Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake Review

Hailing from the mid-80s, Dragon Quest has endured as a beloved Japanese turn-based RPG franchise. Its winning feature is a reliably whimsical and hopeful hero’s journey. It’s a series that thrives on games and stories that share a common formula and never prove overly complex to parse or play. It’s no surprise, then, that the big appeal of these games is how they play with player expectations. Each game has a similar beginning and end, a familiar roster of core monsters, characters’ abilities, and equipment. How this familiarity is then played upon in each new title is what draws me, at least, to this series. And yet, I go into this glossy remake of the first two games with no prior experience of them. If you enjoy Dragon Quest’s specific flavour of RPG, I’m pretty sure you’ll dig what publisher Square Enix has whipped together here. 

Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is another win for Square Enix’s push for 2D character sprite work on pretty, high-fidelity 3D Unreal backdrops. From Octopath Traveller to Live A Live, this is perhaps the most alluring example of this blended style I’ve seen yet. For a game broken up by travelling through an overworld, dungeons, and towns, each space has been realised with a detailed sense of place. Particle effects and impressive lighting further enhance the fixed-top-down traversal, and lavish special effects brighten the otherwise static 2D combat encounters. Oh, and your heroes also come bearing a new animation for every single weapon in the game. 

Another mini medal goes to the localisation and voice acting team. Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, there is a tremendous display of voice talent doing wonders on a sometimes tricky script. Its dialogue leans a bit more towards stylised ye-old Middle English, but the timing and emphasis of our actors overcomes this with aplomb. With voice acting accounting for what felt like half of the game’s dialogue, there are still some bumps for readers. Moreso in DQI, with its voiceless solo protagonist who is capable of rallying the kingdom to his aid with a mere series of nods. He misses a few beats by being unable to interrogate the narrative at key junctions, being an almost entirely silent protagonist.

Is that the Hero of Legend?

Dragon Quest II’s party of cousins, descendants of DQI’s hero, however, are a delightfully ragtag bunch. They’re classic JRPG protagonists of the most endearing order. The game begins with demons destroying the major city of Moonbrooke. Its Princess, seemingly the only survivor and the party’s magic expert, begins on a path of revenge that has a few surprise wrinkles in this otherwise sweetly coated package. Their arcs are compelling, their banter barely intrudes on the gameplay, and their voiced cries of angst and accomplishment hooked me on the otherwise straightforward main story.  

This pair of remakes earns a point simply for the humour. These games are self-aware and lean into their goofiness, but never at the cost of their narrative sincerity. You can be sure that nearly every town and dungeon will have something worthy of a smirk. On my journey, I met the very important warlock of doorlocks. I discovered a town called Slewse, notable for its giant sluice, less known for its mentally immature residents. I looted a three-piece bunny suit from a Queen’s bedroom. And the all-timer for the punters: losing a hefty wad of tombola tickets on straight-up herbs. Utter waste. 

As joyous as this pair of games is overall, the first does suffer slightly from its single protagonist in combat. The hero has a whole suite of abilities. A party’s worth, in fact. But he only takes one action per turn, and must wait for each of the however-many enemies to execute theirs. It’s not unlikely that your action fails due to several unforeseen circumstances, and now you wait in frustration. You’re unwilling to test out that wider suite of skills in favour of two things: reliable damage and healing. Attack and heal. Many spells and abilities will simply go unused for the majority of the game, taunting you because there’s no feasibility here. Having a party of four in the second game means four times more opportunities to play around in combat. This first game is all about one little guy, and he’s struggling to survive.

The HD-2D cutscenes are stunning

Of the two titles, the sequel stands stronger, but that doesn’t mean you should skip the first. Dragon Quest I HD felt like a perfect distillation of the series’ experience. All party members are accounted for in a single hero. The adventure takes around 20 hours instead of 40 plus. A roster of over 100 punnily-named monsters, and a discernible world with hidden secrets throughout. If you can roll credits as the lone hero, you’ll have proven ready to barrel across the open seas as the Scions of Erdrick. Its sequel features a greatly expanded world beyond the borders of the first, reasons to revisit old haunts, and 40-plus hours of surprises and overpowered, unbalanced boss fights.

Luckily, there is a generous suite of helpful tips, quality-of-life, and difficulty options to address the idiosyncrasies of these classic titles. The first game probably has fewer than ten designated save locations throughout. Thank fuck for the generous auto-save and ability to roll boss fights back to the start, then. ‘Dracky Quest’ difficulty ensures all players can endure, with a lower battle challenge and switchable invincibility option. Toggleable quest objective markers, a conversation log button, and auto-equip are all saviours. There are points when these games offer up bosses that are way above the player’s capacity. If you spent a couple of hours grinding and overcame said boss, you may find yourself overlevelled for the next couple of dungeons. The ease of toggling on Dracky Quest, toggling it back off after beating the boss, and maintaining a therefore deterministic challenge curve did wonders for the flow of my adventure.

Twisted Sister and Mummy Deerest. C’mon, that’s funny.

We have mentioned stunning visuals at the top, but we must also touch on my other favourite aspect of the presentation: the score. The new arrangements have been so thoughtfully edited and effectively used. You’re in for a real treat if you can play this on good speakers or headphones. Dragon Quest I hits it off with fun, layered compositions for battle, exploration, and each dungeon. Dragon Quest II brings an almost entirely new soundtrack, which got me genuinely excited for the next 2000 random monster encounters ahead. This is one of the best listening experiences I’ve had in a game this year, sitting alongside Expedition 33 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.  

When it’s all done, I look forward to some surprise postgame content. I was shocked by how much there was to do after the credits rolled. I was less thrilled by how much of it is retrodden dungeons and encounter gauntlets, but there are some diabolical new dungeon sequences in there for the sickos.

There are only two hurdles I couldn’t resolve with the player assist options and modern presentation. The bigger of these is a missed opportunity. Secret areas are found throughout the vast overworld, often denoted by a big tree or rock with a notably different texture asset. These secret areas are an explorable zone, often with treasures or people who carry profitable rumours. The zones themselves have very little variation, typically repeating themselves. For a game with so many unique areas that make exploration thrilling, it’s a shame that the so-called secret areas don’t bear the excitement of discovery. Secondly, I would have loved for exploration and combat to let me kick up the speed by just a further fraction. Sprint felt like the default exploration speed, and the ‘ultra fast’ combat option could have done with some more caffeine.

Final Thoughts

More than a 2D-HD remake, this is a revitalisation of Dragon Quest’s first two turn-based, random encounter-driven adventures. There is a balm for each of its aging elements, giving the player options for how much old-school frustration they want on their journey. The lavish visuals, sublime new scores, and player approachability options make this package a recommendation. A bit more ambition for some of the original content won’t go astray, but these remakes are absolutely on the right path.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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