Just last year we were treated to a remake of one of the most important and influential RPGs of all-time, Dragon Quest III. Remade in the HD-2D style that Square Enix has zeroed in on for several remakes and original RPGs, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake looked stunning. This year, Square Enix set out to finish out the Erdrick trilogy by remaking both Dragon Quest I and Dragon Quest II as HD-2D titles, nicely bundled in one package. Thankfully, I’ve been given the opportunity to play both titles, an opportunity I jumped at after having a blast with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake last year.
For those not in the know, the stories of Dragon Quest I and II serve as followups to the story laid out in Dragon Quest III, which served as a prequel to the first two Dragon Quest games. With Square Enix remaking the trilogy, it made sense to start with III, which allowed them to follow up with I and II and add more intentional links between the three titles. The problem I ran into with this approach, however, is that Dragon Quest III is a better game than both Dragon Quest I and II, and this holds true for these HD-2D Remakes, if for slightly different reasons. Don’t get me wrong, both Dragon Quest I and II are foundational games for the genre but, as time marched on, further iterations of a product were bound to improve, putting Dragon Quest III in the sweet spot to be remade into a great, if simple, modern RPG. As a result, following up with the older titles, Dragon Quest I and II, meant those games had to be stretched a little further to bring them into a modern light — but some things can only be stretched so much before you notice they don’t quite fit the mold.
Dragon Quest I + II HD-2D Remake looks just as stunning as last year’s release of III, having been made in the same engine with plenty of the same assets, and it was still a joy to explore the world of Alefgard and take in the sights. Akira Toriyama’s monster and character designs are still as timeless and lively as ever, and even in HD-2D, Dragon Quest still looks unmistakably like Dragon Quest.
It’s in the actual gameplay, however, that it starts to feel like Square Enix tried a bit too hard to fit Dragon Quest I + II HD-2D Remake into the same vein as Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. This disparity is noticeable early on in Dragon Quest I, and can be felt throughout the game. You see, historically there are no other party members in Dragon Quest I, only the hero who has set out alone to defeat the Dragonlord. This has not changed in the HD-2D remake, though other changes have been made to bring the game more in line with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake.
Most obvious is the fact that the hero can now encounter multiple enemies at once, requiring him to fend them off all by himself. The remake is not particularly shy about handing you multiple tough enemies at once while separating them into two groups so that they cannot be all targeted by spells or attacks that hit a group of enemies, meaning you have to fight that much harder and strategize much more than you would with a full party in Dragon Quest II or III. There are also several mechanical quirks as a result of having one party member, like the fact that the game stresses that learning new skills and spells from scrolls can only be done once per scroll and can never be forgotten, despite the fact that there are no other options for who is learning the skill or spell, and you can easily just learn from every scroll in the game.
Both games in this package also suffer from having to pad out their length thanks to them being such old titles. New dialogue, characters, and quests extend your playtime. Some of this new content genuinely feels great, as it fleshes out some story beats and can introduce more links between all three games in the trilogy, but ultimately a lot of the new quests start to feel like busy work, asking you to track down new items in order to advance the story. It’s more Dragon Quest so it isn’t exactly bad; it just feels pretty obvious that it’s only there to pad the length of these titles.
Both games still have that great old school RPG feel that Dragon Quest has become known for, and I did enjoy playing through them, especially having played through Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake last year. It’s truly great to see the trilogy filled out on one platform in the HD-2D style that I’m still admittedly a sucker for. There are also plenty of great quality of life improvements to make experiencing these games smoother than ever, like the ability to Zoom (teleport) from pretty much anywhere to several fast travel points dotted all over the map, the ability to up the battle speed, an extremely generous auto-save system paired with the ability to easily rematch a boss that you died against with no negative repercussions.
Despite my reservations about how well these titles work as modern RPGs, they are still a blast to play, and I’ll always love my time spent playing any Dragon Quest game. Yes, things feel a bit strange when trying to fit both Dragon Quest I and II into Dragon Quest III’s new shoes, but the shoes still fit and look great, even if they are a bit uncomfortable in some spots.
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System: Nintendo Switch 2
Release Date: October 30, 2025
Categories: Role-playing
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Written by Jaxson Tapp
As a lover of gaming and the written word, Jaxson currently fills his time not only with playing games, but also writing about them. Ready for anything, Jaxson’s passion for puzzle games, JRPGs, tough platformers, and whimsical indies helps him bring a well-rounded opinion to Nintendo Wire’s reporting.
