Hello! This is my first attempt to write a guide for any kind of game, so please bear with me and feel free to offer any suggestions you may have.

Before we begin with the actual walk-through, I want to explain a few things - 1) The premise of the Dragon Warrior/Quest franchise, 2) A brief synopsis of this edition of the game along with a description of the characters, 3) The goals of my walk through (or, why I chose to write a walk through), and lastly 4) How I will organize and format the walk through so you know what to expect.

Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior Franchise
 Let's begin with the premise of the Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior Franchise. The Dragon Quest Franchise dates back to 1996 and now consists of 10 games with an 11th currently in production. The basic game-play of the franchise is rather straight forward as it is for most RPG's of this nature. The player (that's you) controls the Hero who, in most cases, is accompanied by a group of party members (most often human, but occasionally includes monsters) that is tasked with some noble objective - usually saving the world/s from some big bad. The series uses a turn based system for battling, (I.E. In battle you set what you want each character to do for that specific round being as general or as specific as you like, then sit back and let the game dictate the outcomes of your choices) and contains a lot of similar characters and monsters you will face off against.

Dragon Warrior VII - Fragments of the Forgotten Past - A Brief Synopsis

In Dragon Warrior 7, you start out as the son of a fisherman in the quaint little town of Fishbel on the Island of Estard, the only land in the vast blue sea. Your two best friends are Kiefer, the prince and future king of Estard who loves to adventure, and Maribel, the daughter of the Mayor of Fishbel. Kiefer and you spend most of your free time exploring the forbidden zone in the north-eastern tip dreaming of bigger adventures than your tiny island can ever live up to.

However, this all changes the day your father comes back from his most recent fishing trip with a strange slab of stone that seems to be part of a map to a previously unknown land suggesting that other lands may have once existed in this vast world! With this knowledge (and slab of stone) in hand, and with help from some locals, you're able to crack the code of the forbidden zone and learn what secrets lie inside. You and your companions soon begin to travel back in time to lands that were sealed away by the Demon Lord long ago - and always right at the moment when everything went so horribly wrong. You are tasked with the goal of defeating those responsible the downfall of that land and bringing peace. As the game progresses, you are eventually tasked with defeating the Demon Lord himself, along with reviving God!

Goals of my walk-through

This is one of my favorite games of all time (as stated in my review) and I wanted to help make this game more manageable for anyone else interested in playing it. Dragon Warrior VII is known for it's extensive size - it took two discs to fully contain the game when it was  released for the PlayStation. Just playing the main story line to completion without including in any of the side quests can take 100+ hours to play - and that's with a guide handy telling you all the tips and tricks you could need

Trying to play this game without a guide can be incredibly intimidating and can lead to a lot of frustration when wondering what to do next - along with missing out on some useful, and in some cases cool, extras. I myself had to consult a guide when I recently played it, and that was after having poured in hundreds of hours into this game when I was in high school. There's just so much this game has to offer that I want to give all the assistance I can.

What you can expect from this guide in terms of Organization

I'm going to take a page from the official Prima Guide for the game (No, not literally!). For each section of the guide, they would give a step-by-step walk through of what needed to be accomplished and in what order. There were no additional details about how to accomplish any of the tasks, just what to accomplish

That will be the first thing you will see when you get to a given section. I will give a brief step-by-step walk through of what you will need to accomplish and nothing more. This will be simply in number order of the essential things that must be accomplished and the order in which you need to accomplish them. For those looking for a general outline of what needs to be done, but who want to figure out the little things on your own, that will be for you.

If you get stuck on what to do next, or are someone looking for a more detailed description of how to proceed, below the step-by-step outline I will go into the more traditional paragraph format in which I will include my thoughts, tips, and any other piece of information I deem necessary.

Lastly, when I said I'm looking to give you all the help I can, I mean it. Within the walk through I will be looking to include information you wouldn't normally expect to see. So in addition to things such as what monsters can be found in a given area (and their stats/spells/skills), I will also let you know the percentage chance you can expect a certain monster to appear in a random battle and how often a given grouping of monsters will appear. Or in addition to telling you the cost of weapons/armor/items at a given shop, I will let you know the average amount of gold and experience you will obtain from a battle in a given area. This way, if you're looking to purchase a particular item, you can calculate how many more battles you can expect to have to fight to reach your monetary quota (and thus can deem if the time you will need to expend is worth it or not).

This guide will be a work in progress. I will try to get a chapter in the saga up every 2-3 weeks, but I do have other obligations that may get in the way.

Up Next: Playable characters

Hate to burst your bubble like this but I'm going to have to stop you for a minute here.
Please make sure to read the Game Guides forum rules before continuing this guide.

We don't allow the splitting of guides unless they're 20.000+ words long. I'd recommend that you start making this guide in a word document (or some other program) to see how long yours is getting, since I'm getting the impression that this game is quite long. Once you know for sure that you're going to surpass 20.000 words, you can contact me and we'll see how we can split it into 2 or 3 parts.

Also, this particular part isn't really a walkthrough so I'm afraid I'll have to revoke the CP and Viz you gained from this part. Since it is connected to the actual guide, I'll keep it in this forum.

Now, I love your enthusiasm for this project so I want to help you with the process to make sure that it follows our rules for walkthroughs.

Furret : I read  the Game Guides forum rules after I had posted the originally and then went back and removed anything regarding breaking the walk through up into multiple parts to conform to the standards set out even before your replay (or at least I think I got everything).

Would it make more sense for me to just post the walk through when it's completed? Or should I edit the post and add to it as I go?

Furret : Also, I'm not concerned about the vizzed or the CP. I just want to get a guide up for a game I love. I was going to add information about the characters in the game (stats and the like) and then get on to the actual walk through but my computer was getting low on battery so I had to plug in.

I posted just to get the beginning up there. Hopefully draw some people into the game.

pterifractal : I think I just assumed that you were going to split it based on the last line.

It'd be better if you could post the walkthrough when it's completed, yeah. If it exceeds 20.000 words when finished then you can post it in two parts if you'd like. 

Again, love your enthusiasm. I'll be looking forward to seeing it

Furret : Alright, if you're lucky, you'll hear from me again in about 3-4 months. And I can assure you this will be well over 20,000 in size. I did a quick check and the guide I had bookmarked clocked in at about 110,000 words. And I'm looking to do more.

It should be a fun writing challenge for me. And it gives me a chance to replay my favorite game and really enjoy all the nuances.