Man the volcano made me miss the PS1 version. Between the camera being so zoomed in and the batshit encounter rate, it wasn't a pleasant experience.
I'm kind of feeling lukewarm on the 3DS version in general. The accents are still a bit obnoxious to read without really adding any character, the encounter rate feels a lot worse due to dungeons not being restructured for field encounters (anywhere with a narrow passage you're guaranteed a few fights), intro is significantly worse (takes just as long, but now the puzzles are replaced with arbitrary busywork...?), and something about the camera feels really claustrophobic. I'm still enjoying it because I love Dragon Quest VII, I'm just struggling to see how any of the major tweaks have really helped the game at all. It feels a lot easier too, but that could be due in part to the encounter rate.
Oh, and Quick Save only being available on the world map is a bit worthless. It deletes itself anyways after a load, doesn't it?