Amazon Maximum Age: 17 years Amazon Minimum Age: 156 months Binding: Video Game Brand: Enix EAN: 0695981100094 ESRB Age Rating: Teen Label: Enix Manufacturer: Enix Platform: PlayStation Publisher: Enix Sales Rank: 7031 Studio: Enix
Product Description: The top-selling PlayStation game in Japanese history makes its way to the U.S. in Dragon Warrior VII. Its creators include a trio of Japanese role-playing-game legends--game designer Yuji Horii, music composer Koichi Sugiyama, and character designer Akira Toriyama (who also created the popular Dragonball and Dragonball Z cartoons and comics). At its heart, Dragon Warrior VII is an old-school RPG that eschews flashy graphics and sound effects in favor of a good story and dozens of gameplay hours. In some cases it succeeds in capturing the nostalgia of old NES and SNES RPGs, but in others it hangs on too dearly to obsolete conventions. Still, this is one of the most value-packed games on the market, as it easily offers more than 100 hours of gameplay.
Graphically, Dragon Warrior VII will not impress anyone. Even compared to first-generation PlayStation games this one comes off as ugly. The sound is a mix of nostalgic MIDI bits from previous Dragon Warrior games and beautiful new compositions by Sugiyama. The story progresses in a linear fashion, as the main character discovers new lands, each with its own mysteries, characters, and adventures. The job system adds immense depth to character progression, as players can learn skills from more than 50 classes, including warriors, clerics, jesters, rangers, dragoons, teen idols, and more.
As deep as the job system is, progress is hindered by laborious combat and inventory-management systems. It would have been nice if the development team tried to implement modern gameplay mechanics with the rich Dragon Warrior universe. Because of its archaic aspects, the game will scare off those that aren't familiar with older RPGs. However, persevering gamers and longtime fans will enjoy one of the deepest adventures on the market. --Raymond M. Pa
Amazon.com Review: The top-selling PlayStation game in Japanese history makes its way to the U.S. in Dragon Warrior VII. Its creators include a trio of Japanese role-playing-game legends--game designer Yuji Horii, music composer Koichi Sugiyama, and character designer Akira Toriyama (who also created the popular Dragonball and Dragonball Z cartoons and comics). At its heart, Dragon Warrior VII is an old-school RPG that eschews flashy graphics and sound effects in favor of a good story and dozens of gameplay hours. In some cases it succeeds in capturing the nostalgia of old NES and SNES RPGs, but in others it hangs on too dearly to obsolete conventions. Still, this is one of the most value-packed games on the market, as it easily offers more than 100 hours of gameplay.
Graphically, Dragon Warrior VII will not impress anyone. Even compared to first-generation PlayStation games this one comes off as ugly. The sound is a mix of nostalgic MIDI bits from previous Dragon Warrior games and beautiful new compositions by Sugiyama. The story progresses in a linear fashion, as the main character discovers new lands, each with its own mysteries, characters, and adventures. The job system adds immense depth to character progression, as players can learn skills from more than 50 classes, including warriors, clerics, jesters, rangers, dragoons, teen idols, and more.
As deep as the job system is, progress is hindered by laborious combat and inventory-management systems. It would have been nice if the development team tried to implement modern gameplay mechanics with the rich Dragon Warrior universe. Because of its archaic aspects, the game will scare off those that aren't familiar with older RPGs. However, persevering gamers and longtime fans will enjoy one of the deepest adventures on the market. --Raymond M. Padilla
Pros:
More than 100 hours of gameplay
Extremely deep job system
Memorable characters
Cons:
Horrible graphics
Poor interface
Dull combat
Amazon.com Product Description: An fantasy adventure game of epic proportions, Dragon Warrior VII follows the adventures of the hero, his mischievous friend Prince Kiefer, and the feisty Maribel. The trio learns that the peace and tranquility of their island home is soon to be disrupted. Solving time-traveling puzzles transports them back in time, where they discover lost continents. Once in the past, they must solve the mysteries of the continents in order to save the future. If they accomplish this task, the world will be complete; if they fail, the lost lands and their inhabitants will be forever doomed. Dragon Warrior VII features 3-D rendered backgrounds and fluid combat animation, as well as depth of story and character true to this beloved series.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - dragon warrio v11
We were happy to finaly get the game that we were looking for a long time. I play over 137 hours on it and still did not beat it yet , that is what i like about this game.
