Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a fascinating game to review because it takes modern sensibilities that players have come to expect and applies them to the most divisive entry in the series. I do think the game loses something in the transition, which we will get into, but overall the updates sand off some of the harder edges of a game that’s notoriously difficult to parse because the PSX original and the 3DS remake were long. REALLY long. 100+ hours long. Just like this review will be!
With that said, I’m not convinced leaving some of the harder edges in this remake would create a package that appeals to today’s audience without breaking the game entirely.
Dragon Quest VII Reimaginedis a remake of a very long Japanese RPG that was extremely popular in Japan but failed to gain any traction in the west. A remake ofthe game was made for the 3DS that attempted to mitigate some of the complaints players had with the original but still felt out of time the way the original release of Dragon Quest VII did. This new version attempts to sand off the edges of the previous games and bring DQVII to a modern audience with all the modern quality of life changes players expect.
The Quest
The game starts in the sleepy fishing village of Pilchard Bay on Estard Island. Estard island exists on a massive ocean with no other islands or land masses to speak of. The people in your village believe they are the only people in the world and every fishing expedition that goes further and further from the village only confirms that you are truly alone. But what would an RPG be if you took things at face value?
Both you (the protagonist) and your friends Keifer (Estard’s prince) and Maribel (the daughter of the village mayor) don’t believe that your island is the only one in the world. There has to be something over the horizon. One day your father comes home with a mysterious stone tablet shard that he found during a fishing trip, sparking the curiosity of you and your friends that can only be ignited when you’re bored and have nothing better to do, and you and your friends decide it’s time for adventure. As you wander around Estard island you eventually find some ancient ruins, and after a series of small quests you learn the ruins are the key to uncovering the truth about the world. After using some artifacts you’ve found on your journey, you’re transported to another island that is under siege by monsters.
I don’t want to give anything away because the first scenario you encounter is great, and is emblematic of the type of storytelling you will find in Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, but I will say that once you’ve finished that scenario, you will find a set of stone tablets and be transported back to Estard. The entire island is awash with rumors that a new landmass has been discovered and people cannot believe that they may no longer be alone anymore.
This is the core gameplay loop of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. The 3DS remake of this game had the subtitle “Fragments of the Forgotten Past” and that title really gives away how the game works. Through each scenario (or vignette as fans of the series refer to them) you will unlock a new landmass, solve a series of problems on the new landmass, and find sets of stone tablet fragments that will unlock additional islands/landmasses. In typical Dragon Quest fashion, you will go to interesting places, see wild and imaginative things, interesting people, and encounter scenarios that will break your heart. This is the core gameplay loop and it’s a variation on the core gameplay loop that has been and it’s the best and most divisive part of DQ VII because this structure makes the game episodic, long, and at times, less cohesive. What this structure also gives you is a sense of scope and a deliberate rhythm that dictates how players engage with the game.
Let’s start with what still works. The overall story of the game is strong and the vignettes the Dragon Quest series is known for remain strong, and I’d argue that DQVII has some of the strongest arcs in the series with stories that run the gamut between dark and somber to playful and uplifting. Reimagined’s core story is really a coming of age tale about the world getting bigger, as it does for all of us when we grow up. Curiosity leads to realization, and sometimes those realizations drive home that even though the world can be huge, who you’re going through your journey with matters more than what you find.
Unlike other games in the series, the scenarios presented in Reimagined really are episodic and as I mentioned above, it can make the game feel less cohesive than other Dragon Quest titles. The storytelling in this game is similar to a procedural one in that you have a problem or series of problems to solve on each island and then you go back home, or go to the next adventure. Because these scenarios are episodic, it creates a narrative structure that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii explained was designed to let players finish a scenario every night or every few nights. That structure is still in place here, albeit optimized (depending on your definition), and you can still feel his intention in how the game is built. I’d argue that Reimagined should be played the way Horii described, and maybe even as a game you play alongside another game. Playing Reimagined straight through will burn you out because the game is gargantuan, despite the changes that have been made to streamline the structure.
