Dragon Quest VII Reimagined

At this point, there must not be a single gamer left on earth who does not know Dragon Quest, both for its relevance in the JRPG genre (which it practically founded) and for its legacy, which so many other hugely successful series have followed since its early days. Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, the Trails series, all the Tales of... none of these would exist as we know them if Enix's work, led by Yuji Horii, had not taken the first step. And yet, as my colleague Ben rightly pointed out when he first tried Dragon Quest VII Reimagined last year, it seems that the series has been left behind, now more focused on reviving the glories of the past than facing the present.

Dragon Quest XII is still a long way off, and the lifeline offered by the HD-2D formula, while charming, was not going to allow for indefinite success. No, if you want a series with such rigid foundations as Dragon Quest, which have hardly changed in 40 years, you have to take a few more risks... And is that what Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined does?

Short answer: Yes and no. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a moderately new revision of Dragon Quest VII (PlayStation, 2000), taking advantage of the approach of the 2013 version released for Nintendo 3DS, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of a Forgotten World. This means that, although the main essence of the Hero and his friends' journey across the island continent, travelling through time between the past and the present, has been retained, a complete graphical and visual remake has been carried out, taking advantage of certain guidance from that 3DS version.

It's a visual redesign that I personally wasn't entirely comfortable with when I first saw it announced, but it only took a couple of hours to convince me that it was the right choice. The polished diorama-style scenery and 3D character designs, which retain Akira Toriyama's original designs, are a success and make the immersion in the story much better than with the hieratic, albeit charming, stick figures of the Erdrick HD-2D trilogy.

And speaking of the story, the title 'Reimagined' is not there just for the visuals. One of the main complaints about the narrative of Dragon Quest VII in its previous versions was that the progression and the story ended up becoming really tedious and heavy, as the title required constant farming of experience and combat against monsters that quickly fell into monotony, not to mention that the game was over if you were tenacious enough to reach the credits, spending 100 hours, maybe even many more. Now the adventure has been redesigned, maintaining that journey across the sea in search of the mystical tablets that allow the world to be restored and the islands to emerge from the ocean, but tweaking certain less essential parts.

If you've played the previous games, you may notice that the path is now slightly different, or that certain islands are no longer there. Although DQ VII Reimagined is not as long now, it still offers dozens of hours of gameplay, and the experience is now more enjoyable.

The combat system has also been streamlined, for the better. Inherited from a classic resource economy design, the combat screen continues to show our group of adventurers from behind as they face the enemy or group of enemies. The animations for attacks, monsters, and Skills (as the old Spells, or special abilities, are now known) have been revamped, and an extra layer of synergy has been added between different enemies in the same battle, so that they can help each other or combine their forces more efficiently. That is, of course, if you keep the difficulty at Normal or higher, because now you can also select the difficulty of the challenge or adjust it to your liking. Honestly, this is very welcome if you just want to focus on the story or exploring the world, the Monsterpedia, or if you need a higher challenge.

What I appreciated most in combat is, once again, the decision to speed up the process. We already had 'Turbo' systems to make animations and commands faster, reducing the speed of encounters, but now you can also customise the characters' fighting style, 'programming' their roles in the group (for example, making them focus on support or attacking without skimping on Magic Points). The vocations of each character have also been expanded. These are like subclasses that allow you to adapt the role of each character in the group to your liking, and also to better focus their use against more powerful enemies. Don't worry too much about these systems right now, because by the time you need to use them, you will have advanced so far in the story and have so many hours of gameplay under your belt that you will know how they work.

Perhaps that remains my least enthusiastic thought about Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. Because despite streamlining the combat, tweaking the narrative, adding shortcuts and refining puzzle and scenario designs here and there... I still feel that it's a rather dense Dragon Quest. The first few hours are dense, and you'll feel like the story isn't progressing and you're getting lost in superfluous dialogue and combat as you run around looking for the next mission point on the map. This isn't a flaw specific to this version, but rather part of the series' ancient heritage, with its roots and, perhaps, the imagination of its most traditional defenders. On the other hand, I am pleased to see that an old mistake with the Nintendo 3DS version we received in the West has been corrected, as we now finally have the soundtrack scores performed by an orchestra and written and conducted by the legendary Koichi Sugiyama.

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined offers both a refreshing visual and technical leap for those who enjoyed previous instalments in the series, as well as a different journey for those veterans who have already spent countless hours sailing the seas of previous versions of the game. It retains the purity of a classic and gives it enough flavour and agility to at least deserve a chance from any JRPG lover.