Review : Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake [2025]

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Uh oh, here comes Grandpa Mike again to blabber about some ancient game from the Paleolithic Age. Sit down kids, and let me tell you about that classic JRPG series, Dragon Quest… Well back in my day it was called Dragon Warrior, because that’s what Enix chose to localize it as, and — oh yeah, did you know that Square and Enix used to be completely separate companies — hey, come back, where are you going?

Putting the bit aside, Dragon Warrior II was a formative game in my youth. I played it when I was about 6 or 7 years old and man, what an awful introduction to JRPGs that was. That last sentence might come as a surprise. Truth is, the first third of the game is totally fine, but sometime around acquiring the ship the difficulty spikes like crazy and random enemies start to drown you in status effects, use instant kill spells on you, or just straight-up oneshot your characters with basic attacks. The game is infamous for this; a rushed development cycle led to the back half of the game barely being tested before release and as a result, was unbalanced to a truly comedic degree. People did manage to finish it, but it was often an exercise in frustration (or excessive level grinding). I certainly never finished it; the fact that I was an impatient kid with undiagnosed ADHD meant that I chose to flee from a lot of fights and thus got my underleveled ass handed to me, frequently.

Fortunately, SquareEnix saw saw fit to release an HD-2D Remake of Dragon Quest I & II late last year, and it is a considerable glow-up from its ancestors. I opted not to play the original Dragon Quest and jumped right into the sequel; from everything I’ve heard the original game just largely hasn’t held up as well since the party consists of only the hero, severely limiting the developer’s options for making combat interesting. Jumping right into Dragon Quest II felt immediately familiar though; the world, music, and aesthetic were immediately recognizable even with the fresh coat of paint. Akira Toriyama’s iconic art shines in this high-res spritework, and the orchestral remixes of the soundtrack are largely a delight. The Dragon Quest series has always been a little goofy and whimsical, so although a handful of the re-orchestrations sound a bit too stiff and fancy, the vast majority of the tracks are excellent (the remix of the overworld theme “Travelling With Friends” gets a special shoutout for being the best version of it).

So let’s talk about the main cast of your party members and how they work in combat; because this is a classic JRPG you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them in random encounters. All of the characters are the descendants of Erdrick, hero of the original game, whose children founded the kingdoms of Midenhall, Cannock, and Moonbrooke. This makes your characters the up-and-coming royals of these kingdoms and cousins to one another.

First up is the Prince of Midenhall. He’s the main character and the one you name at the start of the game, and plays the role of your classic bruiser. He can’t use magic and is not very impressive in the early game, but he quickly learns a lot of specialized abilities and attacks that do extra damage to certain types of enemies, and in the mid to late game he is an absolute wrecking ball (especially when buffed by his allies). The Prince of Cannock is second to join the crew, and he strikes a balance between physical and magical power. He has some seriously useful and devastating spells such as Omniheal and Kazap, but they are very MP hungry and he’ll drain his reserves fast if you’re not careful. The Princess of Moonbrooke rounds out the original trio; she is your classic spellcaster and features a wide array of spells that cause or heal negative statuses, a smattering of healing spells, and of course a buffet of powerful attack spells of varying elements. Newly playable in the HD-2D remake is the Princess of Cannock, younger sister to the Prince and somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, but she serves as an excellent buffer/debuffer and extra attacker in a pinch.

I found the ability and spell spread between the characters to be generally well-thought-out, making for some interesting and strong synergies between them. Combat is frequent, but fortunately the game lets you choose from a set of AI tactics for any or all of your controlled characters, lightening the load and making combat flow much faster. New since the release of the remake of Dragon Quest III (which actually released before this title) is the ability to prohibit your characters from using certain abilities when being run by AI tactics, which is incredibly useful for preventing them from wasting a turn on sub-par spells or inversely, spamming their most expensive spells until they’re out of MP. There were times when the regular encounters got tedious (especially when exploring the larger dungeons), but the late game encounters and most of the boss fights are very engaging, encouraging you to take manual control and carefully plan out your turns. True to the Dragon Quest formula, you can also use many weapons and armor in combat to cast a specific spell at no cost, adding an extra incentive for you to carefully comb through dungeons for the really good unique loot. This makes gear feel much less disposable and itemization choices more meaningful.

The story itself is also greatly expanded, featuring a much larger script, voice acting for most of the important scenes, and also a handful of brand-new dungeons and encounters to overcome. I wouldn’t say that the story is groundbreaking, but it has some twists and turns, lots of great character moments, and so much of that unique, charming personality that the series is known for. This is capped off by the addition of a brand-new extra ending, culminating in an additional boss fight at the end and an epilogue that serves to tie together the entire Erdrick Saga in a fantastic, and honestly, touching way. The first three games in this series are connected but not in the way you might expect, and so I won’t spoil how if you aren’t already familiar with it. If you’ve previously played this trilogy though, I can wholeheartedly recommend seeing Dragon Quest II through to the true ending. I can, without a doubt, say that this is the definitive version of the origins of this classic series.

It feels great to have finally seen the end of this story, albeit almost 35 years later. Now, I’ll patiently wait for the inevitable HD-2D Remake of Dragon Quest (Warrior) IV, my personal favorite of the series and one that I actually did finish as a kid. Until then…

Overall Score

★ ★

Highly Recommended

Dragon Quest on Mike's Musings

Review : Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake [2025]