Western RPG fans are finally becoming Dragon Quest-curious thanks to Square Enix’s recent spate of re-releases and remakes. The past couple of years alone have given us Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake on top of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, updated versions of the three games that form the bedrock of the Dragon Quest series. These releases have also been a touch confusing, as the remake of Dragon Quest III was released before Dragon Quest I & 2.
Square has decided to muddy things up further by giving us Dragon Quest VII Reimagined before the expected Dragon Quest IV HD-2D Remake. What’s more, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined utilizes bright, cartoony 3D character models instead of the HD-2D pixel art style of the earlier remakes. Thankfully, the models animate well, and they look particularly cool in battle.
But Dragon Quest VII Reimagined‘s makeover also comes with quality-of-life tweaks that make for a much more streamlined gameplay experience than the Nintendo 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII, which itself had already streamlined the original PSX version of the game. Some of the tweaks even make the game a good starting point for Dragon Quest newcomers who are worried the games might be too difficult for them. But Dragon Quest VII is always going to be Dragon Quest VII at the end of the day. It’s always going to be an imperfect RPG that has problems with pacing and a strange cast that I’ll never warm up to. (Barring Ruff, obviously.)
Nonetheless, playing Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is still fun as heck and it’s great to see Dragon Quest gain some momentum over here. As a long-suffering Dragon Quest fan who’s watched the series’ popularity gradually tick upwards in recent years, it gives me great pleasure to say this: Square Enix’s Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a great entry in a series that finally—finally!—has us western Dragon Quest fans spoiled for choice.
Ooooh, let me say that again: Dragon Quest fans are “spoiled for choice these days.” Shiver.
But Dragon Quest VII Reimagined might give pause to series’ newcomers and veterans alike, since Dragon Quest VII is generally not named amongst beloved entries like Dragon Quest III, V, and XI. 2000’s Dragon Quest VII for the PSX has a notoriously slow start that noodles away hours before you’re allowed your first taste of combat. It’s also not much of a looker, which is a shallow thing to say, but we were deep in PS2-mania by the time it came west. In any case, Dragon Quest VII was ignored when it came to North America.
Square Enix has never given up on trying to get westerners to like Dragon Quest—not for more than a handful of years at one time, anyway—and we received Dragon Quest VII’s full Nintendo 3DS make-over (subtitled “Fragments of the Forgotten Past”) in 2016. This iteration of Dragon Quest VII fared better here: For one thing, westerners had stopped trying to hurt themselves by denying Dragon Quest as their lord and saviour by this point, and for another, Fragments of the Forgotten Past did a lot of trimming and slimming on the PSX game. The long introduction was nerfed, random encounters were done away with in favor of on-screen enemies, and other changes made it much easier to recommend the Dragon Quest series’ blackest of black sheep to newcomers.
Reimagine Dragons
Well, move on over Nintendo 3DS, because the award for “Most Digestible Version of Dragon Quest VII” now goes to Dragon Quest VII Reimagined for consoles and PC. Additional streamlining makes for a much snappier experience compared to previous releases, and the storybook-style environments and animations look wonderful. All that’s left is to evaluate Dragon Quest VII Reimagined alongside other games in the series. Dragon Quest VII is a rather linear game by design, with a story that tasks you and your pals with saving the world. It doesn’t feel as open and free as Dragon Quest XI, or even older titles like VIII or III. It’s still not a short game: You’re looking at around 60 hours. But if you like focused quests served to you with as few distractions as possible, expect some good eating here.
While Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is the best version of Dragon Quest VII, Dragon Quest VII still isn’t my favorite Dragon Quest game. (At least I still like it more than VI.) That doesn’t mean much in the context of the series. Like pizza, a Dragon Quest game is never actually bad. It just doesn’t have your preferred toppings. Exploration is one of the things I love most about Dragon Quest, but Dragon Quest VII Reimagined has you hopping from one small island to the next, and most of them don’t offer a lot of opportunities to get sidetracked on your journey. You’re usually there just long enough to beat up whatever dark force is plaguing the area. Then you zip back to the future and admire your holy handiwork as a new “rediscovered” island resurfaces on your map.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined
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Back-of-the-box quote:
“Dragon Quest VII, only it’s better than the last time they made it better.”
