Okay, admittedly I have not played the other games in the series but that doesn't mean I can't see flat characters when I see them, even if they're so flat I can only see them from the front or the back. If what I've heard about the rest of the series is anything to go by, they're much better in the other games but here they were just so... meh. Seriously, take any of the lines spoken by any of the nine main characters, switch them around and you won't notice a difference because they all talk in the exact same way. Also, I thought it really defeated the point of important choices to have a timeline where you could go back and do the other choice. Not only that but apparently you had to do that to get the true end? I might be remembering that wrong since I did not finish the game but I'm sure there was some clunky excuse along the lines of "you need to experience all the timelines for it all to come together". Anyways, this game is boring and the dialogue feels like a first draft.

I have to give this game respect for being very vibrant/experimental in both aesthetic and gameplay, especially for a visual novel. The plot is more of an idea than anything but it works for what it is. One thing I will say without spoiling anything though is that this game has the most god-awful, "evil cuz I'm evil" villain I have ever encountered in a game. Besides that, it's pretty dang great. The atmosphere is really nice and quite chilling and the OST pops the fuck off. Art is great (although there has since been noticeable improvement in Rui Komatsuzaki's art; not saying that as a diss, just that I'd highly recommend checking out his more recent art too) and very bold. The pink blood works great with the overall look of the game even though I'm pretty sure it was initially for censorship and they really made it work. It could get a bit over-the-top and some of the motives were slightly unbelievable/knee-jerky but what are ya gonna do. Overall, I'd recommend.

SPOILERS

P.S. Chihiro best boi

Spoilers???

I do like this game a lot but I think it's overrated as far as DQ games go. Admittedly I have only played 6, a bit of 7 (I was playing on my 3DS but my shoulder buttons were pretty much busted so I stopped playing soon after I recruited Ruff), 8 and 9 besides this one so my experience with the series is somewhat limited, however I think it's enough to say that this isn't the magnum opus of the series in my humble. For me, that'd probably be 8.

That being said, the characters are a lot of fun, the animation is beautiful, the voice acting is fantastic and I enjoyed it enough to see it through to the end (with the exception of the third act. I won't give anything away but I feel like just mentioning it is enough to be considered a spoiler, hence the warning. Anyways, third act seemed stupid so I didn't do it and if you've played that far, you know what I'm talking about). Also, the hero's Luminary powers were kind of OP and could do pretty much anything the game wanted him to. There's a lot of that in this game. Hell, there's even a bit where the party escapes certain death with what can only be described as the power of friendship.

I'd recommend this game, but not above 8 (best I've played), 9 (very close second, seriously I had over a thousand hours on that game as a kid... Switch remake when) and 6 (very fond memories of staying up late to play this).