Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past - Nintendo 3DS Standard Edition

I'm a big jrpg fan, and definitely love a great game mechanic. One of my favorite examples of great mechanics in a jrpg is the macros and if this then that in Final Fantasy XIII. This game has a great mechanic. The jobs feature of DQ7 game is such a unique and fun way to level up your character. Unlike xp (which you also get), your job level is raised when you fight battles as that job class. But only enemies that are at your challenge level give you credit to raise your level. You can't grind for xp and job levels for too long in most of the maps. It's great pacing for a modern audience.Writing is wonderful. Game does a great job weaving threads of previous stories into your current questing area. Music is lovely.I played through DQ7 on the Playstation two separate times. I lost my save game file after 70 hours of game play. I was much younger and had no kids.But now, as a dad who is 40, I can say that this is a game I can realistically play, making incremental progress at my own pace. They lovingly worked very hard on this game. It is not an entry level game, but it is a great example of why the Dragon Warrior is a much better franchise than the Final Fantasy series. Japan agrees with me.If you find yourself agreeing with Japanese young adults and middle aged men who still game, you will really love this game.

I bought this game for my wife. She adored it on Playstation, and she adores the upgraded graphics and nice touches that they've added to bring it to the 3DS. Unfortunately, all the upgrades seem to be cosmetic, as a lot of the User Interface designs are still cumbersome. Saving requires running through man, many extraneous text boxes. We ransacked the house for her old DQ7 players guide, and while names may have changed and other things added, it's pretty accurate. Unless there are large changes further into the story. We don't really play in 3D, but I guess it's fine. we turned it on for a few seconds, said it looked alright, and turned the 3D back off.Be aware, this game takes a long time to get going. She stated that it took about an hour before she got into her first dungeon and battle. Story wise, the game is amazing, and will eat up a ton of your time. Sadly, as is typical of DQ games, grinding is heavily encouraged, as enemies don't give you much money or experience points. If those things don't bother you, you'll find a great RPG with great writing, likable characters, adorable art, and pun-filled antics.

Dragon Warrior VII was quietly released back around the year 2000. I only knew about it because I stumbled upon it at a Best Buy back when it was originally released. While the game was rather graphically clunky, it was still a lot of fun. I've been waiting for Sony to release it as a PS1 classic, or for an updated version to come out for quite some time now. An update was released in Japan some 3 years ago, with rumor that it might come to the US on iOS, Android or 3DS. Well, here it is, in all of it's glory on the 3DS! And it's wonderful!The biggest improvement one would notice (had they played the original) is the graphics. DQVII now looks pretty much like DQVIII from the PS2. Other nice improvements include a journal-like feature, and polished dialogue. The story is pretty much unchanged (though they claim the intro portion has been streamlined, but it still took me about 2 hours to get through.) Mechanically, the combat is still the same as I recall, but they changed the graphical presentation, to match DQVIII.Some things that haven't changed - the music! As usual to the series, the music is quite good, and always captures the mood of what's going on.Ultimately, I'd highly recommend this game to any RPG fan. For those who've played the game before and enjoyed it, I think this will be a refreshing way to capture some nostalgia, as the visual improvements are definitely worthwhile. Those who couldn't get into the original due to the rather terrible graphics, well... give this a whack!