After 100hrs+ and clearing the game with the "TRUE ENDING" I felt that I can give a proper review. Seeing others playing 10hrs and saying they had enough.. They are missing the entire game because the story doesn't even get good till 40-50hrs.. Anyone giving a less than a 8 after 10hrs of playing is just a dumb review! They are not even DRAGON Quest fans.. I have played the original NES when I was a child and evolution of this series is just awesome!
Right now I am doing all the "post game" stuff which is actually fun! The story doesn't get really great till you start playing the "Post Game" stuff to find out what is really going on! This is my 2018 RPG game of the year with Octopath Travelers running very close. This was a very tough choice to pick between the two, but I really loved Dragon Quest slightly more probably because of the game series.
This is the BEST Dragon Quest game in the entire series with number 8 closely behind it!!
The Dragon Quest formula has not changed since the beginning and i really liked that. Having played the original Dragon Warriors (Quest) back in the 80s with the turn base battle mechanics formula, which hasn't changed too much. The music is also very similar from the original and I very much liked that.
The graphics are absolutely stunning and some of the best Anime background and art style I have seen - 10! I love the backgrounds, cut scenes and characters.
The Music is an 8 for me. While they kept the similar music I felt they could have added real melodies to rather than the old retro sounds to give it a more a crisp sound and background. They only used their main song from the Orchestra and you can tell the difference and wished they used more of that style and music choices all throughout the game to give it a more polished feel.
Gameplay battle mechanics 9 - This is your standard turnbase game and love the fact they added a couple of new elements to it - "PEP". I would like for them to have better menu choices so it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay or a more cleaner approach. I didn't like the fact you can move your characters around to different positions, but made absolutely no difference. But overall its very smooth gameplay and I loved they haven't changed the formula too much on this.
Story - This was 10. The reason why is because the game doesn't heat up till you get to the POST game when you find out more about what is going on - Don't want to spoil so don't miss the "POST" game story! Its very good!! The character development is also awesome with some really fun group of people to travel and fight!
Overall - I would give this a 9.5 rounded it off to a 10 since this is the BEST Dragon Quest game in the series!! I would give this the RPG game of the year with Octopath Travelers running closely behind it. I will buy the Switch version when it comes out so I can play it on the go!