DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined Reviews

Lovely game. Beautiful visuals, gorgeous music, the same great Dragon Quest battle mechanics as always. It might be my least favorite of the ones I've played story-wise (I've played 7, 8, 9 and 11) but the baseline quality for DQ is so high that I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd love to see more remakes like this.

The original game was extremely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up and had some of the most brutal things in the entire franchise. This variant of the game is really toned down. Honestly, the original game was something I played when learning how to read, and it inspired my style of writing. They removed my three favorite things to relax with (Monster Park, Immigrant Town, and Casino), and toned down the classes quite a bit. They removed the extremely arduous opening that made you feel like you were going through a trial, that made you feel like you were disobeying your parents, and they removed the things that made Maribel and Kiefer seem more like children you grew up with rather than people you visit at the pub. It is also weird to come back to the game and most characters have vastly different names. I can quote most of the original game's character names, so seeing almost every character have a new name is... Jarring to say the least. Saying all of this, however, you'd think I wouldn't recommend the game. I'm not 6-16 anymore, I don't have the time for all the sidequests from the original PSX game. Honestly, a solid remake. If this is your experience with it, that's not a bad experience. Game's fairly solid, it's much more lighthearted, and I'd recommend people play this version or the PSX (do not play the 3DS version- it makes classes overcomplicated.)

There are so many problems in this game that the original did not have. If you're looking to play a classic that has been made modern, well this is not it. They changed enough for this title to be a completely different experience, and not a good one. First, the difficulty is almost aimed at children. Sometimes I'm preparing all by buffs and getting ready to taker down a boss just for it to die before I even complete a rotation of spells and abilities. There is absolutely no challenge anywhere. Progress is also very easy and feels artificial with all the quest nmarkers. I even tried turing the quest marker off in the options and it did not work. The devs just really didn't want us to explore which I don't blame them because the world feels small and empty. There are new mechanics to battles that just do not work and are kind of in the way. These new mechanics also do not follow the progression of the game and sometimes it feels like you're either missing something or that it's a weird bug, but you're not. It's an intended reimagined feature that just doesn't fit. The writing and scenes are also very much dumbed down that it feels like it's targeted for 5 year olds. All the charm and adventure from the original has been stripped away to make this game which seems to be a mere tool to desperately get a new and younger fanbase into the brand. And to top it off, it's way overpriced for what it is. I would not even recommend this if it was on sale. I would probably not be able to get through it if it was given to me for free, and this comes from who has maky thousand hours in JRPGs. I love the genre. This game gives a bad name to it. Do yourself a favour and go play the original instead of this garbage, or just save yourself some money altogether and play games from a company that cares about gamers more than shareholders

I played this game back on the PS1 and enjoyed it enough, but I always thought that this was the weakest entry in the DQ numbered series. This remake, however, elevates it to a much higher level. So many of the gripes I had with the original version are fixed and there are a ton of QOL improvements, plus the OST is better and the voice acting (JP) is great! I recommend this to any DQ fan or RPG fan!

great dragon quest remake truly amzing story and gameplay

I am giving this game a thumbs up on the merits of the game being its own stand-alone game and not comparing this game to the PS1 original nor the 3DS remake. If I were to compare this game to either of those games, I would give it a thumbs down. This version of DQ7 is not a remake of DQ7 for PS1 or an alteration of the 3DS version. This is Diet DQ7: with much content being cut, quality of life changes, and simplification. This calorie light version of DQ7 is fine on its own if you want some level of nostalgia with simplified gameplay after a long day after work and you have an hour to play. It is good for that. If you want something to sink your teeth into, go get an older version of the game.

I'd only pick this one up at half price or lower. The quality of the game constantly ebbs and flows depending on the arc, and the narrative as a whole is greatly bogged down by just being plain directionless. I'm 37 hours in and I still haven't met/don't even have a proper name for the game's main villain, all we have is a vague title. UPDATE: Beat the game and the final 1/3 of the journey is of significantly higher quality, to the point where my feelings are positive overall, but just barely. This is a game for more dedicated Dragon Quest/RPG fans than a casual who is just getting started for the genre. It requires immense patience to get anything out of it.

Buying this game was a huge mistake. Missing the refund window was an even bigger one. The whole game feels like it was made for preschoolers. Even the worst mobile games are miles ahead of this mess in terms of complexity. The characters, the plot, the game structure, the level design, and the dialogue are among the worst things I’ve ever experienced in a game. Even on the high difficulty setting, it’s still far too easy. I absolutely cannot understand all the positive reviews here. Even at the sale price, it’s still way too expensive.

My first time playing any version of DQ7 and I overall loved it, though those two things are probably related. I've read some of the common criticism from existing fans about this version, and I think those complaints are totally reasonable. A few of the island stories were simplified too much, the Mysterious Shrine is basically just a single room now, the difficulty is very low especially early on, etc. But for new players especially, I think this version is very easy to recommend. Just turn up the difficulty and turn off the objective marker (to the extent that the game allows) if you're looking for any kind of challenge. Played entirely on Steam Deck at medium settings, no issues.

