2000 Enix - Enix - PSX
Dragon Warrior? I've heard that name before, haven't I? Oh yes, Dragon Warrior, the RPG series, made by Enix, of which only the first four installments--all NES games--were brought to America.
Well, thanks to the incredible rise in popularity of RPGs in America (thanks to Square's Final Fantasy series), Enix has finally graced us with its products. While this is by no means the first Enix game to be brought to America since the RPG boom, it is one of the best.
Graphically, this game reminds me of Grandia and Xenogears. Three-dimensional environments constructed of polygons are explored and inhabited by two-dimensional sprites, made of pixels. The graphics are by no means ugly, but certainly behind the times. The in-game graphics of games that were released two or three years ago are more appealing than this game's few CG cutscenes. Polygons not withstanding, the in-game graphics could most likely be reproduced on the Super Nintendo.
The music and sound is also lacking. The majority of the background music is repetitive and irritating, at least after the first few times you've heard it. There are a few unique, interesting tracks which thankfully receive little use. The sound effects themselves are, like the music, few in number and great in mediocrity. Only during important events in the story did I care to turn the volume on my television up (and, of course, turn my CD player off).
The storyline is a new twist on an old cliche; the world has already been destroyed (essentially), and it is your job to resurrect it. Each island and continent has its own little problems involving monsters or warlords or overbaked muffins which you must solve to revive the continent.
You eventually find out why and how this happened to the world, and take measures to ensure it will never happen again. There is one point that I found to be a nice surprise, but unfortunately is followed by the most predictable plot twist in the history of RPGs. I'm not one to think ahead and wonder if a specific event is going to happen later in the game, but as soon as that ''nice surprise'' happened, I immediately thought to myself, ''Oh, I bet (spoiler) will (spoiler)''.
Nonetheless, the storyline doesn't really take anything away from the game.
Now, on to the core of the game: the gameplay itself. The battle system is the traditional Dragon Warrior fare; you fight from a first-person view, and you also input the commands for your party before each round, which are then played out (along with the enemies' actions) in order according to speed ratings and the like.
In addition, Dragon Warrior 7 takes the Job System of games like Dragon Warrior 3 and Final Fantasy 5, and vastly expands it.
There are ten base classes. Mastering certain combinations of those classes (done by fighting a certain number of battles, experience gained regardless) offers new intermediate classes, which can also be mastered to obtain advanced classes. There are also monster classes, which work identically (up to and including the concept of intermediate and advanced classes).
Each (non-monster) class imbues a certain type of character, or what you would get if you crossed two or three of those types of characters. Besides the traditional fighter-thief-monk-wizard-healer classes, there are also classes for Bard, Dancer, Jester, and Mariner (sailor). The combinations follow suit, as well; a Mariner and a Thief spawn a Pirate. A Mage and a Cleric spawn a Sage. The list goes on.
The class system is not without its faults, however; many skills learned by classes overlap each other, and often a class will be useless, aside from one skill it grants, or one intermediate/advanced class it helps to spawn.
The one thing which makes this game loved or hated is its length. This is, by far, the longest RPG--no, the longest GAME--I have ever seen. The first battle is over two hours into the game, the introduction of the job system is over twenty hours into the game, and the final battle is over 80 hours into the game, all assuming you're doing the bare minimum to get through the game. Most of the people I've talked to have spent over 110 hours of their lives on a single play through this game. In addition, once the game is beaten, secret bonus dungeons are available. If that wasn't enough, there are also a few side quests available. One person estimated that a 'perfect game', meaning mastering all the classes, reaching the maximum level, completing all the side quests (including the two bonus dungeons), and beating the final boss, would take over three hundred hours. That's almost ten times the amount needed to play through just about every other RPG on the market.
Saying that this game is for the patient is quite the understatement.
The main problem with requiring such an enormous amount of time is that most of it is spent battling. Mastering every class would take tens of thousands of battles. Many of the side quests are dependent on battles. You'll be killing more slimes than you would in the four NES installments of Dragon Warrior combined.
Since I think I painted a rather ugly picture of Dragon Warrior 7 in this review, I should say that I thoroughly enjoyed this game. It got tedious at times, and frustrating when I tried to go through certain parts without leveling up beforehand, but overall I enjoyed myself. I strongly recommend this game to anyone who has a lot of patience.
8/10
//James
