While it initially sounded absurd to release the third title in a trilogy before the first two, thematically and chronologically, it makes perfect sense. If Dragon Quest III was a tale of the most famous Erdrick of the trilogy, Dragon Quest I and II both take up the helm generations after the fact and continue the work initially started to protect Alefgard from catastrophe. What we got to play at Tokyo Game Show 2025 was just a small taste of the opening hours of both titles that encompass the Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D Remake, which rounds off the trilogy.
Both of the first two Dragon Quest titles take a different approach to the hero's journey. For the first and inaugural Dragon Quest title, it's literally one man versus the world as the nameless Hero must acquire Wrdrick's legendary equipment to best the big bad Dragonlord before they can take over the world. In the second Dragon Quest title (and last in the trilogy chronologically, taking place roughly a century after the first game), it's up to a small party of Luminairies and family members to do the deed. Perhaps Square-Enix will fix some of the gear issues and give the Prince of Cannock something better to wear than a coffin all the time.
Fundamentally, Square-Enix and Armor Studio have given Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D Remake the same overhaul that the third title received last year. This has the unfortunate side effect of making all three titles feel relatively homogenized compared to how the original trilogy both looked and played on the original NES. Dragon Quest I remains the largest outlier of the trilogy, with both a singular protagonist and a shorter runtime, but it still captures the same joy of JRPGs as the other two.
The original NES release of Dragon Quest, or Dragon Warrior in the West, was a very short adventure by modern standards. Even with the added necessity to groom in the US release of Dragon Warrior, players could expect to finish the adventure in roughly ten hours with only a few major plot points and dungeons along the way. Square-Enix has remedied that by including new story scenarios neatly into the gameplay in places that feel natural. For the first title, a new scenario was added to retrieve the Thief's Key from a merchant, only to have it be stolen by Robbin' 'Ood before the player can get to it. This leads to a small side quest in a dungeon that was originally optional in the adventure (Craggy Cave) and an encounter with the thief himself, one that players would recognize from the HD-2D Remake of Dragon Quest III and many other subsequent titles in the series.
Similarly, Dragon Quest II received a substantial amount of new content, with the majority that I was able to play in my short demo being that of an underwater map to recover Lorelai's Harp as well as a small lottery minigame. Dragon Quest II frequently was at the bottom of ranking lists across the entire series and was the most in need of a proper overhaul, so I'm glad to see that it's receiving all sorts of new content this time around, beyond just the fresh coat of paint.
Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D Remake will be out soon, with a release date set for October 30th, 2025 across PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Xbox Series S|X, and PC. With less than four weeks to go before release, that's the perfect time to jump into Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake and explore the foundations of the trilogy before diving into the next two titles.
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