Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake dev was “worried” about Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake launching first
In the span of a year or so, Square Enix came out with both Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake and Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake. Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake launched first last November. We then just saw the new versions of the series’ first two games a few weeks ago.
In a recent interview, producer Masaaki Hayasaka spoke about the release order. Speaking with Famitsu, he mentioned how he was “worried” that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake would be launching first – he didn’t want 1 & 2 to “seem inferior”.
Hayasaka said:
“When I first heard ‘Let’s release Dragon Quest 3 first for the HD-2D versions’ from Mr. Horii, I was honestly worried. Dragon Quest 3 is the last game of the Erdrick Trilogy after all, and the original Dragon Quest 3 had a lot of elements to it to begin with. If we were to release Dragon Quest 1 and 2 later on, how much would we have to expand on them to not have them seem inferior to Dragon Quest 3?
At any rate, I came up with many ideas so as not to lose to the HD-2D Dragon Quest 3, and discussed with Mr. Horii a lot.”
Later on in the interview, Hayasaka and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii spoke about development of the remakes intersected at one point. That was beneficial, as Hayasaka said “there were mechanics that were only made reality because of that”.
The two shared the following:
Hayasaka: Dragon Quest 3 started development first, then after a certain amount of content was done, work began on Dragon Quest 1 & 2, and that was how things flowed. Of course, Mr. Horii and I had meetings discussing ‘we did this for Dragon Quest 3 so let’s do this for Dragon Quest 1 & 2’.
Horii: Partway through both games ended up being developed simultaneously, which was tough.
Hayasaka: Indeed. But there were mechanics that were only made reality because of that, so I’m glad we persevered.
Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake as well as Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake are both out now. Don’t forget that Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is coming early next year – we have the full details here.
Translation provided by SatsumaFS, Philip Proctor, and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo Everything.
