RPG Retrospective: Dragon Quest part 1

This is a big one as I will be taking a look at each Dragon Quest ( or Dragon Warrior in the states until the 8^th installment) game that I have played. A * notates that I didn't complete the game although I feel I played a sufficient amount of each game to talk about it in depth.

Dragon Warrior 1 & 2* GBC

Dragon Warrior 3* GBC

Dragon Quest 4 DS

Dragon Quest 5 DS

Dragon Quest 6 DS

Dragon Warrior 7* PS1

Dragon Quest 8* PS2

Dragon Quest 9* DS

I must have been around 14 or 15 when I first had a taste of the popular Japanese RPG franchise. At this point I was pretty used to flashy RPGs like Final Fantasy and other Squaresoft games at the time. I decided to pick this game up because it was 2 RPGs in one and it had received pretty good reviews.

The first game I tried was Dragon Warrior 1 and at first I wasn't very impressed. Battles had no flash and the gameplay systems were archaic. Why do I have to talk to the king to find out how much experience points I need to go up a level, why is there only one character to play as, and why are half of the monsters so cute you don't want to kill them. So after an hour of that skipped right on the Dragon Warrior 2.

That little river separates you from the last boss. Right at the beginning of the game.

Dragon Warrior 2 was more of my cup of tea and I had no idea why. Maybe it was because there were multiple characters, an advertised bigger quest and it seemed more exciting. So I played a lot more of Dragon Quest 2 and after I had recruited all of my party members (for a total of 3) I realized two important things. The first reason I liked Dragon Warrior 2 more was because of how familiar it was. It was pretty much was like the first game in terms of how it was constructed just with additional characters. The second important thing I realized is that DW2 was ridiculously hard and required an absurd amount of grinding. Not only that but your two other characters are somewhat useless as they would always die pretty quick and just weren't as useful as your beastly main character (and all he could do was attack). I was used to easy RPG's like FF7 or so oddly I went back to...

Dragon Warrior 1 and now I loved it. I kind of felt bad-ass that I was on this journey solo, with only my weapons and magic and my goal was to get my princess back and that is what I did. The whole adventure had a nice charm to it, nothing to dramatic or just strange, and there was a somewhat easily obtainable maximum level (30 I believe) . So after slaying the typical dragon at the end, the game decided to reward you in one of the coolest ways possible. I get to carry the princess all the way back from the dragons lair to the home castle. It's kind of silly but it is a some what gratifying and memorable reward.

The Good: The series establishes its charms and solid RPG gameplay. Quirky and catchy music themes. 2 games in 1 cart.

The Bad: Dragon Warrior 1 is quite old, Dragon Warrior 2 is quite difficult, and I know it is Gameboy Color but the graphics could use a little improvement.

Interesting : Since Dragon Warrior 2 is a direct storyline sequel, once you aquire the ship you can visit the original continent of DW1 in DW2 with some towns and stuff from the DW1.

Dragon Warrior 3 is supposed to be considered one of the better games in the series and I agree although I did not play a whole lot of it. At the start of this game is that you are given a personality based on a number of questions (some of which make you really think) and then you are temporarily put in a situation which the game judges you. Some require you to be honest about something but mine was pretty cool. I was a monster and I could have burned an entire village or just run away and leave them alone. If I ran away I was valiant and had good stats, if I burned the village to kingdom come, I would have been evil and that makes the game a bit more challenging because of the level ups are not as beneficial. This game also allowed for a total of four characters, which you can pick and choose at a bar in the beginning of the game. This allowed for a team of your liking which was pretty cool ( but this was nothing new at the time because Final Fantasy had done this already).

They also stepped up the production values. This game had cleaner graphics and the monsters in battle had actually attack animations which made it a lot more fun to fight. The reason I never got around to completing the game was due to the fact that I had lost the game, and it didn't help that after I had acquired the ship, I just had no clue where to go.

The Good: Much improved Graphics, party customization, cool introduction, still that same good DW rpg mechanics.

The Bad: I wish I played more of it, sometimes it is difficult to know where to go. Wish we had the Super Nintendo version.

This game has: One of the greatest last boss themes ever.