Dragon Warrior VII (Sony PlayStation 1, 2001)

Dragon quest VII may not have the flashiest graphics or the best music of its era (as compared to, say, Final Fantasy or Zenogears), but it makes up for its somewhat homely appearance in its playability and length. Where many current RPGs will commonly finish out at roughly forty hours, Dragon Quest VII is well over a hundred, and that's not including sidequests and hidden dungeons.
It isn't all power-leveling either...the premise of slowly restoring the continents of the world generally follows the pattern of going to the past, stopping whatever caused the island or continent to disappear, and returning the continent or island in the present and stopping whatever chaos is occuring. It's neat to see characters from one island pop up again on another island, or recurring problems as the evil sweeps across the planet.
The class system is back from Dragon Quest VI (Which will hopefully end up on the Wii virtual console, translated of course), letting you customize your team with hundreds of unique abilities and spells. The characters (With the exception of the silent protagonist) are well laid out, and pretty much everything you'd want in a dragon quest sequel is here, right down to the slimes and drakees.
It isn't as pretty as newer games; limited rendering and sprite-based characters seem more than a little out-of-date after games like Final Fantasy XII or Zenosaga, but for a lengthy adventure that will entertain you and give you a definite challenge, Dragon Quest VII will definitely satisfy your RPG cravings.

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.

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.

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.

I've always been a fan of the Dragon Warrior series and this not only my favorite of the series, but it is probably my favorite RPG of all time. The game largely sticks to the classic format of the NES Dragon Warrior games-- the battles are basically the same (with some added graphics) and the exploration on the world map is basically the same. There are suitable upgrades to the graphics, but this game won't dazzle you with its special effects the way Final Fantasy VII or VIII did. The story line is what makes this game really fun for me. Most of the game involves observing some catastrophe in the present time, and eventually returning to the past (by means of placing shards into an ancient casing) to describe how the catastrophe occurred, and how to prevent it. Using this story telling format, the party embarks on many interesting adventures. This game will surely provide you with MANY hours of fun and is a must play for an RPG enthusiast!