Overall thoughts after completing the game. Started with Meer and took me little over 30 hours, but I left it on for quite long time while eating and stuff so the real play time would be around ~27 hour.
I am not a Dragon Quest fan. The only DQ game I played was DQ 8 for about an hour. So I don't have any background knowledge of DQ games.
I am also not a Musou fan. The last Musou game I played properly was DW5 in PS2 I think. I did try out some other Musou game demos when they were up on PSVITA and PS3 (DW vita and Onepiece Pirate Warriors I think)
Visuals - Overall it looks really good. The artstyle is fantastic. At first I was worried about this 3D artstyle which looked like Blue Dragon. I initially preferred the Cel-shaded look of DQ8. But after playing this game, I got to love this new artstyle and I really hope future DQ games (either Heroes or main number titles) continue with this artstyle. The character models are fantastic and looks quite close to the cutscene models. The lighting is also great and spell effects looks flashy. 1080P/60fps also makes the game great. The IQ is great and I didn't really notice much frame drops (but I am not really sensitive on framerate so don't trust me too much on drops) The only problem I have is the lack of AA and AF. Hopefully sequel will have better AA.
Sound - From title screen music to the ending, every music was really good. Since I haven't played past DQ games, I don't know how many of the tracks are from the past DQ games and how many are new for the game. But every music felt great and There wasn't any track that I didn't like.
Gameplay - There has been a lot of talks about the combat, whether if this is Musou game or not. I am not expert on Musou games but from my past experience, there is definitely resemblance of Musou combat system. Basic character movements and combo structure feels similar to Musou games I have played. Also the horde of braindead enemeis coming at you feels like Musou game as well.
However, there are many key elements to the combat that makes it not 'just another Musou game' for me. You fight as 4 member party, with ability to switch character at any time. While the party AI is not spectacular, it doesn't matter too much since you can switch to any member at any time. Sometimes you need to tank the enmey attack by guarding with the shield, freeze enemy and attack, heal when you HP is low, and etc. This gives the classic RPG feel that I haven' seen in Musou games.
The boss battles are very fun in this game. They are quite challenging so if you mindless mash buttons, you will die. I think they did fantastic job with difficulty in this game where it's fun and a bit challenging at the same time, while not really frustrating. Also some strong enemies that appear with smaller enemies give you some challenge that makes the combat fun.
Monster Coin is a system that really surprised me. When they announced it, I thought it was just a gimmick that wasn't really going to be useful. But when I actually played it, I was surprised at how well it was implemented, and also how important it was for the combat. As the game gets harder (the game does get quite challenging later on), Monster Coin is key to helping your combat, especially for tower defense type of mission (there are lots of them!).
You get 12 characters, which is kinda low for Musou game, but they are quite unique. Meer and Act, which are the main 2 characters, are pretty much the same except fire/ice elemental difference. But other than those 2, the rest of character feels quite unique. Even Terry, who uses same Sword/Shield like Meer and Act, feels quite different when you play him.
Story - I don't know how usual DQ game's story is, but DQH story was quite standard. I didn't think there was anything special, but at the same time I didn't think there were anything bad. The main characters are great, each with their own unique personalities. I really liked Meer&Act's personality. The other DQ guest characters are not as significant as main 4 but thats not a surprise. The dialogue was good, and voice acting was good as well. I was worried that Meer&Act's VA were not actual VAs, but I think they did good job. Helmut's VA was fantastic. Cutscenes were also good.
Some things I didn't like/wish it would improve
-The map is really small for most part, and missions are short in some cases so it breaks to flow.. Also the small maps makes it feel less of an adventure.
-The mission structure is basically: tower defense/escort/kill enemies and proceed types. The problem is there is way too much tower defense missions. While tower defense in this game is quite fun, I wish the missions were more varied out, with more missions that just ask me to wipe out the enemies.
-The combos/movesets are small. There is no variations and improvements in combos. Each character gets small combo sets and 4 skills. While some attack/skills have variations/improvements later on, they are too small.
-Side missions become tedious sometimes. Killing xxx number of monster gets annoying especially because of the map's enemy re-spawn structure. I wish there were some fun variety in missions(and map designs).
Overall, I really enjoyed the game. I got this game when I bought Metal Slime PS4 and at the time I honestly didn't have much expectation for this game. But after playing it I can't wait to play the free DLC contents in the future, and inevitable sequel.