Dragon Quest I+II 2D-HD Remake (Switch)
Jan. 24th, 2026 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroEffectively doing a “machete order” of the original three Dragon Quest games, these assume you played the DQ3 2D-HD Remake first and lead you through the further saga of Erdrick’s descendents.
Much more that the DQ3 remake, both of these games are more of a “reimagining” than a remake. DQ1 is using the engine (and most of the maps) from the DQ3 2D-HD Remake and right off the bat you’re starting with a copper sword and full set of leather armor, and you’re fighting groups of enemies. No more starting with an hour just killing single slimes with a club! They also added a lot of plot and in doing so added plot gates that lock you into doing things in a specific order: You need to visit Erdrick’s Cave and the Tower of Rain and then return to the king in order to kick off the quest to get the Thief’s Key (which creates a plot-related purpose for the Mountain Cave), and then you need to do a quest for the keysmith in Rimuldar to get the Magic Key. (Gone are the one-use disposable keys of the original game!) They added multiple new dungeons, including the Dwarf Cave south of Rimuldar and the Weird Woods on the way to Cantlin, and a whole new sequence of gathering the ingredients for the 5 sigils so that the fairies can summon Rubiss. And boss battles—the original game effectively had 4 (the green dragon, the axe knight, the golem and the Dragonlord). This amps up those battles significantly—the green dragon had thousands of HP—but also adds half a dozen other boss battles at various points. (The key to bosses is really equipment loadout: The dragon is significantly more beatable if you load up on fire-resistant equipment so its breath attacks are wasted turns. Having a decent boomerang makes all the difference for the multi-monster bosses. That sort of thing.)
You learn all the spells from the original in basically the same sequence, but there are also a host of Abilities you learn, both from levels and from finding scrolls that teach them. They kept the quality of life maps and ability to Zoom anywhere from the DQ3 remake. They added Whips and Boomerangs (and other additional equipment) so you can more effectively fight the groups of enemies. They kept the stashes of items and “secret spots” on the overworld to encourage exploration and disguise grinding. But you need every advantage, because they didn’t downgrade any enemies from the DQ3 standard: Plenty of them still attack twice, reflect attacks, use status effects liberally, etc. And unlike the original game (and much of the early series), buffs and debuffs wear off after a few turns; which makes them all so much less useful because of your limited action economy. Changing equipment mid-battle is a critical bit of strategy, though.
I think my big issue is that the original game was so open-ended (you had to go to Rimuldar and get keys, but after that you could do anything in any order) that I bristle at how lock-step the plot is here. The fact you can enter the first floor of Galen’s Tomb early—but can’t go any farther without the Ultimate Key—is a goddamn tease. I was honestly shocked that the Fairy Flute worked on the Golem after it turned out it was necessary for other plot purposes. Well, actually, my other issue is that the difficulty is really uneven for something with such a lockstep sequence: You’ll be doing fine against the enemies in an area and then you’ll hit a boss that’s an absolute wall, or there will suddenly be a really nasty dungeon, but if you run from everything to get through that dungeon the next area will be perfectly manageable. Oh, and there are enemies that use instant death spells (and sleep, and paralyze) which I hate in a single-character game.
I ended up swapping over to Dracky Quest (easy) mode for the Dragonlord’s Castle, which was another big difficulty spike. Whoever worked out the difficulty curve for these remakes took the wrong lesson from the original, unplaytested, balls-hard Cave to Rhone in DQ2: The final dungeon does not, in fact, need to be an unfair, painfully luck-based slog.
Just for kicks, I played the Dragon Warrior 10x hack after this. It took two hours and I was reminded how much of the original game is optional: You need to get keys from Rimuldar, get the Silver Harp from Garin’s Grave and trade it for the Staff of Rain, get the Stones of Sunlight from Tantegel and get Erdrick’s Token from the swamp, and get the Rainbow Drop. That’s it! Erdrick’s Cave and the Mountain Cave are extra-optional (and I skipped them) because there’s nothing in either that makes you stronger, but if you were willing to grind enough you don’t actually need to go to Cantlin or even get Erdrick’s equipment. Also for funsies I carried Gwailin with me to fight the Dragonlord, which apparently you can do for extra dialogue in the remake…but only if you get the Sunstone before saving her.
DQ2 also starts off a little faster but weighs you down with lots more plot. This was somewhat closer to the original, but they add lots more Abilities (giving the Prince of Midenhall actual combat options), spells, items, equipment, etc. They also add the Princess of Cannock as a fourth party member who’ll join you permanently after the event where the Prince gets sick in Beren…which was wholly optional in the original game and I had mostly forgotten it existed.
