History YMMV / DragonQuestVII

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: It can be hard to get into this game after the recent ones (or even some of the remakes). Heck, some of the criticisms of this game was that it looked dated for the time it was released, with CGI breaking up the game's visual style. Keep in mind the game's development began for the 64DD in 1996, and development switched to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation in 1997 and remained in DevelopmentHell for about three years. By the time it was released in America, it was 2001 and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 had been around for a while, and the [=GameCube=] and Xbox was ''just two weeks ahead''. Of course, the 3DS remake gave the game a face lift.

* EvilIsSexy: [[spoiler:Orgodemir's humanoid form. At least, ''he'' thinks it is. The final battle even lampshades it with one of his taunts, asking you if you can "bring yourself to strike such beauty". But then he ends up getting stuck between his two forms and ultimately having his flesh MELT RIGHT OFF HIS BONES.]]
** Melvin apparently thinks so, at least in the [=PS1=] version....

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Is Kiefer leaving the party to become the Guardian for the Roamers a triumphant moment of CharacterDevelopment that demonstrates that he has matured past his rambunctious desire for adventure to take on true responsibility, or a final act of selfishness that overlooks the feelings of his friends and family and his duties as a prince for the sake of his own interests?

* ItsTheSameSoItSucks: [[spoiler:Keifer still leaves permanently at the end of the Roamers arc in the 3DS version, frustrating players who were hoping he could rejoin later on like Maribel.]]

** Regenstein/Dialac. [[spoiler:[[TakenForGranite Frozen in stone]] by the Gray Rain, while most of the villagers were performing a ceremony meant to summon ''normal rain''. In one case, one of the statues ''crumbles away the second you touch him''. Oh, and one of the villagers was away when the rain fell, and spent all those years searching for a cure, only to find one long ''after'' it was too late to restore anyone. Yep, everyone in that town (except the one kid whose statue was protected from the elements) is ''dead'', and there's nothing you can do about it.]]

* ToyShip: [[spoiler:Gabo]] is heavily implied to have a major crush on Fosse.

* GoodBadBugs: A programming error in the remake causes Kiefer's defense to increase to a staggering ''579'' upon reaching level 50.

** Deathpal/Hacrobat is the first notable bump in the road. He seals your magic via the cave he resides in and is the first boss to potentially strike twice. Making this all the worse is that he has a dazzle ability that makes the fight all the more infuriating. In a way it's almost a sign of things to come, as [[ThatOneLevel Dharma Temple/Alltrades Abbey]] will soon be approaching, and he exemplifies what to expect from it. Thankfully the fight does have a saving grace in the Woodcutter who, while weak, can provide you with additional healing.

*** Adding to this is the change for the combat encounter system from random encounters to enemies appearing on the map. The latter sounds good on paper, but the developers used the PS1 dungeon layouts (which werent designed with avoiding monsters on the map) and gave the monsters extremely good tracking and player detection, making it very hard to avoid enemies. The devs also made the monster spawning timing extremely wonky, as monsters often spawn immediately after you finish the prior battle and sometimes nearly ''right on top of the player''. What's more, holy water proves to be absolutely useless in avoiding these monsters even if you go into a dungeon while overleveled. This combination of issues resulted with many players feeling like the removal of random encounters ironically made encounters '''more''' frequent rather than less.

** Maribel is either an endearing and amusing character who demonstrates the strengths of the party chat system by displaying a wide range of emotions and depth or an insufferable {{Jerkass}} with no justifiable reason to stick around in the story for as long as she does. In particular, her leaving the party for several hours to take care of her sick father is alternatingly taken as the moment that fully redeems her for all of her past unpleasantness or the moment that cements her status as an unlikable character due to it making her a TierInducedScrappy.

