So, this is my "official" start into the Dragon Quest series. I initially had tried Dragon Quest IX as my first game, and it didn't go so well...I don't blame that entry for not catching my attention, after playing the first game, I realize this series has a different world building than most RPGs and shouldn't be treated as traditional.

Granted, I know I'm playing a remake of the original game, but even looking at this version, it still has that graphical charm of a rather old RPG. everything while stylized is very retro, but pretty at the same time. I always thought of Final Fantasy as the game most RPGs imitate, (which is somewhat true) but when most media is imitating real retro RPGs this is the game they are likely emulating.

The story is about as basic as you can get...the princess is missing, evil has run amok, you're destined to save the world...that's it, there's VERY little extra to any of that. While that does sound kinda simple...I kinda dig it, with other RPGs having you find a group and take down organizations and cults or gods or whatever...Dragon Quest has you be a one man army and just go on an adventure of your own and take things at whatever pace you want it. This is your adventure, GO!

And this leads into the gameplay and this is the part that threw me off of DQ IX, it's difficult walking into a world like Dragon Quest and not understanding what monsters do and what spells mean when a spell is called "Sizz". In this game, you basically do one-on-one battles all the time, so the strategy is always you learning about the monster types and how to defeat them without feeling cheated since you never have to deal with multiple types at once, so you feel like you're learning and focusing on what an enemy does and it's role and how to counteract what it does. It really added more to the combat than I thought, and I appreciated it for it's freshness. Aside from battle it's pretty much explore the lands and grind to improve your level and equipment, the standard stuff.

The music is really hard to judge for me. On one hand, I liked what I heard as far as the battle theme and I love the sound effects of spells and attacks. On the other hand, I can't say I really remember a lot of the games music, and this could be because it's orchestrated and that's not really my jam, but nothing stood out badly at all.

Since this game is pretty retro and was well done, it's hard to think of any negatives as side from the only real thing that was bugging me from start to finish.

- The writing of NPCs is annoying. I can't stand that "olde English" medieval fantasy type of talk...I can tolerate it when voiced, but can't stand to read it.

This was a really great experience, I couldn't really give it a perfect score, because while I had fun, I felt like the game needed more in spots such has job/classes or a bit more modern writing and I think this version would have benefited from a "retro mode" to it and used the games old music or similar graphic style to add flavor in spots, but as the game is now, I loved my adventure.

When i first picked a Dragon Ball volume, i only knew about the series as an intense fighting anime with screaming people. Imagine my surprise when i discovered a colorful adventure filled with sexual jokes.

Dragon Quest isn't quite that, but it does have that Akira Toriyama spirit. Has a certain Action Shonen aura that elevates it beyond other numerous fantasy titles.

Playing this on the iOS kind of felt like the perfect way to get through all the grinding. It's the most intuitive way to play a game that is almost 4 decades old.

While not a game that has aged as well as other Famicom classics, it's perfection of the formula started by earlier RPGs makes it still fun to play. Hopefuly, future DQ games will just keep on improving what worked here.

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.

SNES vers.

Weirdly enjoyed this more than V lol

Probs cause of the pure simplicity allowing the charm of the JRPG to shine thru

my favorite thing about playing these 8 bit era titles is seeing how little game design has advanced in the ~35 years since. the formula for turn based rpgs, and console rpgs in general sort of, was pretty well established here - in its simplest, crudest, purest form - and really hasn’t been altered too drastically in the intervening years. in some ways these games have actually become less sophisticated over time, from a design standpoint; mostly in the name of user friendliness. i played this alongside ff16 where every destination is simply given to you and marked plainly on the map so there is literally no opportunity for the player to find themselves lost or confused. and while i’m having quite a lot of fun with that game, it’s a far less rigorous experience that this, where your path has to be sussed out for yourself through thorough investigation/exploration, never holding your hand at any point. their loops do impart a similar feeling, tho; clearly coming out of the same lineage despite the technical/mechanical gulf between them. getting some new weapon/item, grinding it on your way to the next town/cave/shrine/whatever where you get another new item that opens up another destination and so on. basically what it all boils down to is powering up your character so you have an easier time killing guys; ff16 may be a sophisticated modern action game and here all you’re doing is waiting your turn to hit the attack button, but the core experience was remarkably similar to me. there are ways in which the game shows its age obviously - random encounters are about 2x too frequent (altho i do think this is crucial to the game feeling as big as it does tbh, i took a jaunt around the map once i finished it and the enemies had been extinguished and it took me a couple of minutes maybe) and i wish the offensive options were more varied; after a certain point your best bet is to just spam the attack command in every single encounter until they’re dead - but for the most part i was struck at how not-antiquated it felt in spite of its aged trappings. i’ll admit the narrative and aesthetic are relatively generic tolkien-esque fantasy stuff and probably won’t make much of an impression on modern audiences, outside of toriyama’s enemy designs which are beautiful and lively from end to end, but that’s true of most games in the genre if we’re being real. anyone who’s semi-seriously interested in rpgs and can put up with a few age-related annoyances should consider trying this out at least just to see the genre bursting through in a nearly-fully actualized way

