I’m a sicko, so I prefer random encounters. That’s why I played the original PSX version over the 3DS remake. That three hour intro a lot to get through but once the game gets going, it’s very compulsive to play. This episodic approach to a JRPG story works well in the case of Dragon Quest VII. The writing (and localization) is pretty good although I think once the third act comes around and the story becomes more interconnected, my interest isn’t as strong.
The reason why someone would ought to play the 3DS version is that it’s easier to collect the Shards you need to unlock new parts of the game. I got lost a few times and had to consult a guide to find the missing Shard. I didn’t want to use the guide. There are a lot of locational abilities that don’t serve much purpose, like Smell which tells you how many treasures are still lingering but only on single maps. You are given a lot of abilities to navigate this game and they’re not very useful. Pamela is a fortune teller and she was never useful to finding Shards nor TinyMedals.
Obviously the star of the show is the class system, which is robust although I think the Monster Classes are superfluous and I wish there was more flexibility in builds since characters can pretty much either be strength-focused and pickup Warrior, Fighter, etc or they can be magic-focused and get Mage, Cleric etc.
I think the biggest knock against the class system, though, is how the game shuffled around its characters. You unlock the class system with three characters in the party, you journey with them a long time, and then the fourth member comes in grossly underdeveloped. Then one of the original characters is swapped out to be replaced with another underdeveloped hero. That one that swaps out only comes back late in the game so that’s only two characters that get a fair amount of time to grow as warriors.
Regardless of my complaints, I found this to be an exciting and engrossing RPG. I liked the challenge. I like the class system. The graphics and music are good. The story’s interesting although for how long this game is, the story is surprisingly basic. 100 hours on my completed save file with 70 hours clocked in on the emulator. I went back and finished the post-game (which involved me using cheats to unlock a lot of classes and speed up grind). The bonus stuff is pretty cool and having beaten the two bonus dungeons, I feel I can close the book on this legendary RPG.
The reason why someone would ought to play the 3DS version is that it’s easier to collect the Shards you need to unlock new parts of the game. I got lost a few times and had to consult a guide to find the missing Shard. I didn’t want to use the guide. There are a lot of locational abilities that don’t serve much purpose, like Smell which tells you how many treasures are still lingering but only on single maps. You are given a lot of abilities to navigate this game and they’re not very useful. Pamela is a fortune teller and she was never useful to finding Shards nor TinyMedals.
Obviously the star of the show is the class system, which is robust although I think the Monster Classes are superfluous and I wish there was more flexibility in builds since characters can pretty much either be strength-focused and pickup Warrior, Fighter, etc or they can be magic-focused and get Mage, Cleric etc.
I think the biggest knock against the class system, though, is how the game shuffled around its characters. You unlock the class system with three characters in the party, you journey with them a long time, and then the fourth member comes in grossly underdeveloped. Then one of the original characters is swapped out to be replaced with another underdeveloped hero. That one that swaps out only comes back late in the game so that’s only two characters that get a fair amount of time to grow as warriors.
Regardless of my complaints, I found this to be an exciting and engrossing RPG. I liked the challenge. I like the class system. The graphics and music are good. The story’s interesting although for how long this game is, the story is surprisingly basic. 100 hours on my completed save file with 70 hours clocked in on the emulator. I went back and finished the post-game (which involved me using cheats to unlock a lot of classes and speed up grind). The bonus stuff is pretty cool and having beaten the two bonus dungeons, I feel I can close the book on this legendary RPG.