Dragon Quest VII Reimagined [Review]

It's magical to travel around the world on Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. Every dialogue is charming, every place, unique. Basically, it is a collection of fairy tales, some more inspired than others, with gorgeous visuals (most of the time) and great pacing. Still, the game can sometimes feel a bit... cold. Lukewarm at best. How so?

For me, it feels always like returning home playing any of these games. I'm not a die hard fan of the franchise – my first game was 11 and I've played everything released since, which is not much. Still, it is a setting so masterfully executed, be it with its iconic music and visuals, and specially on its storytelling. It is fun in the most basic sense of the world.

Although not complex or difficult to follow, VII Reimagined has an absurd amount of text to be read. And all of it is worth it, even considering that there are whole islands without any hint of voice acting. Still, the magical story like approach is phenomenal: we're traveling to the past to restore peace to the present to all of these different islands and settings. Meeting not only people along the way – but entire cultures and statuses quo.

I felt like an adventurer. And that's the best part of it all: how funny it is, but also how unpredictable the outcomes are, always with an intense urge to go to the next story. Each island feels like a different approach to the overall narrative, with some being muter than others, some more tragic while others, comedic. It is great, and approachable.

The gang is full of personality, and instead of everyone being perfect from the beginning, all the party members have bad personality traits that only adventuring and learning about camaraderie can solve. At the same time, the main character is completely silent, but with a rich backstory that makes him more of a very silent person rather than a player self insert.

It is impossible to talk about the party without talking about two other things – first, the job system, with different classes and battle styles: it is surprisingly approachable, even if it appears too late in the story. I wish that there were more "goals" to the jobs, or at least that there was more uniqueness to the characters that empowers them, because at the end, every party member felt somewhat samey. Still, playing with jobs can be fun. The most different thing on it is the "Let Loose", a job specific powerful ability, but they aren't really well balanced, and I ended up using the same all the time.

The second relevant element about the party for me was, of course, their designs. Some of them weirded me out at the beginning, like Kiefer or Aishe, but after spending more time with them, my god, it's impossible not to love them and their silly big heads. I liked the "marionette/doll" approach to the character designs, but unfortunately, the same can't be said for all the environments.

Everything "outside" is gorgeous – the vistas, hills, monsters, animations etc. Great stuff. but indoors, the game can feel a bit dated, due to the reliance on black backgrounds for most of the places. It can feel dull on the dungeons specially. Also the game feels a bit stiff with that many loading screens, and it would be nice to have seamless transition between indoors and outdoors environments in their own closed open area.

The exploration can also feel a bit tedious. I loved the story and dialogue and that alone made me entertained, but I can't ignore the fact that most of the areas play the same, and the lack of more meaningful activities were felt. The fact is that battling and reading are the main activity in this game.

Like I stated before, the jobs can make the characters be samey, and the battles themselves aren't that different or unique. There aren't many spells and skills to really explore throughout the game, and by the last 15 hours of it, I basically had the same build and party without getting a single new skill or ability to use. The gearing can be interesting, but most of the time, the goal is a basic search for the "highest number" and that's it – there's not much of an incentive nor tools to build enough different play styles.

There's so much to love though, and it is rewarding and fun to uncover new stories, hear the hot new gossip and solve era-long mysteries, in a worldwide tale. The world feels lived in because of this game strong storytelling, superb dialogue and sometimes fantastic visuals. It was the game I liked the least on the franchise so far, but I'm starting to believe that the saying is true:

"There's no bad mainline Dragon Quest Game"

8/10