I would highly recommend this game to any old school RPG fan. I don’t consider it to be the best Dragon Quest game in the franchise but it has enough charm, originality, and challenge to stand on its own. I have to mention that this is one of the harder Dragon Quest games, mostly because some of the bosses can be quite difficult. Beating them doesn’t require a ridiculous amount of grinding but it does require some ingenious strategizing and even a little bit of luck. You also need to invest a lot of time in this game. If you wish to experience everything in the game, including the two post-game bonus dungeons on your first playthrough, then you are looking at approximately 80 hours of gameplay. Yes, this is the longest Dragon Quest game in the franchise. There is grinding in this game, but you only really need to do in three places. Firstly, a bit at the beginning then once you have access to the jobs, you will need to do a lot of grinding to build up your skills for a tough boss fight, and then you will have to do some grinding near the end of the game. A few characters come and go from your party, but you have access to them all eventually, so none of your job experience for your characters go to waste. However, if someone new does join your team and his or her skills aren’t up to snuff, then you may need to grind a bit in order to give them a better skill set. Finding the shards is very important in the game because without the new shards you cannot continue your quest. There is some little in-game help but the hints the NPC gives you can be vague at times. For a first playthrough, I would highly recommend a walkthrough or a strategy guide. Based on Dragon Warrior 7’s merits and flaws, I would give it an 8/10. Although the graphics can be quite irksome at times and eventhough the game has some annoying and tedious parts, the overall quality of the story and the customizable job system compensate for its flaws.Read full review
For the quaint graphics, the thin characters, the so-so plot, and the time-intensive job system, I still spent most of the journey enjoying myself. The graphics are a huge leap over previous Dragon Warrior incarnations, and a huge leap behind other contemporaneous RPGs. Characters are flat, meander through a three-dimensional world, colorful, but somewhat bland--certainly nothing close to the meticulously detailed cityscapes of the Final Fantasy series. Easier on the eyes than your old-school NES games to be sure, but nothing of any independent attraction. Battles are quick, too, but still text based: the enemies, in a strange mix between action and screen, begin moving only when attacking--at other times they appear like pictures in a book. The plot is gargantuan - a systematic search through myriad islands, enlarging the original over-world in the process. Each island has its own little conflict to solve, some of which are fun; on the way one picks up pieces of the overarching problem, which I won't give away here. To make new islands appear one must collect shards; discovering one gives one a glimmer of satisfaction that proves addictive. That ultimate plot, when it emerges, doesn't cohere particularly well, and it's hard to care about the vacuous primary characters, much less the interchangeable secondary characters. Still, I'll be damned if there isn't an intensely enjoyable aspect to the constant cycle of discovery and exploration of the rising islands, of gaining new abilities through the job system, of trying to fulfill one of the side quests. The Dragon Warriors have always been marked by an extremely strange gameplay--if you want something, you have to earn it. Hours must be spent in the field gaining experience before you're set to venture to a new continent, or have the necessary funds for subsequent levels of armor and weaponry. That is their, and this installation's, charm, which makes it--for all its shortcomings and anachronisms--worth recommending. I do so.Read full review
I just recently finished playing Dragon Warrior VIII and decided to catch up in the series of Dragon Warrior/Quest games. I felt that the the 8th installment was probably one of the best games I'd ever played, so I was excited to get my hands on the 7th. I expected the graphics to be downgraded and they were...significantly but the good news is this: It doesn't matter! Anyone who enjoys a good RPG will love this game. As I said before, the graphics are horrible (Even for PS1 standards)but the gameplay and depth of the game more than make up for this inadequacy. The story is interesting. You find shards of land along your quest and use them to form specific pieces of land around your home island. As you find more shards, the more land that will appear thus the further you can advance in the game. The battle system is easy to pick up and the options of what your characters learn in the ways of skills and magic is endless. The job system is in place and you can advance your characters in certain classes to unlock higher and more beneficial classes. There is a sim-town near the beginning of the game that you recruit people for and try to build throughout your quest. The tiny medals are here as well as most everything you've come to know and love from this series. I would approximate that you will spend a good 80+ hours on this game. There's that much to do. Overall I would highly recommend this classic game and would easily plunk down forty dollars to play it.Read full review
I bought it about 2 months ago and so far I'm quite impressed. Unlike most people these days the grapics don't bother me. A lot of people are always whinning about grapics. The class system is excellent, it's my favorite in the series. 2nd of course would be DQ9. The gameplay is nice and simple. The length of the game is another great feature. It's one the main reasons why I bought the game. It doesn't have a bad story. The game, for me, didn't really start getting interesting until I got to change classes. Once you get to that point you start getting a wide range of abilities and spells. The beginning of the game is the most boring part. There is absolutly no fighting. It got to a point where I almost quit playing. But, after a little patience I got through it and the game took off from there. I would recommend this game to any old school RPG fan who has a little patience and doesn't mind some good old level grinding.Read full review
This game will take you a long time to beat and you will have to invest between 100-250 hours to beat it depending if you play the sidequests. Minimum it will take over 100 hours and that is really pushing it, I can not stress it enough. There are many sidequests such as casinos, a monster park where you can keep monsters you defeat, finding tiny medals for great weapons, etc. This game is extremely difficult if you do not have a Prima strategy guide. I am not saying it cannot be beat but would prove very difficult. As for the game itself, it starts out pretty annoying and boring. You have to explore your home land and open a time gate before you can even fight any monsters. It took me around 4 hours to beat just this part which may make you think the game stays like this and give up. I thought it was pretty cool fighting all the monsters and constantly upgrading weapons and levels. Towards the middle to end it will get very repetive and annoying fighting all the same monters to just get up a level in experience points. There are some tricks to getting them done much quicker especially near the end of the game. This is an older style RPG with older nintendo style graphics which some people do not like, especially some younger users. They did not bother me much at all. I think you would not have as long of game if they stuffed all the graphic info into one disc. There are tons of places to discover and many different monsters to fight. The game brought me back to when I was younger when I played the original Nintendo version, just bigger and better. I also cannot stress enough how much a strategy guide will be needed. Some things are not even in the strategy guide which will prove to be the most challenging such as; where to get all the tiny medals or how to get to the bonus dungeons. Look up Dragons Den on the web to get more detailed help. My brother is a hard-core gamer who thinks this game was not great but extremely challenging. He would not put it in the same league with the Final Fantasy games. I thought it was challenging, pretty fun, will give you something to do for a very long time, and worth every penny you spend on it for the time involved.Read full review
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in Video Games
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on Video Games