Instant Radical

Yep, no FMVs in the 3DS version, cutscenes are all rendered in-game and look so much better than in the original.

Okay, I'm going to try to rank them. 1. Dragon Quest VII - This game is huge, in every way. I could write about how I love the characters, the rebuild-the-world mechanic, the absurdly unbalanced class system, or its insane length, but I'll just say that what really keeps me coming back to this game is the story. The overarching story is pretty standard, but I love the standalone stories of the individual towns/islands. I think they have some of the best writing in the whole series. 2. Dragon Quest V - Best overall story, awesome characters and gameplay. Mildrath/Nimzo isn't a terribly compelling antagonist, but Gema/Ladja and the other goons are really hateful. The only thing I don't like about this game is its heavy emphasis on random luck (the casino, monster recruitment.) 3. Dragon Quest VIII - This is maybe the DQ experience that is closest to perfect. Amazing graphics, gameplay, everything. The difficulty and length are just right. And it has my favorite music of any DQ. I also really like the voice acting, and think this might be the best-localized DQ ever. 4. Dragon Quest IV - If I want to introduce people to the series, I tell them to play this game. It's concise, fairly short, has a cool cast of characters, and great post-game content. It's also fairly easy to get 100% completion compared to the rest of the series; and I never get tired of fighting the hilarious chicken-and-egg bonus boss dudes. 5. Dragon Quest III - I like DQIII's story and gameplay a lot. I think the first few hours are a little dull, but once you get past the pyramid things pick up. Its weak point, IMO, are the characters - I don't like the create-your-own-soulless-companions mechanic. 6. Dragon Quest VI - VI is like a bigger, badder version of IV, but not quite as good, and a little too overblown. This has one of the series' weakest stories, but some cool characters. And Dark Dream is an awesome bonus boss. 7. Dragon Quest IX - IX is like III, and lacks good characters. The gameplay is okay, but it feels like a watered-down version of VIII, I don't like the graphics, and it's too heavily tilted on the post-game content, which I don't really like. The main story feels too short and seems like a warm-up for post-game grinding. 8. Dragon Quest I - The original. It's not a bad game at all (especially the SNES and GBC versions), I just like the others more. 9. Dragon Quest II - While not an awful game by any stretch, it lacks the cohesion that I think makes the others in the series so good.

Final Fantasy VI and IX are better than their corresponding Dragon Quests. DQ stomps every other FF game, though.

Nera's always been my favorite wife choice. I think she's the most intelligent of the three (which would make sense, considering her education), like when you talk to the Psarologist guy in Coburg. Bianca says something like, "Sounds purdy complicated to me!" while Nera says something smart and observational about the dude. She has a lot of good party talk stuff to say, in general. Plus she's pretty, sweet, compassionate, and loving - what more could you ask for in a wife?? She talks like she's weak and useless, but she doesn't give herself enough credit - she makes a great spellcaster later in the game. Also, there is no doubt that Hero + Nera + Kids is the absolutely sexiest looking party possible. They're all purple, white, and blue, and dang does it look magnificent. I have no sympathy for Crispin. That guy had a serious case of one-itis. Losing his crush and getting himself hurt made the guy grow up, get some confidence, and become a man - Nera wouldn't have been happy with a dude she constantly needed to baby and take care of. No wife wants to be her husband's baby sitter. She wants a strong, capable guy to look up to - this is the root of Debora's problem, already being super-macho, she's going to have a hard time finding a guy who's sufficiently manly enough to make her happy. The fact that I'm probably reading too much into this is a testament to how great this game is, and how effectively it makes you care about its characters.

What really frustrates me is how a lot of the DLC content for Terry's Wonderland was limited to Japanese convenience stores or McDonalds. This wouldn't be a problem since convenient stores are everywhere, but it seems like only ones in TOKYO have the wireless network. This means that people living everywhere else in Japan (me) are basically screwed if we want monsters like Dimensaur. Very annoying.

In before people starting shipping Dwaine and Jess. Single here, but if you want to get me you'll have to travel to the frozen reaches of Japan and pry me away from the many lovely girls we have here... good luck.

The DQ3 video is talking about how hundreds of kids skipped school to go buy the game. I really like the part where people duck their faces around the TV camera. So Japanese!

Real name: Kyle Residence: Iwate, Japan (currently on vacation in the US, going back to Japan next week.) Age: 24 Height: 6' 3" / 191 cm Weight: 160 / 72 kg Ethnicity: White American of English/Scottish descent Hair: Dark blonde Eyes: Green Hand: Left What I do: I'm a writer and guitarist. I work as a teacher in northern Japan. DQ is the only game I ever play anymore. I also like fashion (especially Japanese denim, leather, and repro styles), reading books, and walking.

