The main character is supposed to be yourself. When i'm playing the game i feel like i'm my own charater developing feelings for the people in the game like the right knight, erin, and all the other character who i need to help. The fact that you can press A and have auto battle has been in dragon quest since the first one and if you don't like it, i'm surprised FF13 is your favorite game.

In this game, you gave to create your own party at the Inn in stornway castle. You can either make them a warrior, munk, mage( black magic) , priest(white magic) , and other classes but they don't interact in the story at all but it's not a big deal since there are plenty of stories in the game. I don't think the music is forgettable. I don't think the game is easy at all. The diificulty pumps up by the 5th boss ( died like 10 times with that boss ) . Everything is very traditional to the other dragon quest games in the series and i hope it stays like that for a long time.

with FF13 problem is aftr chapter 6 th battles go so fast instead of manually entering attacks whch u can do if u choose to do in FF13 I ws fine pressing X othrwise u get left behind and u need to change paradigms evry 5 - 10 seconds, too many thngs wer happening...it was ATB, th battles never stopped, it went fast. In ff13 by th time u see your chrcters attack u need to hve entered next commands, its not turn based. 

With dragon quest it isnt ATB, its pure turn based, so jst pressing AAAAA without any sense ov urgency is gettng boring becaus u hve turns, the battle dusn't carry on without stopping (like in FF13). 

It wud be fine if th game was difficult, but ppl are saying difficulty spikes aftr you find abbot (which I'm doing now), so tht complaint mite go away.

I have created party, but am not attachd to them at all. I wnted real chrcters in my party like dragon quest before, tht way they cum with u on your journey and u get attched to them. Find mor about their past.

Thts the biggest disappointmnt, all we hve now is th main character (who dusnt have a very intersting back story) and party members u make, again no bck story, nuthing. At least NPC's are very gud, but they dnt make up for that.

hving no real chrcters in party is a big big deal for me.

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is a gud game, i like it, bt i thnk its one ov th weakest dragon quests.

Dragon quest's turn based aren't that boring if you're a fan of the series since the nes days. Having ATB would be a great idea they can add for DQX just like chrono trigger had an ATB system.

I was pretty disappointed when i found out i had to create my party instead of characters joining you like DQIV to DQVIII but i accepted it and gave the game a chance which i pretty much don't regret since i think the game is amazing.

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.

I agree DQ8 is esily th worst one. I like DQ9 more thn it already

DQ8 hd chrcters but th story was weak for me. DQ9 has a much bettr story but lacks chrcters, like u sed tho NPC's are wonderful (whch they werent in DQ8). So DQ9 is bettr than DQ8, dnt knw why metacritic has it lower?

For DQX I wnt to see fresh story like DQ9 has wth battle attacking like DQ9. I like how chrcters attack from any directin instead of "first person view" like in dq5/4 remake or way th enemies/main cast are divided in "traditinal battle screen" windows.

I wud like to see DQX hve monster catching, was a gud addition to DQ5.

Hw do we play online?

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'm currently playing DQ V at the moment on the DS, when I am finished with that I will get DQ IX.

DQV is widely seen as th best one (i disagree DQVII or IV is my favrite)

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that there are more persistant(non-episode based) characters. This is emphasized more toward the end when the overall story starts to open itself.  Sure you don't play as them, but why would that matter? Games where you have a pre-determined party have just as many flaws to replace the flaws that come with a player determined one. What I think is best about the game is that it isn't falling into the linearity that we see with other recent RPGs, which is the case for most Dragon Quest games more or less, but it still works, and the additions like the treasure dugeons, alchemy, etc just gives you more reasons to explore the world. As for the spike in difficulty, it takes a steady pace of increase after you save the Abbott like it has been said.  Actually, with quite a few of the bosses towards the end I ended up killing them with one character left who only had about 4 or 5 hp left. And you'll also have characters die in a dungeon frequently. Another refreshing experience after you save the Abbott is the introduction of side quests that allow you to get more classes. You eventually will have to kill monsters with restrictions on freedom in order  to  complete the quest. Then later on, you'll have to do some sidequests relevant to whatever weapon skill you level up, or whatever class at a specific level you are at. So basically the game has as much for you as you want to dig into it. For the main quest the pacing is excellent, as you never feel like you are in a place too long, and the  episode stories although while are similar add a difference to how you view the cities you traverse. Which is much more important than how you see the characters that fight with you with the aspects this game aims for(exploration.) Actually pre-determined characters probably wouldn't work to well with the massive amount of "end-game" content there is. 

Game didn't really pick up story-wise for me until after I obtained the you know whats. Now I am about to face off against you know who in the final battle.

This game has had me absolutely hooked for over a week now. I LOVE IT!!!