PC REVIEW | Dragon Quest 1 HD-2D Remake

It’s been forever and a day since I last played a Dragon Quest game, having skipped Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake entirely. However, I’m fond of the originals and still have many of them in my game collection. Now that Square Enix have finally caught up with the other two games in the series, I figured now was a good time to sit down and see what the collaboration between Square, and ARTDINK have done to revitalise, and refresh the series that so many other studios have done in recent years.

For those who don’t know, Dragon Quest 3 is technically a prequel, and because of this, I decided to play through Dragon Quest 3 Remake first in order to understand the full scope of the project. But let me be clear, despite being a “2D” style game, it’s very much more than that. Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD-2D Remake is a stunning reimagination of the first two legendary adventures in The Erdrick Trilogy, brought together in one package. The level of detail here is astounding, with lots to unpack. Read on to find my full thoughts on the new offering.

Things I liked!

• The Pixel Perfect Graphics | Despite being a “2D” style game, there are a lot of 3D elements to it. For example, the scenery, towns, and villages are all 3D with a clean, sharp look to them. They aren’t realistic, but they aren’t like the characters either. These serve as a juxtaposition to the main character, and townspeople who inhabit the areas. This creates a striking clash of both new and old, and it works well. The colours are vibrant, the particle effects, people, and lighting all work well in creating this pseudo-2.5D look. What I like is that ARTDINK has really tried to capture the old NES style of the characters, while bringing it into the 21st century. It’s not an easy task, but they did a great job.

• The Music & Sounds | It is rare that I will say that my favourite part of any game is the music. Dragon Quest 1 HD-2D Remake however has taken the crown. By far, it has some of the best music I have heard in a video game. It has a fully orchestrated score that was composed by the late Koichi Sugiyama, who also worked on the original music. This is extra special because this marks composing for this game his final work. It’s upbeat, it is sad, it is happy, and dark, all at the right times. Even though there is voice acting in this release, the music helps convey emotion and the tone of the game when voice acting is not being used.
  
  
• Accessibility Features | Accessibility in games is very important, and it is good to see them thinking about this and how they can support players who might struggle, or are getting into RPG’s for the first time. We have the usual suite of options, but we also have Japanese voice and text support, and also new difficulty levels which scales depending on your preference. For example, the newly added Dracky Quest. allows you to play through and concentrate on the story without having to worry about grinding out levels for hours to beat a boss you find difficult. Instead, this mode allows you to stay at 1HP regardless of what happens, and allows you to complete the game. The other modes are normal, and hard respectively. You also have the option to now have your current quests marked on the map so you don’t have to worry about losing yourself when wondering around in the wilderness. A much welcomed feature for an RPG of this calibre. Finally, pressing the start button will now cement everything into memory. This means you can go back through dialogue which has happened so you can read it later at your own pace, and also use this as a way of looking back on what you need to do if you do not have the objective marker on.
  
  
• One man band | It may seem confusing at first, but Dragon Quest 1 HD-2D Remake only features one playable character. This is quite the deviations from Dragon Quest 3 HD Remake, but again, because it was made after the other two games, it was a little more feature-packed. However, I see this as a good thing, as it changes up the players perception of classic RPG mechanics. Instead of having your traditional crew of offence, defence, and healer, you are now having to set commands that your player can choose to change up their play style with, such as, “No Mercy”, which allows your character to just cast the most devastating spell he can to dispatch enemies quickly. You can also set abilities to “Prioritise Healing”, which means your character will heal when it decides it’s best to do so, especially if it thinks you are about to die. A constant switch-up is paramount if you intend to beat it.

Mixed & disliked!

• Egregious Dungeon Design | Unlike the rest of the modern features being added, the dungeon design is still something that looks like its been ripped right out of 1986. Huge Dungeons with little variety, just long, spiralling corridors that force you into fight after fight in an attempt to wear you down before the boss. Even stranger, during some of these Dungeon areas, trailing off to look for treasure almost usually yields no results, which leads me to believe that much of this was an afterthought instead of a necessity for the remake. I think changing up some of these Dungeons would have been good since not just newcomers will be playing it, and shaking things up for veterans would have at least changed up the pace for them.

• Difficulty Spikes | Because the original Dragon Quest games weren’t that long for your typical RPG, the difficulty spikes are a lot harsher, and that is felt throughout the remakes too. The early game has you easily defeating a myriad of different enemies, but by midgame, I felt I spent more time farming enemies for experience just to raise my stats. Not only this, but shops became expensive quickly, and trying to buy better weapons and armour padded the game out by forcing you to grind. I think a more natural approach would have been a better option as ultimately this left me feeling slightly frustrated. Having to make several trips out of my way to stock up on medical herbs and holy water was also a pain. Levelling up does restore your HP and MP, though, so its not so bad when that happens.
  
  
• Not many side quests | For an RPG, there wasn’t much meat on it in terms of main story and side quests. The main game can be completed in around 8 hours or so, with the optional side quests taking around 4 hours. For an RPG, this does feel quite light, and I would have liked more added content for such a grand remake.

CONCLUSION

Score: 85/100

In what should surprise no-one, Dragon Quest 1 HD-2D Remake is a stunning reimagining that offers crystal-clear, pixel-perfect scenes, and updated characters that are gorgeous to look at. With a reimagined musical score, some of the best I have heard in any videogame, Dragon Quest 1 & 2 Remake is a joy to play from start to finish. As a package of two, it offers quite a refreshing change between what was offered in Dragon Quest 3 Remake, and Square Enix, and ARTDINK have gone above and beyond making this new offering look even better. Can we remake more NES-era games in HD-2D, please?

Aaron

Gaming is in my blood.  Be it handheld games, Xbox, PC, Switch or Playstation, I am all over it.
I make my own games as part of my profession and love playing co op games with friends in my spare time. Avid dog lover and camper van enthusiast.