Sweet Home and Dragon Quest are both turn-based RPGs, but that is where things end. Dragon Quest was one of the first attempts to make a console RPG, and many of its gameplay mechanics feel archaic. Sweet Home is something different and unique when compared to the other RPGs on the home console.
Comparing games to the first Dragon Quest can be a little tricky. There isn’t too much to the game, and it is very basic. I still have fun playing it, even if I find some parts of the game to be a little annoying. Outdated isn’t the best way of putting things in this game; it is more of an archaic experience that was almost immediately improved upon by other games and the Dragon Quest sequels.
Sweet Home is the most recent RPG that I’ve played. This might make me a little biased towards it, but I’ll try my best not to gush over it too much. I enjoyed both of these games, and it’ll be fun to take a closer look at them in this way.
Game Descriptions/Overviews
These two games couldn’t be more different from each other. While they share the same basic idea as far as gameplay. The story, setting, graphics, and theme are all different.
Dragon Quest is a high fantasy RPG. It is very basic as far as an RPG goes. You only fight one enemy at a time; it is a very linear game, and the player only has to manage one character. The story has a bigger setting as you have to explore a continent and visit towns to gather clues on what you need to do.
Sweet Home is a combination of an RPG and a survival horror game. This is a horror game where everything takes place in a haunted house. There are a lot of puzzles you need to solve to beat the game, and there isn’t an in-game economy. It uses a two-party system, has awkward controls that take some time to get used to, and has you do a lot of inventory management.
That is a brief overview of both games. I’ll get more into both of them as this post goes on, and I’ll explain more of the major differences between these games. There are a lot of differences, so this might take some time.
Main Differences
For the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on a few things here. I’m trying to keep this to three or four big things that separate these games, and then I’ll get into more in the next section. For now, I’ll focus on setting, gameplay, and other mechanics.
The two settings are radically different. Dragon Quest is a high fantasy story with monsters and magic. Sweet Home takes place in a maze-like mansion that is filled with ghosts, ghouls, and other monsters, similar to horror settings and ghost stories.
From a gameplay standpoint, these two games are far apart. Dragon Quest has a single protagonist, and Sweet Home has five characters that you separate into two groups. It is possible to have more than two groups, but it is better to have two in Sweet Home. It helps with managing your inventory and fighting battles.
Dragon Quest has a singular goal, and everything you do is supposed to drive the narrative in that direction. Sweet Home has gameplay elements that you’ll find in a survival horror game. There is more inventory management in Sweet Home, and your items matter more for the story than the ones in Dragon Warrior.
Sweet Home does a better job of using its setting than Dragon Quest does. Because it is, in part, a survival horror game, the key items feel more important to the plot, and the puzzles do more to advance the game’s plot. The clues you’re given also add to the story as they’re framed as messages from another group of people who were exploring the mansion.
Those are some of the bigger differences between these two games. There are a lot more, and I’ll go over those as I compare the core mechanics of these two games.
Comparing Core Mechanics (Combat, Story, Visuals, etc)
I’ll be looking at three things here. Namely, the combat, story, and graphics. For graphics, I’ll be going over how the games tell their story instead of simply bashing one because it isn’t as good-looking as the other.
Combat isn’t as different as you might think. Both games use a first-person perspective for battles, you’ll only fight one enemy at a time, and the graphics for attacks and magic are lackluster. I’ll use the word magic as a catch-all because Sweet Home doesn’t really have a magic system. It has a “prayer” mechanic that acts like magic, but I have no idea how it is hurting anything, and it has more to do with solving puzzles and beating the final boss than making the base combat interesting.
Once you get passed the basics of combat, there are some significant differences. Dragon Quest only has one playable character, and Sweet Home has you assemble two parties of three and two characters. You can call your allies to help you in each battle, which makes things easier, and it helps you to level everyone up.
Sweet Home is an adaptation of a horror movie, and Dragon Quest is a generic high fantasy story. In one, you’re ultimately going to fight a ghost that has two forms, and in the other, you fight a dragon that has two forms. I really like that Sweet Home is a different setting than you would normally see, and is something different from the fantasy games.
Sweet Home is a more cinematic game than Dragon Quest. It has more cutscenes, dialogue, and is more exciting than Dragon Quest. This is one of the areas where you can see the big differences between the games and how far the genre has come in the three years between these games.
These are a few of the areas that are also different between the two games. Now it is time to go through what each game does better than the other. I’ll start with Dragon Quest and then move on to Sweet Home.
