Last updated on January 3rd, 2026 at 01:17 pm
DRAGON QUEST – Roleplaying Game Review
DRAGON QUEST is a Roleplaying game from SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd., first launched in 11th September 2014.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 468+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes DRAGON QUEST Stand Out
The game that started the legend of DRAGON QUEST is here at last for mobile devices!
Discover the RPG that won the hearts of two generations!
Enter a fantasy world of sword, magic, and monsters in one standalone package!
Download it once, and there’s nothing else to buy, and nothing else to download!
◆ Prologue
The peace of fair Alefgard has been shattered by the appearance of the nefarious master of the night known as the Dragonlord, and the Sphere of Light which for so long kept the forces of darkness in check has been stolen!
It’s time for you, a young warrior through whose veins flows the blood of the legendary hero Erdrick, to set out on a quest to vanquish the Dragonlord, and save the land from darkness!
◆ Game Features
・First in the Legendary Series
Originally released as Dragon Warrior, you can now experience the classic retro RPG experience that swept up millions of Japanese players back in the Eighties…and never let go!
Become the descendant of the legendary hero Erdrick, and embark on an epic journey through the historic realm of Alefgard, tackling fearsome foes and perplexing puzzles on your way to the dread Dragonlord’s lair!
・Simple, Intuitive Controls
The game’s controls are designed to work perfectly with the vertical layout of any modern mobile device, and the position of the movement button can be changed to facilitate both one- and two-handed play.
・Experience the legendary RPG loved by millions in Japan and worldwide! Created by a legendary trio with the master creator Yuji Horii, the revolutionary synthesizer score and orchestration by Koichi Sugiyama, and art by master manga artist Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball).
[OS Compatibility]
iOS 12.0 or higher
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, DRAGON QUEST is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 16th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
Fixed minor bugs.
Download & Availability
DRAGON QUEST is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
First off its two dollars second off. Its a great way to spend a couple hours quality of life improvements. Make this an easy purchase great game.
We only knew this game as Dragon Warrior on NES before this. Its fun, and theres only one thing we 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 youre doing. We probably couldve done without the king lecturing us every time we got killed, but thats a small detail.
Played the NA port, Dragon Warrior when we were 7 and was first RPG we ever played. This beautiful remaster of the original is fantastic. Cant say enough good things about it. Thanks for the nostalgia.
This port offers an exceptional experience for one of the most important RPGs of all time. We were 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.
This game is a very grindy. Game but a very good game. It also is the first JRPG. But final fantasy defined the genre.
We 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! We 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 (we've been playing DQ games for half our life), we feel so much nostalgia going back to the first games, and the Akira Toriyama's art style is so charming to us! 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).
The game took us about seven hours to beat. And for the price, that is an incredible deal. We had tons of fun along the way, and we dont regret our purchase at all.
This is The Classic, re-imagined for the modern world. Yes, they added a Quick Save system, and Yes, your hero is stronger than the original, but we imagine many players these days would be far less happy if they had maintained the original difficulty. We highly recommend following this up with DQ2, as it picks up very nicely where this one left off, and they both (beautifully) pave the way for DQ3.
This has been the best app find of the year! More than worth the asking price to relive a bit of our youth and enjoy again a beloved game series from the days of a simpler life! Thank you so much for bringing this game to iPhone and sharing it with the world. Well, cant hang around all day, Ive got a world to save.
Needs controller support and portrait mode.
We love this game but needs number seven dragon quest.
Nothing more to say. Classic JRPG, turn-based fantasy adventure. 10/10. Good stability, no issues (iphone 8, ios 14.8.1, oct 2022).
The Dragon Warrior that came with our Nintendo Power magazine changed our childhood. Our curiosity turned into creativity. We have never stoped trying to create simple JRPG games on paper or with simple software. We played this game with our young kiddos again here nearly 30 years later. It was so much fun to do it on the floor with them taking turns with battles and navigation. We highly recommend sitting down with a kiddo in your life with this OG JPRG. Cheers.
We love this game as its the first rpg we ever played as a young kid. We are annoyed with apple, always breaking apps and games with their OS releases. We are selling all our apple devices and never purchasing from the App Store again. Piece of crap company.
First game we tried in the series and really enjoyed it. We liked it much better then FF1 which we also played. Only thing we didnt like is at the final boss battle the bosses 2nd form is glitched. He is suppose to use a series a different attacks and he only used his strongest one the entire time. That didnt happen in our friends game who beat the game the same day we did and the only difference is he bought his in the play store. Other then that frustrating part we enjoyed the game.
Overall balanced and fun for an 80s JRPG.
Love the updates and we still replay this game (both of the original trilogies actually) routinely on our phone. Theyre actually darn near perfect for mobile gaming, but controller support would still be a nice touch even though its not explicitly needed (for 1-6 at least).
This game is everything you want it to be if youre looking for Dragon Warrior for the NES. This is an amazing game. We loved every minute that we were playing.
Played on iPad… 2021. No problems at all. Game is shorter than we recall but still a great classic. Around 7-10hrs to complete. You do have to grind exp at three points in the game. Need your heal more spell plus your level does effect your power unlike any other rpg we recall. Beat the game at lvl 26 with ease. At a $3 price point hard to pass this one up. Additional comments: developers made the game too easy by highlighting items on ground that needed to be found. Technically you didnt look for anything, just picked it up.
