What does it mean to innovate and create a genre? To establish the foundation, parameters, and rules that future generations will follow? We build on the innovations of visionaries, the shoulders of giants who thought the status quo was just not good enough. In the early 80s, there was no blueprint for RPGs until one man, inspired by his love of fantasy literature, crafted the standard we know today.
If you thought I was going to say Yuji Horii, then you have got to be shitting me. Dragon Quest drew inspiration from Richard Garriott’s Ultima series of games. While Ultima may have innovated and established everything we understand about RPGs as we know them, Dragon Quest built upon its foundation and streamlined the experience to make it accessible for consoles, specifically the Famicom in 1986.
In some ways, Dragon Quest’s influence on RPGs might be even more significant in the long run, as it has remained culturally relevant and continues to release new titles. Most people don’t know about Ultima beyond a Spoony review, but Dragon Quest is still alive and kicking. The first and second Dragon Quest games were released only about eight months apart. The idea of two RPGs being released so closely together is unheard of today, and even then, it was unprecedented.
To this day, the cultural impact of the early Dragon Quest games can’t be ignored. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics used the iconic Dragon Quest theme song for the athletes’ parade. Almost 40 years later, you’re bound to find a Dragon Quest reference somewhere in other RPGs or anime and manga. It dominates Japan and is a huge pillar of its pop culture.
In 2024, Square Enix launched an HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III, the first installment in the “Erdrick Trilogy” timeline. A year later, the original Dragon Quest and its sequel were remade and bundled together, completing the epic generational saga of Erdrick. As some of the earliest JRPGs ever created, how do these classics hold up in their HD-2D remakes? Find out in our Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake review!
This is a review coupled with a supplemental video review. You can watch the video review or read the full review of the game below:
Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake
Developer: Artdink, Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: October 23, 2025
Price: $59.99
When approaching the first Dragon Quest, it’s important to remember that it was one of the earliest Japanese RPGs.
The gameplay is simple, with players controlling a single character and engaging in one-on-one battles. At the time, a Japanese adventure game in a European-inspired fantasy setting was novel, and Akira Toriyama had not yet become a well-known name.
When Dragon Quest was released in the US as Dragon Warrior, Nintendo ended up with so many extra cartridges that they started giving them away to anyone who subscribed to Nintendo Power Magazine. The game became so common that even as late as 2025, you could still find copies on the second-hand market for just over $15.
When the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III was announced, fans shrieked with joy. Pants were crapped, eyes fell out of sockets, and a new generation of fake fans was born.
Initial trailers were promising, but then the updates stopped, and the game seemed to be stuck in development hell… until it wasn’t, and it was finally released. Five months after its release, it was revealed that Square Enix wasn’t just remaking one game; they were remaking three games.
Dragon Quest I HD-2D feels almost unrecognizable compared to its NES original, yet it still captures the core of its simplistic premise and gameplay.
Following Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey, the solo protagonist, a descendant of the legendary Erdrick (the protagonist of Dragon Quest III), begins in the ordinary world, at the heart of Tantegel Castle.
Summoned by the king to embark on an adventure, the hero faces the Dragonlord, who has stolen the Light Orb, kidnapped Princess Gwaelin, and plunged Alefgard into darkness.
Though he’s a silent protagonist, his “character development” is represented by his stats/level, and by undertaking the quest to collect the five sigils and complete the Erdrick armor set, transforming him from a simple man to an unbelievably powerful warrior.
Being a single guy has its obvious drawbacks. Thankfully, changing your weapon is a free action in every Dragon Quest game, making every weapon feel less like a tool to batter slimes with and more like a mini-party member.
What follows is an elaborate web of nonlinear quests to acquire macguffins and sigils to become the legend. The bulk of Dragon Quest I is exploring, searching for treasure and loot, talking to NPCs, and trying to figure out where to go, while getting into random encounters.
This is as spartan as a JRPG gets and requires an understanding that this was during a time when the genre was still undergoing growing pains of the developers still trying to find its strengths.
