# DRAGON QUEST — user reviews

> 259 indexed App Store user reviews of DRAGON QUEST by SQUARE ENIX, rated 4.40/5 from 479 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/dragon-quest/id911201894/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/dragon-quest/id911201894.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 341 · 4★ 56 · 3★ 32 · 2★ 12 · 1★ 38

## What do users think of DRAGON QUEST?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 💰 Affordable price
- 🕹️ Faithful to the original
- 🎮 Good controls for mobile
- 🎨 Charming graphics
- 🎶 Great soundtrack
- 🕰️ Nostalgic experience

**Cons**

- 🔇 No background audio support
- 🔌 Crashes and stability issues
- 🔍 Lack of guidance/objectives
- 🔍 Dated gameplay mechanics
- 🔍 Forced portrait mode
- 🔍 No controller support

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Crashes after battles
- Audio issues
- Saving problems

**Most requested features**

- Cloud save support
- Landscape mode option
- Controller support
- Difficulty/quality of life options

## Newest reviews (10 of 259)

### 3/5 — Needs Cloud Save and Controller Support

*2026-07-16, version 1.0.7*

Fun port, controls are ok but it didn’t get the polishing that final fantasy games from the same era received when ported to iOS. Cloud save would be wonderful for ease of moving between my iPad and iPhone, controller support is needed as well. Small thing but an incoming call while playing crashes the game.

### 4/5 — Not bad when on sale

*2026-06-08, version 1.0.7*

Had to play this since I bought the I & II HD remake on Steam and I’m loving it. They definitely added some QOL to the remake. This was a bit of a linear let down and a short one at that. I’m glad my first dive into RPGs as a kid was the original Final Fantasy on my own NES. This was good, fun, but too short.

### 4/5 — Classic!

*2026-02-25, version 1.0.7*

Clearly the "pilot" game that gave rise to the series... Kinda basic/short in comparison to II and III, but an excellent game that set the stage for future greatness (and in 1986, it was pretty great back then)!

### 2/5 — Save and Sync Issues

*2026-01-05, version 1.0.7*

The gameplay is great, if it was intended to mimic the NES original, which I played many times as a kid. My two big problems with the game are as follows: (1) You cannot sync to your other Apple devices - I played for a couple of days on my phone, loved it, and wanted to play on a bigger screen using my iPad, but the saved game does not sync to iCloud or Game Center. I would have to start it over again. (2) Quick Save, a save feature under the Misc 
menu, does not work. I played for hours, retuned to it the next day, and that progress was gone. It would seem I have to return to the King every time I need to save, which is impractical.

### 4/5 — Shared update with FF

*2025-07-21, version 1.0.6*

This is a terrific port of the original game, but it would be fun to see an update similar to the FF pixel remasters that give the option to multiply the gp & exp from 0x to 4x.

### 2/5 — Controller support

*2025-03-01, version 1.0.6*

It would be nice.

### 4/5 — Great Game, Slightly Buggy Port

*2024-09-26, version 1.0.6*

I was in a mood to play a classic RPG and was looking for something cheap to play on my phone. I originally was going to get ffvi but it was way more expensive than I wanted to pay at the time so I picked up this since it also had better reviews.

The game itself is amazing and has aged slightly well. All these reviews saying it is great in a weird way kind of sum it up perfectly. It’s such an old game, and old RPG’s are known to be a slog to get through but dragon quest paces itself well. You do have to grind, but if you know what you’re doing it doesn’t take that long, and you will probably need a guide, but after talking to townspeople and examining the world you’ll find a lot of things naturally. The game is a classic and was built to cater to everyone in a fun way and that shows here. 

The port itself is also very good. I think it’s a port of a remake so when I looked stuff up I had to say “Dragon Quest 1 SFC” or something. But it updates all the art without making many map changes to the world. It also simplifies the original UI so instead of hitting the open door button from your list of commands you just hit select. It also makes hidden items more obvious so you don’t have to go bit by bit looking for the mark or a staircase. 

The only thing that I didn’t like with this port was that the audio was buggy. It wouldn’t let me play background YouTube vids which is ok. The music is fantastic (which I should’ve brought up earlier) but the audio itself would cut out sometimes and eventually just didn’t work for the last stretch of the journey which made events like playing the fairy flute kind of awkward as I had to just sit there waiting for the game to move on.

