Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past
On my latest trek through the Dragon Quest library, I made my way through VII. I opted for the 3DS remake for the updated graphics and dual screen goodness.
Dragon Quest VII, I’ll admit, has been one of my least favorite entries in the series. It suffers from hollow story telling, and a gameplay loop that gets tired after a while.
The premise is fantastic. You are the son of a fisherman on the only island in the world. You and your best friend Kiefer believe there have to be other islands. Kiefer discovers a shrine on an often avoided side of the island, and you devise a way to enter. Once you’re inside you are greeted by a funny creature who shows you a room full of pillars you need to fill with tablet fragments you find among the world. The first pillar is rebuilt using tablet fragments you found on your home island. Once you piece it back together you are then transported to the past, but to a new island. Once there you have to solve a problem, the entire town has turned to stone except for one person. Once you journey around the island you somewhat solve the underlying problem, allowing the island to now be appear in the present day. This causes a major uproar back in your hometown. Well that’s the gameplay loop. Each time you go to the past you find more tablets while solving a problem. Once the island is available in the present, you visit it to find more tablets. This allows you to fix more pillars.
I found it charming, but it got old after the 6th or 7th. One of them you had to bounce between past and present 3 times to truly solve the problem plagueing the island. There were four sets of pillars, with 4-5 pillars each. I think it would be been more enjoyable had there been less pillars and fragments, but longer storylines in each section. Each past island had a simple and boring problem to solve. I think making it a bigger issue, spanning multiple islands would have allowed for better storytelling.
I also felt the vocation (job/class) system felt shoehorned into this one. You had your first few characters that started getting super powerful, but then you get new characters that have absolutely nothing mastered or leveled up, meaning they were lagging sorely behind. I think this entry would have fared better had each character had a set role. That’s just my personal opinion though.
All in all, it was a standard Dragon Quest game that did everything by the book. That’s what I love about them. You know what you’re getting. I just think this one overstayed it’s welcome.