Rating: - Horrible...just horrible
Wow what an unbelievably dull and boring game. I'm not gonna even go on to tell you how angry I was when I bought this game basing it off the information I received on the back that said its 'the best selling game in japan.' Thats funny considering (even for its time.) there were titan of a game titles like Final Fantasy. I have to admit I couldn't wait 4 or more hours just to get to a battle because the story is just so boring. I winded up looking on youtube to see how the battles looked and it actually looked like something even worse than the battles that can be made on RPG Maker for playstation (for those of you that played that game you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.) The towns were too cheesey and looked like there was absolutely no effort put into it at all.
Just a warning. Do not buy this game. It is definately not worth the 50 bucks that people think its meant out to be.
Rating: - Over 200 Hours of play time!
This game will take you a long time to beat and you will have to invest between 100-250 hours to beat it depending if you play the sidequests. Minimum it will take over 100 hours and that is really pushing it, I can not stress it enough. There are many sidequests such as casinos, a monster park where you can keep monsters you defeat, finding tiny medals for great weapons, etc. This game is extremely difficult if you do not have a Prima strategy guide. I am not saying it cannot be beat but would prove very difficult.
As for the game itself, it starts out pretty annoying and boring. You have to explore your home land and open a time gate before you can even fight any monsters. It took me around 4 hours to beat just this part which may make you think the game stays like this and give up. I thought it was pretty cool fighting all the monsters and constantly upgrading weapons and levels. Towards the middle to end it will get very repetive and annoying fighting all the same monters to just get up a level in experience points. There are some tricks to getting them done much quicker especially near the end of the game.
This is an older style RPG with older nintendo style graphics which some people do not like, especially some younger users. They did not bother me much at all. I think you would not have as long of game if they stuffed all the graphic info into one disc. There are tons of places to discover and many different monsters to fight.
The game brought me back to when I was younger when I played the original Nintendo version, just bigger and better. I also cannot stress enough how much a strategy guide will be needed. Some things are not even in the strategy guide which will prove to be the most challenging such as; where to get all the tiny medals or how to get to the bonus dungeons. Look up Dragons Den on the web to get more detailed help.
My brother is a hard-core gamer who thinks this game was not great but extremely challenging. He would not put it in the same league with the Final Fantasy games. I thought it was challenging, pretty fun, will give you something to do for a very long time, and worth every penny you spend on it for the time involved.
Rating: - Warning: Excessive Patience Required
This is a long, rewarding, and extremely old-school game. It reminds more of Dragon Quest IV than even the more recent games in the series (V and VI). Carried over from VI is the excellent job system.
Nothing happens quickly in DWVII. The pacing I think is what bothers so many about the game. It can seem tedious if looking towards the invariable end. But if taken as a journey the general wandering around and loot gathering is exactly what you remember from every DQ game before and since.
For an entry point into the series DQVIII would be the better game. For the hard-core gamer willing to invest the 100+ hours to explore this game at the proper leisurely pace, the investment may be well worth it.
Rating: - Give me a BREAK!!!
In the wake of such masterpieces as Final Fantasy VII&VIII and Chrono Cross by Squaresoft, Enix decided they were going to bring this load of garbage over to the US. Apparently, this game was a smash hit in Japan - selling over 4 million copies. Seems that 4 million Japanese people are complete dolts. The stinking game doesn't even have combat until three or more hours into it, and it's not even interesting once it does come along. The presentation is horrible, the gameplay uninteresting, and in general it is just a terrible game through and through. I am appalled.