A look back at: Dragon Warrior VII

A game that has been repeatedly said to last over a hundred hours for just its main story alone took me about 80 of those hours to beat. Hmm, I'm getting to be an expert if I can finish this game at such a time. Regardless this still clocks as one of the ones that took me the overall longest time, next to Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden III (this one is long due to the multiple paths I took) and Lufia: The Legend Returns. Dragon Quest VI is already long too, but this one takes it and then some.

Arguably the series is getting better still, as well as much more refined. No longer do I need to worry about incessant grinding despite the level gaps being huge, thanks to the class system from VI making a return, the one thing I must worry about are the battles I fight and the level threshold that prevents me from getting more job levels. Not to mention the hybrid skills, cause there's specific skills that outshine the rest (a lot of these are redundant as hell). Basically, I'll grind job classes until I get the threshold level for one character then continue with the plot, eventually I'll get to the top classes and then get their epic skills. I never really bothered with the monster classes though.

But before any class changing can be done I'd say Dragon Quest VII suffers from early game hell. The entire first half of the game can be miles tougher than the rest, because once you get those good skills like SwordDanc and Lightning and Vacuum and such, most random encounters are cake. But before that your characters will gain only a select few skills then stop after certain levels are gained altogether, which sucks. Even worse as Kiefer is the main fighter, he leaves just before the games HARDEST segment, the Dharma Temple part where you actually LOSE your skills, are forced into a prison with delusionals, and actually have to fight your way out old-school style, with two hopeless fights thrown in as well as a stupid arena. For this I was rather low-level, but this was to my advantage later as the level threshold around the temple was 24 and I could grind until I got plenty of desirable classes and as a result my characters were much stronger.

So, plot. Lots and lots of it, time-traveling from present to past, unlocking the mysteries and all for the lost continents, some crazy moments where despaired citizens either don't last or grow crazy. The demon lord, basic equivalent of Satan as far as Dragon Quest villains go, is perhaps the best villain to date, not only sealing off continents once, but twice, the second time portraying himself as a god and trying to get the world to worship him alone and taking their weapons. Freedom isn't to limit everything, which is a nice philosophy this game portrays.