We've seen our partners in holy matrimony cohabitation, and now it's time to have a look at them as characters separately. Not everybody got created equally, but everyone deserves at least a little bit of a writeup.
Veronica: Sage’s Resolution to Surpass Fate
Cute artbook facts: She wants to be a magic teacher, she likes getting piggyback rides from Hendrik.
Veronica is the emotional crux of Act 3, which gives her some rather big shoes to fill with very limited screentime- she gets Act 1 and her dying breath to carry the biggest narrative burden in the whole story. And somehow, she pulls it off. It's her competency, isn't it: No matter whose story it is, Veronica knows exactly what the party is after and keeps everybody on track. She's Serenica's scion, Erdward's guide to Yggdrasil, and she takes this role seriously. And at the same time, she's also hilarious- and since her job is often to snark at people, she can cover both duties in the same breath. Everyone remembers Veronica, no matter what for.
The matter of her lost age is one of the weirder bits in the game, and there really isn't that much to work with other than "they wanted a kid party member"- most of the issues with Veronica's ability to transform back into an adult, even if she had the option to keep being a child, come from the developers adding things like her childish costumes and Pep Powers and having no real means or desire to translate those to the adult model. "Child character who's really an adult" is an inherently awkward setpiece to start building from, and while they constructed a narrative to get her into her child body (and some neat pieces where she stumbles the transition through Hotto 1), their response to getting her out are limited to vague hand-waves, and that's when they acknowledge it. I choose to believe she gets her age back. I have nothing but hope on that.
Erik: Youth Traveling in Search of Atonement
Cute artbook facts: Has no "preferred type" in a love interest, he most wants to find a legendary pirate treasure map, wants to bring Mia to L'Academie to get her to meet friends her own age. It also comments that, while he's a ladykiller to the public at large, the female party members aren't interested.
Erik gets to be the strongest party member as a companion almost by default, but that's not to say the title is unearned, either. Erik is cool, light on emotional responses, but in touch with his sense of self and perfectly prepared to play the collected, level-headed one when he needs to. His snark game is on point, coming prepared with the sorts of responses the player is thinking and not just being rude because he's bored- he genuinely wants to see the world, he just doesn't want to hear your life story on the way. And he gets an entire Town Story dedicated to recontextualising his entire character: from his origins to his brotherliness, Erik is never truly the same once you see what he's like with Mia.
His major drawbacks, if you can even call them such, are that the game shies heavily away from writing him as an LGBT+ character and it can't really figure out where it wants his ending with Mia to go. The latter is easily a nitpick- the treasure hunt aspect is clear, and while we have an idea of what Erik's ambitions are for dealing with Mia, it's pretty clear that he's not supposed to have figured that out yet anyway. The former, meanwhile, speaks to a culture by the developers more than it does their treatment of Erik- and we don't have to look much further than the late composer to figure out why. Yeah, DQ is a game that's very faithful to its roots, and while there's plenty of mechanical reason to stick to the 90s, narratively, people have more awareness of who they are and how they fit into the world.
Jade: A Vow and Regrets of Tragedy
Cute artbook facts: She likes people similar to her father, and wants to bring him on an adventure after the quest. She's also interested in trying out all the girly things she missed out on as a kid herself, like trying on fluffy skirts and non-travel skills.
Jade is a party member that's very easy to like. She takes the courageous martial artist princess Alena, combines it with the confidence and wisdom of Jessica, and brings in a general sense of "knowing what to do", all the while having a strong bond with and affection for Erdward that means, no matter how surly she can be towards people, she'll always have a kind word afterwards. Just reading her artbook entry, the girl is surprisingly not that far away from Edelgard in concept.
Unfortunately, concept is about as far as Jade gets. It's really easy to like Jade, because there's something in her character for just about everybody, and the game seems to have taken the position that it doesn't really need to actually do anything with her as a result. She speaks up often during her first Town Story in Lonalulu, as well as having her best moment with "oh, I was just stretching my legs", but she's never the driver of any narratives, not even her own Act 2 setpiece- once again, glares angrily at the entire Booga thing. Her best scenes are Limboo in Definitive and her chat with Carnelian in Act 3, both of which help to make her a relatively rare character amongst princesses like her: willing and able to return to the throne, do a legitimately good job, and enjoy herself in the process. Just wish she could've thrown some of that authority around.
Hendrik: Shield of Loyalty, Sword Guarding His Master
Cute artbook facts: He stands at a towering 200 cm height. His beard is supposed to mimic Carnelian's. He reads to relieve stress. Feels more at ease to discuss his secrets with Erdward than Jade or Sylvando. If he were not a knight, he would like to raise a field of golden wheat in a quiet village. He's a sleepy drunk.
Hendrik may have a late start, but that doesn't mean he came out of nowhere for his Act 2 join- even from the very start, in Heliodor, the signs that Hendrik and Jasper's paths were at right angles were laid with Jasper's sinister chuckling being played off Hendrik's righteous indignation. This dynamic would followed the pair throughout the story and culminate in them formally establishing themselves as fundamentally opposed characters. Hendrik is a man of integrity, and even when he is fighting the Luminary, he does so because he believes it to be the right thing. Hendrik embodies the strength of the knighthood- the right thing is his duty because it is the right thing. Easy to go wrong, but also easy to set right.
If his simplicity is a strength, it seems almost wrong to label it as a weakness in turn. He is perhaps overly fond of proclaiming himself "your sword, your shield, your unswerving companion" in the same cadence, but beyond that, the main thing that he does poorly would be... just not being your thing. It's clear that, other than the Jasper subplot that he has an intense personal responsibility for, Hendrik has no interest or desire to propel the story on his own, merely support Erdward and Jade as they steer the ship (Jade in theory: see above about how often he puts his promises to action). Hendrik will make a fine knight, and he's damn lucky he's probably not going to be out of a job anytime soon.
