You plan to become a humble fisherman of peaceful Estard Island, the only land in a world of ocean. But when you discover the artifacts from an ancient land, you tear the fabric of time and unveil the world that once was. Transported to past lands, you must solve their mysteries and break the spell of annihilation. Prepare for your destiny!

playstation

RPG

Average Customer Review: ( 68 customer reviews )
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The world view is most definately an improvement allowing rotation of the 3D world, although not always FULL rotation depending on where your character currently resides (i.e. in a cave or in a town). The graphical enhancements to the world are a far cry from the 16 or so bright colors originally displayed on Nintendo consoles. There is a zoom-up function available in towns that allows you to raise the bird's eye view to help you figure out how to get wherever you want to go.

The original menu system is still in play with a couple of small, but useful tweaks of its own - mainly cursor location tracking. When you're involved in item management or moving, the cursor will remember where it was last so if you want to move a large number or items from one person to another you don't have to constantly move the cursor back and forth. The other pseudo-tweak of the menu system is the times you DON'T have to access it. Previously, one had to open the general command menu and then select "Talk" to talk to someone or "Search" to look around your feet or in a treasure chest - no longer. All the "automatic" functions such as search or talk are combined into the top button of the four on the controller. If you want to look in a chest or talk to someone, just hit the button and away you go!

The adjustments to the battle mode are also quite notable with improved backgrounds on which the monsters reside, a morphing of the monsters' attacks, and a definate 3D feel. Whenever an enemy makes an attack, the image of the enemy (normally at the classic stand-still) morphs into action! The smooth, quick morphing of the attacks is quite impressive and each type of attack imposed on your characters has a specific look. This is certainly a step in the right direction from just text saying "so-and-so attacks." The only only gripe to be had is when defensive spells are cast, unless you're reading (and reading quickly), there's a good chance you'll totally miss the casting as no visual effects give away the action.

One thing that many may find irritatin is when you rotate the 3D world, the direction your character faces is not adjusted with it. If you face east and rotate the world, your character's direction of sight will change instead of staying looking east.
The only obvious part of the game not enhanced to the same graphical level as the rest of the game is the character sprites (the images of the characters themselves). They still sport the bright, lower-quality color depths seen with previous iterations of the Dragon Warrior saga. While the detail and movement of the character sprites is improved somewhat, they still remind you of the character sprites of Dragon Warrior III.

Overall the newest release of Dragon Warrior in the US is (and should be) greeted and celebrated by many avid Dragon Warrior and RPG fans. The story line is well developed (but I won't give it away), the main characters' personalities are very will portrayed giving them more depth, and if this game follows suit of previous releases - the replay value will be HUGE!

14 of 16 found the following review helpful:

Dragon Warrior VII, YES, INDEED.May 20, 2002
By Christian H. Kim
First of all, i would like to mention piece of my mind on graphic. Lot of people complain that the graphic looks really outdated. Personally, i didn't think it was outdated at all. You see, certain games have to accommodate particular graphic in order to really convey the atmosphere and theme of the game. Could you imagine Parappa the Rappa with 3D, realistic graphic? Just go to top of the castle, and roate your screen, dang, it's beautiful!! How many games let you rotate your screen and yet so smoothly? It took long time to make this game and i'm sure that staff at Enix thoughtout everything thoroughly.

