For a genre now defined by grandiose storytelling and high-end cinematic production, the Dragon Quest series stands apart as the JRPG’s enduring comfort food. Never burdened by layers of systems or overproduced spectacle, Dragon Quest instead keeps things simple, relying on heart, structure, and the quiet rhythm of a hero’s journey to save the world from the forces of evil.
2024’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake brought one of the genre’s most formative classics into the modern era, preserving its charm and spirit while refining enough of its rough edges to make it genuinely enjoyable today. It remained a distilled JRPG experience about moving from town to town, leveling just enough to take down the monster across the bridge. At times, its grind could be unforgiving, but its focus never wavered, for better and for worse.
Now, in 2025, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake arrives as the follow-up. Having appreciated last year’s preservation effort while still noting its lingering friction points, I was eager to see how Square Enix would handle this next step. Could these remakes smooth out the rough edges while keeping the spirit intact? Or would adapting two even older adventures reveal the limits of this otherwise admirable preservation project?
Let’s Venture Forth, shall we?
Legacy of a Hero
Set generations after the events of Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest I & II trace the long shadow left by the legendary hero known as Erdrick. Where Dragon Quest III served as a prequel origin story chronicling the rise of the hero who defeated the demon Baramos and the Archfiend Zoma, Dragon Quest I & II explore what became of that legacy.
In Dragon Quest I, centuries have passed, and the Erdrick bloodline has faded into myth. The world of Alefgard has once again fallen into darkness with the rise of a new Dragonlord in the wake of Zoma’s defeat. A lone descendant of Erdrick rises to the occasion, seeking to prove himself worthy of that lineage while gathering the sacred artifacts needed to restore peace. It’s a simple tale of a hero on a solitary journey to stand against evil.
Dragon Quest II, on the other hand, is far more ambitious. The descendants of Erdrick have now spread across multiple kingdoms beyond Alefgard into the wider world of Torland. When a dark priest emerges and destroys one of these realms, three heirs of Erdrick’s line unite to follow in their ancestor’s footsteps, ready to live up to the legacy of their bloodline and prevent the destruction of their world.
Where Dragon Quest III centered on Erdrick following in his father’s footsteps before becoming a legend himself, the original Dragon Quest is even more straightforward, a pure story of a hero rising to face evil. Having never experienced the NES originals myself, I can’t say how strongly the sense of legacy came through back then, but in this remake, that context adds a meaningful layer. Positioned directly after last year’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D, Dragon Quest I now carries a quiet aura of heritage that deepens its otherwise simple premise, and you feel it more as you revisit the environments of Dragon Quest III and feel the sense of history play out in front of you.
If anything, the game that benefits most from this sense of lineage is Dragon Quest II. Seeing Erdrick’s bloodline fully realized across multiple kingdoms, and traveling with a party of royal cousins, makes its story feel more personal and alive. It’s also the only entry in the trilogy where your party members are defined characters, unlike Dragon Quest III’s blank-slate companions or Dragon Quest I’s solitary hero. As someone who enjoys stories built around family legacy and generational echoes, Dragon Quest II resonated most with me. It takes the series’ familiar “heroes rising to save the world” framework and enriches it with a tangible sense of legacy.
I can’t speak for how it felt at release, especially considering Dragon Quest III’s legendary reputation, but within the context of these remakes, the second game ultimately emerged as my favorite and served a very satisfying conclusion to the Erdrick trilogy.
Scions of Erdrick
At its core, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake remains a traditional, turn-based JRPG complete with overworld exploration, random encounters, towns, and long-term character building. If you played last year’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, much of that framework carries over here, with a few notable additions and subtractions.
Playing these two games back to back, the first big difference is how Dragon Quest I distills the formula down to just your hero. Unlike its follow ups, there are no party members throughout its 25–30-hour adventure, so your protagonist becomes a one-man army handling both physical attacks and magic progression. One of the most satisfying elements of last year’s game was the robust character classes that transformed with the gradual power curve that came from building out a diverse party. Here, that focus narrows to a single character, which makes for way less gameplay variety but slightly reduces the usual grind.
From what I understand of the original NES and Famicom versions, Dragon Quest I featured strictly one-on-one battles. The remake changes that, now pitting your lone hero against groups of up to four or five enemies at once. It makes encounters more dynamic, but also potentially even more frustrating, since you still can’t disable random battles as you can in the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. You are still at the mercy of an RNG-based flee mechanic which will test your patience, particularly when it fails multiple times in a row.
