This is a game that thinks more automatically equals better, and while I love its episodic structure on paper--and some of the little stories this game tells are really good--it has absolutely no respect for pacing, or for the player's time. There's barely even a hint of an overarching plot until almost the 50 hour mark, and by then I was already at the point where I was ready for it to be over. Even in this form, which supposedly trims about 30 hours from the Playstation original, this is an obscenely bloated game. I don't mind big or long games, but so much of Dragon Quest VII is devoted to running back and forth across x town looking for the next plot trigger. It's big and long in a way that comes across as thoughtless. (For comparison, my playthrough of Dragon Quest XI this summer clocked in at 120 hours, and it felt about half as long as the 75 hours I spent in Dragon Quest VII). It's still a game that I would describe as good, but it really, really should've been great.

And while I love the job system, the way it makes certain key party members unavailable for lengthy chunks of the game so that they're always behind where they should be in their job level is legitimately infuriating. I had to grind about 300 battles at the end of the game just so one of my party members could be at a decently ranked advanced job level for the final boss.