The more I played of DQ2 the more I was annoyed at the lock-step approach they took to this remake. I got the boat and in a normal playthrough of DQ2 I'd be able to grab a lot of important stuff in my first spin around the world just by knowing where it is. But the keys and sigils aren't hidden, they're at the end of long-ass quest chains with multiple boss battles that you have very little flexibility in what order you do them. There was still a benefit to doing a roam around (the Watermaul Wand, which restores MP, is a fantastic find) but it's clear that unless I want to grind like crazy, there's a specific order I'm supposed to be doing these quests in and there's little point in going places before the game tells me I should. And I'm normally okay with that, but not for early DQ games!
Also, of all the things they kept, nobody learning Zing until lategame had to be one of them? At least both Cannock and Moonbrooke learn Zoom. I ended up switching entirely to Dracky Quest mode not long after getting the boat, because it became clear that the Dragonlord’s Castle was the next place I was “supposed” to go, and it’s a long dungeon that I’d already recently done in the previous game, hobbled by the fact I had to Zoom back to town any time a character died. I might have been okay with a slow slog punctuated by grinding (a few levels really do many a difference) if it was a new dungeon, even. Significantly more locations from DQ1 reappeared, as opposed to the original game which shrunk Alfegard significantly; many of them are not really optional but are boring because of the repetitiveness. The combination of the periodic “beef gate” bosses (which also blocked you off from further upgrades) and plot-locking (get this letter, talk to this person, etc) made it feel like they were trying to keep the illusion of an open world while completely removing the actuality of it. The Ultimate Key basically unlocks the sidequests/grinding before the final boss, rather than being part of the main sequence.
And weirdly, the sidequests from the original game were downplayed! The Flowing Dress (originally Water Flying Cloth) was the best armor for two of your party members in the original game; in this it’s totally outclassed by stuff you can pull out of chests around the same time.
Overall: This reminded me a lot of Sword of Mana, where they took the bones and built out new plot, characters and mechanics to make a totally new thing. I think DQ3 HD-2D worked for me because it was very close to the original game, with some quality of life features and more random stuff to find to reduce grinding. The open-world parts were still generally open. I&II presents the illusion of an open world but hits you with all the "you can't go here / the thing you'd get here won't spawn yet" tools in the box. It doesn’t reward your knowledge of the original game but keeps the difficulty and need for periodic grinding relatively high. It’s an interesting game but it didn’t give me the experience I was hoping for.
Much more that the DQ3 remake, both of these games are more of a “reimagining” than a remake. DQ1 is using the engine (and most of the maps) from the DQ3 2D-HD Remake and right off the bat you’re starting with a copper sword and full set of leather armor, and you’re fighting groups of enemies. No more starting with an hour just killing single slimes with a club! They also added a lot of plot and in doing so added plot gates that lock you into doing things in a specific order: You need to visit Erdrick’s Cave and the Tower of Rain and then return to the king in order to kick off the quest to get the Thief’s Key (which creates a plot-related purpose for the Mountain Cave), and then you need to do a quest for the keysmith in Rimuldar to get the Magic Key. (Gone are the one-use disposable keys of the original game!) They added multiple new dungeons, including the Dwarf Cave south of Rimuldar and the Weird Woods on the way to Cantlin, and a whole new sequence of gathering the ingredients for the 5 sigils so that the fairies can summon Rubiss. And boss battles—the original game effectively had 4 (the green dragon, the axe knight, the golem and the Dragonlord). This amps up those battles significantly—the green dragon had thousands of HP—but also adds half a dozen other boss battles at various points. (The key to bosses is really equipment loadout: The dragon is significantly more beatable if you load up on fire-resistant equipment so its breath attacks are wasted turns. Having a decent boomerang makes all the difference for the multi-monster bosses. That sort of thing.)
You learn all the spells from the original in basically the same sequence, but there are also a host of Abilities you learn, both from levels and from finding scrolls that teach them. They kept the quality of life maps and ability to Zoom anywhere from the DQ3 remake. They added Whips and Boomerangs (and other additional equipment) so you can more effectively fight the groups of enemies. They kept the stashes of items and “secret spots” on the overworld to encourage exploration and disguise grinding. But you need every advantage, because they didn’t downgrade any enemies from the DQ3 standard: Plenty of them still attack twice, reflect attacks, use status effects liberally, etc. And unlike the original game (and much of the early series), buffs and debuffs wear off after a few turns; which makes them all so much less useful because of your limited action economy. Changing equipment mid-battle is a critical bit of strategy, though.
