Which Dragon Quest game should I play?

[Aeolus]

i have only played DQ8 and DQ1 i thought DQ1 was pretty good at the time when i played it. i mean hurtmore and healmore are totally awesome names for spells. i however thought DQ8 was total ass,and am having a hard time understanding why it is so beloved here. in dungeons i often found myself running from every fight to perserve my resources for bosses since i could not figure out an efficient way to dispatch normal enemies. compounding this was the fact that mp restoring item appeared to be incredibly rare. wich led to me being under leveled. and when i tried to grind to get some levels it took FOREVER to level so i eventually said fuck this and sold it back to gamestop. if i remember correctly i think the lost boss i fought was dhoulmagus and he makes 2 clones or something. it was almost like an mmo where you have to go back to town anytime you want to heal.

Did you realize that there is a healing pool like two rooms away from the guy that restores both HP and MP. Moreover there's an ability called Cherub's Arrow that Angelo can learn (and it only costs 18 Skill Points to learn). It's a free skill that deals normal damage with each hit and returns a small percentage of the damage back to Angelo as free MP (and Bows are his best weapon until you get the Uber Falcon Blade). Also Casinos are fairly easy to abuse in this game compared to other DQ games and you can easily stock up on Magic Waters at the first Casino pretty quickly.

[Prime Mover]

if i remember correctly i think the lost boss i fought was dhoulmagus and he makes 2 clones or something. it was almost like an mmo where you have to go back to town anytime you want to heal.

I hate to tell you this, but that fight is actually the PRE-FIGHT... it's his first/easier form. After you beat his clones, you have to fight him as a wolf/eagle thing, which is much harder. HOWEVER, if you lose, you simply go back to the last church you saved at, and when you return, you don't have to fight his first form again.

[Adol]

Just wait until after Dhoulmagus - with the exception of a bonus boss/dungeon, it was the hardest boss.  If you work on doing the side stuff you'll be leveled up plenty for the rest of the game.

Now this is making me want to play the other seven games all the way through lol.

[Jimmy]

I'm definitely going to give DQ VIII a spin, and I'll start IV once Infinite Space finishes kicking my ass.

I wish I could play IV with party talk...I envy you. The DS version would probably be my favorite game in the series if they had included party talk in the NA localization. VIII is excellent as well. But of all the great stuff everyone has said about VIII, I have to say the aspect I love the most about the game is the overworld design. Not only is it gorgeous, but it's huge, and the topography is just so amazing! I'm not really interested in playing the game again right now as it is so long, but I sometimes load up my save file just to view the scenery.

[MeshGearFox]

DQ8 is sort of like a terrestrial Aquanaut's Holiday, with killing.