Historical Context and Why These Changes Exist
It’s hard to talk about Dragon Quest VII Reimagined without understanding the context for why it’s an outlier in the series.
The original game came out on the PlayStation in Japan in 2000 after a long and difficult development. It was enormous, slow, and very deliberate in its design. Unlike the previous generation, CD technology meant developers had a huge amount of space to work with, and it was cheap. SNES games were usually less than 2MB, but PlayStation games were 300-700MB. This allowed Red Book audio, animated cutscenes, and massive scripts. Horii’s team filled all 700 MB of Dragon Quest VII with a game over 100 hours long, and a script estimated at 260,000-270,000 words—longer than the first Game of Thrones novel.
This was a complete reversal from the 16-bit era, which required a certain economical approach to text due to cartridge size limitations. Dragon Quest VII assumed players would live with it over a long period of time rather than rush through it. The time between the release of Dragon Quest VI and VII was just over five years, which was an eternity in the 90s, so Horii and his team were determined to put in as much content as possible. That led to Dragon Quest VII being designed as a world you were meant to simply exist in and roam from adventure to adventure in a long, spread out sequence of time. In Japan, that design worked. Dragon Quest VII was a lifestyle game where the scale was part of the appeal, and it sold 1.9 million copies in its first week in Japan, and over 4 million total over its lifetime, making it one of the best selling titles on the PlayStation.
In the west, things played out very differently. DQVII arrived late in the PSX’s life. So late that the PS2 was already out in America. Final Fantasy had shifted expectations around pacing, narrative, and spectacle, so DQVII looked archaic in comparison. Players had to wait hours before their first real fight in the original game, and they had to wait dozens of hours before accessing vocations, which is Dragon Quest VII’s version of the job system. There were long stretches throughout the game that moved at a snail’s pace.
Dragon Quest VII never released in Europe in its original form, cutting off another audience. By the time the 3DS remake was released, Dragon Quest VII had earned the reputation as a long, grindy, and inaccessible game that would monopolize your time.
That reputation clearly informs Dragon Quest VII Reimagined and the team behind this game seems to have taken the criticism of the game and used it as fuel to make changes. Many of the changes are direct responses to decades of complaints about the grind, the backtracking, the travel time, and the feeling that the game did not respect your time early on. Most of these issues have been addressed in some form. These changes were clearly designed to broaden the appeal so VII could work for a modern, global audience.
For example, in the original game, it took roughly four hours before you got to your first fight. This is an eternity in gameplay time. The 3DS remake took about 90ish minutes. By my count, in Reimagined I was at my first fight in an hour. In order to get to that fight much sooner, actions that you would have taken in the previous game have been done for you. Is this good or bad? That depends on if the original’s pace bothered you. If it did, then you’ll welcome these changes. If it didn’t, you’re going to feel like someone strategically cut things out of a game you love, like someone poking holes into a painting and convincing you that you can still see the whole picture. The overall story and vignettes the series is known for are intact, however, and I think anything that was cut could be viewed as flavor text, and it’s up to you whether you feel those cuts were necessary. Each story is told with the same kind of linguistic tricks we’ve seen in previous DQ games, with a localization that uses specific dialogue inflections and idiosyncrasies to convey different cultures that inhabit the islands you travel to. I know the dialogue choices have been an issue in the past but they’re part of the texture and flavor of Dragon Quest and are handled with a nice verve that makes each new village or town you encounter feel distinct.
World Map and Movement
Since you spend a huge amount of this game moving from island to island, I think it’s important to point out one of the biggest changes to DQVII is the world map. The movement in Reimagined is far more efficient than previous versions of the game, and that is due to the fact that you aren’t running around a world that’s sized as an open world.
