After just an hour playing Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, I'm charmed and unsettled in equal measure – this JRPG remake has surprisingly ambitious storytelling goals

Just as players are still gorging on delightful HD-2D remakes of Dragon Quest 1, 2, and 3, Square is reheating yet another Yuji Hori-helmed classic. Meet Dragon Quest 7: Reimagined. Swapping NES era pixel art for PS1 polygons, Reimagined is part lavish remake, part Director's Cut, trimming the fat from this beloved anthology RPG in an attempt to make this classic story more digestible for modern players.

"Back in the year 2000 when the game was first made, there really wasn't as much entertainment around," explains producer Takeshi Ichikawa, "people were looking for one single game that they could spend a huge amount of time in… Now, people are looking for something a bit more compact."

Short story collection

Originally released in 2000, Dragon Quest 7 dropped the series' classic linear narrative to deliver an intriguing omnibus of short stories. Taking your party on a globe-spanning adventure, DQ7 tied together the story of multiple towns across the land of Estard with a collection of deceptively dark tales. "A lot of these short stories are about unfairness…" says Ichikawa, "The darkness of society is reflected in those stories in a way that I think is really quite unique amongst the dragon quest games."

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If you're also a Brit, it's pretty likely that you won't have played Dragon Quest 7 at all. With the PS1 release skipping Europe entirely, DQ7 didn't arrive on the continent until 2016's Dragon Quest 7: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, on 3DS. Yet, even on 3DS, Ichikawa believes that very few players saw the story through to its conclusion.

"At 100 hours, even the 3DS game was still a very large game," says Ichikawa. So, for Reimagined, Square is doing a reverse Snyder and cutting all but the most impactful storylines. "Some of the [stories] have now been made optional, so you can play them in any order you want," explains Ichikawa, "and a few of the stories which weren't 100% relevant to the main storyline have just been cut entirely."

While long-time fans may have mixed feelings on some of the nixed stories, for our hour preview session, it's the handsome visuals that make the strongest impression. Almost ten years after the 3DS remake, Square Enix has opted to imbue their lengthy RPG classic with a hefty layer of spit and polish. Swapping the publisher's signature 2D-HD aesthetic for a quasi 3D remake, as adventurers roam the beaches and plains of the island of Estard, they do so from a top down perspective. Part The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on Switch, part PS1-era Final Fantasy, there's a chibi-esque charm oozing throughout Reimagined.

"Even though [every Dragon Quest] uses Mr. Toriyama's unique style, the proportions of the characters for [Dragon Quest] 7 are that much shorter," says Ichikawa. "So, when we started looking for the right art style to fit that slightly more adorable, cute aesthetic we settled on the idea of using these doll-like characters."

As I dive into battle, I immediately see what he means. As the diorama-like town exploration fades, during combat, players command their puppet-styled party of adventurers from a tight-knit over the shoulder perspective. It's an effectively claustrophobic, up close and personal approach to battling, feeling closer to Kratos' recent God Of War entries and Resident Evil 4 than a traditional turn-based RPG.

As your troupe grimace upon receiving damage, their foes are equally wonderfully-animated, with DQ7's beautifully expressive monsters stealing the show. From the little wobbles of the adorably angry hammerhoods to the menacing mouth twitches of the nightmarish mouse/wasp hybrids called, well, mouseflaps – whenever your puppet-esque party dives into battle the eerie world of Dragon Quest comes vividly to life.

"I think the main thing that we really tried to push in the monster design and the visual presentation is that sense of texture," explains Ichikawa, of the battles' toy-like charm. In fact, there's more than a hint of Pixar to these Toy Story-style character models. "The main characters in the game were all made using real dolls, models with real textures on them that were scanned in."

While the characters look cuter than ever, it's during each tense encounter that Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined's darker undercurrent bubbles to the surface. Ichikawa tells me that the team wanted to offer a newly hallucinogenic and unsettling interpretation on Toriyama's creature designs, truly bringing out the twisted facts of each nightmarish creation.

There's a new-found level of dynamism to turn-based battles, too, with Ichikawa explaining that the team were partly inspired by one 2025 GOTY candidate. "I had a lot of fun with [Clair Obscur]," smiles Ichikawa, "it really keeps what makes turn-based games great, but also does it in such a stylish, visually appealing way."

Finding your vocation

Unlike the more purist approach to combat in the recent NES era Dragon Quest remakes, Reimagined adds a few more features in order to keep combat feeling exciting. The biggest change is the new "Moonlighting" system. Characters can now make use of two separate job classes simultaneously, allowing players to get creative by mixing and matching vocations to make exciting combinations of spells and passive abilities.

"I [played Clair Obscur] while we were in the middle of development," Ichikawa continues, "and I felt that the direction that they've gone with Clair Obscur, in terms of the tempo, the pacing of the battles, was very similar to the way that I'd approached trying to improve Dragon Quest 7."

As each battle unfolds, your party builds up energy and they become 'worked up.' When this state is reached, players can select the 'Let Loose' command, activating a unique vocational perk. These perks function as handy mid-battle buffs, ranging from powerful, temporary stat boosts for the entire party to emergency heals when things start looking tough.

In another nod to Mr Toriyama's beloved past, there's also the pleasingly anime-style new "Burst Mechanic." At GamesRadar+, we're big fans of a bit of the ol' razzle dazzle, and burst attacks add plenty of that via screen-filling spectacle. These stunning super attacks allow the new art style to really shine, making merking nearby monsters immensely satisfying as your characters power up in a cathartic collision of carnage and colour.

Still, it's not all something old and something culled with Reimagined. Alongside the cut content, Ichikawa tells me that there will be a smattering of new story content awaiting returning fans, too. All new episodes have been added in a bid to expand certain characters' backstories. While he won't be drawn on which characters will be getting new arcs, the Dragon Quest team hopes that these bonus episodes will help make the key story moments feel even more impactful.

As anyone who's completed its 100 plus hour opus will attest, DQ7 is an immensely text heavy affair, making it a game that cries out for voice acting. In Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, this is only partly implemented, with key story cutscenes brought to life with a myriad of grin-inducing regional UK accents. From a Yorkshire witch in the Northern region of Emberdale groaning about going up 'tut volcano, to the radio 4-worthy southern drawl of the more well to do inhabitants of Wetlock, these cutscenes are a delight, but it's a shame that the NPCs you encounter in the game world only natter away to you in silence.

In an age of infinite distractions, Square Enix is hoping that by trimming down the fat, modern players will finally be compelled to see DQ7's beloved tale through to its dramatic conclusion. If each standalone story arc receives the polish to make it shine – and the new character backstories impress – Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined may well serve as a canny director's cut to a much beloved RPG classic.

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