Dragon Quest is one of the most important video game series ever since it kick-started the popular genre of “JRPG” (or Japanese Role Playing Game). It surged in popularity in Japan and has seen some meager success in western territories. Fans of the series jumped for joy when they saw that a remake of the PlayStation 1 classic would be coming west on the 3DS.

But how does this remake stack up to the more recent titles in the series? Does it fix the problems with the PS1 version?

The game starts off establishing the kingdom of Estard where the residents of the island believe that they are on the only piece of land in the world and live a life of peace. The main character (whom you can name whatever you want per JRPG fashion) and his friend, the Prince of Estard Kiefer, believe that there are lands beyond their relatively small home of Estard. They set out to build a raft but are delayed due to a fishing festival happening.

The main character finds Maribell, a sassy and adventurous young girl, stowing away on a fishing boat. Later on Kiefer, Maribell, and the main character find a secret ruin where they meet a flying fairy telling them to put shards on a pedestal to complete a tablet and then are teleported to a different land. After they deal with the problem for the village on the island they are teleported back to Estard to find that that island is now off the coast of Estard.

At this point, the game opens up a bit more and it becomes about finding shards to go to different locations. Each of these locations have their own story so the game plays out more like a series of vignettes than the big long story that a JRPG usually tells.

While this setup is important for starting things off, it drags hard. The first hour of this game can feel painful to get through, though it was sped up compared to the original game where it could take 3 hours before you even see your first slime.

The gameplay is standard Dragon Quest fare where a player choose to either attack, defend, use items or spells, or if the player is feeling worn out, they can choose to run away. It’s harder to feel worn out by encounters since you can now see monsters on the overworld (barring certain times like when you’re on a ship, these encounters are random).

This goes a long way to stop the feeling that all JRPG fans feel when they take 2 steps and are bombarded by monsters which is important since this game last players 100s of hours. The game also sports a really big class system, allowing players to customize their party depending on how they see fit.

Visually, the game looks great on the 3DS even for a game that is actually a couple of years old. It captures of the colorful characters and world drawn by Akira Toriyama (most known for drawing Dragon Ball). The game’s 3D effect looks great as well.

The soundtrack is great. The battle theme is one of the best in the series and all the classic themes are out in full force. However the western versions of the game had the memorable symphonic soundtrack replaced by a lower quality and worse sounding MIDI file soundtrack. The main melodies still shine but it’s disappointing since symphonic Dragon Quest music is something to really take in.
Overall this remake of Dragon Quest 7 brings the classic game to a new audience and manages to improve on the classic RPG in every way. It’s good for any fans of the genre and a decent starting point for new people looking to get into JRPGs.