"Dragon Quest was a pioneering title," says 1 & 2 HD-2D remake producer Masaaki Hayasaka in a new blog posted to the PlayStation website, and everything that is old eventually becomes new again. So, in a way, it's great luck that Dragon Quest's retro, turn-based JRPG style has nearly disappeared from fashion.
"Recently, a lot of RPGs have adopted more action gameplay elements, but this remake respects the original," Hayasaka says in the PlayStation blog discussing some of the details behind Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake ahead of its October 30 launch, 39 years after the first game's initial release. "This remake respects the original, and it's presented in a classic command-battle RPG style."
"Titles like this are actually rare nowadays," Hayasaka adds, "and it feels like we may have gone full circle, to the point that they're now considered fresh again.
"As I mentioned previously, these games have influenced a huge number of JRPGs – it isn't really possible to talk about JRPGs without mentioning them – so I believe that people are going to find them really interesting to play, precisely because of when they're coming out."
Really, it seems like great timing for Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake to release in the same year as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has done a great job at leading gamers back to turn-based games like pigeons stalking a loaf of bread – though Expedition 33's creative director Guillaume Broche recently said that he thinks the Xbox 360-era "prejudice against turn-based RPGs isn't completely gone."
Hayasaka has an answer for that: just play Dragon Quest.
"When people actually try Dragon Quests I and II for themselves [...], I think they come to understand why it's such a masterpiece," he says.
