As someone who grew up with FF for a long time there was this sort of rivalry in the early 00-10s of the internet where if you were a fan of DQ you were at odds with FF fans and vice versa, so I never really got into the series for that silly of a reason. Jump to DQ11 and everyone is saying it's great so I check it out and yeah, it's pretty solid. Finally an excuse to go back and try out this series I skipped for so long and what better than a GBC compilation of the two games that Builders are semi-spinoffs of.

Both games have age for sure. I had to use a walkthrough at a couple points for both because I have to be real at the time I just didn't want to wander around lost and had some general ideas already of where to go from watching the games in the past, but they're fun little romps in their own right. DQ1 is interesting cause despite it being a one person game there's a sort of simplistic charm to the battle system that manages to keep me engaged for the short length of the game. DQ2 I don't remember nearly as much about, but similarly I also liked it a good amount and it was fun to have actual party members this game. The story is extremely simple for both and will not try to deceive you as to what it's about, but for the first entries in a long running franchise they're a fun time!