Researching some stuff for @alien_holiday, I recently played Dragon Quest 1, it was awesome to find out where some of the staples of JRPG come from, even some simple stuff such as pokemon's flash HM, as a reference to the torches that you need to use in DQ's pitch black dungeons

I had to do some grinding two or three times, either for XP or for money, the small numbers used in battle (my attack damage at the end was around 40-45) meant that every new level or equipment made a difference in long term battling/exploring, and this grinding was made easier

due to some enemies appearing in specific locations that give out tons of money (Gold Golem) or XP (metal slime).
Even then, these enemies have to be "hunted", since even in their map areas they're still uncommon to appear. That made the grind less tedious, since whenever one of

them appeared it felt like a jackpot for my little side quest.

The game had no minimap, map menu or an arrow pointing the way to the next objective, the only restrictions to exploration were strong enemies and locked doors, that made the initial exploration a little overwhelming

but it was easily solved by talking to the NPCs in towns, some of them had nothing important to say, sometimes just a tip about healing or wtvr, but one or two would tell you about "a city on the northwest", "a temple to the south", etc, that was a great way to hint

where the player needed to go.

Backtracking was done very well imo, every place you went that needed a magic key for progression made reaching Rimuldar a real nice experience, in that moment I didn't get any tips from NPCs of where I should go next, but I knew that if I went

back in any town I would find something new with my fresh set of keys.

Other than that (with the exception of enemies that you had to seal their magic so you don't get wrecked) things in battle were kinda simple: just keep an eye on your HP as you hack away the enemy's and

if your attack hits with very low damage, just use a spell.

When I started playing the game I really expected something very dated, even tho I played the SNES version for better graphics, but it turned out that DQ1 is still a very fun and complete experience, it made my time

"researching" feel like a walk in the park hahah

My next target now is to beat DQ2, which made me think of streaming it as I play, nothing fancy, just the game and my dumb obvious comments like the ones in this thread, I'll announce it here in a near future as soon as I finish

some jobs and can just play videogames without guilt hahah

Oh, and to end this long ass thread, playing the game inspired me to draw a little something that I hope to finish in a near future, for now, here is a sketch: