Dragon Quest. My first contact with the series was Dragon Quest VII on PlayStation, which I picked up based on the fables of DQ's success in Japan and the Akira Toriyama art — I was a young kid getting into DBZ as it started to explode in the US and the likeness to DBZ in the art style was attractive.
I kinda instantly bounced off of it, having actually not taken up an interest in JRPGs until Super Mario RPG and FFVII. It felt basic to me, personally.
Fast-forward to Dragon Quest VIII, and admittedly the bigger draw was the included FFXII demo in North America for me. Literally why I bought it. Having just come hot off of my first contact with the MMORPG genre and a months-long deep addiction to FFXI, a single-player FF game dictated by MMORPG-style mechanics was irresistible to investigate, even at the full then-49.99 cost of DQVIII. I tried DQVIII, I found the graphics charming, but again, something about its tried-and-true classical roots in its gameplay just did not resonate with me.
And then, I think I was listening to the Bombcast at some point around the North American release of Dragon Quest Heroes and I remember whatever podcast that was, they described it as this very charming mix of musou combat and RPG mechanics that was just enough to entice me into a purchase, and that's when Dragon Quest just started to click with me. I really loved its style, its sort of upbeatness and vibrancy. So I later picked up Dragon Quest Builders, and had the same kind of experience. And then in my pre-release excitement for DQXI, I saw the Tim Rogers DQXI videos via Kotaku, and I remember that taking all of my built-up interest from DQ Heroes and Builders and framing it in a way that seemed to give life to all of the classical elements of the series that I had largely felt was invisible or unknown to me. DQXI finally did come out, I played it and really appreciated how refreshingly straight-forward it was to play, how its art style kind of sold a different mood of fantasy that I was somewhat unaccustomed to and felt completely charmed by, and to top it all off, I fell in love with the story and the cast of that game. Ever since DQXI's PS4 release in North America, I have gone back to the mobile ports of older games and trudged through them a bit, bought the DQ ports/remakes for 3DS, and still to this day continue to kind of expand on my growing appreciation for the series. I'm a very late comer to this realization, but I do now find DQ to be extremely charming and loveable, save for a few cultural points of friction — I refer, specifically, to long-time series composer Sugiyama and his vile political beliefs, but I won't start that conversation up here and I'm sure most users that care about DQ on this site are aware of what I'm alluding to.
Still, I've had some contact with Dragon Quest and some awareness of its stature in Japan for a good long while but it was just within this generation that it finally struck me and won me over. DQXI is maybe even one of my favorite games of this generation, and I am loving going back and being able to still appreciate some of the older titles because of just how familiar the systems and elements of these games are. Hell, thanks to Heroes and Builders, I feel like I can even safely invest excitement towards the series' spinoff titles.
