I found this post I made on another website and barely remembered, but I wanted to save it for posterity since I think it was a pretty good one. Someone asked with Dragon Quest games they should play, and I responded.
DQI: It's okay. It's a classic. Hasn't aged great, but you can't really fault it since it was trying to simplify an alienating genre essentially for kids and it succeeded at that. The SF version is much more playable and less tedious (all the other ports followed suit).
DQII: I won't play it again. Already obsoleting DQI's battle system. This game introduced multiple foes and party members to the series, and also a much wider variety of spells and enemy types. It actually has more depth than a lot of JRPGs 10 years later. Unfortunately, the game is very unbalanced, particularly toward the end, so it pretty much requires wasted time leveling up, and is in part to blame for the reputation the DQ series has for being a grindfest. That's really only true in the NES games, and especially the first two.
DQIII: One of my favorites. An awesome game that showed the developers learned a lot from making the last two. The ability to form a party adds replayability and agency, which is a great touch, but more importantly the map design has been significantly improved. This game is actually fun to explore, and gradually piecing together everything you need to do in the second half is engaging. The SF version (and Android) made it even better. My one knock on this game is that I don't care for the DQ class system when it comes time to swap classes; Final Fantasy handled this a lot better by making class changing more of a key mechanic throughout the games.
DQIV: Really solid game. In terms of balance and storytelling, it's the best of the Famicom DQ games. Instead of customizing characters, you play with characters who have established stories and personalities, minimal as they are. Of course, they had more personality than most RPG characters did at the time. The first four chapters of the game in which you control distinct parties that will later band together are a lot of fun from a narrative standpoint. It reminds me of a Kurosawa film a little bit. Overall, this game is a very solid experience, and it's also a fairly concise game by the standard the series would set later on.
DQV: Another solid entry. I can understand this being someone's favorite DQ game. It's the most creative one from a narrative standpoint; you follow the hero from boyhood to parenthood, with good times and bad times along the way. Not a lot of games had tried to build a connection to a character through this type of experience at the time DQV came out, and it still holds up all right. The game also features monster recruitment, which is a whole lot of fun until you start getting lots of human party members, at which point the monsters start to feel out of place. I would have preferred the developers keep the monsters in a separate entry from the family story, but this is what we have. It has my favorite soundtrack in the series, and was probably the easiest DQ game until IX.
DQVI: I won't play it again, but it's all right. This game tries to ape on Final Fantasy V a bit; you change classes, you try to get somewhere with it. Unlike FFV, this takes an absurdly long time in DQVI. Granted, it's a really long game (like 50-60 hours, which is crazy for a Super Famicom title) so you will probably master a couple of classes by the end. Parts of the game feature incredible difficulty spikes with no real warning, which I wasn't too happy about. I think the best thing about this game is the setup: you find yourself traveling between two nearly-identical worlds, but aren't sure which is the real one or what it all means for a long time. It's more intriguing at the start than it eventually ends up being, but cool nonetheless.
DQVII: One of my favorites, but stay away unless you have tons of free time and/or really love Dragon Quest. This game is the Terranigma of the Dragon Quest series. You start on a lonely island with just a couple of towns on it, then gradually start rebuilding the entire world (and the world is enormous) by going to the past, defeating monsters that destroyed that place, finding shards that warp you to new places in the past, seeing what changes when you change the past, RETURNING to the past at times, and the list goes on. It's complex, tedious, and against all odds, very addictive. One thing I love about this game is each place you go to in the past is like a little vignette--you solve a mystery or help a character do something, and that serves both as a background for the place you went to and a device that helps you remember every place in the world. By the time I finished this game, I felt like the world was very well-developed in a way most RPGs couldn't dream of pulling off. The cost is that the game takes absolutely forever to play, like a minimum 80 hours when rushing. The battle mechanics are pretty much a repeat of DQVI, with a few improvements but still all of the tedium. It feels weird discouraging people from playing one of my favorite games, but I honestly think you should only even give it a shot if you're the type of player who loves town exploration and world-building enough to devote 100 hours to it.
DQVIII: My favorite game in the series, and easily the most recommendable. Not much needs to be said. It has awesome graphics that bring the classic DQ feel while making it feel modern for once. At least, it did in 2005. Features the best characters in the series, owing much to the fact that it has more dialogue than previous games. Yangus and Angelo are great comic relief. The game has lots of side quests and stuff to explore, but you can also just stick to the main storyline and probably have a good time unless you just hate Dragon Quest I guess. I enjoyed the new skill system, which is a much needed simplification of the class system in VI/VII that retains the unique qualities of each character, but sadly you will probably want to play with a guide to know what your skill paths are going to earn you. It's an overall great game in spite of random sour spots.
DQIX: Dragon Quest for casuals, pretty much. You get lots of customization, and almost any choice you make will have you steamrolling everything. One cool aspect is that since stats barely matter in this game, you can dress up your characters pretty much however you want. Fashion Quest IX. The story is a step down from VIII; it's there, but the villain kinda shows up at random near the end and everything before that feels disconnected. I'm not saying DQIX is a bad game; it's probably good for introducing new players, but since I had played so many of the games before this one, I was let down. Oh, and the game was intended to be played with friends over a now defunct wireless system. Living in South Carolina, I am the only person who actually plays Dragon Quest within 50 miles, so that was obviously out. I can't imagine multiplayer Dragon Quest actually being fun, but apparently some people dug it.
