Last year, when I reviewed Dragon Quest III HD, I highlighted its significance to the JRPG genre and the importance of its re-release. I didn’t discuss then why it was so impactful: it was a huge leap forward in terms of scope, gameplay, and story compared to the original Dragon Quest games. Given the success of DQIII HD and its place as the start of a three-part story, it made a lot of sense for Square Enix to remake the first two games with the same beautiful HD-2D style.
Dragon Quest I & II HD Remake brings the first two games of the Erdrick trilogy to modern platforms with updated graphics – Square Enix’s signature 2D characters over 3D backgrounds. After revisiting these games after over 20 years, I was impressed by how much work went into updating them, including improved gameplay and expanded storylines with more dialogue and events. However, even with these improvements, one game in the collection is noticeably better than the other, though neither quite reaches the quality of the previous Dragon Quest release.
If you’ve played Dragon Quest before, you’ll recognize this: traditional Japanese role-playing game adventures filled with random battles, exploring dungeons, completing tasks for people, and defeating evil to save the world. The first Dragon Quest game has you go it alone as a single hero, while the second introduces the series’ classic team of adventurers. Although both games are similar, having a party greatly changes how you fight, letting you try different strategies and making battles more interesting and fun.
Dragon Quest I & II HD is visually and aurally impressive, much like Dragon Quest III HD. It features beautifully remastered environments full of vibrant color and detail, along with orchestral versions of the classic soundtracks. The game is filled with small, charming details – like rats running through dungeons and gleaming palace floors – that create a striking and memorable experience. Even minor elements, such as unique pixel art for every item discovered, demonstrate the care and dedication put into the game’s presentation.
These remakes go beyond just updated graphics. The original Dragon Quest I and II were important early JRPGs, but they feel very simple compared to today’s games. Some might say keeping that simplicity is best, as it’s part of what makes them charming and historically significant. However, Square Enix and Artdink are trying to strike a balance: they’ve added a good amount of new content while still staying true to the original stories and how the games progress. The gameplay in both remakes is much improved, but the changes to the story and overall flow aren’t always successful.
This game builds on the improvements made in Dragon Quest III HD, offering refined combat and movement. It includes helpful features like minimaps for every area, new combat abilities, a wider range of enemies, and a marker to guide you to your next objective. Even spells like Zoom, which allow for fast travel, are now unrestricted. Players can customize their experience by toggling these features on or off, allowing for either a challenging or more relaxed playthrough. While you still learn skills and spells by leveling up, you can now also find single-use scrolls that grant new abilities, encouraging exploration and adding a strategic layer to team management – as each scroll can only be used once, you’ll need to carefully decide which character benefits most.
The way the stories and gameplay have been expanded in these two games isn’t always smooth. The original Dragon Quest games were quite simple in terms of story and how the game played, and this HD Remake attempts to fix that by adding new characters, conversations, places, events, and bosses to both games.
The first Dragon Quest has been adjusted to make traveling alone easier. The hero has more spells and abilities to compensate for not having a party. While these changes are helpful, the late game can still be frustrating. A single unlucky hit or being trapped by powerful enemies can force you to restart or reload a save. The game also adds new characters like the Tantagel Royal Guard and locations like villages inhabited by fairies and dwarves, which deepen the story and connect it more closely to later Dragon Quest games. There are even some new story elements that improve gameplay – for example, a quest to find a magic key removes the need to constantly buy and manage multiple keys.
While the idea of adding more story to DQI is appealing, the way it was done isn’t very successful. The basic story and lack of companions make it hard to care about the characters, who feel shallow and unremarkable. The added areas and quests, including new boss battles, don’t feel like genuine world-building; instead, they come across as filler, making the game feel repetitive and drawn-out – and not in a charmingly old-fashioned way.
Dragon Quest II is a noticeable improvement over the first game, offering a much better experience in terms of both gameplay and story. The addition of multiple playable characters, each with their own personalities and conversations, really brings the world to life. A standout new character is the Princess of Cannock – a feisty and independent hero who combines magic and rogue-like skills, adding excitement to both the story and battles. Having an extra teammate changes how you approach combat, although the game still features tough boss fights that require careful planning. It’s fun to watch the characters interact and react to what’s happening around them. While the game can still feel a little drawn out at times, Dragon Quest II is definitely the stronger of the two games.
Something I didn’t enjoy in either game was the attempt to make characters talk like they were from Old English. The dialogue is full of words like ‘thee,’ ‘thou,’ and endings like ‘-eth,’ which felt charming at first but quickly became too much. It seems like the developers were trying to recapture the feel of the original NES Dragon Warrior games, which used similar language to enhance the medieval setting. However, later games moved away from this style, and for good reason. As someone who appreciates the humorous and sometimes cheesy dialogue in more recent Dragon Quest games, this felt overly annoying – not enough to ruin the experience, but definitely distracting.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend Dragon Quest I & II HD Remake over more recent titles like Dragon Quest III HD or Dragon Quest XI – those games are simply better for both longtime fans and newcomers. That’s not to say this remake is bad – Dragon Quest II, in particular, is enjoyable, and you can play either game independently. However, even with the updated features, it doesn’t quite measure up to other recent Dragon Quest releases, and the remake of Dragon Quest I feels like a missed opportunity. If you’re craving the classic turn-based charm and lightheartedness of Dragon Quest, though, revisiting these two games is still a perfectly good option.
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2025-10-29 18:13