[21/1000] [PS1] Dragon Quest (Warrior) VII

Platform: PS1

Release date: August 26, 2000

Developer: Heart Beat Inc.

Publisher: Enix

Genre: RPG

Battle System: Turn Based

Difficulty: Normal

Setting: Fantasy

 

 Dragon Quest 7 has reputation as one of (if not) the longest games in series, with story only can take up to 100 hours and after playing it myself, I can say that's it's not true. It's definitely long, much longer then previous entries, but not 100 hours long. Maaaaybe if I beat post game and level all jobs to maximum it might took 100 hours or even more.

 It's the first (and only, not counting the remakes) mainline DQ game on ps1 and it's the first one to use 3d graphics, other than that game looks and feels like previous entries.

The game takes place on a small island of Estard which is the only land in the world, story begins with the hero, who lives in a small town of Fishbel, along with his friends Maribel and prince of Estard Kiefer discovering ancient ruins on a island and opening them. Inside they find a way to go to the past, when other continents still existed and, by solving problems there, restore them in the present. I like this episodic story structure. So the story here works like this: you find a pieces of tablet, place them on their respective altar in ruins and travel to the past, help people in the past to restore piece of land in your time, explore newly appeared land, repeat until final scenario starts. However this story takes a looooong time to actually start. Prologue is very long, it can take up to two hours till you see first battle and around 20 hours until you get to Dharma temple where one of the main game features, class system, located. 

Speaking of class system I really like them and I like how this game handles it: once you pick class your stats are adjusted to it (warrior gets higher str but less mp for example) and you get new skills and spells as your class gains levels. It levels by number of battles, not by exp you get and it seems class won't level up until you fight monsters of your strength. All abilities you learn you can still use after changing classes. Maxing out some classes can unlock more classes, for example mastering warrior and fighter unlocks dragoon. DQ7 also has monster classes which allows you to learn some monster abilities but I never used them. And last thing - combo skills which you learn by leveling two specific classes, like very powerful sword dance which you can get by leveling warrior and dancer.

Other than that gameplay is pretty much the same as previous Dragon Quests. Battles are turn based, dungeons have some interesting puzzles. There's also monster park - after each battle there's small chance that you recruit monster and send them here and immigrant town which grows as you find people (usually at inns) to invite here.

 This is the first 3d DQ game. While characters are still 2d sprites, environment is now in 3d and you can use L and R buttons to rotate camera. Some dungeons has really cool designs, my favorite is really cool and bizarre looking Time Vortex. Music is great too with many memorable tunes. 

I liked this game overall, it's really good but I still prefer previous dqs. It just felt a bit boring sometimes and pacing is way too slow. But damn this last boss looks too cool. The more hp he loses the more he literally melts with his pieces of flesh falls off his body and yet he still tries to beat you and refuses to die. Maybe this is my favorite of all last bosses in series. This is a great game but you may want to stick with newer release: there's a remake on 3DS and Reimagined on all current gen consoles but since both remakes streamlined story and cut some content, PS1 release is still might be the most complete version.

Final stats:

Game playtime: 56h 21m
Total playtime: 14d 18h 19m