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The lead developers on turn-based RPG Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined are, unsurprisingly, fans of other turn-based RPGs. Producer Takeshi Ichikawa and director Masato Yagi shared some of the games and series they enjoy in a recent Reddit AMA, shouting out Persona and Final Fantasy alongside a 2009 JRPG whose appearance simultaneously is and is not surprising.
Asked about "some other turn-based RPGs that you like to play," Ichikawa said, "I really love the Persona series – especially Persona 3."
Yagi, meanwhile, said: "For me, it’s probably the Final Fantasy series. And I still really like The Last Remnant, which I worked on." The irony that recent Final Fantasy entries have trended away from turn-based combat is not lost on me, either.
The Last Remnant, released on Xbox 360 in 2008, PC in 2009, and remastered for PS4 in 2018, then Switch and mobile in 2019, was notably the first Square Enix game to use Unreal Engine. It was a weird, slow game that received mixed reviews, but the novelty of Unreal and the scarcity of JRPGs on Xbox helped it cultivate a minor following.
You can tell a lot about a person from their pick among Persona 3, 4, and 5 – the entries most modern Persona fans have played, and the only ones Atlus seems interested in re-releasing – and the less poppy tone of Persona 3 certainly fits right in with some of Ichikawa's answers elsewhere.
On "the essence" of Dragon Quest, Ichikawa points to "the scenario—grand in scale, yet somehow still feeling close and relatable." On Dragon Quest 7 specifically, he reckons, "The story of confronting the world’s absurdities and growing beyond them is one of Dragon Quest VII’s greatest appeals, so in this title as well, we have rebuilt the experience in a way that preserves that very charm."
The Persona nod is especially relevant here, as judging from the big new demo, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined folds in a feature common in modern Persona games: attacking enemies to start combat with advantage, or to instant-kill weak enemies.
