Reflecting on a quarter century of Dragon Quest VII.

I’m new to Dragon Quest. My first game in the series was Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, and since then, I’ve played Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, too. But Dragon Quest has been around for a long, long time, and that means there are several games that new players haven’t had a chance to experience for themselves. Dragon Quest VII is one of them. 25 years have passed since its original release (and ten since a previous remake!), but Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined is giving players new and old a chance to experience it with a fresh set of eyes – and giving Square Enix itself a chance to reimagine what Dragon Quest VII is and could be. 

I got the chance to sit down and play about an hour of Reimagined at a preview event last month in New York, and speak to producer Takeshi Ichikawa. We talked about Dragon Quest VII’s legacy, its unique aesthetic style and story, what remaking a game like this means and how the team at Square Enix approached it, and what he hopes players will take away from its story. 

The following interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Will Borger, Skybox: I’m very new to Dragon Quest. The remake of Dragon Quest III was my first one. After that, we got a remake of I and II, which made sense given that those games are a trilogy. Now we’re moving to Dragon Quest VII. Why VII? Why is that the one that you all chose to work on right now?

Takeshi Ichikawa, producer, Square Enix: So there are a couple of reasons why. The original release of Dragon Quest VII was back in 2000. It’s been 25 years. It’s been quite a long time now. Dragon Quest VII also has a bit of a unique characteristic that the other mainline installments don’t have, which is the very unique worldview, the aesthetic, and the dark storytelling. We felt that these elements were something that could resonate with modern audiences. So that’s the reason why we decided to move forward with the remake of this one.

Will: Dragon Quest VII has an incredibly charming visual style. I love the use of the real world dolls that are then scanned into the game. Can you talk about going through that process of when you decided to remake this? How do you look at an aesthetic that is 20 years old and that you revisited before on the 3DS with a set of fresh eyes? How did you approach that?

Ichikawa: So you might already know this, but one common thread between all the mainline Dragon Quest installments, is that it has the character design that’s been handled by Akira Toriyama, but when we look at Dragon Quest VII, and the character designs in Dragon Quest VII in particular, it has some unique characteristics that are not really shared with the other mainline titles, that being the shorter character design. They’re drawn a bit shorter compared to the other titles, and they also have these very adorable visual design elements.

And so early on in development, we started looking into or exploring different visual styles, and particularly visual styles that compliment the adorable character designs of Dragon Quest VII. And in our exploration, we discovered that a lot of visual media – like films, TV shows, [and] games around the world – that utilized or employed visual styles that used dolls like the way we did. And we also found that they were quite well-regarded around the world. So that was kind of the first step of us deliberating or considering the doll or the handcrafted style, [which] is what we call it. And we felt that it was quite possibly the best option for Dragon Quest VII.

Will: You also mentioned that it’s kind of a dichotomy between the way the characters look and a thematically darker story in Dragon Quest VII. Can you talk about the ways that you approached that? I know with Dragon Quest III and Dragon Quest I & II,you took the opportunity to reexamine those games, adding new elements and streamlining old ones. What did you do with VII after having the opportunity to look at it again? What stuck out to you that could be improved or changed, or that you knew that you had to keep?

Ichikawa: So the way the story was composed in the original version and the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII was that it was a collection of vignettes, or short stories. A big part of the re-imagining for this title was looking or reworking the entire scenario, the story. As part of that, we did adjust some of the stories. Some of them are treated as an optional progression now, so players are not required to finish or complete some of those stories in order to complete the game. We did also remove some stories from the original that had little or no direct impact to the overarching main story scenario.

But in addition to those narrative adjustments, we’re also introducing new ideas, or in particular, new dialogue between our party members that explores their relationships. But [it’s] not just that; we’re also introducing completely new storylines that were not in the previous two versions as well. So even for people who have played the previous versions of Dragon Quest VII, I think this reimagined version is going to be a completely new and fresh experience for them.

Will: We talked about reexamining and reworking the story. How did you approach doing that for the general structure of the game, the gameplay, the way that it feels to play? Having played it, it does not feel like a 25 year old game. It feels very modern. And I’m curious, having not played the original version myself, as to how much of that is a holdover from the original game or the 3DS version, and how much of that is y’all taking the opportunity to be like, “Okay, what do we do with this now?” Can you talk about that process?

Ichikawa: When we first worked on the re-imagining of all the components in the game, one of the very essential goals that we had was to ensure that we were retaining or preserving or staying faithful to the overarching main storyline. And everything that made the original Dragon Quest VII was great, which was the unique aesthetics that the game had. With that being said, we did implement a lot of quality-of-life upgrades to make the experience better for our players. We identified three main components to work on for the reimagined version: the visuals, the story, and the battles.

We’ve already touched on [the visual overhaul and the story upgrades] in the previous responses, so I can go ahead and explain about how we worked on the battle or the gameplay of the reimagined version. One of the very basic guidelines that we had with the battle was that we wanted the standard mob enemy battles to be as smooth and quick as possible, but at the same time, we wanted to make sure that the boss battles or enemies were battles with tougher enemies. We wanted to encourage players to spend a lot of time strategizing and coming up with a lot of plans that they think are best for themselves. That was the centerpiece of the battle re-enhancements or battle reimagination.

To give a number of examples of the re-imagination that we did for gameplay in the battles: adjusting the battle speed, enabling the auto battle function, the sudden strike that you can do off when you’re in the overworld. A lot of these adjustments streamline the gameplay experience for our players.

But in addition to those, there’s also the Moonlighting System. There’s also enhancements made to the growth and the progression of the characters. All in all, everything is streamlined to ensure that the player experience is just as smooth as possible. With that being said, even with all the streamlining features we’ve implemented, we wanted to make sure that the highlights of the battles – which are the boss battles and any other battles where you would face formidable foes – we wanted to ensure that those are still going to be challenging. So we made sure that those were properly balanced. 

Will: It’s so rare for a series to run as long and to be as influential as Dragon Quest has been, and it’s even rarer for something that runs that long to have the opportunity to reimagine itself 25 years later. I know you’ve talked about identifying the core parts that you have to keep the same, and then you look at what has to change. But when you approach something like this in a series that is so beloved and so important and has such a long history, what is that process like? I know that’s a very philosophical question.

Ichikawa: First and foremost, I would say that I’m just incredibly honored to be able to have this opportunity to work on a remake of such a great title like the original Dragon Quest VII, which was originally on the PlayStation. It’s actually not one of the best selling, it’s the best-selling PlayStation title ever. From a purely numbers perspective, it’s already an incredible historic title, but that also means that there’s also a great number of fans who regard Dragon Quest VII as such a beloved title. So it is, again, an honor to be able to work on and remake something so incredible. But I do want to make sure that I can make them happy. But it’s not just them, it’s also about making the newcomers happy, too. So it’s very challenging, but an honor, such an honor to work on a title like this.

Will: I’m glad that you talked about new players because I’m new to Dragon Quest, and I know so many people are coming to the series for the first time and experiencing these games and learning what a Dragon Quest game is. Is there anything that you or the team hopes that new players will see about VII specifically that is unique or special or different from the rest of the series, and anything that you hope that they kind of take away from this experience?

Ichikawa: One of the narrative themes of the original Dragon Quest VII is that anyone can become anyone. You can become anyone that you want to be. So I think your question was about what I want, what I want the players to feel after playing this title… I think that I want them to understand that theme that anyone can become anyone. I want them to feel like they’ve become a completely different person after playing this game. I want to be able to provide that experience that makes our players think that way, that they can just become anyone they want to.