Dragon Quest sits in a strange part of gamers’ collective experience. Either you’re Japanese and you’ve played it, or you’re not and you’ve played something inspired by it.
OK, sure, this is a gross oversimplification, but there is an element of truth to it. The 1986 RPG Dragon Quest is still huge in Japan. It’s so ubiquitous there that you can see it everywhere from T-shirts to convenience stores, with aisles decked out with the latest tie in. Dragon Warrior, as it was called in the US when it was released 3 years later, but it wasn’t until Dragon Quest VIII in 2004 that the series really had any traction outside Japan, but then pivoted away to DS ports and an MMORPG. Even so, almost any serious gamer will recognise the series mascot, the Slime.
Yet, without Dragon Quest we wouldn’t have had Final Fantasy — series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi said he drew inspiration from Dragon Quest. And how many games have been inspired in turn by Final Fantasy? Without Akira, we wouldn’t have The Matrix. Without Dragon Quest, the mind boggles as to what we would be missing out on.
So, with its lofty position in video game history in mind, how many of us have actually played the Erdrick Trilogy? Why does one even quest for dragons?
Fortunately, on October 30 this year, we’re all going to get the opportunity to put that right, with the Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake.
We got a hands on session earlier this month, playing around 20 minutes of each of the two games. And so far, we’re very impressed. In short, the first game follows the descendent of the legendary hero Erdrick, on a quest to defeat the Dragonlord. In Dragon Quest II, which jumps forward in time a little, follows future descendants of Erdrick on their quest to solve the problem of the day (spoilers etc).
The weird thing is that Dragon Quest 1 isn’t the first one in the series chronology. Dragon Quest 3 is actually the prequel, and an excellent one at that, following the adventures of Erdrick himself. We gave Dragon Quest 3 a solid 9/10 when we reviewed it last November.
In many ways, the upcoming remakes of 1 and 2 follow in the footsteps of number 3. The skeleton of these games is much the same, but with some modern tweaks to make things a lot easier in 2025. The HD-2D art style harks back to the original pixellated visuals and are incredibly nostalgic for those of us who grew up with turn-based RPGs, but lends the game a modernity that looks fantastic when expanded to fill a modern TV screen.
But then there’s the gameplay updates like variable difficulty, tweaks to improve combat, and ability to set different combat speeds to help you get through the game quicker. It sounds like a minor thing, but once you realise you can blitz through combat, it’s hard to go back. On top of this, we’ve been promised never-before-seen story content, which is something that all fans should be excited by.
If you want to make a start on the story and prefer physical media, you can already pick up and play Dragon Quest 3 and games 1 and 2 on release. However, if you want to wait and don’t mind digital-only games, you can wait to pick up the Dragon Quest HD-2D Erdrick Trilogy Collection, which packages all three games into a single definitive set.
Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake is released October 30 2025 on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.