Dragon Quest is one of the most seminal gaming franchises ever created. It’s influence have been felt across the industry over the course of the franchise’s near forty years of existence. Last year, Square Enix brought Dragon Quest III in their stunning HD-2D style. However, this led to fans wanting the other early games brought forward the same way. Thus, here we are with the release of Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake which brings the first two games (second and third games chronologically) to modern platforms for longtime fans and new players to enjoy.
For those unaware, the first three games in the Dragon Quest franchise make up the “Erdrick Trilogy” which tells the classic story of the hero saving the world from darkness throughout history. While the third game tells the tale of the original Erdrick, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake follows the stories of his descendants and their fights against darkness during their time. Dragon Quest I has you playing as one of Erdrick’s descendants as they take on the Dragonlord to save the world. Dragon Quest II is much more connected to the first game. This game is set one hundred years after the first game and tells the tale of a party of the first protagonist’s descendants and their fight against a dark priest as he tries to take over the world.
As someone who had never played any of the old Dragon Quest games until the Dragon Quest III remake last year, there were many things that completely caught me off guard jumping into the first two games. I went in totally expecting them to be near facsimiles of each other as they were released back to back to back from 1986-1988 which you would think would give little time for big advancements. Though, I was completely wrong. Dragon Quest I doesn’t have a party system and you are all alone on your quest to save the world. This gives the first game a completely different feel from the others and a solo adventure isn’t something you see very often even in modern JRPGs. Dragon Quest II implements the party system for the first time in the franchise. One of my biggest complaints when I played Dragon Quest III last year was how lackluster the party was as members of the party were just random characters with no dialogue or personality. Dragon Quest II, on the other hand, has a party full of characters. The entire party are related to each other, and that dynamic is so much more enjoyable and fun as I actually built attachment to the characters, and gave a big hand to why Dragon Quest II is my favorite of the “trilogy.”
The world of Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake are a joy to explore and aren’t these massive expanses like modern open world games. Both games only took about 12-15 hours each to finish and that’s with exploring almost the entirety of each map. The map of the second game includes the map of the first game as well as expanding the world with new locations outside of the original one. It was a blast to reexplore places and see what changes had come and what new items may be in specific spots now. You also get a ship to traverse the seas early on making traveling across the map more enjoyable. Plus, fast travel is unlocked early and you are basically able to fast travel from anywhere without issue if you don’t want to worry about encountering any enemies along your path.
Like the remake of Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is a faithful remake of the originals and still play like NES games. The games do feature the quality of life updates that the previous game had such as quest markers and increased battle speeds. The games even constantly autosave making the need to backtrack or find churches to save almost completely obsolete. Thus, you do get to skip past the obtuseness and constant slow grind that games back then had. Though, you’ll still be fighting a lot throughout both games as you’re still constantly barraged with random encounters in these games, and even with the updates these fights are still a challenge and enemies, especially bosses, can wipe you and your party out easily. You can still forego the quality of life aspects and play the games as they were back then where you have to figure out where everything is yourself and where talking to every character in the game is of vital importance to learn where things or places are.
Overall, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is a fantastic package of the first two games in the franchise. For those like me, it is great to see the beginnings of one of the most important JRPG series, and longtime fans will get to reexperience these games in a beautiful way. These are short and sweet JRPGs compare to the 100+ hour ones of the modern era, so neither overstay their welcome. We know another remake of a classic game in the series is coming next year, so it’s great to see Square Enix honoring the franchise. Now, we just need to see where the next mainline game in the series goes whenever it finally releases.
Score: 9 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5