Posting a few days later than planned, but I'm back on my Dragon Quest bullshit. This time it's to talk about my favorite villains of the series. Slimes these are not.
I love how Akira Toriyama designs monsters, and boss characters are no exception. Typically whatever goofy undercurrent he draws into his Slimes and Drackys (Drackies?) is gone in these fiends. Dragon Quest story bosses are basically either massive dragons or scary demons, occasionally with multiple transformations. Think of how Toriyama drew dinosaurs and aliens for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and you have the basic idea.
Now, this list isn't going to be strictly final bosses, just important story villains. I picked what I believe is the best, most interesting, or most important boss character from Dragon Quests one through nine, and then ranked them accordingly based on my preferences. If I didn't follow the "one from each game" rule then the eighth and ninth spots would be the only ones changed - I almost followed that rule in my initial notes before deciding to make the rule!
And lastly, this post will definitely have spoilers for several Dragon Quest games and one Dragon Quest manga. I'll go into background and motivations for most of the entries below, and will inevitably enter spoiler territory. No apologies. The newest of these games is nine years old. So, following an honorable mention, let's get to the list:
Sollosi's Top Nine Favorite Dragon Quest Villains
Honorable Mention
Six weeks ago I identified Dai from Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken as an honorable mention hero, and now I'm bringing up that manga's antagonist as an honorable mention villain. Hadlar, the Demon King at the beginning of Dai no Daibouken, is eventually revealed as one of Vearn's minions, and Vearn undergoes multiple plot twists and transformations before becoming the muscular bastard shown above (how he does so involves a wraith hidden under a cloak for the first 30+ volumes of the manga). My favorite Vearn move: after he revives Hadlar, he transforms five pieces from a chess set into super-soldiers for Hadlar to command. The orichalcum chess warriors were cool as heck. Vearn is a great (unofficial) Dragon Quest final boss.
Number Nine
The Road to Rhone and Hargon's Castle is a brutal combination of final dungeons in Dragon Quest II, as a lengthy cave and fortress with no breaks, no heals, and tough enemies. Worst of all, the party must fight five (FIVE!) bosses in a row before credits roll, with no opportunity to save in between. Hargon is the fourth of those bosses, because (surprise!) Hargon's plot all along was the summon the multi-armed disaster of a Demon King, Sidoh (Malroth in North American versions). Sidoh is a tough bastard. He attacks multiple times a turn, is capable of healing himself back to max health, and buffs his own defense while lowering that of your party. And this is an NES game, so trust me when I say that the spells and skills available to you are limited. Sidoh doesn't have much of a story presence, but he's an interesting design and a VERY credible threat in Dragon Quest II. Seriously. Fuck the Road to Rhone.
Number Eight
Dragon Quest VI's greatest strength is its story and world design, not its villains. Sure, the evil Murdaw really fucks up your team with his illusion powers, the dour Gracos is a memorable merman, and Deathtamoor / Mortamor is... well, a head with disembodied hands kinda like Giga Gaia or Queen Zeal in Chrono Trigger. The real standout villain of Dragon Quest VI is Nokturnus, a villain teased in a mid-game plot point as a faceless demon who destroyed an entire kingdom long before the game's story takes place, and then gets unsealed in a post-credits scene. Nokturnus can be fought as a post-game boss, where he has the reputation as one of the toughest in series history. And I basically agree: Nokturnus is a cool design and a tough boss fight, and stands out the best in a weak villain pool in DQ VI.
Number Seven
DragonLord's design is dated and a little silly (almost cuddly?) but I don't want to diminish his role as the OG Dragon Quest final boss. DragonLord terrorizes the populace, kidnaps a princess, robs the continent of daylight by stealing an important artifact, and destroys at least one full-size city prior to the events of Dragon Quest I. He also has an under-explored past as a human corrupted by magic until transforming into his current form, and attempts to manipulate the hero into joining his evil army prior to the final battle. DragonLord is fairly interesting and a little subversive, even though he's literally the first JRPG final boss in history.
Number Six
Huh, that's two in a row wielding angry staves. Weird coincidence. Dhoulmagus is the main villain for roughly the first half of Dragon Quest VIII, as the sorcerer-jester cursed the Hero's hometown (turning the castle into a thorny mess and all its denizens to stone) and killed both Jessica's brother and Angelo's adopted father. Rough. Eventually the team learns that the true culprit of all this despair is Rhapthorne, a demon trapped inside Dhoulmagus's staff, but Rhapthorne doesn't have the air of mocking menace that Dhoulmagus has. Dhoulmagus is a Jaws-like presence hunted in the distance and seen only in flashback for most of Dragon Quest VIII's first half, and Rhapthorne is an obese Demon King that otherwise isn't very interesting. Guess which one I like better?
