the only ones i kept playing past the part where battles started happening were 3 (snes remake) and 9 - i guess the party creation parts and consequent one-size-fits-all style of narrative felt like a better fit to me with that kind of gameplay and also if anything find the many little moments of goofiness more charming in seemingly generic structure than in something more conspicuously tailored? they feel more like surprises. my favourite part of dq3 was an early dungeon where you fight your way up a tower to find some old man and after three floors of ruined corridors and monsters he’s just hanging out in a very dragonquest-y study with some bookshelves, totally oblivious and with no boss fight at all.
and of course the “generic” stuff is part of the attraction too - i specifically find the snes remakes of the first three games the prettiest looking just because it was only after playing them that i realised what the RPG Maker default tilesets were specifically shooting for, that weird aura of benign indefinite reproducibility stretching out forever without losing distinctness.
i got number 9 recently while i was sick and have been having a really good time with it - it has a “character creator” / paperdoll dressup system but with goofy toriyama designs and with an incoherent scale of utility that makes like [t-shirt] give better defence than [leather plate] and [cat ears] work better than [helmet]. also you can see enemies on the map and there’s a fairly cheap item that makes you invisible to them. there’s also that goofy rotate-the-level system from dq7 but (sadly?? thankfully??) more restricted in focus. the scenarios are good as well. i sort of miss the broader/looser structure of dq3 where dungeon/town/field structures melded together more loosely (never stopped enjoying finding inns in dungeon basements) and also the book system of the 3 remake, which has been replaced by “alchemy” for new items but frankly nothing could ever top finding a [muscle book] in a deserted castle and then reading it to change your personality into JOCK. but fewer random battles is a nice trade.
is dragon quest 9 a “late work”