Great outfit Dragon Chaser, I like how the snow makes your slime companions look all glowy.

YES! Haha, that's exactly why I sold my TV. I've put in about thirty hours of gameplay so far with Terry 3D. Haven't gotten Slime Mori Mori yet, but probably will. I bought this system pretty much just for Terry 3D, but there are some other games I want to play. I had no idea that there was region lockout on this when the DS didn't have it. If I didn't know Japanese I would have been seriously pissed when I fired up my system and discovered I couldn't change the language. I thought about getting the bundle but it cost over $250. I got a like-new used system for just $100, much better deal.

Unfortunately I haven't been following DQX news all that much; I don't own a Wii or even a TV, so I wouldn't be able to play without shelling out a ton of cash.

Hey dudes, I posted on Dragon's Den a few years back, around the time DQV for DS came out. No idea why I quit coming, I've still been playing the games this whole time. Anyway, I live in Japan (and understand Japanese) so I've been enjoying DQM3DS since it came out. Current lineup is Balzac and Thunderbird for my main beatdown squad, and I'm currently training Gold Golem and Genodark (Genosidoh), in addition to support monsters like Unicorn for healing. I really need to go ahead and get the Lamia and Dimension Dragon downloads while they're still available. The original DWM was the first RPG I ever played (back when I was in middle school) and as much as I love it, after playing Terry 3DS a lot of problems with the original become apparent: the useless wildness stat and personality traits, the suffocatingly small inventory and monster farm, slow travel, and so on. The new version really is superior to the original in just about every way, except maybe for ease of breeding monsters like Goldslime. I hated the first Joker, thought Joker 2 Pro was just so-so, but absolutely love Terry 3DS. They finally got the perfect blend of old and new game mechanics, especially scouting by incorporating meat into the mix (today I managed to scout a Wing Tiger, Lord Without A Name, and Genodark, for example. Sorry, I have no idea what a lot of these monster names are in the localizations and vice versa. What on earth is Night Clubber, Giga Demon?) The post-game content is pretty cool too, you go to the kingdom of Frost Tree and engage in a "Legendary Tournament." I won't spoil too much, but everyone is so much better fleshed out in this game. The regular ending has been changed (for the better) from the original. The King of Great Tree, Great Log, Mileyu, and especially the hilarious king of Dead Tree are much more interesting and actually participate and contribute their monsters to the post-game, which is a lot of fun. Anyway, I hope this gets localized so everyone else can join in on the fun as well. I'm especially interested in seeing if they come out with a remake of DQM2 in the future, as I'd sure love to see monsters like Gorago, Asura Zoma, Lord Draco, and other original monsters that never seemed to make it out of that game.

I'm replaying VIII right now and I honestly don't think it gets enough credit as one of the series' best games. It's *far* more difficult that it's commonly made out to be - especially around the fight with Dhoulmagus. The only thing that really makes the game easier is that there are only four characters, and between them you get all the spells and abilities like Kabuff/Oomph/Insulate/etc., whereas in other games such as IV you have to switch people around depending on the situation.

I've played I-VIII, with the exception of V (I'm hotly anticipating the DS release!) plus DWM I, II, and Joker. I think my favorite out of all of them is VII - it's the biggest, most epic, and most satisfying RPG I've ever played. I think the class system, which was much better executed than in VI and III, has a lot to do with it. The mini-stories of each island were excellent and quite memorable as well, giving VII a lot more meat, storywise, than some other DQ games. It was incredibly challenging, but worth every one of those 100+ hours I put into it... on my first playthrough! I played through the whole blasted game TWICE and still didn't do everything! Besides, how can you not like a game where you get to test your strength against God? I actually thought he was pretty easy, but I was so obsessed with learning classes that it wasn't too hard by the time I got to him. As far as challenge goes, I think either II or VI takes the cake for the main series. II is just ridiculous (thank heavens I wasn't playing the NES version!) and Darkdream is almost certainly the most powerful boss in any DQ game. But I think the Monsters games are actually far more difficult than any of the main series due to the stunning amount of effort necessary to breed the most powerful monsters - especially in Joker.

I'm a bit of an oddball. I played Dragon Warrior Monsters on GBC way back in 2000; it was my first DQ game and I didn't realize until quite a bit later that there a ton of games preceding it! I palyed DWMII and then DW I-III as they were released on the Gameboy. So I don't have any sort of nostalgic memories of playing the originals on NES, but oh well.