gonna edit this review later once I beat it since im over 110 hours in but I still want to talk about this

im so conflicted on this game. most of the time, I love this game so much and think it really shines in its simplicity. i saw someone else refer to this game and dragon quest as a whole as "mom's homemade cooking" and I couldn't agree more. at least with this entry, I still haven't played a ton of the series at this point.

a lot of people might write off the "you're the chosen one??????" plot since its such a beaten to death trope at this point, but they still manage to weave in a fair amount of unexpected twists and turns that I didn't really expect from a game like this. im not talking metal gear or anything here, but ill just say i was surprised to find myself tearing up more than a few times.

however. the BIG however. is that all this tight gameplay with charming characters, etc. feels stapled onto a game design/environmental design model that should've evolved three console generations ago.

for instance, its really cool that you can just play this entire game in 2d mode! they really never had to do that at all and it must've been a ton of work for something that you can just ignore completely! but the fact that a 2017/2019 AAA RPG can be boiled down into a pseudo-16 bit mode shouldn't be possible. it feels like the game isn't really pushing itself to be something thats only possible nowadays.

now im not saying snes rpgs are old and bad, that'd be absolutely stupid of me. but if you look at something like ff4/5/6 compared to ffxvi, you can tell theres been so much experimentation and attempts to try new things. for better or worse, ill admit. but you can't lie to me and say that everyone should still only be using spell charges this far into the series, even as someone who enjoyed them in ff1

and I already know dragon quest earns its reputation through its traditional gameplay and mechanics, which I do like, but there's still ways to make more interesting stuff without going full ff7 remake insane-atb style combat, yknow?

anyway ill finish this later. basically this shit is so fucking awesome but every now and then it just feels like im playing a top down snes rpg that was directly translated into 3d which leaves some parts of the world feeling kinda lifeless, especially compared to its modern day peers. excited to see what dq12 does if we ever see more of it

I couldn't finish it. usually i love going back to see how series started, no matter how busted up and antiquated the first entries are. dmc1 just didn't do it for me. usually when I look at them, the core skeleton gameplay is already there. the ideas are being cooked. it just might need to really be sanded down and smoothed out over the next few entries before it churns out a truly great game.

dmc1 does the opposite though. im a big resident evil fan, and having an action hack n' slash game use things like fixed camera angles as well as a weird save system that discouraged risk-taking (imo) made for a generally not fun experience after the novelty wore off.

I had fun for a bit, up to around the 9th chapter. it was really slowing down and becoming more of a chore rather than something I was genuinely excited to play which sucks. here's to hoping dmc 3 or bayo 1+2 give me a better outlook on the genre, im sure they will