What a good time that was. I love when narratives switch POV characters around, and it blew my mind that Dragon Quest was doing this as early as the NES. My rating would probably be lower if I wasn't playing the remake with party chat patched in, but I really liked everyone in the crew even if the accents could be a bit much. Honestly, my main complaint on the character front would be that the hero is easily the least interesting of the bunch and I lost steam a little when I got to their part, but I suppose that's often the case with silent protagonists. I did finish it though, bonus chapter and all, and that's more than I can say for a lot of games.
Also, the DS spritework was absolutely delightful. Estark in particular was especially gnarly, I loved it.