Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined

The fourth iteration of Dragon Quest VII to get a release is also the first to make the leap to HD, with a charming art style based on digitized models and many quality-of-life improvements over previous editions.  But does this notoriously slow-paced game benefit from yet another upgrade, or does it fail once more to invite new fans to the franchise?

Dragon Quest VII is arguably the series' most divisive entry, earning both praise and criticism for the slow pace of its story and its copious amount of backtracking.  It was also the last to retain the series' noted low production values, still using simple text-based menus and minimally-animated sprites right up to the end of the PS1 era; definitely a stark contrast to more visually impressive CGI works of the era like the Final Fantasy series.  The later rereleases on the 3DS and mobile platforms tightened it up and gave it an updated look, though it did little to improve its perception in the west.  In 2026 Square Enix commissioned Hexadrive to try again with another updated version, hoping to ride the wave of success they had with their remakes of 1, 2 and 3 in recent years.

The most notable element right away is the visual upgrade.  While the original was very bare-bones 3D environments and spritework with minimal animation (aside from a few scattered FMV cutscenes) and the 3DS version was essentially the same idea with 3D models, Reimagined... well, reimagines things.  The character models are based on dolls that were actually made and digitally scanned, and are surprisingly well-animated and expressive. Environments adopt a more photorealistic, diorama-like look to match the models, giving it a style that's a comfortable blend of realism and cartoon.  Voiceover was added too, bringing it in line with the recent remakes of 1-3.

Some other improvements from later Dragon Quest games were added to this one too.  Enemies are now visible on the map, giving you a chance to evade or battle them at your convenience.  You can also land a preemptive attack on them to get some easy damage before a fight starts, or if an enemy is significantly weaker than your party, instantly defeat them.  The UI is substantially improved over the usual text-based Dragon Quest menus, sorted into tabs for inventory, equipment, options and so forth, all visually represented.  Rather than having individual character inventories it's now unified, so you don't have to distribute items to each character ahead of time.

Another added mechanic is the ability to get "Worked up" and "Let Loose" - a bit like Pep from Dragon Quest XI, getting Worked Up gives a temporary (and semi-random) boost to your character's core stats, while "Letting Loose" allows them to unleash a powerful ability.  Unlike XI, however, these are tied to your character's current Vocation; each character gets a unique default class (and ability to go with it), while the more generic Vocations get abilities of their own.  These range from boosting a chance to land a critical hit with spells to negating the next attack taken to allowing you to cast spells at no cost for a turn or two.

The vocation system has been reworked once again too.  As mentioned, each character now has a unique default Vocation exclusive to them.  In addition to that, one can now only use skills from Vocations they currently have equipped; they can now also equip two at once with the new Moonlighting system, allowing them to create powerful hybrid Vocations and level up two at once to cut down on the grind.  Monster Hearts are also reworked; rather than being used to unlock more Vocations they now serve as accessories, granting small bonuses like a higher chance to land critical hits or survive a fatal blow with 1 HP.  They also are no longer dropped in random battles, instead being found in chests or earned by defeating souped-up monsters that appear in specific spots on the map.

Other quality of life improvements are introduced too.  In addition to tightening up the pacing (again), the player now has the option to make granular adjustment for difficulty, damage taken and even the amount of XP, gold and vocation points you earn to speed up the gameplay (or slow it down, if you prefer).  So the game can appeal to newer and less patient RPG players as well as those more suited to the old-school challenge and grind.  Many portals back to the main island exist too, allowing for substantially less travel time as you progress through the story and main goals within.

While I did enjoy the older versions of DQ7 in spite of (and somewhat because of) their generally slow pace and old-school core design, Reimagined might just be its best iteration to date.  It does still require quite a bit of revisiting areas to progress and it's still tens of hours of gamepaly before you get a full party and access to the Vocation system, but the pacing is much quicker now and there's substantially less of the empty grind to deal with.  All this, plus the charming visual style, captivating story it tells and the many new tweaks and additions, may finally make this the game that puts Dragon Quest VII on the map in the west.  I certainly hope it does; it's a great RPG that deserves more recognition.

