Dragon Warrior VII on PlayStation was one of the most ambitious examples in the genre, building an utterly massive and deep mythology and pitting players into one of the longest single-player adventures in video games, easily breaching the 200-hour mark. Today, people are intimidated by such a long and drawn-out quest. The Nintendo 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past streamlined the experience, trimming it to around 100 hours with significant cuts and adjustments to the length and pacing. A decade later, Yuji Horii is once again remaking Dragon Quest VII, streamlining the experience even further and giving it a fresh, stylish new art style. Is Dragon Quest VII Reimagined the most accessible and definitive quest for tablets, or has the soul been gutted from the adventure?
There’s no mistake about it; Japanese role-playing games are long. Even the shortest examples in the genre tend to be longer than the average game. What does it mean for a JRPG to be long? Sometimes they’re padded out due to grinding or getting lost. The reasons vary due to gameplay and story dynamics, but usually it’s to create the feeling of going on an epic journey.
The ancient Greek epic poems were thousands of lines long, taking roughly 30 hours to read. They needed to be grand, sweeping tales that honored a hero’s world-changing feats, set against a backdrop of divine powers, moral conflicts, and epic adventures while preserving culture and values. JRPGs are the modern epic poems, dressed up with a bit of fantasy flair and imagination. This Sisyphean grind transforms the humble protagonist from fisherman to Demonlord-slayer, stats swelling like Achilles’ rage-fueled arc, unlocking vocations as trial-won apotheoses.
Yuji Horii considers Dragon Warrior VII/Dragon Quest VII to be his magnum opus. It’s the entry he is compelled to tweak the most out of the series, always aiming to make it more “perfect” with a few extra touches here and some trimming there, which is why it turns out so different each time it’s remade.
The story is set in Pilchard Bay, a quaint, peaceful island where nothing happens. As far as the villagers are concerned, they’re the only island in the world – but that’s about to change as a fisherman’s son and his childhood friends discover ancient shrines that transport them to the past. There, they resolve demonic threats plaguing lost lands, collecting fragments to restore the barren modern world map and avert a greater evil. It’s a monomythic hero’s journey, but one that is less Hobbit, leaving the Shire to destroy the One Ring, and more Luffy going on episodic adventures to find the One Piece.
Much like the original, the silent hero and his ragtag crew journey through time to the lost islands, with each tale playing out as its own mini-arc. Each chapter slowly reveals new pieces of the bigger plot, which quietly unfold in the background, building up to major set-ups that lead to deeply satisfying pay-offs later on. The world goes from one tiny island to a sprawling and bustling world full of towns and kingdoms that the player had a hand in forming. More than just a monomythic hero’s journey, Dragon Quest VII is about the world and its people coming together.
The stories range from whimsical adventures where townspeople turn into animals and animals take on human forms, to deeper existential tales exploring a man’s longing for immortality and the question of what truly defines a human. Some of the stories that used to be mandatory parts of the main quest have become optional now, while some have been cut entirely. The Grondel, El Ciclo, and Providence islands have been cut, and while they may not have contributed as much, it is frustrating that this remake slashed substantial content from the original game.
What has been left intact has also had a few nips and tucks here and there. The stories have been streamlined and significantly reduced in length, eliminating the back-and-forth that players endured when it was called Dragon Warrior VII. Sometimes the cuts make perfect sense and genuinely improve the story’s flow, trimming unnecessary parts and keeping things tight. Other times, though, they’re baffling, rushing the pacing and stripping away moments where players might get lost or think for themselves. The main objective of the journey is to collect tablet pieces that restore the islands and assemble them like a jigsaw puzzle. Disappointingly, the puzzles auto-complete, thus eliminating the detective work and the sense of discovery.
Job class costumes are gone, and now everyone wears their default outfit no matter their class, which might actually be a good thing since some of the old costumes looked ridiculous. By far the most painful cut is the casino. Poker and slot machine mini-games have been completely removed, likely because of their gambling elements and the increasingly strict guidelines from ESRB, PEGI, and CERO that restrict them. Thankfully, Lucky Panel survived and has moved to a new location on the Alltrades Abbey island. Anyone who already played and loved Dragon Warrior VII will likely be constantly distracted by the changes, redesigns, additions, and remixes. Instead of getting immersed, there will be too much to notice where things differ. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is likely designed for gamers who never played the original or missed out on the Nintendo 3DS remake, as it seems like this will be Square Enix’s “definitive” version moving forward.
The localisation is mostly good, but there are a few eyebrow-raising moments for anyone who knows Dragon Warrior VII. The script is based on the remake for Nintendo 3DS, but with the necessary changes made wherever Reimagined altered things. Certain lines have been “softened” for “modern” audiences. The different accents across various towns and regions can be a bit over the top and add plenty of charm in some areas, but when played with Japanese voices, it becomes obvious that there’s a mismatch between the voice acting and the text. In some cases, entire characters will be completely different between languages and this is obvious even when not understanding the Japanese audio.
Some quality-of-life features, like the streamlined menus, battle speed modifiers, and visible enemies on the overworld, are welcomed, but Reimagined goes too far at times. As the franchise has continued, the games and their remakes have become increasingly easier, and while the party can’t become completely invulnerable like in the HD-2D remakes, it’s easier than ever to power-level by increasing earned XP, money, and vocation points in the options at any time and with no consequences. At this point, the game isn’t so much challenging the player, but rather, the player is forced to challenge themselves.
Another egregious QOL feature are the map/mission markers. The option to disable the marker only applies to the map and mini-map, but it will always be visible on the game world. This is disappointing because now gamers are less likely to get immersed and won’t explore as much since there is no question of where to go and what to do. Events lose the illusion of “happening” by exploring. The markers were overkill as is, since the party chat feature has a character point players where to go, and there are always NPCs that nudge them in the right direction. As a result, the world feels smaller and more artificial, which is a shame because this is the best Dragon Quest has ever looked. The diorama-style visuals make the world and characters feel tangible, like little dolls running around on miniatures. Compounded with the aggressive bokeh depth of field effects and attention to detail on the materials, the graphics impress and run at a pitch-perfect 60fps on Nintendo Switch 2.
The original Dragon Warrior VII wasn’t perfect. There were legitimate issues with the pacing and way too much pointless backtracking that artificially padded out the length. Getting to the vocational job class system was roughly the length of most JRPGs, and Dragon Quest VII Reimagined does its best to pare it back so gamers can access this crucial pillar of the gameplay. Although it’s a shame that some islands and puzzles were cut, reaching Alltrades in around 20 hours instead of 40 was definitely a smart decision. Changing classes alters stats and earns new abilities, but just don’t expect vocations to change each character’s appearance. Interestingly enough, their equipment limitations stay the same regardless of their class. It’s a breath of fresh air that comes into play at the right time for a JRPG as long as this.
