My time in the hospital while my wife was having our new baby was long, dull, and full of Dragon Quest VII. I bought the game at launch for the 3DS and it took a year and a half to beat. I took my time with it, and many breaks in between, but eventually finished off the end boss in just a few punishing moves having mastered the major classes for my party (and sporting some really good gear to boot).
Actually, it’s the only Dragon Quest game I can say with any honesty that I have completed start to finish, and even that is a bit removed from the truth considering I have not yet exhausted the post-game content. DQ games are time consuming affairs, and DQVII is one of the longest in the series. Yet I still consider myself a diehard series fan, seeing as I own and have at least played all of the numbered Dragon Quest titles.
In a few days, the eleventh entry in the series will make its way to our shores for the PlayStation 4 and PC and will likely help to shape the future of Dragon Quest in North America. Apart from DQVIII which did well on PlayStation 2, it’s difficult to tell just how successful the games are here since sales numbers are not readily available. When the Nintendo Switch was announced, I was hoping for one thing; an announcement of Dragon Quest X on the platform, the only game in the main series that’s never been localized. Originally released for the Nintendo Wii in 2012, it is now on its fourth major expansion and has since been ported from the Wii to numerous platforms including the PC.
With no localization in sight, I got sick of waiting. I signed up for the game, played through a couple of key story moments, grinded a character up to level 40, and struggled my way through the obvious language barrier, meeting some interesting people along the way. Make no mistake; despite being an MMORPG, DQX is absolutely a mainline Dragon Quest game, with the same flow of narrative, interesting locales, and familiar Akira Toriyama character designs and monsters the game is known for. And I can honestly say that we are missing out on an interesting, if not completely essential, chapter in the main series.
Source: Destructoid Playing Dragon Quest X outside of Japan isn’t easy but it’s absolutely worth it