I also have seen people point out that you can’t use controller or really pop it up to your tv. This port is made for your phone and for you to play with one hand. So it you plug it into your tv you might just get a vertical image with the moving buttons still plasters on your 4K tv. Just to keep that in mind, but double check. They could’ve patched it recently.

But overall, if you are curious or just want to get ready for DQIII remake that comes out in November (this, II, and III are considered a trilogy) definelty try checking it out!

### 3/5 — Buggy but playable

*2024-07-31, version 1.0.6*

This has potential for being a great game, if it wasn’t for a bug that caused to not save even if it did. So if anything happens, you have to start from the very beginning. If they fixed it, let me know.

### 2/5 — disappointed

*2024-06-17, version 1.0.6*

graphics lack charm, music sounds as generic as it can be. The game doesn’t fill the screen as well. Not worth $3, nor would it be worth 99cents.

### 1/5 — No controller support. Kills any nostalgia. Not worth the $3

*2024-05-07, version 1.0.6*

Bought this hoping to get that nostalgic feeling of the controller in hand, engrossed in a world on my iPad. Come to find out it ONLY works in portrait mode with touch screen wheel and buttons “designed to play one handed on a subway”. What a scam. Don’t waste your money. Can’t even play it enjoyably on an iPad or streamed to a TV with a controller. Unbelievably short sighted to not include controller support.

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — No Japanese support

*2026-04-18, version 1.0.7*

I purchased this game intending to play in Japanese without realising you can’t switch languages. Please add this feature!

### 1/5 — Horrible graphic style and interface

*2025-11-18, version 1.0.7*

Might as well burn 3 dollars. Horrible port.  Great way to give yourself a stroke looking at the poor pixel art from the characters and environment tiles. Interface is clunky as well.

### 1/5 — Horrible controls, no screen rotate

*2025-09-12, version 1.0.6*

No horizontal display option and awkward controls make this a $3 frustration you don’t need. Much better experience playing this as a rom on an emulator for free.

### 1/5 — Not Liked

*2025-08-26, version 1.0.6*

If I could just get a refund…I didn’t find it very fun

### 1/5 — No Japanese

*2025-07-31, version 1.0.6*

Japanese game but with no Japanese language available? Smh

### 1/5 — Crashes when winning a battle.

*2025-07-22, version 1.0.6*

Whenever I win a battle the game freezes and I can’t progress, for a game all about fighting enemies this is egregious and should be fixed immediately. Very disappointed.

### 1/5 — Bugs! BUGS! Bugs!

*2024-10-01, version 1.0.6*

Embarrassing that a company as big as Square Enix can release one of their biggest and most popular titles on iOS and still after years and years the bugs haven’t been fixed. It’s like abandonware. The sound effects go missing in this game and never come back and you read several reviews here with the same issue yet the developer has not acknowledged or fixed them. 

The developer and publisher should have a bit more respect for the Dragon Quest legacy and not release games that are plagued with bugs that are never fixed.

### 1/5 — Land tiles are ugly as sin

*2024-08-17, version 1.0.6*

This is a wonderful game and is very well suited to a mobile phone port. It also has an awful graphical bug that I can't believe they haven't addressed in, according to other reviews, at least eight years! While the pixel art of the characters and monsters is sharp and neat, the land tiles covering the majority of the screen alternate between thick and thin rows and columns of pixels. Instead of a charming fantasy landscape, the result is a godawful mess. You have to will yourself to ignore this problem for the entire game. You don't get to enjoy the art, especially during a certain moment when the tiles have changed. They have tried to disguise this problem in the store screenshots by shrinking and rotating the images, but you can see what I mean if you look closely. Developers: A sampler must never use a nearest-neighbor magnification filter unless every texture pixel will map to a whole number of framebuffer pixels. With a given level of zoom expected for gameplay, combined with unpredictable phone resolutions for future devices, you've set yourselves up to fail. This betrays the care given by your artists, who clearly wished to uphold the original game's charm. Since the character sprites do look correct, you can look to that implementation for a solution. Stakeholders: This is a modern player's introduction to the Dragon Quest series. Don't be cheap; make a better impression.

### 1/5 — No control support

*2024-08-01, version 1.0.6*

Please update the support for backbone controller

### 1/5 — Not like dragon warrior at all!

*2024-05-19, version 1.0.6*

Says it’s just like the English version, and it’s not the same in anyway of the gameboy color game I played. TRASH!