Number Five
Orgodemir and The Almighty ("God" in Japanese and the first North American localization of Dragon Quest VII) fought to a draw thousands of years ago, and in their absence humanity was allowed to flourish on their own terms. For awhile. Orgodemir slowly gained strength while The Almighty rested in apathy, and civilization crumbled until the entire world was reduced to a single island. And after The Hero rebuilt the world by traveling to the distant past and foiling Orgodemir's plans, the dasdardly demon impersonates The Almighty and hunts down The Hero, branding him and his allies as heretics. Orgodemir is a great Dragon Quest villain not only for what he accomplishes (near-erasure of the entire world), but for pulling an excellent exploitative trick. Smartest use of the (normally benevolent) Dragon Quest religious infrastructure in the whole series. Great work, Evil Elvis.
Number Four
Zoma immediately gets bonus points for (probably) dominating several worlds prior to the story of Dragon Quest III, but the Hero only saves their home world before traveling to Zoma's base in Alefgard. What I really like about Zoma is his classic design (part demon, part alien, all malice) and the awesome scene where Zoma challenges the Hero, telling him (or her) that their quest isn't over. Zoma feels more dangerous and more *evil* than almost any other Dragon Quest boss, and managed to do so with the limited technology of the NES! Maybe I'm giving too much credit to a final boss who's only in the last third of his game, but I feel like Zoma is one of the greats.
Number Three
Corvus is a tragic villain in Dragon Quest IX, as a powerful wish-granting angel corrupted by centuries of hate. Corvus loved the humans he protected with his magic, and even fell in romantic love with one. So naturally, Corvus didn't take betrayal and 300 years of torture and imprisonment very well. Corvus's awesome powers, transformed by hate, are enough to revive an entire evil empire of demons and transform the once-great angel into a twisted monster. Worse, Corvus is The Hero's best friend's former mentor. By the time all of the plot is revealed and the party is fighting to stop Corvus, it feels less like triumphing over an ancient evil and more like putting down Old Yeller. RIP, Corvus.
Number Two
Ladja the Bishop, the most memorable of the chess-themed monsters in Dragon Quest V's DS version's English localization (the chess metaphor isn't in the Japanese version), is the most satisfying kill in Dragon Quest history. Ladja holds the Hero (as a child) hostage and forces him to watch the Hero's father die, then sends the Hero to a mine as a slave for a decade. Much later, Ladja turns the Hero into stone and separates him from his family for another decade. In a final act of evil, Ladja murders the Hero's mother minutes after the Hero finds her in the underworld, leading to a climactic boss battle. Yikes. The hero of Dragon Quest V has a hell of a journey, and Ladja is the evil catalyst for almost all of it. Definitely more interesting than the final boss (Nimzo the Grandmaster), and again, the most satisfying kill in the entire series.
Number One
Psaro is as cool a design in all of Dragon Quest and also one of the most tragic figures in all of Dragon Quest. Teased early on as a rumored unstoppable warrior, Psaro is revealed to be the champion of the demons threatening the world, vowing revenge on humanity for killing his beloved, an elf named Rose. Naturally, it was the demons and not the humans that killed Rose, but that doesn't stop Psaro from using the Secret of Evolution to transform into a terrifying Demon King proper. In the DS remake you can revive Rose and bring Psaro to his senses (and he's one of the strongest Dragon Quest party members ever if you do so), but whether it's in his green demon form or his redeemed humanoid version, Psaro balances the sensitive and the badass perfectly, helped with good plot foreshadowing. A great Dragon Quest character, and about as good as RPG villains from 25+ years ago get.
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I'm keeping up with my blogging goals! My final post of this miniseries will be my favorite Dragon Quest games, which was probably obvious from the very beginning. And if you've read these first four, you can probably guess the overall favorite. I'm simple like that. Blog-wise, I have two posts in the works for September, both about Japanese heroes wearing armor of many colors. Neither of them are Super Sentai. You'll see what I mean in four weeks. Game-wise, I'm in the middle of Suikoden II and I like it a lot.
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