Dragon Warrior VII - Reception

Dragon Warrior VII was very well received in Japan both commercially and critically. It was the best-selling PlayStation game of 2000 in the region at 3.78 million copies sold. As most of the units were sold mere weeks after the game's release, the game established itself for having the largest annual shipment of any independently sold game for the original PlayStation. Worldwide, sales of the game have surpassed 4.1 million units as of February 2004. Dragon Warrior VII won the grand prize in Digital (Interactive) Art Division at the 4th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2000, where the game was praised for being "...engaging without depending on a high degree of realism..." and "...well refined and artfully executed." The game also won four awards from the 5th Japan Entertainment Software Awards by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA), including Best Prize, Scenario Prize, Sales Prize, and Popularity Prize. In 2006, the readers of Famitsu magazine voted Dragon Warrior VII the 9th best video game of all time.

Sales of the North American version of Dragon Warrior VII reached about 200,000 copies according to The Magic Box, which was not nearly as stellar as its Japanese counterpart. Enix of America still expressed their satisfaction with the sales figures. Dragon Warrior VII met with mostly good reviews from North American critics. IGN noted that all "100+ hours" of the game are enjoyable despite the dated visuals and clunky presentation. GamePro questioned whether the game's package was nostalgic or just awful, but still gave it a decent score and called it a great game overall. GameZone.com praised the game's concept and nostalgia factor and cited it as "what role-playing games were meant to be." They also noted the game's high difficulty, which, instead of making the game frustrating, they say, "make it that much more of an accomplishment when you complete a quest." IGN described the game's class system as "one of the best class systems seen outside a strategy RPG."

Other critics were not as pleased with Dragon Warrior VII. GameShark.com described the first two hours of the game as "some of the most boring hours you will ever play in a video game." XenGamers.com also pointed out that in order to play the game, the player needs "the patience of a rock". Game Informer even went as far as to say that "four million Japanese can be wrong", referring to the game's immense popularity in Japan.

Because of the game's delay in being developed, its release was after the PlayStation 2's release, which created some negative feedback, particularly about the game's graphics. IGN commented on this, calling the game "a game that makes only a bare minimum of concessions to advancing technology, but more than makes up for this with its deep gameplay, massive quest, and sheer variety." GameSpot called the graphics "not good" and warned readers that if the "most rewarding things" they "got out of Final Fantasy VII were the full-motion video interludes, you definitely won't be wowed by anything you see in Dragon Warrior VII." Dragon Warrior VII is still highly sought-after by video game collectors and RPG fans, and even used copies can sell for considerable amounts.