Alrite.. I have to, first of all, let you know that this game isn't for everyone. I've played the series from NES day, Dragon Warrior 1 through 4, and replayed them again on GameBoy. Personally I love Dragon Warrior series more than I love Final Fantasy series. When you play the game for few hours, you will realize that it's not really easy to earn your money and experience point like other RPGs. What this means that you will have to not only fight diligently but also spend your money wisely. It's not like other RPG where you have so much money, you have no problem with equiping everyone with latest weapon and armor once you get to next town. However, in Dragon Warrior 7, you will have to work your way up to buy one weapon or armor for one character. Now..you might think that's so stupid, spending, or rather wasting your time on these meaningless thing, when you have world before you to save.. Wrong. You see, when i heard about RPG for very first time, I thought it was so stupid. Come'on, give me a break, no action whatsoever?? You just command character to attack or use magic, and that's it?? And your health point just got reduced by 8 points?? But once you get a taste of RPG, it becomes very addictive, isn't it? Same thing with earning money/exp. point, and buying that one weapon, that one armor which you will see with your own eyes during battles that actually equiping that very weapon, that very armor really works, inflicting more damage, reducing damage points from enemies. Like I mentioned in Dragon Warrior III review, Dragon Warrior VII doesn't flood the world with countless weapon and armor. There are just several of them, and really good ones, which you will have to search and find with good effort. You will appreciate each weapon and armor, knowing that they are not something to be done without even thinking about it in other RPGs, but it sort of becomes more personal, knowing you are battling to save money to buy that particular weapon/armor.

Music.. you know, personally, I love Dragon Warrior music much more than Final Fantasy music score. It seems like Final Fantasy does pull out excellent ones once in awhile, however, the composer (what was his name,,Koichi??) really knows how to compose good music score. His music, if you listen to them from Dragon Warrior 1, is very simple, yet it really does pierce into you very deeply. It's sort of easier to compose something with lot of sound effect/channel, but it is REALLY difficult to make a masterpiece with let's say only piano sound. The most famous music score for Final Fantasy is probably the very first song of opening movie, starting in C major, A minor, F major, G major then back to C again. Koichi is the master of composing excellent music score from very simple mean and sound. His music is very simple yet, really delivers the various situation. I still think the very first music from Dragon Warrior, the music which comes out when you are on over world field as the BEST music ever. And i'm glad Enix decided to bring some old sound effect, like going up and down stair, sound of reaching next level, etc.

One thing I didnt' like about Dragon Warrior 7 is that time to time, you don't know where to go, or get stuck because you don't have the stone shard to proceed to next story. What it means is that you will have to search everywhere, explore same place in present and in past as well in order to proceed. But that's really minor thing.

Overall, if you are too fond of Final Fantasy's graphic, and deep storyline, and haven't played previous Dragon Warrior series from NES time, then I'm not sure if you will like it or not. But one thing for sure, when it comes to the DELICATE BALANCE OF GAME PLAY, nothing can even come close, really.

Enjoy your Dragon Warrior, the Best Selling Japanese PlayStation game console Title of All Time! What about Mighty Final Fantasy?
DRAGON WARRIOR VII IS THE BEST SELLING JAPANESE PLAYSTATION GAME CONSOLE TITLE OF ALL TIME, PERIOD.

31 of 39 found the following review helpful:

Fantastic!Nov 25, 2001
By M. A Jenkins "southerndudeman"
First off, I must give a disclaimer; I love the Dragon Warrior games. I love pretty much ALL (good) RPG's, and Dragon Warrior has never disappointed. That being said, I think that Dragon Warrior 7 might be the best of the bunch...
Yeah, yeah, I know. Final Fantasy continues to have groundbreaking deliveries, with breathtaking graphics and symphonic sound. However, strip away the pretenses, and what you have is so-so role-playing action. However, Dragon Warrior 7 delivers on all of the aspects necessary for a good role playing adventure...
First off, the game is long. In fact, over 100 hours, to be exact! Also, there is very little in the way of cinematics, and so the gamer is actually PLAYING the entire time (unlike the aforementioned Final Fantasy games). Characters have the freedom to train in over 50 classes (although many of the classes are difficult to obtain), obtaining many new skills and spells. The world of DW7 is huge as well, and also includes forays into the past (in order to unravel mysteries which I will not speak of here). There are a few fun pastimes; for example, you can try to build your own town, or monster park, or you can play a few hands of poker in the casino. The enemies at times are downright difficult, forcing you to use strategy in a few of the battles. There are some twists, and although a former reviewer said the twists were trite, I nonetheless enjoyed the fact that it brought more gameplay. I cannot say enough about this game, but if you like true RPG action, and are sick of games that have you watching movies, I would strongly recommend purchasin this game. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

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