Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Dragon Quest VII is a JRPG first released on the original PlayStation in 2001, then remade on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. This game’s plot takes place in a world where there seems to be only one island kingdom, at least until the player’s plucky band of heroes investigates an ancient temple and discovers other islands magically hidden away. Together, they work to restore the missing lands, and discover the reason for their disappearance.

In my opinion, this game’s story has some interesting elements like the missing islands, but those elements are far too outweighed by an overabundance of tired RPG tropes. What’s worse, I find the characters to be extremely unlikeable, with one of your initial trio of characters, Maribel, being so annoying I inwardly groaned whenever she started complaining… I mean talking.

This game uses relatively simple 3D visuals for its characters and locations. These visuals have been updated from the original PlayStation release with new textures, but they still remain unimpressive, even having some obvious pop-in. This is all backed by an orchestral soundtrack that seems pretty typical for a Dragon Quest game. I’ve never really been a big fan of the music in Dragon Quest games, finding the music to be forgettable, and this game is no exception.

Unfortunately, the gameplay doesn’t endear itself to me either. Dragon Quest VII has some pretty atrocious pacing issues. There’s quite a lot of tedious fetch quests, but one of the biggest problems here is the absurdly overly-long intro. I kid you not, it was an hour and a half before I even saw a single fight, and that’s without any dawdling, without talking to every character and exploring every nook and cranny of the starting area. It was mostly a lot of running back and forth, doing errands for various characters.

Once the game finally starts proper, this is a fairly bog-standard RPG in terms of its gameplay, featuring the series’ traditional first-person perspective for fights. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t seem to want to let players even select which enemies they target with attacks in battle, which is extremely frustrating and limiting. Later on, players will get the opportunity to make combat at least a bit more interesting with job classes… but even that is something you have to wait for.

I expect I may earn some hate for saying this, given how revered the Dragon Quest franchise is, but I strongly disliked Dragon Quest VII. While the game is reasonably polished and has at least some of its series’ charm, it is plagued with a wealth of problems – unlikeable characters, atrociously poor pacing, tedious fetch quests, dated visuals, and frustratingly limited gameplay. Some may think it’s an outrage that I’m giving this game a C- grade, but I honestly think I’m being generous. While I recognize that some will be able to look past its problems to enjoy its better qualities, for me this is an RPG that’s so unenjoyable I cannot recommend it to any but the most diehard fans of the Dragon Quest franchise.

tl;dr – Dragon Quest VII is a JRPG about a group of youths who go on a quest to recover the rest of the world’s hidden islands. It has some of its series’ typical charm, but this is a game plagued with problems – unlikeable characters, atrocious pacing, dated visuals, and needlessly restrictive gameplay chief among them. Diehard Dragon Quest fans may still find this game enjoyable, but most players will be better-served by seeking out other games within the genre.

Grade: C-

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