Dragon Quest IX Hype Thread - Target July 11th

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

AkibaFan said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Christian973 said:

NPC's are wonderful but i don't think this one is the weakest of the DQs. DQVIII i think is the weakest one.

Dems fightin' words.

But its all opinion anyway.  I think Dragon Quest VII is the 'weakest' one.  But only because it limits your exploration with the shards system.  Dragon Quest VIII (as with IX) emphasizes exploration.

dude DQVII is one ov th best. I remembr spending 250 hours on it, u jst dnt get RPG's as complete as DQ7 nwadays

is a matter of opinion bt this is th first time I seen sum1 say they thnk DQ7 is the "weakst" one

I've played every DQ game except VI and a couple side games (like the Fushigi no Dungeon games).  Basically I just think DQVII was the weakest for exactly what I said.  The Shards mechanic, and a great deal of the worlds layout, limited your exploration and forced you to grind in areas.  Which isn't the case in other games.  It wouldn't have been a big problem if the game had been a more linear focused game such as with DQIV or V.  But they also included the job system, which pretty much made 'grinding' enevitable since large chunks of the game had very few battles and were story based, yet you were expected to keep leveing your party to take on ever-increasing boss fights and lopsided enemy swarms.  Not to mention, characters keep getting pulled out of your party for 'story' reasons.

Its little wonder the game is so long and considered by many to be the hardest Dragon Quest.

Now, I may have some rather noted annoyanced with the game, but that's not to say it was bad.  I just consider it to be the 'oddball' of the series.  They were trying to do unique things, and some things worked well.  The game probably just needed to either not have the shards mechanic or not have a job class system.  Both together was just too much at once.  Heck, this is why past games had to invent new concepts, like Dragon Quest V adding monster collection to replace party members who leave the party or Dragon Quest IV splitting the story into chapters.  And hence why Dragon Quest VIII opted for a more exploration based/skill based system, while still having a large 80 hour story.  And Dragon Quest IX mixed the job/class system with the skill system and exploration of Dragon Quest VIII.

Which for the record, I spent 160 hours on both Dragon Quest VII and VIII, but in Dragon Quest VIII, it was by choice.