This is definitely the best game in the series compared to the games that came before it. It has the most story (and a pretty good one too) and best general gameplay. The party changes throughout the game, which is cool. You can recruit monsters eventually, which helps pad out the lack of proper party members during some parts of the game, but it never feels overbearing or all that difficult to get decent Monsters to use. If you want specific ones it might take a while, but some of the best ones are very easy to get. This is the first in the series I played pretty much entirely without using a walkthrough, and it was nice being able to either know where to go or be able to figure it out reasonably quickly. The soundtrack was good, combat feels similar to DQ4, and the world is pretty fun to explore. Party chat was really cool in some spots. The story itself was surprisingly unique compared to most other rpgs I've played, which was nice to see. It was still somewhat simple in nature, but there are multiple memorable scenes that will stick with me for a while. Probably one of the least grind-heavy games I've played so far in the series. Sometimes the game could feel a bit too easy, but it was generally just an enjoyable experience throughout. I could easily recommend this to anyone who has yet to play it.

Simply one of the finest JRPGs of its generation. We follow our hero across the course of his life, from young scion of a mighty adventurer, through enslavement to an evil cult and finally out into the world as a questing hero gathering the artifacts of a legendary hero in order to defeat the cult that once captured him. Manages to be a rare thing indeed - a character-led story despite having a silent protagonist. The relationships that the hero builds around him, and how they morph and move over his life are brilliantly explored but without ever losing its identity as a fantasy rpg or diminishing the threat posed by the core villains.