Serena: Determination to Walk In Her Sister’s Footsteps
Cute artbook facts: She wants to run a cake shop in her free time. Her favourite thing about herself is her forehead. She's waiting for a sequel to her favourite romance novel. If she could switch places with Veronica, she'd like to try out yelling at Erik. Her specialties are her sure-footedness, endurance when walking, and her ability to sleep anywhere. Her parents pretended to give her her harp under the guise of Serenica herself bestowing it in her sleep.
Slightly less cute fact: Although the girls (and Sylvando) hide their exact weights, Serena's comment (“Oh, I couldn’t possibly say something so embarrassing…”), combined with her sweet tooth, implies she follows in Sailor Moon's footsteps and is perhaps chubbier than she's usually drawn.
It's funny I'd compare her to Sailor Moon, because essentially, that's what we're dealing with here. Serena is a little sister following eternally in the footsteps of Veronica, self-conscious of her many flaws and knowing that she's always going to wind up playing support to the party, capitalised by her mechanical presence being almost incapable of fighting anything on her own. Serena is an excellent supporting figure, able to brighten any scene with her mere presence.
Similarly to Jade, Serena has an issue of never getting the screentime to truly fit in with the greats of DQ, but this time it's at least somewhat intentionally. The game wants her to have a minimal presence in Act 1 because it's going to have the big reveal in Act 2 and turn her into a stronger woman for it. There's just one problem: Act 2 is almost over when Serena gets the haircut. We get Haven's Above, the two Town Stories that don't include Serena because you can do them five hours earlier, and whoops, we just forged the Sword of Light and went to go fight Mordegon. Poor Serena gets the same issue Jade did, but almost worse- Jade was given the ingredients to succeed and no prep time. Serena has the building blocks of being a strong female protagonist and most of them fell off the table.
Sylvando: Shining Sun to Illuminate His Comrades
Cute artbook facts: His treasured possession is his recorder, as the first thing he ever bought with his own money. Despite how his story plays, Puerto Valor is his favourite place in Erdrea. He loves the suspense and trickery of Electro Light.
Sylvando is kind of the inverse Serena, in many ways. He frequently gets the spotlight to contribute to the story- including a strong Town Story solely dedicated to his development- he is daring and unconventional in mannerism and tactics, and he wants to be the protagonist of a different kind of story. Erik and Veronica stand as strong conventional characters, while Jade and Serena are beloved but rely on the player's own input. Sylvando is a character that stands out on the way out of the story because he is so far from the expectations of the player that it's easy to remember him and difficult to choose a different character from any other work who fills the same needs.
Sylvando's weaknesses are twofold: His flamboyant personality making a bad impression, and his strangely judgemental nature. With the exception of Rab, where his vices are played for comedy, Sylvando is the only character who brings flaws to the table that hinder his likability rather than enhance it. He's the one who gets lines like "you don't want to wind up that pocket rocket" and "please, we don't want to ride with the little people". Considering Sylvando also gets more helpful advice delivered with a similar mood, I suspect this may be more of the developer's own biases colouring the character in a way they didn't intend, but with Sylv also having the tough burden of being "the queer character"- a position that's inherently rather dangerous when you're standing next to Erik- the lows stand out just as much as the highs.
Rab: Once a Wise Ruler, Lamenting His Lost Kingdom
Cute artbook facts: He liked his wife for her generosity, and still describes her fondly when compared to some of the beauties he's met in his later travels.
Slightly less cute fact: While it may not be as old as I believed, that first edition Ogler's Digest he's always chasing is out of print.
Rab is the third elderly DQ party member, following DQ4's Borya and DQ7's Sir Mervyn and getting to do something neither managed: play his age for the positives. Rab is a man who has lived through a lot: he's undergone "the best" training in the world, he's been married, he's raised a daughter, he's ruled a kingdom, he's watched all three fall, and he's travelled the world with another daughter. Rab is a man who knows things, and he is a vital addition to the team because of this experience, rather than in spite of it.
Rab's weaknesses are easy to point to- the entire Ogler's Digest dynamic in general. Less easy is trying to figure out why. Although Rab has an unhealthy obsession with them, this doesn't really seem to affect his ability to interact with the women he encounters and travels with any. I'd say the real weakness is in the fact they play this for comedy. I bring up both Borya and Mervyn because both characters have the same issue- although they don't have a pornographic magazine to attract their attention to, that simply means they do have issues interacting with real women without lusting over them. DQ in general seems fond of leaning on "elderly character lusts over woman" as inherently comedic, and that's where the real bite to the Digest steps in. Rab's strength in the party is that he is old, wise, and learned, but in the end, he is defined by his age.
All in all, the DQ11 party is one of the strongest in the series. They took DQ8's winning formula and expanded it to a larger cast, and while some of those characters slipped between the cracks, Party Chat helps to round out the corners, while the worst narrative characters also get to play the role of the best mechanical ones. Earlier DQ games tended to suffer from making the party feel like they stopped contributing to the narrative as soon as they became mechanics, an issue that Party Chat alleviated but never fully resolved on its own. DQ11 shows the series shift closer to a series where the party, as a group, carries the story. I suspect DQ will never fully want to commit entirely to that dynamic, however: the reason the silent protagonist is here to stay is because the series is just as much about how you, the player, fit into the world as it is how the party members that accompany you do, so while the player will always be welcome to help guide the party members through their own stories, time will tell how much influence the party will get to exert on you.
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