The remake attempts to flesh out the world and reinforce connections to Dragon Quest III and II by adding more characters and expanding scenes… by a lot. Almost annoyingly so.
The original NES game was very open-ended and left players to figure things out without much interruption. This remake is significantly more guided and railroads players while hurting the pacing with long dialogue scenes.
Dragon Quest I is an infamous example of an RPG having an “excuse plot”, with cheap, unexplained macguffins, and a deliberately easy love interest.
Why is this silent hero, who can’t express anything aside from thievery and brutal violence, being forced to listen to characters he has no connections with? The scenes unfold with long pauses and padded dialogue that feel out of place… probably because the adventure was never designed around having so much talking.
The cutscenes almost feel out of place in such a stripped-down RPG. One addition that pays off is the souped-up attacks, which are introduced after acquiring sigils. When the hero’s HP is 50% or below, several of his spells or abilities can be powered up, which adds much-needed depth to the austere gameplay.
Unfortunately, the pacing suffered a significant setback due to the numerous additional scenes that ultimately amounted to nothing.
Most of the connections to II and III can be observed simply by exploring the map and examining the ruins. Having it explained to you feels as if the writers assume you’re some kind of drooling ape that mumbles nonsensical gibberish was excessive.
The Dragon Quest I core foundation is surprisingly still very solid for such an old RPG. This remake introduces several features that simplify things for newcomers, such as a quest marker that eliminates the guesswork of figuring out where to go.
Magic keys used to be consumable items that required a trip to an NPC for crafting, but now they have infinite uses, eliminating the need for backtracking to the same guy to get more.
The game autosaves after each battle, ensuring you never lose progress if you die, and enemy weaknesses are clearly shown in the menus.
While these features make Dragon Quest I more streamlined, the developers have ramped up the difficulty by introducing multiple enemies per battle. To maintain balance, the hero’s level cap has been increased from 30 to 99, allowing him to face multiple endgame enemies in a single battle.
Grinding is still a major pillar of Dragon Quest I’s experience. In the original game, it was expected that players to grind. It was effectively a part of the story that the protagonist had to “train” to become a hero of legend.
There really isn’t much else to do in the first Dragon Quest. There are no casinos yet, but mini-medals have been introduced. However, they don’t seem very worthwhile since the rewards pale in comparison to the easily obtainable Erdrick set.
The original game was already unbalanced against the player, but the remake takes it even further by pitting the hero against multiple foes at once. To make matters worse, many enemies get multiple turns to inflict negative status effects, deal damage, and even heal themselves. Grinding was expected in the original, but now it’s absolutely mandatory just to survive basic enemies that can take you out at full health right from the start of a fight.
Even if you take your time and fight every battle while casually exploring and trying to figure out what to do and where to go, it won’t be enough. Gamers are expected to invest about half of Dragon Quest’s play time into getting into fights and farming metal slimes around the southwest coast of Alefgard.
Without the grind, Dragon Quest I could easily be finished in a single day. While these aspects might seem like a downside, something is endearing about its quaint simplicity. Reaching the end feels genuinely rewarding, and defeating the Dragonlord opens up a liberated Alefgard for players to explore. NPCs share unique lines of gratitude, and the hero even marries the princess, setting the stage for Dragon Quest II.
Dragon Quest II builds on the solo journey of Dragon Quest I by introducing a party-based adventure, focusing on the unity of heirs and cosmic stakes.
The Prince of Midenhall begins his quest when Hargon’s attack on Moonbrooke shatters his ordinary world. He ventures out alone, recruiting his cousins, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke, and through trial like dungeon exploration, collecting orbs, and battling, their bond gets solidified as Erdrick’s heirs.
Like any good Joseph Campbellian monomyth, the quest serves as a rite of passage: from princes to saviors, with grinding mirroring human psychological growth. The original main party has grown from three to four members, with Matilda, the younger sister of the Cannock Prince, joining as a new addition in the remake.
The jump in writing quality from the first game to the second is apparent at the start, probably because II’s original game had more of a foundation to build from.
