted.