Dragon Quest Heroes 1 + 2 Demo Impressions

I decided to check out the Japanese eshop recently. I knew there were one or two demos on there that were not on the American or European eshops. I especially wanted to check out the Dragon Quest Heroes 1 + 2 demo. I am a big Dragon Quest fan and this game has not come to North American (or Europe) yet. It may never come west. So I was happy to get a chance to check the demo out. Is the Dragon Quest Heroes 1 + 2 demo any good?

The Dragon Quest 1 + 2 demo is an action rpg experiance. The demo does have a tutorial, but it was all in Japanese and I can not read that all. Thankfully, the game has easy to learn controls and I quickly found my way in the demo.

Dragon Quest 1 + 2’s combat is nothing at all like what is found in the main series, however all of the characters you play are from other Dragon Quest games and all of the enemies face can be found in them too!

The gameplay is fast and fun. It reminds me of Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors a bit. I personally liked the gameplay in Dragon Quest Heroes better than those games though. The areas in this demo are so much bigger than Hyrule and Fire Emblems. There’s more exploration and no forts to protect. And everything about this game screams Dragon Quest and it looks good.

The main characters (there are four that you can switch between) are taller than the Dragon Quest Builders characters and much more like the characters from Dragon Quest 8. The enemies look just like you’d expect them to look. I was impressed by the game’s graphics and I hope Dragon Quest 11 looks this good or better on the Switch.

I have heard some people complain about framerate issues in this game. I didn’t notice the framerate when I first played through the demo but other times when I went back I saw some minor issues. The demo, overall, plays and looks very good. I’d love to see this game come to North America.

I don’t know what the chances of Dragon Quest Heroes 1 + 2 coming to North America are. The game has been out in Japan for awhile now. Hopefully Dragon Quest Builders did really well on the Switch and that’ll convince Square to bring Heroes. At the very least, I’m hoping we’ll see more Dragon Quest games here in North America. I love this series.

Have you had a chance to play the Dragon Quest Heroes 1 + 2 demo? If so, what did you think of it?