DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined (PC/PS5/XSX/NSW2) - February 5, 2026

[Krandor]

84% average with 96% recommended is middling?

K.

[Tyrath]

People have lost the plot with game scores. 84% isn't S tier but it's still good

[Takiwaki]

Getting pretty middling review scores. Seeing a 75-90% range, making 83-84% on aggregate sites. Excited to try it in a few months, but not disrupting my Refantazio playthrough for it.

75-90 and an aggregate of 84 is middling? Man I must be getting old or something

[Yuri-G]

I'll pass. Rather replay the original. I think this will be great for new fans from the HD2D remakes and more chill gamers, but I liked the difficulty and I don't want a streamlined story either. Still, I want to emphasize that's my personal preference and I think the route they took was smart.

[Krandor]

Worth noting the game runs really well on handheld PCs (Steam Deck etc)

Max settings but just turning down the resolution scaling to medium (which is native res) runs at 60 fps no problem

[BWYuko]

Bah, guys... I meant vs original release! Sorry for the confusion, that's on me.

But the context of my comparison: in 2000 it was a main entry DQ title, the first in 3D, the only of its console generation, it got a 38/40 Famitsu score (when that meant something).

This is a great remaster and I'm definitely playing it in a few months, just not dropping everything I'm doing right now for it lol.

[Tyrath]

I mean Reimagined hasn't received a famitsu score yet. Although I don't really find famitsu to be that reliable. Some of their 40/40 scores are questionable

The original has a Metacritic score of 78 vs Reimagined's 83...

[BWYuko]

Yeah the first sign for me that "oh these scores are absolutely being paid for" was the 40/40 FF12 got in 2006. Before that, I put stock into Famitsu reviews.

And yeah, in 2000 the west completely dunked on DQ7 because FF7 had brought the genre out of Japan 3 years prior in a totally disparate way, by then we'd already seen FF9 graphically steamroll what DQ7 was offering, and PS2 graphics were splayed all over our magazines. It was dead on arrival. DQ8 did way better (and it came packaged with an FF12 demo to boot).

[Tyrath]

Not Wind Waker or Nintendogs? lol

I can see FFXII getting it. I've grown to appreciate that game a lot more now

[Ayn]

Don't believe Tyrath's lies.

[Celeras]

I know quite a few people who put 12 at the top of their list, so I'm sure there's far more egregious examples lol.

I never played this previously, what was the battle they added due to pacing feedback? The two ghosts at one of the four fragments? Didn't really seem necessary but I wouldn't really consider those sorts of changes "streamlining" (even if they make similar cuts in places).

[Tyrath]

They got rid of church resurrection huh? Can't drag party member coffins around, sad times

Also kinda weird that each town seems to be a different real life nationality in their speech. Was that the same in the original? I can't remember.

[Zealot]

I think regional dialects started being a thing in IX, everyone in VIII was just British.

I could be mistaken though, maybe Enix always did it that way and the translators never ran with it until late in the series.

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[Kachiko]

I recall DQ8 also being entirely British; first voiced DQ game as well, and I recall back then that a lot of dubs would use a full "British" cast for their English JRPG dub. I don't remember there being any real dialects before voiceovers became the norm and it was pretty much just translated "English".

[Lucavi]

Not Wind Waker or Nintendogs? lol

I can see FFXII getting it. I've grown to appreciate that game a lot more now

Vaan is a terrible character until the back end of Revanant Wings (and is a Chad in FFTA:2, finally) and is the lens in which the game forces you to see the world. The imperial side of story is also incomplete and the main antagonist is a disjointed mess.

Ain't no way its a 40/40 from Famitsu, and I like playing it at times.

[Tyrath]

I don't agree it's a 10/10 either but I can see it. Unlike the other 2 I mentioned which came before it.

[Ayn]

Vaan is a terrible character until the back end of Revanant Wings (and is a Chad in FFTA:2, finally) and is the lens in which the game forces you to see the world. The imperial side of story is also incomplete and the main antagonist is a disjointed mess.

