Last year during March, I ended up winning myself a 3DS copy of Dragon Quest VII from a PNP Games giveaway on social media. Having never played it before, I was excited to get my hands on a new, out of print 3DS game I wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. After it arrived, I pulled out my 3DS for the first time in years and put a handful of hours into the game, I got at least a few islands in. Years ago, before I got my PS4, and afterwards my Switch, my 3DS was my main system at the time for current RPGs. Going back to it now, still only owning my original midnight purple model, I realize how uncomfortable of a controller it is. Well, back then I probably didn’t have much issue with it. But now, having gone back to full sized controllers for numerous years, it’s hard to go back to my 3DS. I was quite enjoying the game, though, and thought that I really wish it had a Switch port for me to play. Fast-forward to today, and what do you know, Square is finally releasing a brand new remake of the game. The Dragon Quest VII Reimagined demo just came out mere days ago and after playing through it, I have some thoughts.
Okay, one thing I’ve been worried about with this game, are the rumors going around about how some content was going to get cut. Now, these are strictly rumors, not yet proven facts, because I’ve also heard that this supposed cut content is just a mistranslation of things said by Yuji Horii. However, in playing the demo I noticed something. Each pedestal section for the different colors of tablet fragments you’ll be putting together to visit islands in the past, doesn’t have as many pedestals as the 3DS game. On the 3DS, the red and yellow sections have five pedestals, five different islands to eventually unlock, while green and blue have four. Though, some of the pedestals had a smaller surface area on top and thus, I imagine had less important locations. But in the Reimagined demo, blue, red and yellow only have three pedestals, and green has even less, only two pedestals are visible for green.
Not only did I notice in this new demo that they simplified and sped up some of the early game, which I heard was already simplified to begin with in the 3DS version compared to the PS1 original, but it also seems like there truly could be cut content based on that lack of pedestals. Keep in mind, though, I’m just basing this on a lack of colored pedestals. There are a few grey pedestals as well, in addition to the three each for most of the other colors. I also haven’t experienced the full 3DS title just yet, only a small fraction of it as I said before. These are simply my worries from rumors that went around and now having played the new demo for myself. I truly hope the developers simply reworked things in a way that people who want a quicker experience can go through the game faster, and those of us that still want to experience everything the game contained before, can also do so.
I know some RPG fans would love to have shorter games again. I don’t have an issue with shorter games also existing and obviously I understand there being a need to add new quality of life features and rebalancing these remakes to speed things up. It just feels wrong to me to cut out significant chunks from huge story-based games which previously had all this extra story content added to them, rather than merely rebalancing the game and adding in those necessary quality of life features. I was originally looking forward to this being a longer game, where I can play an island or two at a time on the side alongside whatever else I’m playing at the moment.
But speaking of adding quality of life features, there are some I made a note of when playing this demo, that I’m glad they added. A pretty significant one I would say, is the expansion of your storage space for items and no longer making you move stuff to a more limited storage connected to each character separately. Instead of having to give each individual character the armor you want them to wear or the items you want them to have access to in battle, they all have a combined storage. This eliminates a lot of needless tediousness and keeps players from having to bother organizing their inventory. That’s the kind of positive quality of life change I love to see.
Now, enough about the changes, let’s talk about my thoughts on how the game looks and runs. I was pleasantly surprised at how great Dragon Quest VII Reimagined runs on my “ancient” original Switch. I had no issues whatsoever. It loaded relatively quickly and the game played completely smooth. What I don’t know, though, is if for example, the camera angle can go further back on newer consoles than it does on Switch. Honestly, sometimes I actually wished I could zoom it in more, at times. Though, there also were other moments, like when characters mention a dark sky that I can’t see, that I do wish I could zoom it out more, or angle it up further. The camera has two positions for you to choose from, closer to your characters, or further back. Either way, the game ran great and I didn’t experience any lag whatsoever. I also enjoy the new style of the world and characters. Although, it did feel like the English voices didn’t match up super well with their faces. It isn’t bad, but at times during the story when lines were voiced and the characters were zoomed in on, it maybe felt a smidge off. I haven’t yet tried the Japanese dub. Also, whenever characters would just make a sound or say one little thing during regular gameplay but not actually voice their whole line, the other sounds in the background like the text scrolling sound effect, would be quieter for about half a second, and then go back up to its full volume. For all I know, that might be a limitation of the original Switch version of the game, but overall it played fine and I had fun.
I’m not sure yet, if Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is a game I can see myself pre-ordering. I think I want to find out first how much content was changed and if it’s strangely much shorter than it was the last time. If they did cut anything and it’s significantly shorter and missing story content from previous releases, it may be something I get on sale in the future. Nonetheless, it looks good, the style of the game is super charming and it ran great on my old Switch. I can still see myself having a lot of fun with this one if I eventually get my hands on the full release. I didn’t get far enough into the 3DS entry where I’d be burnt out and tired of seeing the same thing playing this new version so soon afterwards.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches February 5, 2026 for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Microsoft Store.
