Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined review for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, PC

Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is the latest in Square Enix’s remaster/remake line-up of Dragon Quest games that they’ve been putting out over the past few years. Unlike Dragon Quest I, II, and III, Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is not another HD-2D style game but instead adopts a new, charming diorama like approach that really makes the game stand out compared to even modern Dragon Quest games. It’s also not the first time we’ve seen the game since its original PS1 release back in 2001, Dragon Quest VII also received a significant makeover on 3DS over a decade ago. Reimagined feels a bit more in line with the 3DS release, but the updated visuals, streamlined gameplay, and modern quality of life enhancements does make for a new experience even if you’re pretty familiar with the game already.

For those unfamiliar with Dragon Quest VII, you start off as a silent protagonist that lives in a small fishing village, which in turn is located on a small island. Despite the diminutive size of the island, it’s apparently the only known location in the entire world, at least according to all of the adults that live there. However, other youngsters like yourself don’t quite buy it, and so you’ll set off on an adventure paired up with your friends Keifer and Marible. Together you’ll quickly learn there’s a lot more out there than just the open sea, and you’ll even get to do a bit of time traveling on your quest for discovery.

In Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined, the story unfolds as you travel back in time to unique islands, often solving a problem or quest line that results in that island being brought to reality in your current time, expanding out the explorable map as you bring more and more islands back to life. This setup allows for what feels almost like episodic storytelling, each island is its own self-contained story with unique towns and side characters to interact with, generally a boss fight or two, and a bunch of treasure to uncover. It’s a neat format that worked really well on the 3DS due to the handheld nature of it all, allowing you to progress through the game in small bursts if you wanted instead of plunking 4 or 5 hours into the game in one go. That still holds true with Reimagined, playing it on the Switch 2 I found myself leaning more towards playing with the system undocked, and between the available platforms that Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is available on, Switch 2 is certainly the one I would recommend.

The battle system in Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is similar to other games in the series. You can have up to a party of 4 at any given time, along with the occasional guest character that’ll join your crew depending on story needs. Instead of random encounters, you’ll see enemies populating the field in the overworld, and you can run up to them and attack them with your sword, scoring some early damage which will then trigger the fight. Similarly, if an enemy hits you first, you may lose your advantage and give the enemy a free turn before the battle properly starts. Everything is turn-based, in traditional Dragon Quest style. You can also opt to automate battles by issuing basic commands to party members, useful when fighting basic monsters over and over again. You can also increase the battle speed, another solid quality of life improvement if you don’t want to sit through the animations over and over again.

One of the biggest draws in the original Dragon Quest VII was the vocation system, essentially a job system that allowed for different party combinations as the game progressed. It still takes a while until you can actually change your vocation in Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined, despite the opening hours of the game being modified in order to speed up the early progression, but once fully unlocked, you’ll have a lot of options to choose from. Standard job classes found in other RPGs are present, like Thief, Warrior, Mage, and so on. But there are some eclectic choices as well, like Jester or Shepherd, along with a number of additional classes that are locked behind mastering combinations of different vocations. It’s definitely one of the more interesting aspects of Dragon Quest VII, and the ability to moonlight, meaning you can level up two vocations at once, is one of the bigger changes present in Reimagined.

Other changes to Reimagined, unfortunately, involve cutting some content found in prior versions of the game. To no one’s surprise the Casino has been cut, which considering the rules around gambling and ESRB ratings, it’s the one consistent aspect of Dragon Quest games that’ll likely continue to dwindle away as these re-releases happen. The Immigrant Town area is also gone, which had players construct a town by recruiting NPC’s, along with other side quests that I honestly had to look up in order to remember. None of the cut content feels particularly important to the overall story, and obviously does streamline the game a bit, but it’s a shame to see any actual side-content cut as a whole, keeping Reimagined from feeling like the definitive version of Dragon Quest VII to check out.

Other changes to the game consist of making it easier to locate the tablet pieces necessary to progress the story and unlock additional islands. These were not particularly challenging to find in the original game, provided you were thorough with exploring and revisiting locations after bringing islands from the past to the present. Now these areas are helpfully highlighted on the game map, something that is admittedly convenient if you don’t want to waste time, but also something that I wish the developers had given the option to remove via settings for those that wanted a more traditional RPG experience.

All in all, I think Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is a great representation of the game, but I still think the 3DS version feels like the more complete package. The cut content is disappointing, even though some of the early streamlining and quality of life changes are nice to see. It’s still a really fun adventure with a charming story and beautiful visuals, but maybe not the version of Dragon Quest VII that hardcore fans were hoping for. Everyone else new to the game will likely not notice the changes though, and considering the secondary market price point on the prior releases of Dragon Quest VII, this Reimagined version is the way to go if you’re wanting to jump in for the first time.

Note: Square Enix provided us with a Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined Switch 2 and PS5 code for review purposes.