Ain't no way its a 40/40 from Famitsu, and I like playing it at times.

Yes.

I never did finish Revanant Wings. But FFTA2 Vaan yes.

[Lucavi]

I get the point of character development, but why oh why couldn't we have had A2 Vaan in FFXII? Dude absolutely fucks. He's got his shit together and is just a cool dude.

Enough RPGs with whiny, insufferable protags, especially when their main flaws aren't even remedied by end of game. Tidus escapes that category because he's 100% a self-sacrificing, caring and badass gigachad by game's end. Vaan? Psh.

[Tyrath]

Vaan is just a stand in for the person playing the game. Which I used to hate as a kid. I'm pretty sure I wrote a diatribe on these very forums after i finished the game.

But like I said, I've started caring less about that and the game has grown on me. The exploration, gambit system and gameplay are all really awesome. With the addition of the Zodiac job system it got even better. It's a solid 9/9.5 for me.

[BWYuko]

Nintendogs? lol

Let me be the first to say I don't give a third of one single fuck about Nintendogs. I have never and will never play Nintendogs. It is garbage to me and I care not for it.

But if you don't understand why it was awarded the fifth 40/40, you were definitely not paying attention to what Nintendo was doing at the time. And that's understandable. I was a high school senior in 2005 -- a teen distracted with Halo LAN parties, girls, cars, revenge of the sith, etc. A pet simulator was not drawing my attention, because I was a gamer (and had a real dog who was really cool, but I digress).

Nintendogs is the 2nd highest-selling game on the NDS for a reason. It was a killer app. DS launch titles were mostly tech demos and embellished proofs of concept. Nintendogs was the first to really put the stylus in players' hands and, with the microphone, give them full agency as a player outside of the game. They were not controlling a character on the screen, they were raising their pet by interacting with it via touch and speech. It was a massive leap forward in the pet sim, and it reminded many of the 100,000,000 worldwide tamagotchi owners of the simpler thing they'd left behind when they became Pokemon fans. Nintendo substantiated buying their unorthodox 2-screen handheld that (at the time) couldn't really fit in your pocket like a Gameboy always could, and they did it without those things gamers had come to expect: plot, lore, combat, stats, etc.

And that was completely intentional, as it was newly ordained president Iwata's vision for the "new" Nintendo. After losing the prior two console generations chasing graphical prowess (and their most valued third party publishers along with them), Nintendogs was the company's first runaway success since Pokemon; which, yes, allowed them to continue dominating the handheld market and stay afloat, but was an IP they'd merely licensed and helped produce, not developed in-house. Iwata's "new" Nintendo saw the company return to its 1980s heyday and dare to target the general public with its products instead of us gamers. They banked on the idea that they could provide a universally fun on-the-go experience for anyone. And it worked, exceedingly well.

A year later, they launched the Wii with the same ethos, and it made them the #1 console seller again for the first time in over a decade. Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Play remain, overwhelmingly, the highest selling Wii titles, because that's what brought Nintendo back into living rooms again for the first time since like 1991: quirky activities with new peripherals an entire family could play together, regardless of niche interest or age demographic.

Nintendogs was replicated a hundred times over since then, by Nintendo and many copycats (including Pokemon), and its genre is now dead. They killed it like they did the space rail shooter. But that's not important. I am not going to sit here and say I care about any of this, or even that I respect what Nintendogs did for the industry. They are a bunch of billionaire assholes continuing to capitalize on us needing more Zelda. All I'm saying is I understand exactly why the premier Japanese gaming publication -- with a readership in 2005 both starved of and obsessed with pocket pet raising -- saw Nintendogs as the peak, perfect evolution and iteration of what the genre could be and rewarded it four 10s.

The FF12 40/40 is a straight up panicked SE trying to ensure a ROI for their 5 year slog fuckup development with a shamelessly profligate advertising campaign. Little did they know how deftly they'd repeat themselves and fuck up FF13 and FF15 even worse.