I think my big issue is that the original game was so open-ended (you had to go to Rimuldar and get keys, but after that you could do anything in any order) that I bristle at how lock-step the plot is here. The fact you can enter the first floor of Galen’s Tomb early—but can’t go any farther without the Ultimate Key—is a goddamn tease. I was honestly shocked that the Fairy Flute worked on the Golem after it turned out it was necessary for other plot purposes. Well, actually, my other issue is that the difficulty is really uneven for something with such a lockstep sequence: You’ll be doing fine against the enemies in an area and then you’ll hit a boss that’s an absolute wall, or there will suddenly be a really nasty dungeon, but if you run from everything to get through that dungeon the next area will be perfectly manageable. Oh, and there are enemies that use instant death spells (and sleep, and paralyze) which I hate in a single-character game.
I ended up swapping over to Dracky Quest (easy) mode for the Dragonlord’s Castle, which was another big difficulty spike. Whoever worked out the difficulty curve for these remakes took the wrong lesson from the original, unplaytested, balls-hard Cave to Rhone in DQ2: The final dungeon does not, in fact, need to be an unfair, painfully luck-based slog.
Just for kicks, I played the Dragon Warrior 10x hack after this. It took two hours and I was reminded how much of the original game is optional: You need to get keys from Rimuldar, get the Silver Harp from Garin’s Grave and trade it for the Staff of Rain, get the Stones of Sunlight from Tantegel and get Erdrick’s Token from the swamp, and get the Rainbow Drop. That’s it! Erdrick’s Cave and the Mountain Cave are extra-optional (and I skipped them) because there’s nothing in either that makes you stronger, but if you were willing to grind enough you don’t actually need to go to Cantlin or even get Erdrick’s equipment. Also for funsies I carried Gwailin with me to fight the Dragonlord, which apparently you can do for extra dialogue in the remake…but only if you get the Sunstone before saving her.
DQ2 also starts off a little faster but weighs you down with lots more plot. This was somewhat closer to the original, but they add lots more Abilities (giving the Prince of Midenhall actual combat options), spells, items, equipment, etc. They also add the Princess of Cannock as a fourth party member who’ll join you permanently after the event where the Prince gets sick in Beren…which was wholly optional in the original game and I had mostly forgotten it existed.
The more I played of DQ2 the more I was annoyed at the lock-step approach they took to this remake. I got the boat and in a normal playthrough of DQ2 I'd be able to grab a lot of important stuff in my first spin around the world just by knowing where it is. But the keys and sigils aren't hidden, they're at the end of long-ass quest chains with multiple boss battles that you have very little flexibility in what order you do them. There was still a benefit to doing a roam around (the Watermaul Wand, which restores MP, is a fantastic find) but it's clear that unless I want to grind like crazy, there's a specific order I'm supposed to be doing these quests in and there's little point in going places before the game tells me I should. And I'm normally okay with that, but not for early DQ games!
Also, of all the things they kept, nobody learning Zing until lategame had to be one of them? At least both Cannock and Moonbrooke learn Zoom. I ended up switching entirely to Dracky Quest mode not long after getting the boat, because it became clear that the Dragonlord’s Castle was the next place I was “supposed” to go, and it’s a long dungeon that I’d already recently done in the previous game, hobbled by the fact I had to Zoom back to town any time a character died. I might have been okay with a slow slog punctuated by grinding (a few levels really do many a difference) if it was a new dungeon, even. Significantly more locations from DQ1 reappeared, as opposed to the original game which shrunk Alfegard significantly; many of them are not really optional but are boring because of the repetitiveness. The combination of the periodic “beef gate” bosses (which also blocked you off from further upgrades) and plot-locking (get this letter, talk to this person, etc) made it feel like they were trying to keep the illusion of an open world while completely removing the actuality of it. The Ultimate Key basically unlocks the sidequests/grinding before the final boss, rather than being part of the main sequence.
And weirdly, the sidequests from the original game were downplayed! The Flowing Dress (originally Water Flying Cloth) was the best armor for two of your party members in the original game; in this it’s totally outclassed by stuff you can pull out of chests around the same time.
Overall: This reminded me a lot of Sword of Mana, where they took the bones and built out new plot, characters and mechanics to make a totally new thing. I think DQ3 HD-2D worked for me because it was very close to the original game, with some quality of life features and more random stuff to find to reduce grinding. The open-world parts were still generally open. I&II presents the illusion of an open world but hits you with all the "you can't go here / the thing you'd get here won't spawn yet" tools in the box. It doesn’t reward your knowledge of the original game but keeps the difficulty and need for periodic grinding relatively high. It’s an interesting game but it didn’t give me the experience I was hoping for.
