In case you hadn’t heard, Square Enix recently dropped a demo for the hotly-anticipated (albeit somewhat controversial) Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, AKA the second ground-up remake of 2000’s classic seventh chapter in the beloved series.
The demo’s available on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam. In other words, just about everything. And it’s been turning heads. Despite some measure of skepticism from various corners over the decision to cut content present in the original version, the strengths have drastically outweighed the negatives in the eyes of plenty of players.
Blown Away
While it’s been far from the only thread on the matter, Redditor Radinax’s post over on Reddit is one of the most ringing endorsements for the DQVII Reimagined demo. “I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did, I can’t say what particularly did, its just the combination of everything meshing very well into the intended direction.” That’s kind of Dragon Quest in a nutshell, if you ask me, so it’s heartening to see similar sentiment.
“I didn’t expect to put this up in my priority list, took me about ~4 hours and it left me wanting more.” -Radinax
“Never played a DQ game in my life but I was quite impressed,” replied Business-Schedule648. Other posters praised the amount of work that’s clearly been put into this remake, but I’m a little bummed by how many people said they would buy it if so many other games weren’t en route that they were interested in. Look, I get it! But we’ve gotta show our Dragon Quest support here in the West! Uh, I digress.
tonylouis1337 set up a separate thread, labeling the demo “amazing” and digging its themes:
“The plot of the young kid from a peaceful fishing island with his buddies the prince and the mayor’s daughter are great, the theme of sailing the seas and uncovering new lands is terrific, the mystery as to how all of this happening brewing underneath. I’m also really satisfied with how much of the game you get to play in the demo. I was able to get about 8 hours out of it!”
I’ve written in the past about how, while I get why content would be cut from a game that many perceive as bloated and too slow, I’m still not thrilled with the decision. It’s nice, then, to see somebody who was in the same camp say this: “At first I was put off by the crazy amount of cut content, especially in the opening. […] But as I was playing, I realized the pacing is way more engaging this way.”
StatusCorgi3266 is just bummed they’ve got to wait until February 5 for the full release. Sad doggo! And Ninjaneer83 simply wishes there wasn’t a level cap in the demo, because they were hoping to grind the game to total dust before launch. “Starting the full game after island 1 at level 40 is just a fever dream now.” Well, bit of a bummer, but I reckon it’s telling that you have that desire in the first place.
Dragon Quest has had plenty to celebrate as it heads into its 40th anniversary. The recent Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake was excellent, and we just learned that Dragon Quest XI has sold over nine million copies worldwide. (That’s ostensibly a DQVII press release, but check the text toward the tail end.) Heck yeah.
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