Hey y'all.
Since I've done a book version of this, I thought I'd do a version that's all video games. These reviews won't be as long as my individual reviews, but them's the breaks. No time to waste, let's go:
Dragon Warrior 5, Dragon Warrior 9
Or Dragon Quest, whatever you prefer.
The other big series that Square Enix is known for, the Dragon Quest series has always been the more charming and--dare I say--childish of the two. That's not necessarily a bad thing; unlike Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest doesn't bother itself with hefty narratives or anything of the sort. It's just a fun JRPG, and it's one that I've been playing since Dragon Warrior 3. Unfortunately, they've yet to make a Dragon Warrior Monster since the Gameboy, but oh well.
To my mind, the Dragon Quest series falls into two camps: Dragon Warrior 8 and Dragon Warrior 3, with features scattered between, and they are:
Dragon Warrior 3:
You can customize your party members for classes. That's the primary feature of Dragon Warrior 3.
You run into monsters that aren't on the world
More classic party turn-based combat
Very unclear as to what your next step is
Harder Bosses
Dragon Warrior 8:
Alchemy
Monsters are physically on the world and chase you
You can use monsters in combat
Tension Mechanic
Obvious path of quests
Easier Bosses
At their core, every game shares the same core. There are monsters with punny names, it's very throwback turn-based JRPG, and the game often doesn't give you a very clear clue of where you should go next. You collect tinymedals/minimedals to gain rewards, you quest forward to fight some kind of evil demon bent on destroying the world, and there are a few varying elements between what's basically the 3 category and the 8 category.
With that said, let's talk about Dragon Quest IX, first.
Dragon Quest Nine concerns an angel who's tasked with looking over a village, until evil strikes him and you have to figure out the mystery to what happened, why somebody attacked the Yggdrasil Tree, and so on and so forth. It's not a very involved mystery, and it exists for you to be shunted from place to place.
To be fair, as unenthusiastic as I sound about the story, there are good bits here and there. I really liked the Wight Knight, an undead knight searching for his princess which they turn on its head a little by having you help him rather than kill him. For the most part, though, this is a pretty uninspired game. As for the gameplay, it's very clear that this happened after the success of 8. The whole tension mechanic is here, where you can pump up party members to have them deal catastrophic damage if you get them far enough along.
I was surprised to find that there was also class changing in this. In DQ 3, that was a HUGE part of the game, where you'd lead all of your characters along until you can make each of them a Sage. The Sage, unfortunately, is not as OP as it was in DQ3, where it was a more powerful mage and a more powerful cleric, instead it's a less powerful version of both, making it more of a multi-tool rather than the desired class for all your peeps.
Alchemy also shows up here, but I never used it for anything more then medicine, because this game is unusually generous with its gold for a Dragon Quest game. Otherwise, I'd recommend giving it a pass. It's like a less better version than DQ8.
Dragon Quest 5, on the other hand, is my favorite of the series that I've played. It goes 5>3>8>9.
Dragon Quest 5 follows your hero (Dooders, in my case) who grows up with a legendary hero who is also hiding the fact that he was once a king. I would spoiler that, but they reveal it in the very first scene. Anyways, it revolves around you being captured as a child, forced into slavery, only to break out and marry and have children, who will then become party members.
Oooh yes, this reminds me a bit of Fire Emblem: Awakening. Your children's skills and classes depend on which woman of the three you decide to marry, who vary between warrior, mage, and some combination of the three. The story, as well, is a bit stronger than the rest of the DQ fare, which is always a pleasant surprise.
What's also important is that you can catch some of the monsters you fight, who can then be shuffled in and out of your lineup. This is a fantastic addition to an already strong game, adding something of a Dragon Warrior Monsters angle to all this that I've only seen in DQ 8. This is also a game that's more forward about where your next step is, compared to most entries here.
There is, however, no class mechanic here. Your characters are your characters, and they will not change in any way, shape, or form. They don't progress in the same way that the classes in 8 and 9 do, where you can attribute points to different weapons and skills to customize them. At a certain level, they gain a spell or ability that was predestined for them, and that's just how it is.
The bosses are also more difficult. In 8 and 9, they're toned down since there's no save mechanic outside cities, so five doesn't allow you to go fighting through an entire dungeon simply to fight the boss at the end. In nine, you can go all the way through a dungeon and then slap up the boss. Five, you have to be overleveled, then you can go through the dungeon and beat the boss.
At the end of the day, though, the monster and family mechanic makes this a much stronger entry than 9, which was just a faint ripple behind the wave that was 8.
So that's my review of 8 and 5. If you're ever curious about this series, I would recommend Dragon Quest 5 first, followed by 3, then 8, then 9.
Upcoming: Endless Space 2, Rimworld, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel