A thoroughly miserable experience.
The only saving grace of these games is the charming art and music, other than that they are just extremely crude and dull affairs.
I won't lie, I am not a big fan of JRPGs in general. Most of the time I find their gameplay systems dull, repetitive, unengaging. I don't dislike all of them, of course. I don't even dislike all dragon quests, as I loved the other one I played (XI).
Generally, I can grow to like JRPGs that stimulate insightful tactical decision making, and those that have a compelling story and interesting characters. These games are direly lacking in both of these departments.
The story is the most basic, bog-standard schtick you can think of, the characters don't have any personality at all, and the locations blend together in my memory into a bland, generic blob.
On the gameplay side of things, 99% of battles amount to just doing basic attacks to one-shot pitifully weak enemies, in order to get meagre exp and gold rewards (aka, grinding. You'll be doing a ton of it). The other 1% are battles with stronger enemies, where you may have to employ the most basic tactics you can think of (aoe, buffs, debuffs, that sort of thing).
Both are about as boring as watching paint dry. If you use some sort of fast forward function, that is. Otherwise, on original hardware I guess it is more boring than watching paint dry.
The only challenge you might find are enemies with bigger numbers than yours, and more often than not the solution does not lie in improving your tactics, but in more harrowing, tedious, excruciating grinding. Aka, non-gameplay.
The second game has a very hands-free approach to exploration, which I can sort of appreciate in spirit. Unfortunately, the exploration process is never even remotely satisfying, as you are constantly barraged by random encounters that are, in 99% of cases, a waste of time.
The only thing that somewhat compelled me to keep moving, the only tiny nugget of satisfaction that this game is capable of stimulating, is the feeling of your numbers (levels, stats) going up. You don't get better at the game, gameplay stays mindless and basic, but you feel like you are advancing. It's like being in a hamster wheel, or on a tread mill. Except that those could be good, healthy excercise, while I would argue that DQ1 and 2 are actually actively harmful for you (or at least, for me). They just stimulate our monkey brains to feel good about our numbers increasing, while asking us to put in the bare-minimum amount of effort. Sort of like those zombie-like gambling addicts you can sometimes see hammering away at slot machines.
The only valuable thing about these games is their historical value. If you really, really, really, really care about that, I could advise you to give DQ1 (and only 1) a try. Otherwise, I suggest you to just look up the cool monster designs, and listen to the charming, catchy soundtrack, and never touch the actual games.
The only saving grace of these games is the charming art and music, other than that they are just extremely crude and dull affairs.
I won't lie, I am not a big fan of JRPGs in general. Most of the time I find their gameplay systems dull, repetitive, unengaging. I don't dislike all of them, of course. I don't even dislike all dragon quests, as I loved the other one I played (XI).
Generally, I can grow to like JRPGs that stimulate insightful tactical decision making, and those that have a compelling story and interesting characters. These games are direly lacking in both of these departments.
The story is the most basic, bog-standard schtick you can think of, the characters don't have any personality at all, and the locations blend together in my memory into a bland, generic blob.
On the gameplay side of things, 99% of battles amount to just doing basic attacks to one-shot pitifully weak enemies, in order to get meagre exp and gold rewards (aka, grinding. You'll be doing a ton of it). The other 1% are battles with stronger enemies, where you may have to employ the most basic tactics you can think of (aoe, buffs, debuffs, that sort of thing).
Both are about as boring as watching paint dry. If you use some sort of fast forward function, that is. Otherwise, on original hardware I guess it is more boring than watching paint dry.
The only challenge you might find are enemies with bigger numbers than yours, and more often than not the solution does not lie in improving your tactics, but in more harrowing, tedious, excruciating grinding. Aka, non-gameplay.
The second game has a very hands-free approach to exploration, which I can sort of appreciate in spirit. Unfortunately, the exploration process is never even remotely satisfying, as you are constantly barraged by random encounters that are, in 99% of cases, a waste of time.
The only thing that somewhat compelled me to keep moving, the only tiny nugget of satisfaction that this game is capable of stimulating, is the feeling of your numbers (levels, stats) going up. You don't get better at the game, gameplay stays mindless and basic, but you feel like you are advancing. It's like being in a hamster wheel, or on a tread mill. Except that those could be good, healthy excercise, while I would argue that DQ1 and 2 are actually actively harmful for you (or at least, for me). They just stimulate our monkey brains to feel good about our numbers increasing, while asking us to put in the bare-minimum amount of effort. Sort of like those zombie-like gambling addicts you can sometimes see hammering away at slot machines.
The only valuable thing about these games is their historical value. If you really, really, really, really care about that, I could advise you to give DQ1 (and only 1) a try. Otherwise, I suggest you to just look up the cool monster designs, and listen to the charming, catchy soundtrack, and never touch the actual games.