The world map is reminiscent of earlier Final Fantasy games, where you would run around quickly on a large map, going from place to place, and once you reached your destination the perspective and size of your characters changed. Think of traversal in this game like a montage you’d see in a movie where you see a plan go from one straight line to the next, and then the movie picks back up when the characters have deplaned. That’s how it is in Reimagined and while this change does make the world feel smaller, I think it’s a tremendous change to the game that drastically cuts down on play time. Running to the Ancient Ruins on Estard Island now takes under 30 seconds, compared to a couple of minutes in previous versions of DQVII. This efficiency applies across every island and cuts massive time, but at an experiential cost.
The result of this change is a world that feels smaller and less epic but the original never felt like you were really making the world bigger either, just that there was more space in between destinations. Reimagined cuts out that extra space, which makes backtracking far easier, and that is a plus in a game that has you running back and forth to various places during each scenario. One could argue this diminishes the sense of scale but I don’t think VII ever felt big in terms of its actual mass, what always felt big was the play time. This change cuts down the play time significantly and does so in a way that doesn’t remove content.
Visuals and Performance
The graphics in Reimagined are a huge step up from previous iterations and they exude charm. The game has a style that imitates miniature dioramas coming to life while maintaining the look and charm of Akira Toriyama’s illustrations. Environments, characters, and towns look beautiful and deliberately simple, which makes everything feel cohesive. It’s a world that is easy to read visually, but still full of charm and personality. The enemies are animated well and exude personality. And good lord, water looks FANTASTIC. I’m convinced that the HD-2D engine that’s used for Octopath Traveler and the remakes of Dragon Quest I, II, and III were specifically designed to make water look beautiful, and the modified engine they’re using for Reimagined nails it again. From waves crashing against rocks, fountains splashing water, to moats around a castle, all the water in this game is absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had a pool that had water that looked half as good as moat water looks in this game, but I don’t have a pool. Or a moat. Such is life.
The original PSX version did not have the visual capabilities to pull off any of the graphical tricks here, and while the 3DS version had its charms, Reimagined is a game that looks modern, clear, and polished, while maintaining the series’ signature style.
On that note, performance is excellent. I played Dragon Quest VII Reimagined on PC and the Steam Deck OLED and I had no issues running the game at the highest graphical settings while maintaining a solid 60 frames per second at all times. Smooth performance combined with the charming visual design makes traversal exploration and combat much more pleasant than in previous versions.
Sound Design and Music
The game sounds great. Sound effects, especially in battle, are cartoonish sounding and fit the visuals extremely well. The music is well orchestrated and dynamic, but as with other DQ titles, it can become repetitive. Something that would have been nice to have was the option to switch the soundtrack to the version included with the PSX, or even the chippy sounding 3DS music, if only so you could have some variety.
The game has multiple fully voiced cutscenes which really add to the immersion of the game and the feeling that you’re encountering new people and cultures, which is a big deal when you start the game feeling like you’re alone in the world.
Combat Changes and Their Consequences
The other big change to the game that makes a huge impact on time played is centered around combat. Combat in the original DQ VII was slow and the game required tons of grinding for you to level up. Most players would not tolerate that level of grind today and in Reimagined they don’t have to. Random encounters are gone so you don’t have to worry about walking five feet and having a battle sprung on you if you’re just trying to explore. Enemies appear on the field, and if you’re overleveled you can hit a button to attack the enemy and instantly win, without ever having to go into the battle screen. If the enemy is the same level as you are or higher, attacking them triggers a normal fight.
On top of these changes, there are multiple options for adjusting the difficulty, like changing the amount of XP and gold you earn after each fight, and you can even choose if enemies will attack you when they see you.
One thing to note that I noticed during my playthrough was that when killing enemies on the world map versus engaging in a real battle, you see a dramatic reduction in XP earned. For example, killing a Bubble Slime on the world map or in a dungeon awards 16 experience points. Engaging in a battle with the same enemy awards 48 XP. The logic behind this decision I can only assume is to prevent overleveling by spamming instant kills, but it feels like the XP difference shouldn’t be as dramatic as it is.