Updating my review, because I need to properly elucidate my thoughts on this travesty. Dragon Warrior VII is one of my favorite video games of all time. DQ7:Reimagined is a perfect representation of the state of DQ and modern video games as a whole, and I will attempt to explain why that's a terrible thing. * I played this game in Japanese. __Tradition__ In my interpretation, DQ for the vast majority of its history was a game about *traditions*. The setting is very traditional high fantasy - just with cute Toriyama flair. The game systems are recognizable and intuitive. As was repeated early and often, DQ is heavily inspired by Ultima and Wizardry, tweaked for a family audience. This inspiration was very tangible for the first 15 years of the series' life. The games were connected to each other, they shared large swaths of monster designs, all of the magic spells have had the same name since 1986 (in Japanese), and the connection between them all was undeniable. Everything from their specially stylized sprites to the music was all self-referential; a reminder that you were in a world created from scratch and for one express purpose, with the friendliest enticements to pull you fully in. Admittedly, once Level5's DQ8 came out, some this tradition was dropped, especially via the changes in the western localization. This was considered a great success (to the west), despite the core gameplay remaining 100% traditional DQ, so this unfortunately caused producers to push more and more core changes to the series. In Reimagined, we see the culmination of this push away from tradition. If tradition, in this case, would be respecting the original release of DQ7 and the DQ history, then Reimagined can be considered rushed post-modernism. None of the game mechanics interplay the way they used to. By example, by level 10, hours before Dharma temple, everyone has several elemental-strike skills and at least one skill that hits the entire enemy party. But if you gain all the power you need to tear through enemy parties at the beginning of the game, then the entire game becomes *the same thing*. You are not struggling at any point; you are not questioning your turn-by-turn decisions. In DQ3, if you learned Kazap/Gigadein for 4MP at level 10, suddenly the game doesn't seem the same, does it? This thoughtless care of all aspects of the design, including flattening level power, ruins all sense of progression or power gain. Instead of feeling like your characters are growing, you're just watching damage numbers increase every time you gain a level. Doesn't really matter what skills you're using, because all of them are optimized to be just as useful as all the others! So great, right? __Snip, Snip__ We all know the game was cut down, but it was cut to a massive degree. We aren't just talking about islands being removed and shortened. Notably, dialogues were shortened *across the board*. Maribel's personality is completely changed, piping up when the game wants to tell you exactly what to do, and then removes the agency by moving you to do it automatically. Agency. Yes. They didn't just remove some of the "wandering", they removed all the EXPLORATION. They removed all of the questioning of the environment and the NPCs around you. You will no longer feel any desire to talk to everyone, to explore every cranny of each town, to discover every tiny secret - because there is ZERO incentive to do so. The game has been reduced from a massive world that you felt *driven* to explore to something akin to a tea cup ride at Disneyland. Look at the pretty scenery, but don't you dare get out of your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cup. Because if you do, you'll discover there's nothing there. A good example, and by far not the most egregious and just one of a hundred instances I've noticed so far, is at the Engo / Emberdale volcano. I can't fit all the changes in this review, but this "complete" island is reduced from several hours to about 30 minutes. This isn't abridged or cut, this is butchered. __Agency__ To elaborate on the above point, removing virtually all choice and agency from the player is just par for the course by this point. You can't "go a wrong way", because every dungeon has a complete map as soon as you enter. You can't *fail* at absolutely anything, because challenging the player to use their brain, the way the original asked them to, would just be *too much*. I believe this is because the game producers do not *trust* the player. You are not trusted to enjoy the game without guardrails, or enjoy a game with any level of difficulty or challenge. You are not trusted to make intelligent decisions in battle, so all decisions are equally "fine". You are not trusted to enjoy the more difficult puzzles, or sections with less combat - so those are just *deleted*. You are not trusted to do anything other than let the game *play itself*. There is absolutely no desperation. There is no urgency. Even the parts of DW7 that made me cry feel hollow and trite in this version. There is no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ *soul*. This game was created with one purpose - to show you that DQ7 is a dead fish in the eyes of the new producers, and this is its killing blow. __Lack of Understanding__ Whoever created and balanced this version of the game likely never played DQ7 in their life. This game reads like an itemized list that had half of it scratched out to fit on a marketing blurb. The game world FEELS empty, because it is. Tiny islands with massive roaming symbol encounters do not a populated world make - what makes a world feel populated is getting to KNOW the world and how everything relates together. One of the big ways the original did this is the make-your-own-town sub plot. You always had a small desire to find every single person out there and offer them a home to fill out your town. Obviously that part was cut, so you don't feel any urge to speak to everyone. In the original, quite a few story gates were behind dialogue, and most chapters advanced just by talking to everyone around. Not needed anymore - who cares what the OTHER NPCs have to say, just run to the exclimation point and move on. The search for stone fragments is now a joke. Instead of poring over every corner and basement, having a feeling of utter joy and excitement by discovering another hidden tablet, you just press a button and see it marked plainly on your map. Plus the giant exclimation point, of course, which cannot be deactivated at all. The game is designed so that you can beeline from point A to point B, and ironically, the ability to skip cutscenes now feels *necessary* . I asked myself why, and I kept coming back to that one word - "urgency". You feel *nothing* playing this version of the game. You care nothing for the empty world and its fake-looking inhabitants. You do not care about reviving the world, because you *know its going to happen*, if you just keep smacking that A button. Every time the MC yells when using Burst and his mouth flaps open 3 times emotionlessly I want to shoot my TV. Screaming, dubbed poorly with no emotion - what an apt metaphor. Dragon Quest VII _was_ a massive epic that slowly, over the course of an intimate adventure, showed you its full, sprawling hand. Every card was meticulously placed and with it, your understanding of the game and its world grew. I cannot understate the joy that game brought me over 120+ hours in a single play. Was it slower paced? Yes. Absolutely. And every minute was worth it - cutting 80% of that time does not make a trimmer, more enjoyable, condensed experience. It's giving you a plate of clean bones and insisting to your face its prime rib - everything's already been stripped away, and you're just left empty. Empty is the appropriate word. I have never felt more empty after playing a DQ than this game. I had my eyes closed for a long time, but this game represents a fall-from-grace that I don't think we're going to recover from. Good night, DQ.