I just wrapped a playthrough of Dragon Quest I, or I guess Dragon Warrior I (the GBC version, specifically). I have a bit of experience with NES RPGs (including DQ3), but I was still impressed to see just how well the genre's ur-example holds up; it's a bit more of a grind than I would like, but its world map does a great job of inspiring adventure and danger in equal measure and the tension derived from that. It's also impressive how tightly-designed it is: each spell has a distinct use, towns often have multiple purposes, most NPCs offer hints or clues. And yet it still sneaks in plenty of character… I was surprised to see that, even in the first game, Horii was imbuing villagers with a semblance of an inner life by including ones who commiserate about their circumstances, or that the series' tendency for a post-final boss victory lap around the world began here. It's a shockingly well-realized game.
One interesting thing about my time with DQ1 is that I effectively experienced the big Erdrick Trilogy twist in reverse. As I said, I've already played DQ3, and because I played it first, the big moment in the second act where the player drops into "the underworld" (Alefgard) was mostly lost on me; I knew enough to recognize what it was going for, and thought it was neat, but it didn't register beyond that— any specific references flew right over my head. But my time in DQ3's Alefgard made a big impact on my time here in DQ1's Alefgard, granting additional context and weight to its locations. I think it might actually work better in this order, because it's like seeing all these plot seeds bear fruit: Galen goes from being a travelling minstrel to a town's founder; Cantlin gets the protective golem that one of its residents mused about; the destruction of Damdara has weight since I was familiar with the town already; and even just the way people talk about Erdrick is satisfying, to see that she remains a legend. When I think about how those would play out in reverse— meeting the founder of Galenholm only to find out he's kind of a happy-go-lucky dork, or visiting Damdara to find it's a fairly unremarkable place— it doesn't seem as interesting. But perhaps that's just because I experienced it one way first; I'd be curious to know how others think.