 

Developer: Hexadrive
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: 2026
Platform: Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, XBox Series, PC
Recommended Version: All of them seem to be on level with one another; although the Switch 2 version does come on a Game Key Card (full download with the cart simply serving as glorified DRM), so if you're opposed to that you may want to spring for another one.

Return to Krondor

After five years and a very underwhelming offshoot game, the Riftwar series returned to the world of gaming, albeit with a different studio taking the helm.  Two, actually.  One is 7th Level, a company mostly known for subpar adventure titles and licensed interactive software; and the other is Pyrotechnix, who have exactly one other game to their name - a long defunct online-only tank combat game.  That doesn't bode well right off the bat, but you can definitely see the former's influence as the game now has fixed camera angles and *sigh* tank controls in addition to point-and-click movement.  There's also underwhelming voiceover and no subtitles, so get used to hearing a lot of school play caliber acting.  Combat is essentially the same grid and turn-based system, though now much slower, and progression is extremely linear with very little opportunity to explore and do side missions.  Rather unintuitively you can't just walk between areas anymore either - you have to bring up the map via the "Krondor" menu and then click to go to a new area, which isn't great.  Even less great is that room exits aren't always apparent from the fixed camera angles you're given, so you often have to press the bracket keys to rotate to a new angle in order to progress.  There's random encounters in various rooms and passages though, and unlike the original game (and the offshoot), there's now a traditional Experience system, awarded for winning combat and completing both story and side quests.  Opening locked chests is no longer a simple skill check or a roll of the dice, but now a full-blown minigame where one basically must "dissect" the locks and traps on it using various tools.  A clever idea, though it mostly seems to come down to luck and savescumming since there's no discernible logic to using any tool on any parts, or at least, none that I could find.  There's an alchemy system too, though in practice it mostly just clutters up your inventory with useless items until you find one of the rare spots where the game allows rest and crafting.  A considerably better game than the previous attempt, but still a far cry from the quality and depth of the first Krondor.  There's a reason you never hear anyone talk about this game, and that's because Baldur's Gate came out one month after and was a superior experience in basically every way...

Developer: 7th Level, Pyrotechnix
Publisher: Sierra Studios
Released: 1998
Platforms: PC

Betrayal in Antara

After Krondor proved to be a slow burn success for Dynamix and Sierra, they naturally wanted to make a sequel; unfortunately by the time the game had turned a profit they no longer had the rights to the Riftwar saga, and instead had to make their own.  A pretty stock fantasy world called Ramar, with some equally tepid writing by Susan Frischer and Peter Sarrett; neither of whom worked on the original game, and the quality from it is sorely missed.  Our first scene is literally a prince and a young farmhand uniting, with the latter tossing out a lightning bolt out of the blue to showcase his magical talent; yes, I understand compelling world building is difficult, but surely you can try harder than this.  We've also got voice acting now (of a very mediocre sort) and the game isn't much better looking than Krondor was, despite coming out four years later.

Aside from a few small changes and improvements, this is basically just a bog-standard retread of Krondor in every respect.  Instead of the word-lock chests you now get lever chests, in which you pull a series of levers in the correct order to spell out the word for the puzzle.  There are also bead chests in which you attempt to create a sequence of colored beads through exchanges, though these are largely superfluous changes.  Lockpicking is now luck based (blah), and combat was used relatively sparingly in Krondor, making each battle feel significant; here it feels like blatant, boring filler as you're fighting the same handful of enemies almost constantly everywhere you go.  Spells are no longer learned through scrolls, but must be "researched" before they can be used, with new types found through certain environmental actions and research carried out very slowly as time passes.  On the upside, the game does autosave before battles in case they go wrong (and they will, a lot), and there are now touch-range spells, so you're not stuck if an enemy bum-rushes your mage (which they will, a lot).  Unfortunately the lackluster writing, dragging combat and overall slow pace make this a poor imitation of Krondor, and definitely not as good as that classic.  To say nothing of the bugs - the game crashes frequently and many mechanics simply don't work as advertised.  Krondor was a virtually bug-free experience, so having so many bugs and crashes in what's supposed to be a followup game is a major strike against it.  And considering how subpar an experience it is already, there's just no reason to recommend Antara over its predecessor.

 

Developer: Sierra On-Line
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Released: 1997
Platforms: PC