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developer:
Square Enix
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type of game:
RPG
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Liked:
Wonderful environment and creature designs, double-fisting jobs is fun, even more bloat has been cut from the 3DS version of DQ7.
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disliked:
Linear progression, so-so character roster.
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platforms:
Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 (played on), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
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release date:
February 5, 2026
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played:
Rolled credits at about 60 hours, but haven’t done post-game stuff.
Yes, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is technically about time travel. You, as the Chosen One, quickly learn there’s more to life than the single island your family lives on, and you must dip back in time to solve the problems that keep each individual island shrouded in the dark. The further you progress, the more you learn about the apocalyptic war that cut the humans off from each other and allowed monsters to roam the world. But what can be done can also be undone. You know what you must do™.
Get a Job (Heck, get two!)
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined also saddles me with the Dragon Quest VII cast again, and they’re just not my favorite group. The hero is the typical wordless Toriyama-designed Dragon Quest homunculus the player drives through the game. Maribel is abrasive, though she does soften up as the quest goes on. And there’s something wrong with Kiefer’s face. Every time I look at it, my brain screams what I can only describe as an ancestral warning not to turn my back on him lest he might shank me.
It might be that Dragon Quest VII Reimagined’s art style is just better suited for environments and monsters than humanoid characters. Unlike Kiefer, Ruff the wolf boy looks like he’s in his element. Something about his goofy perpetual grin meshes perfectly with the world and creatures around him. Speaking of creatures, the late, great Akira Toriyama whipped up a whole bunch of new critters for Dragon Quest VII, and they all translate brilliantly into Dragon Quest VII Reimagined‘s 3D space. Not only are the monster designs peak (as per usual with Dragon Quest), they animate fluidly too. Fur, scales, and metal are all textured and look fantastic.
I do miss having costumes for each job like with Fragments of the Forgotten Past (Ruff and his wolf pal just belong in sheep costumes), but it’s the trade-off for one of Reimagined‘s better examples of streamlining: The dual job system, which lets you learn more than one job at a time. Yes, Dragon Quest VII has a job system, but you’re going to be disappointed if you expect the kind of character fine-tuning that Final Fantasy V allows.
You only have access to a job’s skills for as long as you’re wielding that job. The idea is to open up as many jobs as possible by mastering other jobs, until you finally unlock the high-tier jobs you’re going to want to keep for the rest of the game. “Learning” jobs feels more like speedrunning them in Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, but the job mixing and matching means you can make some pretty sick combinations of skills and spells that compliment each other. By the end of the game each fight starts to resemble a miniature episode of Dragon Ball Z as you and your foes trade blows of fire, ice, lighting, and steel.
Do a Little Island-Hopping
The dual job system helps make Dragon Quest VII Reimagined one of the friendlier Dragon Quest games for beginners. It’s not exactly easy, and bosses will still whup your under-prepared ass on a bad day. But it also lets you pull from a common pool of items in a fight (not something Dragon Quest games typically let you do), and HP/MP restoration points are plentiful. The random battles are still gone here, same as they’re gone on the 3DS, but Reimagined does you one better by letting you attack and kill weaker enemies on the overfield. You’re not awarded as much experience for these fights, but the rewards still add up and you build levels very quickly compared to other Dragon Quest games.
This is the point where I infuriate people who ask me, “But is this the Dragon Quest game I should start with if I’m new to the series?” Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is not a bad place to start thanks to its lower difficulty and simple-to-grok job system. But I personally wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you prefer games that let you wander far and wide. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a wonderful remake of Dragon Quest VII 2000, but as I said earlier, all Dragon Quest VII can be is itself with its small islands, portals, and a lot of walking back and forth to fix specific problems like appeasing an active volcano or helping a kingdom fight against rampaging robots. I’d more easily recommend Dragon Quest XI, which is a great entry point for anyone curious about 3D Dragon Quest. And of course, there’s the trio of HD-2D games that lay out the origin of everything Dragon Quest is about. There’s nothing wrong with choosing Dragon Quest VII Reimagined as your first Dragon Quest, but remember what I said before? We Dragon Quest fans are spoiled for choice now. And with that last thought, celebrate and revel in our good fortune.