Hey everyone!
I've always wanted to get into DQ and
this thread helped me so much getting into it. I'm currently marathoning all of the games! When XI came out I got very interested in the franchise so I used that thread to figure out which versions of each I should play.
I went with the phone versions for I and II, didn't super love them, then played III's fan translated SNES version and wow, that game quickly became one of my favorite games ever - certainly my favorite Dragon Quest up to this point and the game that got me into the series. The job system is great, I loved the graphics, probably one of the prettiest games on the SNES, this is where they really started their smaller vignette style of storytelling and it just all comes together in such a nice way. It's probably in my top 5 RPGs now easily.
DQIV (mobile) I kind of enjoyed. Going back to touch controls after having buttons was a little bit of a hassle, plus I vastly preferred DQIII's simplicity. IV's added complexity in the scenario and stuff didn't do much for me, and the structure of it got kinda on my nerves (I also am not a fan of Arte Piazza's graphics, monster sprites aside, which will be a recurring theme...)
DQV (PS2) was great! I mean, I kinda hated the graphical style and noticed heavy asset reuse from the DS version of IV (or, I guess, the other way around since the PS2 version of V came out before) but the monster designs looked amazing in the 3D style they went for and the plot retained some of that simplicity from the III days while also telling an emotionally involving story.
DQVI (mobile) I actually started with the SNES version which looked amazing, but the quality of the fan translation was a little bit too rough for me to continue that. I gotta say I was really hooked at the start and thought that this would become a favorite, at least the story, but then it kinda loses focus in the middle stretch and the lack of guidance and awkward sequence breaking traps made this one hard to get through. Plus, the asset reuse, particularly on towns and such from Arte Piazza really highlights that you shouldn't marathon these games...
...so naturally I kept marathoning these games. Now I'm currently playing DQVII (3DS) and well. Arte Piazza still using the same freaking assets for the environment after so many years and games is really getting to me. I can't fathom what they were thinking! Making a 100h+ game but having everything look not only the same but also the same from so many games that came before it is kinda grinding at me. I like the writing, though so far it's very formulaic. But I'm only about 15h in, which to my understanding isn't all that far in this game, so I guess we'll see. I just wish the environments...didn't look so samey. I doubt this will become one of my favorites but I will definitely finish it.
As of right now my ranking for all the ones I've finished would probably be III > V > IV = VI > II > I