I mean, I respect the hell out of it for basically inventing JRPGs, having great music and art, and some of my favourite series are parodys of it (Earthbound/Mother).
But lord help me, I just cannot get into this series. It's stories and world building suck. It's so very, very chuddy in its values and characters. All about birthright and bloodlines (Something that's putting me off the Zelda and Fire Emblem series too as I get older). It's also got that Square Enix sexism stink that I find myself being less tolerant of the older I get.
Please feel free to roast me for this opinion, it's just my personal preference after all.
If you like the Dragon Quest series I would love to hear why, because I want to like it. Maybe I just haven't played the right one. I've only played 8 to completion on the PS2 back when I was a kid, and I tried the Demo of 11 but wasn't really gelling with them changing the iconic presentation of their battles, if that makes sense (a nitpick, I know)
I thought it was a neat gimmick at first, but by the end of the game it had been stretched way too thin, and it became clear relatively early that most jobs are just worse than the default (except for the women-only Idol class, which is the best healer by a mile). When 8 was announced as being just the same thing again I had no interest.
if your gameplay is so route that there's literally an option to have it play for you, then what do you even have for a core gameplay loop? The random street goons in games prior were a. moderately easily avoidable if you really wanted b. a terribly easy encounter that posed little real threat to you and c. was at least cathartic to smack some heads around. Random encounters went from "Eh, fine. I'll use this as an excuse to work on my quick step timings and crack some skulls for fun" to "Oh god go away please"
98% correct true facts (the 2% is that it's actually spelled "rote").
i just failed the test mini game...