Combat speed is adjustable, with the option for normal speed, fast speed, and what I can only call “Ludicrous speed”. Shout out to Mel Brooks and Spaceballs.
The Auto-Battle system has also been tweaked, so much so you don’t really have to engage in combat at all. You can just let the computer fight for you. Auto-battle can even carry you through boss fights, which has not been my experience in previous DQ games, but in Reimagined, I let the computer handle multiple bosses and it beat the brakes off of them, even on higher difficulties. Whether this is a plus or a minus is up to you. You don’t have to let the computer battle for you but the option is there if you want to use it.
The changes to the battle system combined with improved traversal speed and a smaller world map create a huge reduction in playtime. Comparing a 3DS save I had at the Fire Festival scenario in Reimagined to the same point on the 3DS save I have had a difference in playtime of roughly 12 hours.
Atmosphere vs. Convenience
All of these changes coalesce into a fight between atmosphere and convenience. In the original, the length of time it took to travel from place to place emphasized that Estard Island was the only place in the world, so when you finally discovered a new island it felt meaningful. Traversal from place to place took time, which gave a sense of scale. The story reinforced that scale because your character and friends were mocked for dreaming bigger while everyone else accepted the status quo.
In Reimagined, that tension is mostly gone due to the world map shrinking and auto-battle being so powerful. Discovery happens much faster due to these changes, and I think it creates a situation where momentum takes priority over mystery. That directly contradicts how DQVII was originally built, and I imagine some longtime fans will push back on these changes, and that’s fair criticism. The game makes tradeoffs between atmosphere and convenience because a modern audience would not accept Dragon Quest VII in its original form in 2026.
At the same time, I’d argue that these changes make Dragon Quest VII Reimagined far more approachable and playable for modern audiences, especially in the West. VII was always an outlier and the changes in Reimagined attempt to sand off the edges that created a small but raving fan base, in exchange for reaching a wider audience. Some fans will argue that attempts to modernize DQVII changes how the game feels. I think that’s debatable. Whether the changes in Reimagined are necessary or excessive depends entirely on what you believe DQVII was meant to be. The original is over 20 years old. Tastes change and expectations change. Reimagined is, at the end of the day, an exercise in seeing if those changes work.
Verdict
Dragon Quest VIIReimagined is a fascinating balancing act between honoring the original and making the game accessible to a modern, global audience. The stories remain strong, the episodic structure still carries weight, and the visual design elevates the world in a way that previous versions never could. Traversal is faster, combat is streamlined, and an overpowered auto-battle reduces grind without entirely eliminating choice. For some, these changes will be welcome. They modernize a game that is notoriously not modern. For others, these changes will further reduce the feeling of scale and tension that defined the original.
At the same time, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined loses something in exchange for its modernization. The scale, tension, and odd personality that made the original so memorable for so many fans has been sanded down. The islands and the world feel smaller because of the changes to the map and traversal, and that early discovery that informs so much of the game comes much faster, and that can create the feeling that the narrative stakes are less pronounced. These are deliberate tradeoffs, ones that make DQVII approachable for new players but may leave longtime fans nostalgic for the original… and that’s okay. One of the best things about the series is that it’s timeless. As much as the industry changes, people know what they’re going to get when they buy a Dragon Quest game.
At the end of the day, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined succeeds at taking a big swing at modernizing a gargantuan classic, and asks how much can be trimmed while still retaining its identity. For players willing to embrace a tighter, more efficient version of the game, it succeeds beautifully. For those hoping for the sprawling, slow-burning adventure of the PSX or 3DS versions, some of that magic has been sacrificed. But regardless of which camp you’re in, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a thoughtful and fascinating take on one of the most divisive games in the series and one that is worthy of your time.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a fascinating game to review because it takes modern sensibilities that players have come to expect and applies them to the most divisive entry in the series. I do think the game loses something in…
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a fascinating game to review because it takes modern sensibilities that players have come to expect and applies them to the most divisive entry in the series. I do think the game loses something in the transition, which we will get into, but overall the updates sand off some of the harder edges of a game that’s notoriously difficult to parse because the PSX original and the 3DS remake were long. REALLY long. 100+ hours long. Just like this review will be!
