An infamously long RPG, Dragon Quest 7 has never quite been held up alongside the series’ most revered instalments, but it’s always been deserving of a second — or technically third — chance.
Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined sets out to rework the adventure for a modern audience; many of its biggest alterations to the original formula come in the form of streamlined gameplay and accessibility options.
And the good news is that this remake does wonders for what was once a tediously paced title. Crafted with a clear adoration for the source material, Reimagined is both a fantastic revival, and a top tier Dragon Quest game.
With a focus on time travel and an episodic story structure, Dragon Quest 7 sees a ragtag group of youngsters attempt to repair their world by righting the wrongs of the past.
You’ll jump between blighted histories, thwarting malicious powers across a series of island kingdoms, with each landmass offering up its own narrative and central characters.
While the structure’s undeniably predictable — visit a town, learn of a problem, go to a dungeon, slay some monsters — that quintessential Dragon Quest charm is rampant throughout, with each island ‘episode’ playing out like a fairy tale.
It’s hard not to get reeled in by the sheer cosiness of the experience, which is emphasised by the remake’s incredibly well realised diorama-esque art direction. It’s one of those games that’s just a joy to plod through at a nice, steady pace.
But even though Reimagined does its best to push its plot along, opting to shorten certain sequences and even cut some lesser storylines that were present in 7’s previous incarnations, it remains a slow burn.
Our own playthrough for the purposes of this review clocked in at around 75 hours, and it’s fair to say that you’ll still need a decent amount of patience to get through the story’s more ponderous moments.
Indeed, not all ‘episodes’ are created equal. Although rare, a few of 7’s storylines amount to little more than trekking between locations in order to converse with a handful of NPCs. They’re so glacial that we’re left wondering why the development team didn’t do more to truncate them.
And on top of that, the backtracking that haunted the game on PS1 and 3DS still mostly exists.
Having repaired the troubles of an island back in the past, you’ll usually be prompted to return to that island in the present, in order to behold the fruits of your labour. This can often result in exploring the same towns and dungeons all over again, with only new dialogue and loot to coax you along.
It just feels a bit clunky by today’s standards, but again, this kind of repetition is relatively rare across the adventure as a whole. In most circumstances there are meaningful discoveries to be made, and it’s always interesting to see just how your actions in the past have impacted the land and its people in the present.
Besides, the whole process of hopping between time is made much more agreeable thanks to the addition of helpful maps and objective markers. Where the original 7 could frustrate with its invisible checklist of ongoing quests, Reimagined is happy to point you in the general direction of progress.
Even your party members will offer hints and tips if you take the time to consult them with a push of the circle button. Streamlining isn’t always a good thing, but Square Enix has done well to soften 7’s sometimes convoluted pacing problems.
Other improvements include monsters being present in the field, eliminating the need for random encounters, the ability to speed up combat, and the addition of difficulty modifiers.
That latter inclusion is one of the most important, we’d argue. Plenty of you reading this will have played Dragon Quest 7 before, and so being able to increase experience point and money gains will all but eliminate the character-levelling grind — something that might have been putting you off a replay.
You can also tweak enemy damage, your damage, and full recovery after each fight. This means that you’re free to craft your own challenge, and we think that can be a big plus for a game that’s built on old school ideals.
Which brings us to the turn-based combat itself, which is… well, it’s classic Dragon Quest, but Reimagined does boast a very neat and tidy user interface that makes navigating commands impressively pleasant. The ability to ‘favourite’ specific spells and abilities for easy access is welcome, too.
That’s because you can end up with a massive list of techniques depending on your chosen jobs — or vocations, as the series likes to call them. This is where 7 attempts to do things a little differently, allowing you to customise each party member’s toolkit by assigning them a class.
It’s a simple system all told; your base stats change based on your vocation, but other factors, like equipment, are determined by the character — so you’re really just deciding on what spells and abilities you want at your disposal.
There’s still room for experimentation, though, and that’s mostly because Reimagined (eventually) lets you assign not one, but two jobs to each hero, effectively giving you the freedom to make your own classes.
A spell-wielding sage who’s also a dab hand with a sword? What about a brutish gladiator who also has the capacity to summon allied monsters? As mentioned, there’s not a huge amount of depth here — primarily because the number of available vocations is fairly limited — but finding a niche for each character is still one of the title’s best gameplay hooks.
