Alternate title: "Holy shit why the fuck will they not localize this"
So to be honest, I haven't played many DQ games. They're good, but a lot of the old ones either weren't released in the west or were hard to come by. Dragon Quest Monsters (on original gameboy) was the fucking GOAT though. And for some reason, they decided to make an MMO game in the series much like with Final Fantasy XI.
And holy hell it actually worked somehow. The game is still very much Dragon Quest. Basically the same gameplay as the other 3d games, but with movement during battle and uh... that's basically it for core gameplay changes? Oh yeah and you can push around enemies/get pushed around based on weight, and multiple people can shove an enemy to shove heavier stuff. Tanking? Nah, just don't let the enemy get to the party member.
Overall, the game is very much a single player Dragon Quest game with MMO mechanics kinda added on top, many of which can be ignored if you want. It's a more simple MMO compared to Final Fantasy XI, and not as hyperspeed "you have 3 toolbars filled with actions you have to keep pressing" like Final Fantasy XIV.
Here's a great overview video (slight tutorial/intro spoilers in the video):
The game has a free trial, which used to include up to the end of the first expansion. But as of the end of August 2025, it's now up to the end of the third expansion. It's a beefy free trial on the scale of Final Fantasy XIV's free trial.
One word I'd say about the game to sum it up is "charming". Classic Dragon Quest art style, designs, music, sound effects... it's all very bright and comfy, even when it suddenly veers into darker topics. The stories are simple, but well told and the characters are nice. The zones and environments are nice, and immediately improved a lot when I reached the first expansion pack. Here's a beautiful picture I took of an area from the base game:
(https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:novzdfh7kxkkgvom7rihmxu3/bafkreicfmaueexgfrfubt2az6zwet5bty6cecvbgz4xpabz3ngk5tbyaxa@jpeg)
However, there is the obvious main catch: The game is not in English. At least, not officially. There is a great community work done to translate the game and it works really well. Some hand-written translations for UI/monster names/some story stuff, and the rest is handled by a tool that can auto translate using DeepL. I've been able to play it all no problem, only unable to read some news notifications stuff about the game. Which probably aren't needed. The DQX Abbey has all the info on how to set up the game:
https://dqxabbey.com/ (https://dqxabbey.com/)
But generally once set up after you're done the above guides you will launch the applications in this order going forwards:
Proxy: If not in Japan or USA, you need a proxy to connect to the game because they block other IPs. I use Mudfish. It's not a super secure proxy but it's not meant to be. I just need to appear like I'm in Japan. It can be set up to only route DQX's data, so I paid $5 USD for a bundle of like 52GB of data and I've used a whopping... $0.11 of it so far with dozens of hours of gameplay. Obviously you can skip all this if you are in the USA. And if you're in Japan uh... you can probably skip this entire setup guide. I suggest turning off the VPN when you're done using it to save on any background data usage.
DQX Clarity: The translation tool. This needs to be running before the game boots, and it has some options. I suggest grabbing a DeepL API key. You need to add a credit card but you won't be billed for it as far as I know. I'm at 153,296 / 500,000 translated words after about two solid weeks of gameplay, and that amount resets each month (based on when your account is started) so I should be good even with me doing mainly plot stuff and talking to NPCs a lot.
DQX: Boot the game itself and sign in. Now you can just play the game normally! Again, I suggest shutting off the VPN after the game closes. The DQX Clarity app will automatically close when the game does (including if the game crashes).
I suggest trying it out if you can put up with the initial setup process... and it is definitely a process.
However I really have to state something important:This is a Japanese game made solely for Japanese people, in that one language. We have to do a pile of workarounds to even play the game. So
PLEASE for the love of fuck don't go in there and start causing problems because you make us all look bad. There's plenty of other ways to communicate with global players, please use those.