With that said, I’m not convinced leaving some of the harder edges in this remake would create a package that appeals to today’s audience without breaking the game entirely.
Dragon Quest VII Reimaginedis a remake of a very long Japanese RPG that was extremely popular in Japan but failed to gain any traction in the west. A remake ofthe game was made for the 3DS that attempted to mitigate some of the complaints players had with the original but still felt out of time the way the original release of Dragon Quest VII did. This new version attempts to sand off the edges of the previous games and bring DQVII to a modern audience with all the modern quality of life changes players expect.
The Quest
The game starts in the sleepy fishing village of Pilchard Bay on Estard Island. Estard island exists on a massive ocean with no other islands or land masses to speak of. The people in your village believe they are the only people in the world and every fishing expedition that goes further and further from the village only confirms that you are truly alone. But what would an RPG be if you took things at face value?
Both you (the protagonist) and your friends Keifer (Estard’s prince) and Maribel (the daughter of the village mayor) don’t believe that your island is the only one in the world. There has to be something over the horizon. One day your father comes home with a mysterious stone tablet shard that he found during a fishing trip, sparking the curiosity of you and your friends that can only be ignited when you’re bored and have nothing better to do, and you and your friends decide it’s time for adventure. As you wander around Estard island you eventually find some ancient ruins, and after a series of small quests you learn the ruins are the key to uncovering the truth about the world. After using some artifacts you’ve found on your journey, you’re transported to another island that is under siege by monsters.
I don’t want to give anything away because the first scenario you encounter is great, and is emblematic of the type of storytelling you will find in Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, but I will say that once you’ve finished that scenario, you will find a set of stone tablets and be transported back to Estard. The entire island is awash with rumors that a new landmass has been discovered and people cannot believe that they may no longer be alone anymore.
This is the core gameplay loop of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. The 3DS remake of this game had the subtitle “Fragments of the Forgotten Past” and that title really gives away how the game works. Through each scenario (or vignette as fans of the series refer to them) you will unlock a new landmass, solve a series of problems on the new landmass, and find sets of stone tablet fragments that will unlock additional islands/landmasses. In typical Dragon Quest fashion, you will go to interesting places, see wild and imaginative things, interesting people, and encounter scenarios that will break your heart. This is the core gameplay loop and it’s a variation on the core gameplay loop that has been and it’s the best and most divisive part of DQ VII because this structure makes the game episodic, long, and at times, less cohesive. What this structure also gives you is a sense of scope and a deliberate rhythm that dictates how players engage with the game.
Let’s start with what still works. The overall story of the game is strong and the vignettes the Dragon Quest series is known for remain strong, and I’d argue that DQVII has some of the strongest arcs in the series with stories that run the gamut between dark and somber to playful and uplifting. Reimagined’s core story is really a coming of age tale about the world getting bigger, as it does for all of us when we grow up. Curiosity leads to realization, and sometimes those realizations drive home that even though the world can be huge, who you’re going through your journey with matters more than what you find.
Unlike other games in the series, the scenarios presented in Reimagined really are episodic and as I mentioned above, it can make the game feel less cohesive than other Dragon Quest titles. The storytelling in this game is similar to a procedural one in that you have a problem or series of problems to solve on each island and then you go back home, or go to the next adventure. Because these scenarios are episodic, it creates a narrative structure that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii explained was designed to let players finish a scenario every night or every few nights. That structure is still in place here, albeit optimized (depending on your definition), and you can still feel his intention in how the game is built. I’d argue that Reimagined should be played the way Horii described, and maybe even as a game you play alongside another game. Playing Reimagined straight through will burn you out because the game is gargantuan, despite the changes that have been made to streamline the structure.
