Truly a remarkable experience, with plenty of improvements over the previous 3D titles in both presentation and game feel. In particular, the automatic 'Story So Far' recap when loading your save, being able to respec your characters' skill points, the ability to automatically buy needed materials when crafting, and the way the battle UI keeps track of status effects, buffs and debuffs on your party AND enemies, massively enhance the quality-of-life factor in playing the game.

I also unironically enjoyed the English voice acting, though I wish some of the characters (especially most of the monsters with speaking lines) didn't talk so slowly. The orchestrated soundtrack was mostly on par with that of Dragon Quest VIII, but there's an awful lot of songs that were carried over from previous games including VIII, and the new ones are a bit of a mixed bag too. The story is quite by-the-book as you might expect from the series, but there's enough twists and turns to keep it from being too terribly stale, and plenty of interesting and endearing characters even beyond the playable cast.

If you're up for a classic RPG with modern polish, I can safely say this is worth checking out.

Truly a remarkable experience, with plenty of improvements over the previous 3D titles in both presentation and game feel. In particular, the automatic 'Story So Far' recap when loading your save, being able to respec your characters' skill points, the ability to automatically buy needed materials when crafting, and the way the battle UI keeps track of status effects, buffs and debuffs on your party AND enemies, massively enhance the quality-of-life factor in playing the game. I also unironically enjoyed the English voice acting, though I wish some of the characters (especially most of the monsters with speaking lines) didn't talk so slowly. The orchestrated soundtrack was mostly on par with that of Dragon Quest VIII, but there's an awful lot of songs that were carried over from previous games including VIII, and the new ones are a bit of a mixed bag too. The story is quite by-the-book as you might expect from the series, but there's enough twists and turns to keep it from being too terribly stale, and plenty of interesting and endearing characters even beyond the playable cast. If you're up for a classic RPG with modern polish, I can safely say this is worth checking out.