I'm traveling and have no access to my games, so I was searching for some short thing to play on my phone. I settled on the Android version of the original DQ (which is the same as the version on Switch, fyi), which I beat in 5 hours. I initially regretted a bit not playing an emulated version of the game for speed up and stuff, but HLTB puts DQ1 at 8-10 hours, so this port is considerably faster
It's missing two pretty essential QoLs though: dungeon maps, and a fast-forward feature. If it had that, you'd probably be able to finish this game in about 3 hours, possibly less.
As for the game itself, it's a JRPG in the most literal sense of the word. It is the very first one, and the gameplay loop consists entirely of grinding exp and gold to be able to survive the trip to the next town.
Looking back, it is crazy that Final Fantasy came out a mere year later, and already feels much richer and denser than DQ1. Probably wouldn't have played this in another context, but am still glad I did since it's an interesting piece of history
I still wish it had a speed up feature though
It's missing two pretty essential QoLs though: dungeon maps, and a fast-forward feature. If it had that, you'd probably be able to finish this game in about 3 hours, possibly less.
As for the game itself, it's a JRPG in the most literal sense of the word. It is the very first one, and the gameplay loop consists entirely of grinding exp and gold to be able to survive the trip to the next town.
Looking back, it is crazy that Final Fantasy came out a mere year later, and already feels much richer and denser than DQ1. Probably wouldn't have played this in another context, but am still glad I did since it's an interesting piece of history
I still wish it had a speed up feature though