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — Fun retro

*2026-03-30, version 1.0.7*

Good game but annoying to find accurate maps, etc since DQ1&DQ2 remakes were released since they introduced a lot more gameplay

### 5/5 — DQ 1

*2025-11-30*

Als eingefleischter JRPG kommt man an diesem Titel nicht vorbei, habe jeden Tag wo ich gespielt habe wirklich genossen und heute nach Tag 2 letztendlich mit Lvl. 17 beendet. 

Auf geht’s zu DQ 2

### 5/5 — Best $2 you can spend

*2025-11-21, version 1.0.7*

first off it’s two dollars second off. It’s a great way to spend a couple hours quality of life improvements. Make this an easy purchase great game.

### 5/5 — Fun

*2025-07-04, version 1.0.6*

I only knew this game as Dragon Warrior on NES before this. It’s fun, and there’s only one thing I looked up about it out of impatience. (These old games sometimes have small, important details that are very easy to miss.) Like a lot of classic RPGs, this game ends up being very short once you figure out what you’re doing. I probably could’ve done without the king lecturing me every time I got killed, but that’s a small detail.

### 5/5 — Simply magick

*2025-03-22, version 1.0.6*

Played the NA port, Dragon Warrior when I was 7 and was first RPG I ever played. This beautiful remaster of the original is fantastic. Can’t say enough good things about it. Thanks for the nostalgia ⚔️

### 5/5 — Excellent Way to Experience A True Classic

*2025-03-07, version 1.0.6*

This port offers an exceptional experience for one of the most important RPGs of all time. I was skeptical about the dedicated portrait mode, but it turned out to be a very natural way to play the game. Dragon Age is quite simple at its core, but the gameplay elements remain incredibly rewarding to this day. Any fan of JRPGs owes it to themselves to experience this timeless classic.

### 5/5 — the first JRPG!

*2024-12-13, version 1.0.6*

this game is a very grindy. game but a very good game. it also is the first JRPG. but final fantasy defined the genre.

### 5/5 — I LOVE DQ

*2024-08-17, version 1.0.6*

I love the dragon quest series and everything about it (except for some games like DQ2 and DQ Heroes 1), so seeing that you can play the older games on mobile is amazing! I understand how at first the games can feel a bit bad at first, but the newer ones are amazing! As a Long-standing DQ fan (I've been playing DQ games for half my life), I feel so much nostalgia going back to the first games, and the Akira Toriyama's art style is so charming to me! All in all, this game is definitely worth the price, you should get it! (DQ Builders 1 & 2 are also amazing games and are definitely worth $60)

### 5/5 — O PAI DOS JRPGS

*2024-08-07*

Essa versão do jogo tá sensacional, ela é a de switch tão muito boa, perfeita eu diria, vale super a pena jogar esse jogo, ele é muito bom soque ele tem um grind que você fica as vezes até 40 min farmando tipo na última batalha do chefe do jogo, e o final do jogo é muito bom soque mesmo eu sabendo inglês eu peguei um detonado pq o jogo foi feito pra conversar com todos os Npcs soq o inglês do jogo é o inglês clássico, inglês antigo e n consigo entender, e também recomendo olhar os mapas da taverna no Google porque é mt complexo ou desenhar em algum caderno, algumas cavernas são muito complexas, compre sempre os melhores itens do jogo a cada trocada de cidade e não se esqueça de formar bastante! boa sorte nessa jornada guerreiros :).

### 5/5 — Grinding and enemy frequency not that bad

*2024-06-29, version 1.0.6*

To elaborate on another review, where the cons were maybe too much grinding or too many enemies, I don't reckon either is the case. In my 15–20hr playthrough, I spent 1.5hr tops getting the best available gear by fighting gold golems (early-game: time consuming) and a lategame area to get the silver shield, etc. Levelling really accellerates near the end of the game, I've grown two or three levels just getting through the castle to the dragonlord a couple times.

As for enemy frequency, I stocked up on 20 holy water and stored them away. Whenever I start up, I grab three or four and use them on my way to the destination. You will use them all so don't worry about inventory space. This saves on MP which is better spent on healing.

Really wish mobile gaming was synonomous with retro gaming as it seems to have been in 2011. Great job Square Enix keeping this legendary release available.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*