One genuinely welcome change is the expanded difficulty options. In Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, the easiest mode basically functioned as a “God Mode” where you couldn’t die. While that worked for players who only wanted to experience the story, it left little room for nuance. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake now lets you disable God Mode on the easy difficulty, creating a more balanced “casual” option. You can also make the experience tougher by disabling automatic HP and MP recovery upon leveling up. It’s a small but meaningful quality-of-life improvement. Not everything has been addressed, though. Some lingering frustrations from last year’s game remain, most notably the inability to toggle random encounters and the still-awkward resurrection mechanic that forces you to grind magic levels before you can revive allies efficiently. Still, the tweaks that were made are much appreciated.
Square Enix has also emphasized that many systems here are entirely new additions not found in the original games. As someone experiencing these stories for the first time, some of that historical context is lost on me, but the remakes clearly have changes which make both titles more robust than their NES counterparts. In addition to the expanded battle structure, there is now a Sigils mechanic that dynamically enhances combat once certain conditions are met (for example, specific abilities gaining extra effects when your HP drops below 50%). The Sigils were originally just a story macguffin in Dragon Quest II, but they’ve been retroactively added into the first game as well to give both games a sense of mechanical continuity.
Alongside traditional leveling, you can now learn new skills, via Scrolls, found during exploration. Searching for these adds an extra incentive to venture off the beaten path, even with the constant risk of being wiped out by a rough random encounter. Other small touches, like optional hints showing enemy weaknesses, make combat a bit more readable without removing the challenge.
The most substantial additions appear in Dragon Quest II, which now includes a new underwater region populated by mermaids, and it introduces a fourth party member, expanding what was originally a trio of Erdrick’s descendants. These changes help bring the second entry closer in ambition to last year’s remake of Dragon Quest III.
If there’s a downside, it’s that Dragon Quest II runs longer than both the first and third games (I’d calculate between 50-70 hours), and that added length, especially once the underwater segments unlock and you are forced on an extended fetch quest, can make its pacing feel uneven toward the end. Thankfully, my investment in the story and the Erdrick bloodline kept me going. The first and third games still feel tighter overall, but the ambition of II is hard not to admire.
Luminaries of the Legendary Line
Square Enix has been at the forefront of the HD-2D pixel art style since Octopath Traveler, modernizing a nostalgic aesthetic and giving it a striking new dimension. The Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes continue that trend, blending the late Akira Toriyama’s iconic art style with a pixel art aesthetic with rich lighting and depth to create a more realized 3D environment. While opinions vary on how this approach compares to Octopath Traveler’s more strictly pixelated presentation, the results remain gorgeous, as last year’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake clearly proved.
From a presentation standpoint, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is largely on par with last year’s release. Both games maintain that warm, cozy, and colorful atmosphere, seamlessly blending classic sprites with modern environments. That said, I found the visuals slightly less striking this time around. Part of that comes from familiarity. The HD-2D style no longer carries the same “wow” factor, but it’s also due to a noticeable reduction in bloom lighting compared to last year’s game, which gave Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake a more luminous, almost storybook glow. Similarly, the overworlds of Alefgard and Torland, while charming, lack the same grandeur or real-world inspiration that made Dragon Quest III’s towns so memorable. It’s still a gorgeous presentation overall and remains one of the best visual frameworks for reviving classic games. I just can’t say I was as mesmerized by it one year later.
Where the new release does improve a bit is in its use of music and sound design. It’s not that the previous game’s soundtrack was weak, as the orchestral leitmotifs were beautiful. Their constant repetition, however, became grating over time. In Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, the compositions feel better balanced. The overworld themes still loop over and over, but feel more natural and don’t wear out their welcome. And the fact that both games feature distinct tracks helps create a greater sense of variety. The orchestral renditions of the main Dragon Quest theme still sound fantastic, and, while musical repetition remains part of the series’ DNA, it’s less fatiguing here.
Voice acting has also seen slight improvement. It’s still used sparingly, and the quality remains uneven, but performances feel a bit more natural this time. I’m still on the fence about whether I’d prefer a fully text-based approach as it might better suit the simplicity of these stories, but I appreciate that Square Enix continues to experiment and refine rather than play it safe.
As Square Enix continues to mine the legacy of its classic catalog, I’m glad to see their preservation efforts not only continue, but do so with genuine care and quality. These older games will never fully escape the friction of their early design, but the effort to modernize them without losing their soul deserves real praise.
With Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, the origin arc of the series now feels complete. Seeing the Erdrick saga come full circle in this format is deeply satisfying, and I hope Square Enix continues to give its formative works this kind of royal treatment. Even with the frustrations that come from their old-school roots, these remakes make it easier than ever to appreciate where one of gaming’s most celebrated JRPG series began.
Anyone with even a passing curiosity about the origins of Dragon Quest, or the history of the genre itself, owes it to themselves to experience these games, ideally alongside last year’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake for the full picture. Together, they stand as a fitting preservation of a legendary legacy, and a reminder that some adventures never lose their light.
Thank you to our PR partners and Square-Enix for review access to Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
