Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

This isn't a straight up review of the game, but it's what I've been playing lately. So far, its been a pretty fun ride through the old school style of console RPGs. But the reason I'm brining it up is because of something that happened while I was playing as one of the characters. I actually became an NPC. I actually discovered what it feels like to be one of the "extras" in these kind of games. And it was scary. One of the scariest things to me is monotony, and that's one of the reasons I play PC games. They're great for taking you out of the repetitious nature of daily life.

Chapters of the Chosen, or Arms Merchant Simulator?

I couldn't find a pic from the game itself, but this screen from FF 2 came pretty close. So my character, a professional arms dealer, is hurried off to work by his wife. I'm sat behind the counter, and I'm actually made to sit there for what's probably around 10 minutes. Every few seconds, NPCs come up to me either buying or selling items. After what seems like forever, your employer finally climbs up from his downstairs office and gives you a mere 100 gold (which isn't much in Dragon Quest 4) for your efforts.

That was just one of the most bizarre scenarios I've ever come across in a game, but also kind of funny - to a point. It kind of lets you feel what its like to be an NPC, doing the mundane tasks that we all take for granted in order to stay alive. I mean think about it, every time we get hurt, run out of potions, need stronger weapons, we have to come to these guys. It was kind of novel, seeing an adventure from the perspective of a lowly item seller. But it got damn boring to have to do it for several in-game days in order to scrape up enough gold to go adventuring out of town.

Imagine if this was the closest you ever came to a dungeon in a 40 hour epic RPG.

The humorous way that I was made to experience being an item selling NPC-like character quickly wore off. Thankfully it didn't take too long to get the money I needed. But it sure gave me a new found respect for supporting characters. We can get so caught up in the lives of the characters we're playing, we forget that we owe a great deal of our success to these item merchants. While we hack and slash at all manner of evil enemies, they go through the daily hell of a medieval version of Office Space. An item shop is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to work there. I'd much rather stalk the countryside in pursuit of these:

Don't be fooled by Slimes. They may look cute, but they only have one thing on their mind - your death.