"I realized my best point of comparison for Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D was actually movies like (1995) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). Those adaptations are directly based on the works of Austen and Shakespeare respectively, but they are not bound to those works. Instead, they are movies made unapologetically for the audiences of their time, treating their source material as an outline to follow rather than something to "remake." is a more interesting flick if you've read and can compare the two works. However, if you told someone "I've experienced because I watched ," they'd tell you to at least pretend to read like everyone else who sleepwalked their way to a Bachelor of Arts in English."
"Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D is similarly disinterested in recapturing the essence of the first two Dragon Quest games. As a package it instead strikes me as more akin to a modern Dragon Quest game, with enough retro sensibilities to appeal to fans of Square Enix's greater "HD-2D" catalogue (like Octopath Traveler or the upcoming The Adventures of Elliot ). Given that these two games have seen countless remakes that mainly iterate on 1993's Dragon Quest I & II for the Super Famicom, a more transformative take on these classics feels overdue."
Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D reframes the first two games as a modern Dragon Quest experience rather than a literal recreation of their NES-era storytelling. The remake adopts retro sensibilities while leaning on Square Enix's HD-2D aesthetic, making it feel closer to recent entries in the series. The project treats the original games more as an outline than a blueprint, offering a transformative take after decades of iterative remakes. That balance between honoring source elements and reinventing them alters how the originals are perceived and positions the release for contemporary audiences.
Read at Kotaku
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