Historical Context and Why These Changes Exist
It’s hard to talk about Dragon Quest VII Reimagined without understanding the context for why it’s an outlier in the series.
The original game came out on the PlayStation in Japan in 2000 after a long and difficult development. It was enormous, slow, and very deliberate in its design. Unlike the previous generation, CD technology meant developers had a huge amount of space to work with, and it was cheap. SNES games were usually less than 2MB, but PlayStation games were 300-700MB. This allowed Red Book audio, animated cutscenes, and massive scripts. Horii’s team filled all 700 MB of Dragon Quest VII with a game over 100 hours long, and a script estimated at 260,000-270,000 words—longer than the first Game of Thrones novel.
This was a complete reversal from the 16-bit era, which required a certain economical approach to text due to cartridge size limitations. Dragon Quest VII assumed players would live with it over a long period of time rather than rush through it. The time between the release of Dragon Quest VI and VII was just over five years, which was an eternity in the 90s, so Horii and his team were determined to put in as much content as possible. That led to Dragon Quest VII being designed as a world you were meant to simply exist in and roam from adventure to adventure in a long, spread out sequence of time. In Japan, that design worked. Dragon Quest VII was a lifestyle game where the scale was part of the appeal, and it sold 1.9 million copies in its first week in Japan, and over 4 million total over its lifetime, making it one of the best selling titles on the PlayStation.
In the west, things played out very differently. DQVII arrived late in the PSX’s life. So late that the PS2 was already out in America. Final Fantasy had shifted expectations around pacing, narrative, and spectacle, so DQVII looked archaic in comparison. Players had to wait hours before their first real fight in the original game, and they had to wait dozens of hours before accessing vocations, which is Dragon Quest VII’s version of the job system. There were long stretches throughout the game that moved at a snail’s pace.
Dragon Quest VII never released in Europe in its original form, cutting off another audience. By the time the 3DS remake was released, Dragon Quest VII had earned the reputation as a long, grindy, and inaccessible game that would monopolize your time.
That reputation clearly informs Dragon Quest VII Reimagined and the team behind this game seems to have taken the criticism of the game and used it as fuel to make changes. Many of the changes are direct responses to decades of complaints about the grind, the backtracking, the travel time, and the feeling that the game did not respect your time early on. Most of these issues have been addressed in some form. These changes were clearly designed to broaden the appeal so VII could work for a modern, global audience.
For example, in the original game, it took roughly four hours before you got to your first fight. This is an eternity in gameplay time. The 3DS remake took about 90ish minutes. By my count, in Reimagined I was at my first fight in an hour. In order to get to that fight much sooner, actions that you would have taken in the previous game have been done for you. Is this good or bad? That depends on if the original’s pace bothered you. If it did, then you’ll welcome these changes. If it didn’t, you’re going to feel like someone strategically cut things out of a game you love, like someone poking holes into a painting and convincing you that you can still see the whole picture. The overall story and vignettes the series is known for are intact, however, and I think anything that was cut could be viewed as flavor text, and it’s up to you whether you feel those cuts were necessary. Each story is told with the same kind of linguistic tricks we’ve seen in previous DQ games, with a localization that uses specific dialogue inflections and idiosyncrasies to convey different cultures that inhabit the islands you travel to. I know the dialogue choices have been an issue in the past but they’re part of the texture and flavor of Dragon Quest and are handled with a nice verve that makes each new village or town you encounter feel distinct.
World Map and Movement
Since you spend a huge amount of this game moving from island to island, I think it’s important to point out one of the biggest changes to DQVII is the world map. The movement in Reimagined is far more efficient than previous versions of the game, and that is due to the fact that you aren’t running around a world that’s sized as an open world.
