Maybe the worst game in the franchise. Though 2's balance is awful, the game is old, has a massive scope compared to its predecessor, and is relatively short. DQ6 could have been so much better if about half of it was just shaved off. There were many times during the experience I genuinely wanted to skip this one and move on to 7, but I decided to give it a chance.
The fact this game's a Dragon Quest may be one of its only redeeming factors. It has the same lovable aesthetic and energy, and some of the character designs are favourites of mine. However, the gameplay feels dated. The vocation system in this one is just a pain to deal with, the game being split between two maps gets pretty annoying, and the game's overall length just detracts from all the genuinely good moments in here.
You can tell 6 was meant to be something huge to follow the massive successes of the previous three games in the series, but it ended up falling victim to a scope too large for the core game to support, and ends up being an agonizing slog of a game to get through, especially following the brief but grand adventures of the other two Zenithian games.
On a more positive note, this is my second to last Dragon Quest game and even though the series has lows, it's pretty astonishing that something about this series makes me want to finish even games I don't like.