I am trying to play all of the numbered English DQs before XI comes out. It is my Dragon Quest Quest. Play is the operative word- not Beat. I have given myself permission to pull the escape chute on the NES era games if they move too slow. Here is my ongoing list. Games are added while playing them, because I am
THE ORDER I PLAYED THESE GAMES IN: 5, 1, 7, 2, 9, 4, 6, 8, 3, 11
(played on 3DS)
My favorite. While light-hearted, the characters are memorable, and the digest nature of the progression- like seasons of a TV show, hopping from timelost island to timelost island- made this game leave a hell of an impression for me. I felt euphoric during the goodbye section, something that a lot of RPGs don't actually manage to pull off. I would recommend this game to anyone, regardless of JRPG affinity.
Also worth noting that I did basically none of the New Game + stuff, but as I've progressed through all the other games, I can definitely see myself replaying this one and doing all that.
(played on DS)
An outstanding work of drama. I have never seen a game commit harder to making foes more utterly contemptible than this game. When they dealt heavy blows, I felt them. The points of whimsy- such as the fairy kingdom- come across as genuine pictures of purity in comparison to the rugged main arc. Probably the best one to start with for those that have played JRPGs but never gotten around to Dragon Quest.
(played on DS)
So the team that wrote this game's story also wrote DQ7's story, which had the unfortunate effect of raising my hopes. The game itself is very solid- it has the class system that I like most from the DQ games, and it's got a really effecting premise (a dream world that coexists with a real world), but the actual plot is so thinly connected that it falls apart. There is a fortune teller character that can be visited repeatedly to get information on where you're supposed to be going. I have not found these visits optional. In other words, I have often found myself wondering what exactly am I doing. There's scenarios with no connective thread between them, and that wears thin.
That said, this ranks above IV on account of having More Than One Character Worth Thinking About, and that they have their accents from the start, so you don't get sideswiped by learning the sisters that were your favorite characters talk like stereotypes. I mean, hypothetically.
(played on DS)
You can definitely tell this was the last of the NES games, because it is a good degree more sophisticated than the other three NES games. That being said, you also feel it in the way that you have to manually button through all combat dialog, and in the way that the storyline feels very light.
UPDATE: So it didn't land the thing it was going for fully, with the meeting of the minds in the middle of the game. It all forces itself into shape too conveniently, and from that point becomes a game about finding items. I will say that the chapter with Torneko explains everything about why he gets his own games. It is the fabulous high point of this game, which is otherwise Fine and Exactly The Middle Of The Quality Bar. All above are great, all below might not be.
(played on NES)
It's interesting, in a sense, to see how barren this game is and to have to contextualize it as "oh, right, because this is one of the first times they've done this. This was the template for this stuff." Because without that context, FUCK is this a slog to get through.
(played on GBC, gave up on)
in lieu of a large review: it's dragon quest 1 with dragon quest ix's problems
(started on PS2, switched to 3DS, quit 10 hours in)
It is probably my fault for playing this game after playing so many of the others. If I would have played it earlier, maybe I would have enjoyed it. In the face of every other game in this series, I do not get the reverence.
Here is a brief list of ways this game lost me.
-The leveling system is the same as DQ9. I really, really disliked DQ9's leveling system. This game tries to make it better by adding more points per level, but it doesn't work.
-Everything about how this game treats Jessica sucks. She's 17. She's drawn like Ye Olde Anime Sexpot. People keep horndogging on her. The first significant armor upgrade she got put her in more revealing clothes.
-They don't let me kill Angelo, who might be the worst character in any of these games.
-The one party member (age 31) I was okay with eventually revealed that he tried to win the affections of a girl (age 20) "years ago." This person would later be joining the party.
-The last boss I fought was a corny (probably white) dude doing James Brown jokes. When I beat him, I won a boat. The boat moved incredibly sluggish, and the ocean was filled with enemies that oneshot characters meaning I would have to retrace my progress after resurrecting party members. When I closed the 3DS in the face of this, the battery died, and my last save was a quick save in front of the mole.
I am sure in its time and place the things that were charming about it outweighed "Dragon Quest: Horny Edition." In this current time and place, it is a faucet that spits at me every time I get ready to engage it.
This is probably the low point of the 3D games. There's lots of things in here to love, lots of little flourishes and fascinating ideas. There's also something to be said for this to be the only game in which you can make characters and choose how they look. This is, by default, the only singleplayer Dragon Quest game where it's even possible to have non-white human protagonists. It's just a shame that the same system that lets you make the characters your own is the same system that guts the soul out of it. There's no character development because the entire world is written around the blank slate of your existence. It drains the entire story. We're collecting these things, but, there's never a point where I'm returning and finding relationships my player character has to be fostering and evolving. Because they can't. The same is true of the party members, who offer push and pull with in the other games. In DQ9, they are silent guns-for-hire who are just tools to fill out the kit you are trying to fill. Even the class system feels hollow. It's just a damn shame all around.
(Played on Android, quit)
The only one I've had to give up early. If DQ1 is a slog, DQ2 is a more difficult slog where the only new addition is party members, who only have input on what you're doing up until the moment you absorb them into your own consciousness. I again try to remember that this is just a function of technical limitations, but it colors things in an unpleasant way.
