For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined from HexaDrive.
I haven't played the original PlayStation One version of Dragon Quest VII nor the first remake of the game on 3DS so i came into this demo knowing nothing about it's story or who the characters are. one of the reasons why i wanted to try this demo is because of the game's art. there's something about the art style of the characters that grabs my attention more than the usual Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Characters. i had wanted to try it on PS4, but the demo hasn't come out there but in the end this Switch version played great.
This is a much longer video than typical Demo Play Thursday videos and yet i didn't reach the end of it's story. but i did a lot in the demo and i had a great time doing it, too. i found the pacing very good, the story interesting, the game's performance solid, and most of the characters were cool. there was just one that really annoyed me and in 3 hours only really had 1 moment i could look at and say was nice. the rest of the time, Maribel was just unpleasant.
The game's premise was odd, that this is the only island in the world. logically, it doesn't work. but as we played and learned that there are characters in -game who also think this, the story became more mysterious. in this video we uncover some secrets and go on an adventure and by the end when we came back, i couldn't help but wonder whether our island was the bad guys. it probably won't go that way, but after playing the demo i am curious about how the story will play out.
something i really liked about this demo, that will carry over into the main game, was how much you can customise your playing experience. when you start the demo the game will ask you to set the game's settings how you like. i chose to keep things normal but i did change it so my party's health would go back to full after battles. for me, this made the game's difficulty pleasant. but there are many other ways of making it easier or harder. thankfully, you're then able to change these whilst your playing the game so it's possible to fine tune the experience to how you want to play it.
I had a great time playing the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined DEMO, so much so that i'm really interested in getting the game now and continuing from where i left off in this demo. the art style might be a little polarizing but for me it works and it really feels modern whilst respectful to the original art. i look forward to Dragon Quest VIII getting the same treatment. this demo is worth trying for anyone curious about the series and i recommend people give it a go.
