Dragon Quest VII Reimagined [REVIEW] – A Perfectly Trimmed Adventure 

If you ask any RPG enthusiast about the original Dragon Quest VII on the PlayStation, it might give them a little shudder. Don’t get me wrong, the game was great, but it was long, and believe me, I mean LONG… a sprawling, hundred-hour odyssey that often felt more like a commitment than a piece of entertainment. So, when Dragon Quest VII Reimagined was announced, there was a fair bit of trepidation. Could they trim the fat without losing the flavour?  

After spending time with the remake, the answer is a resounding yes. It’s not just a fresh coat of paint, but a confident restructuring that makes one of the series’ most daunting entries genuinely approachable – all without sacrificing the cozy, fairy-tale spirit that made the title feel so special in the first place. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

The first thing that grabs you is the look of the game, and whilst we’ve seen Square Enix do wonders with HD-2D recently, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined takes a completely different tack. The world is presented like a handcrafted diorama, a little model village that you can rotate and peer into. 

The characters themselves have been scanned from real-life dolls, giving them a tactile, almost stop-motion quality, which is a bold choice that pays off beautifully. It feels like you’re playing through a pop-up book, and while some purists might miss the crunchy, pixelated charm of the older versions, this aesthetic fits the storybook nature of the game perfectly. It’s vibrant, clean, and honestly, a bit more timeless than chasing photorealism. And yes, Kiefer looks a little bit weird, but you get used to it the longer you play. 

Audio-wise, it really is top-tier stuff, with the Tokyo Symphonic Suite recordings giving the soundtrack a lush, orchestral grandeur that reinvents beloved tunes, whilst the voice acting is spot on too. It really is a masterful reimagining of the game’s visuals and sounds, and that alone will make Dragon Quest VII Reimagined appealing to a lot of RPG lovers. 

Of course, as mentioned in the intro, the biggest improvement here comes with the pacing of the experience. The developers have taken a pair of shears to the runtime, bringing a completionist run down from… well… an eternity, to a much more manageable 50-odd hours, depending on your playstyle. They’ve cut a few islands entirely and quickened the pace of the start to the game, but it doesn’t feel like you’re losing anything substantial – rather, it’s a streamlining that makes it more approachable for players. 

“It might still be a slow burn for some, but for those seeking a grand adventure with heart, this is undoubtedly the best way to experience this RPG classic.” 

It’s not all addition by subtraction, mind you, and long-time fans might be a bit miffed to find the Casino has been left on the cutting room floor. It’s a bit of a shame to lose such a classic series distraction and one that’s a little tough to justify. It was always something that just brought a bit of fun to the world, and hey, if players want to distract themselves for hours with what is optional content, I say let them. It’s a little strange, but not a game-breaker. 

What I found most impressive was how the game’s world and narrative still felt substantial despite the cut content. You still start on the only island in the world, Estard, and gradually piece the planet back together by travelling to the past and solving local crises – it’s a rhythmic and comforting loop, where you fix the past, return to the present to see how the world has changed, rinse and repeat. Because the game is structured as a series of vignettes – little self-contained stories about helping a village – the cut content doesn’t feel like it hurts the pacing of the storytelling, but just lets players hit the credits a little sooner. Purists might wish that the game had EVERYTHING, but honestly? I think it’s better. 

It’s not just cut content that helps revamp Dragon Quest VII Reimagined though, with the gameplay refined too. Sure, it’s still the traditional turn-based affair you expect, but the Vocation system has been given a brilliant overhaul to make it feel more intuitive and satisfying than ever. One core feature is Moonlighting, which essentially lets you equip two job classes at once. It opens up a massive amount of strategic tinkering, and by not locking players into just one role, you’re able to constantly mix and match classes to find what works best for you (or, in some cases, satisfyingly overpowered synergies). 

Square Enix have also added Let Loose abilities – big, cinematic attacks unique to each vocation that build up over time. It adds a bit of spectacle to the fights and gives you a tangible reward for sticking with a class. Seeing the enemies on the field rather than dealing with random encounters is a blessing too, and if you’re over-levelled, you can instant kill weaker mobs on the map without entering battle, which is a massive respect for the player’s time. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

That same accessibility leans into other areas of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, with the game making an array of quality-of-life additions to make life easier for the player. Between objective markers and your party members chiming in with hints, it’s rare you’ll find yourself stuck in the game, whilst the addition of a Zoom spell early on makes zipping between locations a doddle. And for the completionists who used to tear their hair out hunting for collectibles, there’s now a handy tracker that tells you exactly where you’ve missed Mini Medals or items. It turns a needle-in-a-haystack hunt into a manageable checklist, and in turn, makes Dragon Quest VII Reimagined a much more enjoyable experience. Add to that the custom difficulty sliders that allow you to fine-tune the experience to suit your needs, and you’ll quickly find that the game REALLY does respect the player’s time… what a change from the original game, huh? 

Crucially, though, none of this streamlining has dampened the spirit of the thing. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined still captures that proper sense of adventure where you’re itching to see what’s over the next horizon, and there’s a genuine thrill in rocking up to a gloomy island in the past, sorting out the local crisis, and then zooming back to the present to see a thriving village in its place. The joy of poking your nose into every nook and cranny for loot remains intact, and because the combat is now so snappy – thanks to those flashy new abilities and the ability to mix up jobs – battling feels less like a grind and more like a tactical playground. It proves that you don’t need a hundred hours of padding to make a journey feel epic, with Dragon Quest VII Reimagined’s refinements making it a better RPG than it ever was before. 

Developer: HexaDrive 
Publisher: Square Enix 
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch 
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2499860/DRAGON_QUEST_VII_Reimagined/