Square Enix has a nice surprise for Dragon Quest fans, announcing a demo for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined that will be available from tomorrow, Wednesday 7th January.
The free demo will be released across all platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch, and PC via Steam.
Oh, and you’ll be able to carry over your progress into the full game when it releases on 5th February.
It’s great to see demos released for games, and especially for remakes where you kind of just want to see if it catches the right vibes and tone when reviving a classic.
Square Enix have taken an awful lot of contrasting approaches to their remakes and remasters. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is sitting somewhere between the HD-2D remakes of the original Dragon Quest trilogy and the wholesale reinvention of Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy.
One of the most striking things here is the art style, with Square Enix creating all of the characters as real-life dolls and then 3D scanning them into the game to capture the look that they want. However, there’s plenty of other modernising touches, from doing away with the tiresome random battles, to full embracing party automation and battle speed settings, and then there’s some parts of the story that are being reconsidered too.
We went hands on with the game last year, and I said in our preview, “Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is shaping up to be another fantastic remake from Square Enix. It’s a bit bewildering just how many different styles and approaches they’ve taken to revisiting their classics, but this takes a wonderful art direction and combines it with a great set of quality-of-life improvements while tweaking it to address the biggest criticisms. All in all, it should be the best way to revisit this adventure when it arrives [in 2026].”
Source: Square Enix
