Dragon Quest X

[GenDenelith]

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:



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/

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.

[GenDenelith]

Time for some extra information!

Expansions:  the expansions have long ass fucking titles and I don't remember them.  But that's fine because they're always referred to as "Version #".  So the base game is Version 1, first expansion pack is Version 2, etc.  The latest expansion pack was released in 2024 and is Version 7, so the free trial gets you like half the content in the game.

Classes:  Called "vocations" in DQX, there are 23 of them, with a 24th about to release.  Of those, 18 are available in the free trial.  From what I've gathered, they should all be able to do the main story just fine, as well as side content and even some endgame.  However, there's a lot of different endgame bits/super bosses/etc., and different classes are better at one or the other.  So just play what you enjoy, and deal with that "optimal" shit later.

Guides:  There are two main guides I have been using and one on the side:

The Ethene Wiki and its Beginner Quickstart Guide has been super useful for getting off the ground.  It's also the main English wiki and has great information on completing quests.  It also has good info on the Free Trial limitations.

For hunting items/enemies/etc, I now use Draquex.  It's a JP wiki (but most are), so you'll need to translate in browser, but it's extremely well laid out.  As NPC vendors don't sell gear above level 35, and free trial users can't use the auction house, you need to grind your gear.  So use this to look for gear around your level and go hunt them monsters.

For some basic "how good is X", this website that seems to translate to Dragon Quest 10 Ultimate Strategy Database has lots of info for classes and skill trees, and suggestions as to what is good in what content.  Can give a good overview as to what the best ways to play a class are if you want to get that far into it.  Again, it's in Japanese so you'll need to translate it.