The core of the story still revolves around collecting macguffins, plot coupons, and a lot of dungeon exploration, but there is more care put into the characters this time around. This is because there actually are characters this time around.
The silent protagonist and Prince of Middenall still manage to convey some personality despite having no dialogue. The hints lie in how characters react to his “yes or no” answers that the players choose.
He doesn’t even entertain the notion of rejecting the call when the king asks him to find a way to thwart Hargon. The guy is an unflappable, unfazed, and determined fighter with a “literally me”, Ryan Gosling-like swagger.
His cousin, the Prince of Cannock, is a neurotic and naive slacker with a heart of gold and good intentions.
In battle, he acts as a Magic Knight/jack-of-all-trades, with balanced stats, heal spells, buffs, and can learn Gigaslash in the HD-2D remake. He feels like the true hero because his character arc shows him growing braver and shedding his buffoonish tendencies.
The story starts with the kingdom of Moonbrooke under siege by Hargon’s legion, who slay the king and curse the princess by transforming her into a dog.
She becomes the third party member, focusing on magic and serving as the emotional anchor of the story, driven by the grief of losing everything. Initially cynical and seeking vengeance against monsters, she gradually reveals her vulnerability.
Amusing details, like her not being fully cured of the dog curse, can be seen in her behavior and gameplay.
She retains unique abilities, such as sniffing for treasure, digging, and howling. This was a clever ploy by the original designers was to offset her serious personality with levity. She is essentially the original “magical female party member,” establishing the standard ever since.
Fans of the original NES game will be happy to see that the Prince of Cannock’s little sister joins in on the fun and becomes a party member too.
She is spunky, headstrong, brave, teasing, and cheeky contrast to her carefree, impulsive brother, whom she playfully teases through sibling banter, and the party’s stoic hero or brooding princess. In combat, she’s functionally a rogue and mage hybrid, filling out the roster with dexterous strategies.
The Princess of Cannock is a worthy addition and further fleshes out a surprisingly deep story. For an RPG from the late 80s, it was a miracle that it had any story at all, especially one that is as well-thought-out as this.
Characters come off as fully realized personalities and undergo legitimate growth, getting you to care about them and get emotionally invested. You couldn’t fit a story on a cartridge in most cases because character letters took up valuable space.
The HD-2D remake capitalizes on the vast expanses of modern storage capacities, adding exceptional voice acting and as much text as you’re willing to read. It seems almost endless with how much optional flavor text was packed into both of these games, especially since you can do some things out of order.
Both games in Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake are open-ended, nonlinear adventures. Prior versions, especially the NES original, set players loose in a huge world, with a manual and NPC dialogue hinting at where to go. You could do things out of order and get powerful items if you knew what you were doing, and the game would account for it with unique scenes and amusing lines of dialogue.
The remakes scale back the “go anywhere, do anything” aspect by guiding players and adding some limitations to focus on storytelling. That doesn’t mean gamers are stuck in a linear path, but there’s less room for experimentation. The world typically has multiple goals and tasks active at the same time, and players are expected to complete these objectives before the story opens up the next set.
Many maps and locations transition from I to II, creating a sense of cohesiveness in the world. In II, however, it can feel like unnecessary filler, especially since the original game featured fewer locations compared to the remake. The upside to this overlap is that the hero’s deeds from I feel more mythic as you retrace his steps generations later in II.
The original Dragon Quest I and II were hardcore games. You weren’t expected to beat it easily and aspired to deliver an authentic hero’s journey, and that came with great challenge and patience. The crusade was never meant to be easy, nor was it a story to be experienced passively.
The stories were simple hero’s journeys for this reason. The remakes regrettably abide by modern game design philosophy, where developers remove any friction imaginable by turning it into a well-oiled ride.
Like in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, I & II have a changeable difficulty. This in itself isn’t a bad idea, but the problem arises when players are free to change the difficulty when the first sign of challenge opposes them, undermining any sense of accomplishment.
