If your favourite place in any Dragon Quest game is the Alltrades Abbey, you will probably more readily tolerate what ends up being the inconceivable enormity of Dragon Quest VII.
That being said, perhaps due to the unique--and uniquely compelling--narrative framing of the enormity of this world, something about the way this whole adventure is paced and doled out to you keeps you wanting to move forward and discovering more and more. It's not the only Dragon Quest game that is--and feels, but also just is--enormous, that's for sure. Somehow, though, it only starts to feel that way kind of when it is supposed to feel that way, once the adventure has really truly brought you on such a grand journey, the final stretch feels arduous. It's downright ludonarratively consonant! How could there possibly be more of this freaking game...? And yet, there is.
While I have played the now surely undeniably archaic Playstation 1 version, it was a very long time ago, and I never got even close to finishing it. I would not presume to tell anyone that the 3DS version is a definitively better version, but, I did love it quite a lot, part of which I feel was aided by the presentation and QoL features introduces. If I had to guess, and, to be clear, I am guessing here, you don't need to be a masochist to play the PS1 version, but you probably would need to have a pretty strong preference for the aesthetics of a bygone age to end up preferring that version. I mean, that was probably true even back when it was released, when it was also visually a throwback to an earlier era in a lot of ways... let's be real, the game had simple sprites and no animated characters in battle, yet it came out after Final Fantasy VIII, shortly before Final Fantasy IX, and less than a year before Final Fantasy X.
At any rate, do your own research and make your own decisions on which version to play.
That being said, perhaps due to the unique--and uniquely compelling--narrative framing of the enormity of this world, something about the way this whole adventure is paced and doled out to you keeps you wanting to move forward and discovering more and more. It's not the only Dragon Quest game that is--and feels, but also just is--enormous, that's for sure. Somehow, though, it only starts to feel that way kind of when it is supposed to feel that way, once the adventure has really truly brought you on such a grand journey, the final stretch feels arduous. It's downright ludonarratively consonant! How could there possibly be more of this freaking game...? And yet, there is.
While I have played the now surely undeniably archaic Playstation 1 version, it was a very long time ago, and I never got even close to finishing it. I would not presume to tell anyone that the 3DS version is a definitively better version, but, I did love it quite a lot, part of which I feel was aided by the presentation and QoL features introduces. If I had to guess, and, to be clear, I am guessing here, you don't need to be a masochist to play the PS1 version, but you probably would need to have a pretty strong preference for the aesthetics of a bygone age to end up preferring that version. I mean, that was probably true even back when it was released, when it was also visually a throwback to an earlier era in a lot of ways... let's be real, the game had simple sprites and no animated characters in battle, yet it came out after Final Fantasy VIII, shortly before Final Fantasy IX, and less than a year before Final Fantasy X.
At any rate, do your own research and make your own decisions on which version to play.