* TierInducedScrappy: This applies to three out of five playable characters at the end of the main story, though the remake changes it around a bit. The hero and Gabo/Ruff are always keystones of the party, however:
** Maribel: Plot circumstances places Maribel out of the party a good portion of the way through the game. This leaves her deficient in class development and experience that everyone else gets. However, she gets a chance to catch up later in the game, but depending on how much the player wanted to catch up Mervyn and Aishe, she may just be left behind. However, the 3DS version [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap has her level up the quickest out of anyone]], and her speed has been increased from the PSX version. Her high speed makes a very large difference, as it makes her an arguably even better healer than Mervyn.
** Mervyn: Joins at level 19 (way better than Gabo's level 1, when your characters are likely in the teens), but unfortunately has ''zero'' points in any class development, and will likely never catch up to Ruff or the hero even ''with'' the time he spends in the party. (Unless one is willing to stop and grind and intentionally make it so that he can catch up to the others). The 3DS version makes it even worse since he may be as many as ''ten'' levels behind the first trio. While his stats favour a MagicKnight with more emphasis on the magic, his low speed makes using him as the primary source of healing a bit tricky since he will almost always be beaten out in speed by the enemies.
** Aishe: Despite that the game is nowhere near over by the time she joins, she suffers from LateCharacterSyndrome. Along with Maribel, she was the other one most players ditched. Just like Mervyn, she will be pretty far behind the rest of the group, but on the plus side, she has some points in dancer and warrior already. She was often ditched for Maribel merely because the hero and Gabo/Ruff are already great attackers themselves, whereas her stats favour a fighter. However, fighters are ''quite'' powerful in this game thanks to abilities like Oomph, Sap, and Focus Strength (the latter of which she will already have.) and taking some time to grind her up to prestige classes becomes quite worthwhile.
** A lot of this is fixed in the 3DS version thanks to the traveler's tablets. If your characters remains below level 20, you can grind in the Slime Forest which gives you the needed battles for your classes, while giving you next to no experience points so you don't over level and completely break the game. Since Mervyn joins at 19, you can get him past all the basic classes and even the in intermediate classes within just a couple of hours without him leveling up. By the time you get Aishe, you can create your own travel's tablets with no level cap. Meaning you can create your own slime tablet and grind there indefinitely.

** This is somewhat - though not entirely - mitigated with the 3DS monster tablet system. Not only do DLC tablets not have a job leveling cap (so you have the luxury of experimenting with other jobs without worrying about overleveling), but either through luck with the online tablet sharing system or (later) by creating your own tablets you can gain access to monster hearts that unlock certain monster classes far earlier than you can earn them through job mastery. There is even a trick for them that lets you encounter monsters you've yet to see in the game and get their hearts, allowing you to get an early start on "starter" monster vocations that don't appear until halfway through the game. The reason this only "somewhat" mitigates the issue is because monster vocations take longer than human ones to level up; you will gain access to the advanced human vocations far earlier than advanced monster vocations even if you farm for monster hearts. While advanced human vocations (unlike monster vocations) don't let you keep their skills when you switch jobs, there's no incentive to switch from hero, champion, or druid unless you want to gain job mastery bonuses to do the extremely hard postgame content.

** The pre-rendered cutscene where the Deja perform their ceremonial dance is affectionately referred to as the "Horror Movie" by Japanese players due to how deeply it plunges into the UncannyValley.

* UncannyValley: The original Playstation version had some downright ''hideous'' cutscenes that [[http://www.tigmo55.com/dw7aira.jpg did not even attempt]] to replicate Creator/AkiraToriyama's art style.

* HarsherInHindsight: Labres/Vogograd has you deal with a problem that, after the scenario's completion the villagers of the town are ashamed of their handling of, and erect a monument to prevent it from being forgotten. Go to the present, however, and a blatantly fake inscription is put on the monument that says the villagers were the ''heroes'', and is blatantly false, which the town wholeheartedly believes. Once you uncover the original inscription, you take it to the village elder, who promptly destroys it rather than face reality, then tells you to leave and never return. This particular type of blatant disregard for the truth in spite of clear evidence has become [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump a lot more relevant]] since its 2000 release.

* HarsherInHindsight: Vogograd has you deal with a problem that, after the scenario's completion the villagers of the town are ashamed of their handling of, and erect a monument to prevent it from being forgotten. Go to the present, however, and a blatantly fake inscription is put on the monument that says the villagers were the ''heroes'', and is blatantly false, which the town wholeheartedly believes. Once you uncover the original inscription, you take it to the village elder, who promptly destroys it rather than face reality, then tells you to leave and never return. This particular type of blatant disregard for the truth in spite of clear evidence has become [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump a lot more relevant]] since its 2000 release.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Witnessing the humans finally rise up against the monsters after clearing the arena portion of Alltrades Abbey but before fighting Cardinal Sin.
* MoralEventHorizon: The captain of the Ruckers army crosses the line when he tosses Lucia off a cliff, despite her being only eight years old. Though Hybris goes a step too far in getting revenge, it's understandable that he would hate the Ruckers after that.