Imagine a fantastic Thai restaurant that serves amazing, spicy curry, and spice enthusiasts keep the business thriving with their loyalty and love for the fiery dish. As its popularity grows, tourists who aren’t fond of spicy curry become curious and, not wanting to miss out, request the dish to be made milder so they can enjoy it. Spice maniacs get screwed out of the dish they loved for the sake of a blander, more accessible product. That’s what these Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes are.
The fact that the difficulty can be changed whenever and without consequence defeats the feeling of undergoing a herculean and mythic adventure that not everyone can do. A quest should demand patience, diligence, and discipline because that was what the grind represented. Even worse, players can enable a free invincibility toggle with no trade-offs or consequences.
The only reason I can think this feature was included was so that disinterested parties (and game journalists) can make progress. It’s bad enough that there are quest markers that eliminate the need to talk to NPCs to figure out where to go, but now you don’t even have to engage with the combat in a meaningful way since the heroes can’t die.
“Why don’t you just not change difficulties and not activate invincibility?”, I hear you ask. “Surely, you have a modicum of self-control?”, I also hear you ask.
It sucks to play any game knowing you have a safety net beneath you at all times. It makes the challenge feel fake and pointless if the option to bypass it is always laid bare, with no trade-off.
What the developers should have done is restrict difficulty change so that if you make it easier, you cannot make it harder again. Activating invincibility should also come with a drawback, like disabling all trophies/achievements for the save file after turning it on.
If Dark Souls attempted anything like that, people would riot. Cars would be flipped over. Firebombs would be lobbed in the streets, and Fromsoftware executives would be dragged out of their homes and strung up by their testicles on streetlamps.
Many Dragon Quest fans praise the franchise’s music, but I never found it particularly remarkable. Sugiyama’s compositions have always felt like standard fantasy adventuring music, leaning heavily on stereotypical cultural motifs and familiar sound cues.
While his work was impressive during the 8-bit era, considering the limitations of the time, his style never really evolved. As the series progressed and instrumentation became more sophisticated, his melodies remained unchanged.
An unfortunate limitation of the original music was that the original NES games did not have that many tracks to begin with, and this carries over to the remakes. There isn’t enough variety of music in these games.
Even the austere Dragon Quest I becomes repetitive with its sparse track count, and the issue compounds when moving onto Dragon Quest II because it reuses many pieces from the first game.
At least the graphics for these remakes look great, right? Only if you have no sense of artistry. The appeal of the HD-2D art style was meant to bridge retro and modern rendering techniques. The Erdrick trilogy remakes rely on sprites for characters, which seemingly look good upon first glance, but then you realize how the artists cut corners by limiting their range of expression.
The characters lack proper running animations, and the walking animations are comically sped up. Most scenes barely show any body language from the characters. Chrono Trigger, a game from 1995, manages to surpass these modern remakes with its sprites displaying a broader range of emotions. Unfortunately, the characters clash with the 3D environments, as their realistic style makes them feel like generic RPG settings.
Live A Live’s HD-2D remake got the visuals right by having emotive sprites and environments that had deliberately chunky textures that fit the retro framework of the game. The HD-2D approach for the Edrick trilogy comes off as feeling cheap and amateurish.
Does Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake deliver the definitive Dragon Quest experience? Yes and no. The HD-2D remake is a much easier-going game and goes overboard with the QOL features, making it a more casual adventure. If you can look past this, you’ll still have a great time because the classic gameplay still holds up.
As far as RPGs go, this package still feels fittingly epic, and while the label says “I & II”, it’s never felt more like one big adventure that spans hundreds of years. The biggest mistake Square Enix made was releasing III first in hopes of telling the story chronologically. This was wrong because it robbed newcomers of the amazing revelation of it being set in the past, which made the journey take on a legendary scope and scale.
You get incredible value with this package. The adventure is absolutely massive and packed with tons of things to see and do, unfolding much like an expansive metroidvania. The approach to difficulty sucks, but Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is still an amazing remake.
Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Square Enix. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.