What Does Dragon Quest do Better?
There isn’t much that Dragon Quest does better than Sweet Home. It isn’t that it does something bad; it is simply that the game was one of the first RPGs on the home console. Dragon Quest is a simple game that is fairly bare bones.
One thing I can point to is that Dragon Quest does have some more rewarding fights. Sweet Home only has one boss character in it, and Dragon Quest has more bosses. I like that there are some mini bosses guarding a few of the key items. What Sweet Home does instead is give you some puzzles in place of mini bosses.
That is it. I like Dragon Quest, but it is a very simple game that doesn’t have much to it. It is a relaxing game for me, but there isn’t too much else that I can point to as being better than other games that I compare to it.
What Does Sweet Home do Better?
There is a lot that this game does better than Dragon Quest. Sweet Home has better gameplay mechanics, the graphics are better, and I enjoy the story more than Dragon Quest. I could point out a lot of other things, but these are the three big ones.
This game has some unique gameplay mechanics. It uses a two-party system, and that is done much better than the other games that I’ve played. I love that it uses mechanics that would become standard for survival horror games, and I found the way the game uses each character was very cool.
The graphics are also much better than Dragon Quest. While I like both games’ graphics, I feel that Sweet Home’s are better, and I like how creepy they are. It is also a more cinematic game with cutscenes and more character development. Sweet Home also manages to get a lot of scenes from the movie into the game.
I really like the story in Sweet Home. It is so much better than Dragon Quest, not only because it isn’t a generic fantasy story, but it is a fun ghost story. I also enjoy that this is one of the few movie-based games that is excellent.
There are so many other things that Sweet Home does better than Dragon Quest. The controls are better, the menu system is more streamlined, and every item feels like it serves more of a purpose. Let’s get into which one I think is better and which one I would rather play.
Which is Better Overall and Why?
Sweet Home is the better game. While these were made by different developers, you can see how far the genre had come by looking at these two games. In this case, Sweet Home does something different and gives the player a fresh take on the RPG genre.
It does a better job of doing something different from what Dragon Quest did. It has better graphics, gameplay, and the story is much more interesting. What I really like is that it is an example of a great movie adaptation of a video game.
The story is so much better than the bare bones tale from Dragon Quest. The characters in Sweet Home have more to say, and they help to explain the plot. I really like that this is a change of pace from other high fantasy stories, and more engaging than the basic story of Dragon Quest.
Sweet Home’s gameplay is also more fun than Dragon Quest. It is more involved, and it does something different by combining two genres. This is a challenging game that can be frustrating, but not to the point that it harms the game.
This one wasn’t all that close. Dragon Quest is fine, and I like playing it every once in a while, but Sweet Home is much better and more fun to play. I really like how different this is, and I love how different it is from everything else.
Which Would I Rather Play?
Sweet Home is the game that I want to play again. I like both of them, but Sweet Home has more going on with its plot, and I love the gameplay even if it is frustrating. This is a new game for me, and I’ll normally choose something new over something that I’ve played a few times.
It helps that this is a wonderful adaptation of a horror movie. The way the developers worked with the source material to make a game like this was brilliant. I love that they got as much of the movie into the game while still making it something different.
The two-party system is used quite well in this game. It is easy to swap between characters and control your parties. I love how this system works well to enhance the overall gameplay, and it makes managing the inventory easier.
Sweet Home is the one I want to come back and play. It is a fun game that takes some time to get the hang of. I can see why it wasn’t brought to North America, but it would’ve been nice if it had turned into a series of RPGs so they could continue to experiment with the gameplay.
Conclusion
Sweet Home is one of the best RPGs that I’ve played this year (2025). I feel the same way about it that I feel about Destiny of an Emperor. Because it is different, it is able to stand out to me, and it makes the game more fun to learn about and play.
Dragon Quest is a perfectly fine game, but it has a lot of archaic gameplay elements that make it not as good as the other games on the NES. There is nothing wrong with it, and I enjoy it for what it is. I just don’t like it as much as other RPGs.
It will be fun to see how the other games stack up to Sweet Home. There aren’t too many true horror games for the home console from the late 1980s, and this is one of the best ones. I wish we had gotten the game when it was released, but after playing it, I can see why it didn’t receive a North American release.
If you liked this post, please check out some of the other posts from my vs series, such as Sweet Home vs Destiny of an Emperor or Dragon Quest II vs Phantasy Star II.