(Should I have posted this in the OT? It seemed dead. Tried to find rules, but they seemed vague. Also first lltp, so let me know if something it not as it should be. It has been about three months since the game came out.)
Despite having not finished Bravely Default (I'm taking a break about 55 hours in), I decided to splurge and buy Dragon Quest VII. Despite Nintendo handling downloads in a really dumb fashion, but dislike of things won over, and I got the download version.
I have played the PSX game about 50 hours, but forget the details of most of it, and am now about six hours into this game. It's my first time doing it in Japanese.
I'll post my impressions:
It's really amazing how different the battles are from Bravely Default (which has one of the best battle systems ever IMO), yet how easy it was to get back into it. A big problem with DQIX was even though the battle system looked pretty, the animations made it slower than the older DQ games. If I close my eyes in DQVII3DS, it feels like it's going almost, if not as fast as the old games, great stuff.
I love the world map. I heard negative things about it, but I think it works really really well, especially when you're able to stare off into the sea. As first I didn't like how the first island is divided into different areas (i.e. maps), but I got used to it fairly quickly. I never really played DQVIII that much, so it's all quite a novelty for me.
A problem is that both camera control systems for the world map seems a bit dumb. Type 1 is too slow and without tight controls, and type 2 is too fast with too tight controls. I'm using type 2, but the fast spinning camera sometimes breaks the immersion for me.
This game is a great pleasure to play after Bravely Default, considering how hard that was for me as a non-native Japanese speaker, and how easy Dragon Quest is to understand. There's usually a few words every few minutes I don't know, but they're easy to check, or to just guess the meaning and go on. The beauty of Dragon Quest games is their simplicity, and if you don't fully get why there's a bad dude in the tower, you'll know what you've got to do.
The graphics in this game look about a million times better than I thought they would. I can't rationally explain it, but the game looks so much better than videos I've watched of it, even when they're on the 3DS. I think this is because of Nintendo putting a 3DS screen image around videos on the 3DS sometimes, making the image a lower resolution. The colours and character models are especially great. For some reason though, it really bugs me how tall Kiefer is. He would have to duck to get through doors!
I haven't read about it, but this game must be easier than the original. I haven't had to level once, nor plan which equipment to buy. I use the tried and tested method of exploring dungeon/going back to inn/blasting through to boss, and everything dies pretty easily. The boss on the second island you go to (the volcano one) was so easy I thought that there must be another boss afterwards, but there wasn't. This was the same in the 3DS games though, so I suppose it's just the way it is.
I still haven't gotten to the Street Pass features (and I thought they were in the first few hours), but this is a perfect light game for my commute. I hope (like in Bravely Default) it doesn't matter that I'm playing the game months after others have most likely finished it. (Although in the 30 or so Street Passes I get on my commute, there's usually still one or two people still playing it.)
Now I continue playing, while doing so constantly thinking about if this is my favourite Dragon Quest, or not. Great times, love Dragon Quest.
Despite having not finished Bravely Default (I'm taking a break about 55 hours in), I decided to splurge and buy Dragon Quest VII. Despite Nintendo handling downloads in a really dumb fashion, but dislike of things won over, and I got the download version.
I have played the PSX game about 50 hours, but forget the details of most of it, and am now about six hours into this game. It's my first time doing it in Japanese.
I'll post my impressions:
It's really amazing how different the battles are from Bravely Default (which has one of the best battle systems ever IMO), yet how easy it was to get back into it. A big problem with DQIX was even though the battle system looked pretty, the animations made it slower than the older DQ games. If I close my eyes in DQVII3DS, it feels like it's going almost, if not as fast as the old games, great stuff.
I love the world map. I heard negative things about it, but I think it works really really well, especially when you're able to stare off into the sea. As first I didn't like how the first island is divided into different areas (i.e. maps), but I got used to it fairly quickly. I never really played DQVIII that much, so it's all quite a novelty for me.
A problem is that both camera control systems for the world map seems a bit dumb. Type 1 is too slow and without tight controls, and type 2 is too fast with too tight controls. I'm using type 2, but the fast spinning camera sometimes breaks the immersion for me.
This game is a great pleasure to play after Bravely Default, considering how hard that was for me as a non-native Japanese speaker, and how easy Dragon Quest is to understand. There's usually a few words every few minutes I don't know, but they're easy to check, or to just guess the meaning and go on. The beauty of Dragon Quest games is their simplicity, and if you don't fully get why there's a bad dude in the tower, you'll know what you've got to do.
The graphics in this game look about a million times better than I thought they would. I can't rationally explain it, but the game looks so much better than videos I've watched of it, even when they're on the 3DS. I think this is because of Nintendo putting a 3DS screen image around videos on the 3DS sometimes, making the image a lower resolution. The colours and character models are especially great. For some reason though, it really bugs me how tall Kiefer is. He would have to duck to get through doors!
I haven't read about it, but this game must be easier than the original. I haven't had to level once, nor plan which equipment to buy. I use the tried and tested method of exploring dungeon/going back to inn/blasting through to boss, and everything dies pretty easily. The boss on the second island you go to (the volcano one) was so easy I thought that there must be another boss afterwards, but there wasn't. This was the same in the 3DS games though, so I suppose it's just the way it is.
I still haven't gotten to the Street Pass features (and I thought they were in the first few hours), but this is a perfect light game for my commute. I hope (like in Bravely Default) it doesn't matter that I'm playing the game months after others have most likely finished it. (Although in the 30 or so Street Passes I get on my commute, there's usually still one or two people still playing it.)
Now I continue playing, while doing so constantly thinking about if this is my favourite Dragon Quest, or not. Great times, love Dragon Quest.
