I had the opportunity to play Dragon Quest VII Reimagined in advance of writing this review. “Less is more” is the best way I can describe this new revision by Square Enix and HexaDrive of one of the longest entries in the revered series. Reimagined, as the title suggests, is not a complete remake in the style of other Square Enix titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Rather, it plays closer to the first three Dragon Quest HD-2D games.
Reimagined honors the original Dragon Quest VII while providing a more accessible, streamlined, and welcoming experience to modern audiences. The pacing feels tighter, the charm is ramped up to 11, the sense of adventure is maintained, while combat is fun and accessible. Nonetheless, there are several challenges. The focus on accessibility makes questing a bit too easy in some situations. Some pacing issues are still present due to adhering to its old narrative structure, while party chat has been downsized, affecting companion characterization. These limitations don’t do enough to affect the overall enjoyment I had with Reimagined — this game is a blast and rejuvenates one of the more overlooked Dragon Quest titles.
Set Sail
Reimagined stays faithful to the original’s main story — your protagonist begins on a small, peaceful island that seems to be the only land left in the world. The protagonist and a group of companions set out to unravel the mystery of this barren world. While the game exudes plenty of charm, don’t expect narrative complexity. This is a story focused on adventuring and discovering bitesize mysteries, rather than telling a single, complex overarching story (which is revealed late in the game).
The loop is clear: travel to an island, solve its problem, then return to see the consequences. While this can be satisfying and manageable for smaller fragmented sessions, it can become repetitive over the course of such a long game. Square Enix and HexaDrive have made an effort to streamline the experience by downsizing on quests from the original and addressing pacing issues. For example, the first fight in the game takes place roughly one hour into the main story rather than three hours in the original. This is much appreciated, although Reimagined cannot fully shed its past, structure, and unequal pacing. On the flip side, I enjoyed the amazing sense of adventure of exploring each island and finding out more about the self-contained and different mysteries plaguing them. Regardless of pacing challenges, I believe players will appreciate how easily you can pick up the game where you left off and complete an island or two before you put it down for the day.
Companions are fun and likeable, and their diverse personalities shine through. You start off with two adventurous childhood friends, Kiefer and Maribel. Soon enough, others will join your adventure, including a feral boy, a knight, and a swordsman. They bring the charm to the story and are a pleasure to quest alongside. Maribel is one of the highlights, offering sharp-tongued and funny remarks. Party chat, however, can sometimes feel underwhelming. Rather than providing for deeper character relationships or offering more meaningful lines, it also serves as a hint system, reminding you what to do next. This sometimes trivializes party chat. Overall, the narrative experience is full of charm and paced tighter than the original, even if uneven pacing and underwhelming party chat are occasionally present.
JRPG’ed to perfection
Let’s make it clear — the combat is Reimagined’s greatest strength. In fact, I would say this is one of the best representations of the Dragon Quest turn-based formula ever, alongside the excellent combat from Dragon Quest XI. The combat is superbly accessible but also strikes a great balance with strategy. You have your standard attack and fan-favorite spells like Kaboom and Kafrizzle, which unlock as you level up. You can cruise through easier encounters with confidence, but tougher fights still demand thoughtful party composition and ability usage.
Speaking of abilities, the protagonist and party members can master several vocations, with each offering unique spells and abilities. Each vocation comes with a unique perk that can be “let loose” during battle when a character gets “worked up.” Examples include Kiefer’s attack buff, the protagonist’s temporary immunity to attacks, and more. To make combat more diverse, you can unlock Moonlighting. This allows your characters to have two vocations at once, expanding the strategy and approach to combat. I appreciated this variety and quickly understood that brute force doesn’t always work.
One issue I have with combat is the difficulty. In a quest to make the game focused and accessible, it often feels that the default medium difficulty is easy. This is especially true when steamrolling through average mobs. Luckily, this difficulty can be tailored to your liking through the excellent difficulty sliders. Through these, you can manually adjust the difficulty of the encounters, monster activity, experience earned, damage dealt, and more. This gave me freedom to customize and experiment so much so that I wish more developers implement difficulty sliders.
Reimagined benefits greatly from quality-of-life improvements. Battle speed can be adjusted, and the auto-battle AI is smart enough to handle trivial encounters efficiently. You can also automatically defeat weaker enemies as you traverse the world without having to enter battle. This makes grinding or revisiting earlier areas far less tedious.
The world map is neatly laid out and this can be traversed on foot, by ship, and by teleporting (Zoom). Each island is self-contained and relatively small. Exploration is accessible and easy to navigate around. Nonetheless, the focus on accessibility makes questing a bit too easy in some situations. Quest markers are fairly obvious and all but remove the opportunity to get lost in this world. Luckily, these quest markers and HUD can be turned off from the settings menu at any time for when you want to fully dive into the unknown. On the whole, the combat and gameplay are fun and satisfying, even if exploration sometimes leaves a bit too little for the imagination.
Bring on the charm
Images speak for themselves. Reimagined features a gorgeous hand-crafted, diorama-style aesthetic that exudes charm, coziness, and warmth. It is a mix between the style of Dragon Quest XI and the diorama elements of first three HD-2D Dragon Quest titles. It remains faithful to Akira Toriyama’s original art and the monster designs are some of the whackiest you’ll ever find.
The soundtrack is excellent. The new orchestration elevates an already strong musical foundation by Koichi Sugiyama, adding richness to exploration and storytelling. Whether you’re wandering through peaceful villages or tackling dangerous dungeons, the music consistently enhances the experience and reinforces the game’s sense of nostalgia. The English voice acting is good for the most part, although there are some inconsistencies in performances from some main characters. The audio is high-quality, although I sometimes noticed inconsistent volume related to the voices. These were often being drowned out by background audio, which made me bump up the voice audio above the rest in the settings menu.
Performance on the Xbox Series X is outstanding. I have not encountered any major issues. Reimagined runs smoothly at 4K 60 FPS, with a locked framerate. This is a great looking and playing game that is well optimized on the console. While I would’ve preferred HDR implementation as well, the visuals are plenty bright and colorful as they are.
Summary
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a superb redux of one of the longest and most overlooked games in the series. Reimagined breathes new life into Dragon Quest VII through its tighter pacing, incredible charm, sense of adventure, and some of the most polished turn-based gameplay in Dragon Quest history. On the other hand, the focus on accessibility makes questing a bit too easy. Some pacing issues are still present due to adhering to its old narrative structure, while party chat has been downsized. It is not a ground-up remake and it shows. Nonetheless, this is an outstanding JRPG package that will please diehard fans and newcomers alike.
The series is in a great spot with the recent success of Dragon Quest XI and the first three HD-2D Dragon Quest titles, alongside the much anticipated Dragon Quest XII. There’s no doubt that Dragon Quest VII Reimagined upholds this trend and serves as a reminder that the series has plenty of staying power to become a household name among Western audiences.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches February 5 on Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC.
The Review
Superb