The world map is reminiscent of earlier Final Fantasy games, where you would run around quickly on a large map, going from place to place, and once you reached your destination the perspective and size of your characters changed. Think of traversal in this game like a montage you’d see in a movie where you see a plan go from one straight line to the next, and then the movie picks back up when the characters have deplaned. That’s how it is in Reimagined and while this change does make the world feel smaller, I think it’s a tremendous change to the game that drastically cuts down on play time. Running to the Ancient Ruins on Estard Island now takes under 30 seconds, compared to a couple of minutes in previous versions of DQVII. This efficiency applies across every island and cuts massive time, but at an experiential cost.
The result of this change is a world that feels smaller and less epic but the original never felt like you were really making the world bigger either, just that there was more space in between destinations. Reimagined cuts out that extra space, which makes backtracking far easier, and that is a plus in a game that has you running back and forth to various places during each scenario. One could argue this diminishes the sense of scale but I don’t think VII ever felt big in terms of its actual mass, what always felt big was the play time. This change cuts down the play time significantly and does so in a way that doesn’t remove content.
Visuals and Performance
The graphics in Reimagined are a huge step up from previous iterations and they exude charm. The game has a style that imitates miniature dioramas coming to life while maintaining the look and charm of Akira Toriyama’s illustrations. Environments, characters, and towns look beautiful and deliberately simple, which makes everything feel cohesive. It’s a world that is easy to read visually, but still full of charm and personality. The enemies are animated well and exude personality. And good lord, water looks FANTASTIC. I’m convinced that the HD-2D engine that’s used for Octopath Traveler and the remakes of Dragon Quest I, II, and III were specifically designed to make water look beautiful, and the modified engine they’re using for Reimagined nails it again. From waves crashing against rocks, fountains splashing water, to moats around a castle, all the water in this game is absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had a pool that had water that looked half as good as moat water looks in this game, but I don’t have a pool. Or a moat. Such is life.
The original PSX version did not have the visual capabilities to pull off any of the graphical tricks here, and while the 3DS version had its charms, Reimagined is a game that looks modern, clear, and polished, while maintaining the series’ signature style.
On that note, performance is excellent. I played Dragon Quest VII Reimagined on PC and the Steam Deck OLED and I had no issues running the game at the highest graphical settings while maintaining a solid 60 frames per second at all times. Smooth performance combined with the charming visual design makes traversal exploration and combat much more pleasant than in previous versions.
Sound Design and Music
The game sounds great. Sound effects, especially in battle, are cartoonish sounding and fit the visuals extremely well. The music is well orchestrated and dynamic, but as with other DQ titles, it can become repetitive. Something that would have been nice to have was the option to switch the soundtrack to the version included with the PSX, or even the chippy sounding 3DS music, if only so you could have some variety.
The game has multiple fully voiced cutscenes which really add to the immersion of the game and the feeling that you’re encountering new people and cultures, which is a big deal when you start the game feeling like you’re alone in the world.
Combat Changes and Their Consequences
The other big change to the game that makes a huge impact on time played is centered around combat. Combat in the original DQ VII was slow and the game required tons of grinding for you to level up. Most players would not tolerate that level of grind today and in Reimagined they don’t have to. Random encounters are gone so you don’t have to worry about walking five feet and having a battle sprung on you if you’re just trying to explore. Enemies appear on the field, and if you’re overleveled you can hit a button to attack the enemy and instantly win, without ever having to go into the battle screen. If the enemy is the same level as you are or higher, attacking them triggers a normal fight.
On top of these changes, there are multiple options for adjusting the difficulty, like changing the amount of XP and gold you earn after each fight, and you can even choose if enemies will attack you when they see you.
One thing to note that I noticed during my playthrough was that when killing enemies on the world map versus engaging in a real battle, you see a dramatic reduction in XP earned. For example, killing a Bubble Slime on the world map or in a dungeon awards 16 experience points. Engaging in a battle with the same enemy awards 48 XP. The logic behind this decision I can only assume is to prevent overleveling by spamming instant kills, but it feels like the XP difference shouldn’t be as dramatic as it is.
