Wow, they made a game based on grinding?

Man I wish this game aged well, I respect it for being a cultural impact, and the base for all upcoming JRPG but sometimes you just have to face things head-on and realize 90% of this game is just grinding, especially from level 15 to 20 when you've done everything the game has to offer and all you want to do is kill the final boss but your level isn't high enough so you just walk up and down until you get enough XP and I don't have to tell you all about grinding we all had to suffer through RPG grinding at some point in our life.

Even though the score is low it doesn't mean it's bad but it would be unfair to put it next to an actually good game like Final Fantasy 5, right?
Nostalgia and historical value are important for sure but I think a good game has to still be good in modern games.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, that was my rant about biased nostalgia opinions and historical value.

Thoroughly charmed by Akira Toriyama’s designs, and the clean simplicity of the quest laid out in front of you. It’s essentially “get the relics and beat the bad guy,” and so you do just that — battling a variety of monsters, sleeping at various inns in towns across the map and steadily improving your gear along the way. It’s a bit of a linear experience, but that feels refreshing in 2023 where every game needs to be a 50+ hour time sink.

I enjoyed playing this in short bursts on my phone, grinding levels right before bed, or poking around a dungeon on my commute. The vertical / portrait mode presentation is also pretty striking. I just wish it was possible to remove the obnoxious d-pad graphic from the screen. Love and appreciate the quick save option, though.

Perfect on iOS. More of these tiny, old RPG titles need to be put in portrait mode and ported to smartphones. So many of them, because they were made for the NES, were designed to be these little games you can pick up and play a little of at a time, which is perfect for mobile since sometimes you just need to twiddle your thumbs. I much prefer playing an actual game with a narrative rather than completing daily tasks in some free-to-play time-sink so these little ports that Square Enix, especially, are putting out are perfect. Dragon Quest is so primo, too. There’s a lot of simplicity in this first one but that just makes it perfect for portability because it just doesn’t need thought put into it; you grind against monsters for levels and gold and the map is small enough to keep track of. You just work toward the next best items and explore all the dungeons for better stuff and then kill the guy! It’s so satisfying fighting monsters that you had trouble with a few levels ago and decimating them with the strength and weapon you grinded for. chef’s kiss mwah!

My first DQ, and it's been a long, long time since I've gone into an adventure game this blind. I just let myself get immersed, talk to NPCs, and... I think I like RPGs after all? Oh no I'm downloading Octopath Traveler 2, oh noooo-

It's SUPER basic but I think that's just something you have to accept with a game from 1986. I kind of appreciated that. No party members, and your only damage spells are obsolete by like level 8. Just wail on that sword button until the numbers go up enough for you to win. A simpler time.

I don't think I could tell you ANY character or town names from this. One of the towns was Ken or something. The hero was called Ehrlich? Very generic (as in genre) all around, but I think that is also something you have to accept from a 1986 video game. I'll play the second one. I hope there are no recurring characters.