With Dragon Quest 12 nowhere in sight at the moment, it was decided to dig into the earliest recesses of the series’ past to keep the series’ audience engaged in the interim. And for Dragon Quest, its earliest past means the earliest past for not just Dragon Quest, but for RPGs as a whole, and among the earliest outings for role playing games in general. The original Dragon Quest is the very first JRPG there was, the one that wrote the rulebook on the genre’s norms and conventions, and the one that all other RPGs since have descended from, and are defined with respect to. And in fact, owing to RPGs’ influence on other genres and games, the sheer amount of influence that can be traced back to this one game boggles the mind.
So that’s the game that has been modernized here. The original Dragon Quest, which was initially localized in North American regions as Dragon Warrior, as well as its much lesser known and lesser celebrated, though by no means lesser in quality, sequel. And as influential as both of these games were, RPGs have seen a lot of evolution and movement in the very literal decades since they initially came out, which begs the question – are these two games, even combined into a single package, substantial enough to merit a modern full-priced release?
“The game’s story has also been fleshed out more, with new and expanded scenes as well as voice acting.”
It’s certainly a fair and valid concern. A lot of improvements and updates has been made to the seminal original game, both in this specific HD2D reimagining, as well as over the years in the various remakes, remasters, and re-releases it has had. For example, this is ultimately still a game where you only ever control one character, the Hero, and no one else – this game is so old that it quite literally predates the concept of parties.
It is also from an era where storytelling in games was extremely sparse – partly by limitation, partly because in the medium’s earliest days, the convention of storytelling were not yet laid down. And, it is ultimately a fairly short game, so short, in fact, that you can play through it start to finish in a fraction of the time that it would take you to do a full chapter in several RPGs that have released this year.
There has been some work done to address these concerns; for example, while you still only ever have a character party of one in the original Dragon Quest, fights and encounters are still more engaging because you can have multi-character and type trash mobs ganging up on you. Spells and abilities that were introduced in later games of the series have also been back ported into the original game, allowing more avenues for you to take on the foes you come across. Interestingly enough, these abilities that were ostensibly not designed for this game don’t really break its balance either.
The game’s story has also been fleshed out more, with new and expanded scenes as well as voice acting. It doesn’t really bring the narrative here on par with even a modern Dragon Quest game (which many genre fans would argue is itself not as narrative heavy as the average modern RPG can be), but it does certainly flesh out characters and interactions, flesh things out to where the contextualization feels credible as a story rather than just an excuse to send you adventuring across the land, and also plays up the game’s connection to Dragon Quest 3, which is the prequel to 1 and 2, more.
While I wouldn’t argue Dragon Quest 1 is a must-play RPG in 2025, I will absolutely argue that, especially with the sum total of these changes that it has accrued in this release as well as several prior ones, it is a very good one, even today. It’s very short, and very basic, but with this release, it has a lot of critical QoL such as the ability to speed up battles, and a generous autosave; and more importantly, its core design still feels compelling today.
The first few Dragon Quest games almost play out like Dungeons and Dragon campaigns, where the player is given some general suggestions of where they should be going and what they should be doing, but everything else that happens is driven by the player, their curiosity, and their ability to put information together. That design is still here, and still very compelling and fun, and it stands as unique enough from most other modern RPGs that there is inherent appeal to it through sheer novelty. Even if you turn on objective markers, which this re-release allows you to, the first Dragon Quest simply does such an effective job of making you feel like a hero on a quest to save the world and help everyone else along the way, that it’s a great, brisk, light hearted adventure that is absolutely worth playing.
“There are new scenes, new locations, and entire new plot lines here to deepen out the existing story, and that story also has other characters of note in addition to the Hero.”
The recommendation is especially easier to make because one of Dragon Quest 1’s biggest weaknesses – its overall brevity – is addressed with the inclusion of Dragon Quest 2, which means there is no danger of you not getting bang for your buck with this purchase. This is especially the case because a lot of the things I praised Dragon Quest 1 for also apply to 2, and because Dragon Quest 2 makes improvements to the formula of its own, and because Dragon Quest 2 HD2D makes its own improvements on top of that.
For example, Dragon Quest 2 had a much stronger story focus than the original game, which is then further fleshed out and expanded via similar improvements and updates as Dragon Quest 1’s HD2D reimagining. There are new scenes, new locations, and entire new plot lines here to deepen out the existing story, and that story also has other characters of note in addition to the Hero. Which brings us to one of this game’s biggest improvements (or innovations, at the time), in that it has a full playable party.
Much like the original Dragon Quest game, or Dragon Quest 3, Dragon Quest 2 plays out like a very cool Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Meaning the whole appeal that playing through the original Dragon Quest holds, that also applies to Dragon Quest 2. In fact, it has better encounters, a better story, and better dungeons, which makes this arguably the better game of the two; my only contention is it lacks the purity and briskness of the original. If anything, that is to its credit, but it’s still something worth pointing out.
There is also Dragon Quest 2’s infamous difficulty to consider. This was a famously brutal game, particularly in the back half. Thankfully, Dragon Quest 2 HD2D does enough to allow players to mitigate the difficulty, should they wish to. Like all modern Dragon Quest releases, you can change the difficulty level up or down at any time, so if the game is feeling out of hand, you can knock it down to Dracky Quest and continue having at it. Similarly, if it ever gets too obscure, you can check the listed objectives or turn on objective markers to figure out where you need to go and what you need to do.
Once a lot of that early jank and obscurity has been ironed out, there is an argument to be made that there isn’t a lot of complexity left to these games. However, the games have addressed that – as I’ve mentioned, it has new spells and abilities, allowed multi-mob battles in the original game, and even expanded the Sigil system from the original Dragon Quest 2 to both of these games, to allow players more options in terms of character builds, passive bonuses, and move load outs.
“The updates aren’t just limited to the mechanics, the story, and the storytelling either.”
The updates aren’t just limited to the mechanics, the story, and the storytelling either. The eponymous HD2D visuals are absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking, and really update the visuals depicting the iconic worlds and locations of these games without losing the spirit or the soul that the limitations of the era bred into the audiovisual presentation of these games at the time. The music, too, is great orchestral renditions of the original themes.
In a way it’s remarkable, because there is a very strong case to be made that Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD2D is the best, most definitive version of these games to date – something that is hard to achieve when you are working with games of this stature, and doubly so when those games have had as many varying re-releases over the years as these two have had, and all of which have their own various fans and detractors.
I feel like they bring together all the best parts of the previous releases of the game, add their own modern updates on top, wrap it all up in absolutely gorgeous audiovisual presentation, and do all of this without losing all the various merits, whether intended or borne out of the limitations that come from being a pioneer. And cumulatively, I think that makes both of these gams well worth checking out in 2025. They are not the best Dragon Quest games, they are not the best RPGs you can play today – but they are still very much worth playing.
This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.