played this on ios which i can’t recommend enough. as an idle game, it absolutely washes any of the free to play garbage the app store is flooded with these days. ofc it’s well suited to a more active and engaged style of play but the rudimentary battle system is great for zoning out while you grind for five minutes at a time, too. and with the quick save feature you don’t have to worry about losing your progress if you can’t make it back to the castle. the touchscreen joystick and menus, while a bit unpolished looking maybe, are smooth and intuitive and the fact that you can play it in portrait with one hand is a game changer for me. just a real joy to play on your phone; don’t imagine i would have stuck with it on another platform honestly

Old RPGs are what idle games wish they could be.
They place context and an explorable map around a simple loop of: 1. Grind 2. Get weapon 3. Use weapon to grind more.
The exploration is incredibly intuitive, I only resorted to GameFAQs on two occasions: Once to verify I was right (I was), and secondly because I was stupid and forgot to note down a hint (which you should do). The design of this game is so tight that if the philosophical idea of game design could be wrapped around a watermelon, said melon would explode.
Play dragon quest, you will enjoy it, if you don't, you just haven't gotten to a stage in your life yet where you will enjoy it.

Dragon Quest is a game that is almost forty years old. I played a version of it that came out more than two decades ago. And while today it resembles more an ideal first project for a young kid given RPG Maker, Dragon Quest became one of the most pleasant gaming experience I had this year.

The game gives you a simple objective – slay the dragon lord – and then drops you into the world and lets you figure it out. And for how simple the premise is, for how simple fighting monsters is, for how simple exploring is, it all works in favor of the game itself. There was a joy in taking my knight as far as I possibly could into uncharted territory, to find a new town to visit or a section of the world with tougher monsters, sometimes both. And then to either come back to a nearby town with my findings, or push too far and be forced to recall back to the castle, or simply die and revive back to the King with half my gold gone – it helps to wander when the only penalty for screwing up is having to travel a bit more and/or losing resources that are easily replenished. In town, the goal was to upgrade my equipment the best I could and query the population for gossip: a girl in a cave, a secret buried beneath a tree, what golems are weak to. Taking notes, then venturing outward with this knowledge. Repeat until the dragon lord is defeated, with a few detours along the way to get to him.

Once again, it is a very simple game. But even multiple console generations later, it works because the simplicity of it all and the general lack of consequences let my curiosity take over to piece the entire quest together. Even if I am not a Japanese salary-man in the 80s, I can easily see how such a game could enchant a country this well, even decades after the fact. The enchantment still had its effect on me after all.

I recommend you play this game.

Older JRPGs have always peaked my interest. I've dabbled with the earlier Final Fantasy games, but would never call myself a true fan of the genre. Most times they are laid back games that I can just grind my way through while sitting in bed, not requiring a full investment of my mental capacity. Dragon Quest was exactly what I was looking for in that regard, being a quick game that was light on story, and I could get the satisfaction of watching my character slowly gain more power of the quest.

What surprised me was how little story there actually was to the game. The very beginning of the game gives you a splurge of information on what has happened in the world, and that's it. You are sent off to the nearby town to grab some gear and then it is up to you to find out what to do. This is done through villagers giving you cryptic clues on what to do next, but often times you can stumble upon quest items without having a clue what to do with them. However, villagers dialogue will not change after retrieving an item, so I was left wondering if I had missed something.

Combat works well enough, but the systems are pretty rudimentary. Your best option is to continually attack, and then heal when needed. All other spells have minimal impact, and you are better saving MP for healing.

Grinding will take up the majority of your play time, as areas that you will need to progress to will be impossible to traverse without higher stats achieved through leveling. For the time, this was a clever to steer a character in the right direction, as the map is wide open. This also became frustrating towards the end when I knew what my objective was and simply had to run in circles fighting the same enemies so I could level up and continue the quest.

If you are curious about JRPGs roots, give this a go, but I would recommend many others first if you are a newcomer to the genre.

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.