You know, the older I get, the more I appreciate the Dragon Quest series. Despite the stories, characters, hell even the battle system not being very complex, the older I am, the more and more I like it. It knows what it is, it understands what a JRPG is made of, and it delivers the highest quality on every front. Sure, it's not as experimental as Final Fantasy or as complex as SMT, but it's not trying to be that. Dragon Quest as a series has always been about mastering what they already had, and experiencing that level of mastery after playing so many RPGs that drop the ball in one or more departments feels so relieving.

It's like eating your grandma's stew after eating takeout for months. The takeout has more variety and can be more exciting, but often lacks a factor X or Y. You're probably eating it by yourself or in a claustrophobic restaurant too. But your grandma's stew came from years of making the same recipe, mastering the process. You know all of the ingredients, but it's so well made and packed with love, it beats out everything else...

...Though that being said, you wouldn't want to eat that hypothetical stew every day, and that's why I tend to play Dragon Quest after it's been a while. It's nice to come back to when the world's getting you down, when you've exhausted yourself with too much psychological stuff, when you need something warm and familiar, but is still engaging and polished.

Anyways, great game, still my favorite Dragon Quest game, if you're Russian and you look like Alena (or Borya, yeah I roll like that too bitch), hmu.