As someone that got into Dragon Quest relatively recently with 2018's Echoes of an Elusive Age, I've long looked for an excuse to play through the game that started it all. Don't get me wrong, I own the game on Switch and have dumped a few hours into it, but it all just feels a little... before my time. It's rudimentary, a little janky, and a tad grindy for my liking, but I absolutely respect it for kickstarting one of my favorite franchises.
That said, when I stumbled across NightFly's fan remake on Twitter - and especially with the recent passing of Dragon Quest co-creator and artist Akira Toriyama - I knew it was time to revisit this curious little oddity. Dragon Quest +, as it's called, is a fan remake of the first Dragon Quest game with 6-8 hours of new content, remixed monsters, new armor, weapons, and items, an orchestrated soundtrack, new dungeons and mini-dungeons, three new mini-games, and a ton of quality of life improvements that make this seminal JRPG more approachable.