* ThatOneLevel: Dharma Temple/Alltrades Abbey. Let's clarify, shall we? You enter a perfectly normal looking area, but get flushed down to a crappy prison area, with all of your few, but helpful, spells and abilities stolen until the 3/4 point of the chapter here. There is no way back to the present until you beat Cardinal Ship/Sin, the shops sell crappy gear and items, there's an extremely hard-to-find mapshard/fragment that's hidden in [[GuideDangIt some obscure little hut that you may not even know you can enter unless you tilt the camera ''just'' right]], the monsters and bosses are notably stronger than your last adventure, you only have three underwhelming characters (The [=NPCs=] are decent at best, but ditch you as the story demands, leaving without any help often), you're still probably feeling a bit sore that [[spoiler: Kiefer abruptly left the party]], you cannot use return or outside spells to easily get to inns in order to rest ''or'' priests in order to revive or save (both of which you will likely need often, even if you buy tons of herbs), the dungeons are colossal and confusing (easily the largest and hardest in the game) with no checkpoints save for one crappy little town which is worse than the prison town you started at, you have to fight in a tournament of rather strong bosses (Allblades Arena). And to top that all off, even after you've freed the Abbey and unlock the job system, you don't even get any freebies when class changing, and you ''will need'' to grind your classes to a decent level to even hope to stand a chance against the bandit goons back in the present. Yuji Horii has gone to admit in interviews that he likes to kick players when they're down. The entire chapter created a BrokenBase between those who liked ''VII'' and those who RageQuit.

* ThatOnePuzzle: The statue puzzle that you need to complete in order to get two tablet fragments, You need to make the statues face each other...but they move three at a time, instead of simply one or two. Good luck.

** Mervyn: Joins at level 19 (Way better than Gabo's level 1, when your characters are likely in the teens), but unfortunately has ''zero'' points in any class development, and will likely never catch up to Ruff or the hero even ''with'' the time he spends in the party. (Unless one is willing to stop and grind and intentionally make it so that he can catch up to the others). The 3DS version makes it even worse since he may be as many as ''ten'' levels behind the first trio. While his stats favour a MagicKnight with more emphasis on the magic, his low speed makes using him as the primary source of healing a bit tricky since he will almost always be beaten out in speed by the enemies.

* TheWoobie: [[spoiler:ELLIE. A KillerRobot who gets repurposed and reprogammed by {{Jerkass}} Zebbot, used to help destroy all her kind, and still gets AllOfTheOtherReindeer treatment from the [[UngratefulBastard angry villagers]]. Zebbot also turns her into a ReplacementGoldfish for his dead fiancée, giving her the same name and treating her as a RobotMaid. Back in [[PresentDay the present]], she's still slaving away in their little cottage, trying to feed soup to [[NightmareFuel Zebbot's long-skeletonized remains]]. Oh, and the ambitious young king of the region hauls her off to study, and his clumsy scientists waste no time in removing random parts to see how it affects her. Even when you ''stop'' this, she's just taken back home to spend the rest of her days in isolation, tending to her master's skeleton. Sure, she ''says'' she's happy, but...Luckily for her, the rest of her days aren't that long; if you ever choose to visit the house again, you'll find that she's broken down, finally joining Zebbot in death.]]

** [=HellCloud=]/Cumulus vex is the first boss to use magic attacks that can ignore your defenses and one-hit-kill you, and can attack twice in a row, leading to party members dying every round. Most notable is that he use Thin Air against ''you'' - which hurts ''you'' as much as it does most enemies. On top of this, he is a FlunkyBoss who himself is immune to Thin Air.

%%* WhatAnIdiot: Pendragon.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: It can be hard to get into this game after the recent ones (or even some of the remakes). Heck, some of the criticisms of this game was that it looked dated for the time it was released, with CGI breaking up the game's visual style. Keep in mind the game's development began for the 64DD in 1996, and development switched to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation in 1997 and remained in DevelopmentHell for about three years. By the time it was released in America, it was 2001 and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 and Xbox had been around for a while, and the [=GameCube=] was ''just two weeks ahead''. Of course, the 3DS remake gave the game a face lift.