Are you looking for anything in particular? Something similar to 11 or much more retro than that?
My partner and I are slowly making our way through all of the mainline Dragon Quest games in chronological order, so I might be able to give you something useful. I've been playing Dragon Quest games for most of my life at this point, so I'll try to keep my passion in check and keep things concise.
DRAGON QUEST 1: Extremely retro, extremely bite sized. I mention this as you bring up not having much spare time. You can beat DQ1 in a weekend. These days it's comparable in scope to an indie RPG.
The original NES release was officially translated (Dragon Warrior). Gameplay-wise, this version has extremely dated controls (you have to go into a menu to talk to people, open doors, go down stairs...). Graphically, the only huge differences to note are that it does have illustrated backgrounds and each encounter starts with a flashing screen typical of 80s games which warrants a photosensitivity warning IMO.
The SNES remake was never officially released in English, but has a fan translation. The controls are vastly improved and the graphics obviously updated.
The Gameboy Color version is the one I played as a kid and the one we replayed recently. This one has no control issues and no flashing screens. Unfortunately it doesn't have the illustrated backgrounds, just monsters on white screens.
I would recommend playing Dragon Quest 1 simply because it's so short that even if it doesn't do much for you it won't take long to beat. I don't know how well it works these days without the nostalgia, but if you're like me you'll at least find it fascinating to see how the JRPG genre has evolved since the early days.
DRAGON QUEST 2: Slightly less retro and slightly less bite sized. Dragon Quest 2 is, in my opinion, an incredible leap forward in storytelling. Unlike the original you have a party of three characters with their own personalities and backstories, although with the exception of the Princess of Moonbrooke the backstories are pretty minimal.
The version differences are basically the same as the original Dragon Quest. Again I played the GBC version, but check out screenshots as you may prefer the SNES version (or if you want street cred and can deal with flashing you may want the NES version).
I really enjoyed Dragon Quest 2, possibly more than 1 and 3, which seems like it's a very unusual opinion. Maybe it's just because I was blindsided by how fast the storytelling techniques evolved, or because I felt like they hit a perfect balance between the extreme retro nature of DQ1 and the more expansive design of DQ3 onwards. I forget how long DQ2 was now - I know it felt like it was three times as long as the original (in a good way), and the world map is probably four times as big. Googling around, it looks like the time estimate is about 10-20 hours. I'm a little worried now that I'm just going to end up recommending every single Dragon Quest to you, which is not what you asked for.
DRAGON QUEST 3: Even less retro, even less bite sized. We played the fan translated SNES version, which looks gorgeous (similar to Final Fantasy 6) and plays very modern.
The structure is very different in DQ3 - unlike in 2, all your party members are manually created at the beginning, kind of like a job system Final Fantasy. This gives you some fun control over party composition, especially since you can do multiclass stuff later on. Unfortunately since the characters are manually created, the only personality they have is the one you're able to infuse them with yourself. If you're like my partner this is no problem, if you're like me you miss your cousins from DQ2.
Narratively DQ3 is way more sprawling and maybe less cohesive than the first two games. Where 1 and 2 felt like concise stories about the hero(es) going on a quest to defeat The Big Bad, DQ3 goes on lots of tangents and side stories that make it feel more like a Greek epic. That's either your thing or it isn't. For me it felt just barely too long, but I may have just been getting Dragon Quest fatigue. This was my partner's favorite, for what it's worth, and it seems to be a fan favorite.
If the idea of playing with party composition and a story that is much more episodic than 1 or 2 appeals to you, definitely go for this one.
DRAGON QUEST 4: I can't give you a perfect impression of this one from a retro perspective as we played the DS remake. The only other options in English that I know of are the Android / iOS and original NES versions.
Structurally this one takes a left turn again: while all the party members are pre-configured, written characters like DQ2, the game is divided up into 5 chapters that follow each individual character or group of characters until they all meet up in the fifth chapter. The upside of this is that each character gets to be much more fleshed out, but the downside for me personally was that I got so involved in each party member's storyline that in the final chapter I found myself saying "oh, right, I forgot about you" over and over as I reunited with each of the characters who I hadn't seen in sometimes up to 15 hours of in-game time. It's definitely still effective though, as I had a hard time forming a final party as I didn't want to leave anybody out.
It's hard for me to be objective about this one because I am definitely suffering Dragon Quest fatigue at this point. I think (though I'm not certain) that by DQ4 they had streamlined some of the NES controls, so you might not have to pull up the menu to open doors or talk to people anymore if you do decide to give it a shot. I will say Chapter 3 does something extremely cool that flips JRPG conventions around in a really creative way, especially considering this was 1990. Easily the highlight of the game for me, although it's just a little 5 minute gameplay subversion and not some kind of permanent paradigm shift.
DRAGON QUEST 5, 6, and 7: We have not played these yet. Technically I have played maybe 20-30 hours of Dragon Warrior 7 for the PSX. It's one of the longest Dragon Quest games, I think most people say it can be up to 80 hours. Supposedly there is a lot of fun game breaking stuff you can do with powerful class combinations in the original PSX version, which sounds cool.
DQ5 seems to be considered one of the best, so I'm excited to get into that one after I take a break from Dragon Quest. It wasn't released in the states officially until the DS remake though, so you'll have to see if there's a fan translation for the SNES. I know there's one for the PS2, which is what I plan on playing.
Worth noting that while it isn't retro in the way that 1-7 are, DQ8 is also considered one of the best, and is most similar to DQ11, so you'd probably like that one. Depending on what hardware you own (and what your computer is capable of emulating), the 3DS remake or the PS2 original may be easier to get. Major differences there are that the PS2 version has real orchestral music, and the 3DS version has visible monsters on the map instead of random encounters.
That ended up not being concise at all, my apologies! Hopefully there was some helpful information buried in there.
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