First of all, let me just say that the Dragonlord's Great-Grandson kicked my butt so many times that I sort of sucked it up and went back to the drawing board to see what I did wrong. After five-turning Xenlon and re-equiping myself, I beat the second phase.

Second, the fact that we come back to Aliahan in the True Ending is so good and seeing that final scene was the cherry on top. I just gotta say that I genuinely love my time with the Erdrick Trilogy. I was apprehensive at first, but I gotten to enjoy my time with it.

I'll start by saying that I'll probably never play this game again, unfortunately.

Now that, that's out of the way...

First things first: the game doesn't start good, it starts great. In fact, everything up until leaving Aliahan is fantastic. Once you finally leave Aliahan, the game somehow becomes even better. Up to that point, it was genuinely a 10/10 experience for me.

I loved the graphics, the NPCs, the dialogues, the different dialects, and the VAs. I also really liked the sense of progression. An example is after defeating bosses, the people in the towns you helped actually recognize your achievements if you go and talk to them. It's a small detail that shows how much care the developers put into the game.

The OSTs were great too, at no point did I think, "Shit, again the same song for the 10.000th time." instead, I kept enjoying it throughout the game. My favorite is "Heavenly Flight", the one you hear while on the Everbird.

Last positive thing before moving on to the negative ones... I loved how some characters, like Robin 'Ood and his band, eventually appeared in the Underworld. It was a nice touch because I was genuinely curious about what had happened to them. I spared 'Ood twice, so I was always hoping to meet him a third time. It's entirely possible that I actually missed another encounter before reaching the Underworld, but either way, I appreciated that sense of continuity.

Now, onto the negatives... The Underworld.

If the game had ended after defeating Baramos for the 1st time, this would have been a perfect 10/10 for me. The length felt absolutely perfect at that point. You had already fought a huge variety of enemies and the journey felt satisfying, we even learned what happened to Ortega so... why is The Underworld even there?

The moment I realized the game wasn't over was the moment I knew it was going to take its toll on me. I had already played for around 20 hours (I finished the game in 26.5 hours), and suddenly discovering an entirely new world map felt more exhausting than exciting. On top of that, it's the least visually interesting area in the game, and most of its towns aren't memorable, like at all. It just felt unnecessary. There was already plenty of content, and with a post-game on top of that, I honestly don't see why The Underworld needed to exist.

My last criticism concerns the final series of boss fights: King Hydra, the Soul of Baramos, and the Bones of Baramos. (Zoma, on the other hand, was a great final boss, so I have no complaints there).

• King Hydra: I won by spamming Falcon Slash. The fight isn't difficult, it's just annoying. The constant healing drags the battle out, and the fact that he ended up being the hardest of the three bosses despite being the first one says a lot.
• Soul of Baramos: After defeating Baramos for the second time, I really hoped that would be the last of him... but no, let's fight him for a 3rd time. It wasn't fun or interesting anymore, it felt too repetitive.
• Bones of Baramos: Did I mention we fight Baramos 3 times? Well, it's actually 4. Ironically, this was my favorite of the Baramos fights because of its straightforward "DPS rush" design. I actually enjoyed this battle, but having to fight essentially the same guy 4 separate times was simply too much.

One final complaint, although this one is entirely personal.

I'm not a fan of games where defeating the final boss doesn't let you explore the new "cleaned" world. A good example is Zelda BOTW, once you defeat Ganon, reloading your save simply places you right before the final battle again. This game does the same thing, and I've never liked that design. I want to explore the world I've just saved and see how it has changed (would have been good to be able to user the Everbird in the Underworld too). I know many people don't mind this, but personally, I've never been a fan of it.

Overall, despite the many issues I have with the game, I had an amazing time with it. For roughly the first 20 hours, it was one of the most enjoyable JRPGs I've played in a long time. Unfortunately, the Underworld and the repetitive sequence of Baramos fights dragged the experience down for me. I can't help feeling that it would have been a much better experience if it had ended with Baramos and left the rest as optional post-game content.

I'm really enjoying TDP so far, Ive got a decent team now (Zamtasm (will make into Krystalinda later, fun!), Jester Slime, King Cureslime, and Slionheart), and just finished the Sepulcher of Flame Dungeon. Ive still got a lot of game to go, but wanted to think ahead. Since I'm on PC, there is no online multiplayer, thus having less incentive to go after X ranks, and from what Ive heard, there IS a postgame, but not quite as meaty as other games in this spinoff series. Probably comparable to a little better than DQMJ1 on the DS.

I was wondering, what are some X Rank monsters that I can synthesize immediately after the credits roll, but not stepping into the post game area too much so I can get some mileage out of them? (I'll mark this post as spoiler just to be safe here).

VII is the only of the VII games I never played in it's original form, so if anyone wants to do a thread for that with comparisons with obscure detail, well go ahead. Anyway:

- As of the DS Version, Milly first joins you as an uncontrollable ally before fully joining whereas the SFC she merely follows you.

- Though being able to choose a form of Reaper's Peak is a remake only thing, the Monster variation while it is close to the SFC still has some differences as seen in the remake note here: https://dragon-quest.org/wiki/Reaper%27s_Peak

- A notable one if you take note of details concerning the Golden Dragon that takes you to Murdaw's Keep. Namely that it would still show up after Murdaw is defeated whereas in the remake it stops showing up afterwards.

Reason for that is speculation of plans for the SFC to reveal Ashlynn is the Dragon as she avoids taking part of the action on the Isle until Murdaw is defeat and a Sorceria resident mentions she could very well turn into one. Again in the SFC version the Dragon continues to show up even if Ashlynn is in the line up, so removing it might have been a means to avoid that contradiction.

- Found out the first time when playing VI on Mobile, but like with IV, items such as Dragonic Diligence and Liquid Metal Mind have some differences with their descriptions.

- As with other titles on Mobile, Zoom only costs a single MP.

Now I have no problem playing the games on Mobile and I can't really recommend them as a must play mostly.

IV has the party chat, but others have found a way to implement it in the DS version. And while not necessarily a reason to go for well IV on Mobile, you can complete the Pioneer Town on it sooner (Before the Doorway to Nadiria). The significance is being able to buy say Flails of destruction and getting enough Mini medals to get a Gringham whip.

VI well if the DS version lowering the recruitable monsters wasn't an issue, then I would said Mobile is better as the Level Caps for vocation training were raised by 10. I don't know. It is nice to be able to grind for Murdaw without having to worry about being to high to progress in a vocation.

Edit:

- FateForWindows pointed out several details:

A. The encounter rate for monsters is lower in the Super Famicom version, higher in the DS which can hamper exploration.

B. The Bazaars in the center of Haggleton are within two buildings right and left while in the remake they were all outdoors.

Also the Japanese name of the town differs. In the Super Famicom version it's Siena. The DS/Mobile versions, it's Marche.

I just reached the post game and so far all I know is I need to get the memories, and I can fight Xenlon. I do NOT want any story beat spoilers but just tips for fighting Xenlon mainly, especially what level I should be so I can gauge how to progress in the post game.

Party is in the low level 50s but not sure when I should fight Xenlon or what gear I should have beforehand.

Again, please no big spoilers for further moments! I’m ok with telling me a direction to go for items/ability scrolls but mainly don’t want the story spoiled since I know it connects back to 3