Combat speed is adjustable, with the option for normal speed, fast speed, and what I can only call “Ludicrous speed”. Shout out to Mel Brooks and Spaceballs.
The Auto-Battle system has also been tweaked, so much so you don’t really have to engage in combat at all. You can just let the computer fight for you. Auto-battle can even carry you through boss fights, which has not been my experience in previous DQ games, but in Reimagined, I let the computer handle multiple bosses and it beat the brakes off of them, even on higher difficulties. Whether this is a plus or a minus is up to you. You don’t have to let the computer battle for you but the option is there if you want to use it.
The changes to the battle system combined with improved traversal speed and a smaller world map create a huge reduction in playtime. Comparing a 3DS save I had at the Fire Festival scenario in Reimagined to the same point on the 3DS save I have had a difference in playtime of roughly 12 hours.
Atmosphere vs. Convenience
All of these changes coalesce into a fight between atmosphere and convenience. In the original, the length of time it took to travel from place to place emphasized that Estard Island was the only place in the world, so when you finally discovered a new island it felt meaningful. Traversal from place to place took time, which gave a sense of scale. The story reinforced that scale because your character and friends were mocked for dreaming bigger while everyone else accepted the status quo.
In Reimagined, that tension is mostly gone due to the world map shrinking and auto-battle being so powerful. Discovery happens much faster due to these changes, and I think it creates a situation where momentum takes priority over mystery. That directly contradicts how DQVII was originally built, and I imagine some longtime fans will push back on these changes, and that’s fair criticism. The game makes tradeoffs between atmosphere and convenience because a modern audience would not accept Dragon Quest VII in its original form in 2026.
At the same time, I’d argue that these changes make Dragon Quest VII Reimagined far more approachable and playable for modern audiences, especially in the West. VII was always an outlier and the changes in Reimagined attempt to sand off the edges that created a small but raving fan base, in exchange for reaching a wider audience. Some fans will argue that attempts to modernize DQVII changes how the game feels. I think that’s debatable. Whether the changes in Reimagined are necessary or excessive depends entirely on what you believe DQVII was meant to be. The original is over 20 years old. Tastes change and expectations change. Reimagined is, at the end of the day, an exercise in seeing if those changes work.
Verdict
Dragon Quest VIIReimagined is a fascinating balancing act between honoring the original and making the game accessible to a modern, global audience. The stories remain strong, the episodic structure still carries weight, and the visual design elevates the world in a way that previous versions never could. Traversal is faster, combat is streamlined, and an overpowered auto-battle reduces grind without entirely eliminating choice. For some, these changes will be welcome. They modernize a game that is notoriously not modern. For others, these changes will further reduce the feeling of scale and tension that defined the original.
At the same time, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined loses something in exchange for its modernization. The scale, tension, and odd personality that made the original so memorable for so many fans has been sanded down. The islands and the world feel smaller because of the changes to the map and traversal, and that early discovery that informs so much of the game comes much faster, and that can create the feeling that the narrative stakes are less pronounced. These are deliberate tradeoffs, ones that make DQVII approachable for new players but may leave longtime fans nostalgic for the original… and that’s okay. One of the best things about the series is that it’s timeless. As much as the industry changes, people know what they’re going to get when they buy a Dragon Quest game.
At the end of the day, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined succeeds at taking a big swing at modernizing a gargantuan classic, and asks how much can be trimmed while still retaining its identity. For players willing to embrace a tighter, more efficient version of the game, it succeeds beautifully. For those hoping for the sprawling, slow-burning adventure of the PSX or 3DS versions, some of that magic has been sacrificed. But regardless of which camp you’re in, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a thoughtful and fascinating take on one of the most divisive games in the series and one that is worthy of your time.
by Leigh Lamb
