Older JRPGs have always peaked my interest. I've dabbled with the earlier Final Fantasy games, but would never call myself a true fan of the genre. Most times they are laid back games that I can just grind my way through while sitting in bed, not requiring a full investment of my mental capacity. Dragon Quest was exactly what I was looking for in that regard, being a quick game that was light on story, and I could get the satisfaction of watching my character slowly gain more power of the quest.

What surprised me was how little story there actually was to the game. The very beginning of the game gives you a splurge of information on what has happened in the world, and that's it. You are sent off to the nearby town to grab some gear and then it is up to you to find out what to do. This is done through villagers giving you cryptic clues on what to do next, but often times you can stumble upon quest items without having a clue what to do with them. However, villagers dialogue will not change after retrieving an item, so I was left wondering if I had missed something.

Combat works well enough, but the systems are pretty rudimentary. Your best option is to continually attack, and then heal when needed. All other spells have minimal impact, and you are better saving MP for healing.

Grinding will take up the majority of your play time, as areas that you will need to progress to will be impossible to traverse without higher stats achieved through leveling. For the time, this was a clever to steer a character in the right direction, as the map is wide open. This also became frustrating towards the end when I knew what my objective was and simply had to run in circles fighting the same enemies so I could level up and continue the quest.

If you are curious about JRPGs roots, give this a go, but I would recommend many others first if you are a newcomer to the genre.