Its a perfect way to fill small gaps of free time with.
As a Dragon Quest fan it has been a pleasure to play this game on iOS. The quality of the app is very high and the controls work well. Our only complaint is that we wish we could quickly close the app and have it create a save state rather than having to do that manually. Lastl, SquareEnix please release an English version of Dragon Quest X! Ive played it in Japanese and its very good we just wish we could understand it. Trust us your leaving money on the table.
Loved DQ1-3 on IOS. Just got 4 and 5, and will eventually get 6 and we havent yet played 8 but do own it. We only have one question. WHERE IS THE BEST GAME IN THE SERIES? WHERE IS SEVEN? Its the one we played the most in our childhood. Making your own village, solving the gray stone rain, good times. Also, when are you gonna import Dragon Warrior Monsters 1-3 with Coby and Taras adventure titles as well.
Classic, simple, enjoyable. We wish, though, that after this many years they would allow the option of playing as a female hero. We would buy it all over again if it meant we could rescue Gwaelin as a woman.
When we save the game does not save the same happened in dragon quest ll also it deleted all our saves Please fix this otherwise good game.
The first 3 games are such a perfect trilogy so while this one may be dated and difficult it's definitely worth a play through as you make your way to the pinnacle that is dragon quest 3. @squareenix please release Dragon Quest VII 7 to us in English mobile markets.
Id pay $60 for this on Xbox One and Final Fantasy 4 (FF2 on SNES) too. Please.
Easy smooth controls, nice updated images, quick save. Overall a great port and perfect for a dad like us that only has brief moments for gaming. Love it.
We couldnt put it down its just fun at what it does perfect for mobile.
We freaking love this game!! The quick save and auto save features reduce difficulty but it also reduces a lot of frustration and wasted game play! Purists, get over it! Lol. Im so glad they put these on iOS! Im now beating the whole series.
We got into dragon quest 11 last year and was curious about the previous ones. Considering this is the port/remaster of the 1985 version its pretty good and Im happy with it.
You buy the game. You play it. No servers, no log-ins, no in-app purchases, no excessive layers of currencies and pay-to-win mechanics. We had nearly forgotten phone games could be this straightforward. We bought this on a whim after the release of Hero in Smash Bros. Reminded us of the original game (which was called Dragon Warrior in the U.S., in case anyone is looking for that game). Very happy with the purchase. The game itself is very old school. Youll be doing a lot of grinding, but the touch screen menus make that more tolerable and its a decent enough way to pass the time. Most phone games force you into grinding anyway, but suggest you pay money to skip it. In this one youll just have to slash away at slimes until you level up to take on better enemies like the old days. The overworld controls are a little goofy, like all phone d-pads, but they get the job done and finesse is not needed in this kind of game. We like the vertical orientation; it makes it easier to switch in and out of the app to do stuff on your phone without having to turn the whole phone. The updated graphics and music give the game a cool SNES vibe. Id love the option to use the original graphics/music/screen resolution, but we can see how that might be infeasible given the phone layout. In any case, love has clearly been given to this port, and if you like 80s JRPGs, this is well worth your $3. Ill probably play through the series and see if we can convince ourselves to check out DQ11 for Switch eventually.
First time playing through these classic dragon quest games and thanks to the mobile ports they are easy to grab and go. Play for 15mins and stop, go do what ever and come back and pick up right where you left off. The port is self is pretty good to us at least being able to customize the controls location and only once during our play through did we freeze, but because of auto save the game froze or crashed, we closed the game and start up right before that event happened truly a great port.
Ive never played the DQ series before nor did we want to. Yet after the release of The Hero in SSBU (smash) we couldnt hide the fact that the music and game interested us. Ive never played the NES version or the other remakes besides this one on IOS. We got to say that this is a game Ive been missing. It was classic RPG in its finest. We used a YouTube video title how to beat DQ in 5 mins and we dont regret it either. We enjoyed our experience so much we became a fan. This is our first time playing the game and we got to say that it is a 5/5. We told our wife that we think we would love DQ more then FF if we played it first. The price is beautiful too. Cant beat it. We hope you liked our first review. Im on a mission to clear every DQ game on IOS. Check us on the other games review too. Keep track of us. Im here. #firstreview.
Lets be honest, having to select STAIRS was the worst back in the [NES] day. This is a great game. Love it.
This is just a pure, fun old RPG. If you use a guide, you can beat it in a day.
Can be finished in about two days (probably less if you look up a guide). No ads, no in-app purchases. A simple RPG (perhaps THE original simple RPG) that delivers a fun experience for all ages. Recommended.
We spent so much time grinding this game as a kid, its a real treat to play on our phone. We recommend anyone who loved this game back in the day to pay up and spend a lazy afternoon reliving their childhood. Newer gamers have the opportunity to see the classic 8-bit RPG that in many ways was the genesis of a whole genre. This game, as klunky as it feels today, was a real original at the time and inspired a generation of rpgs.
We would love to see this series support landscape mode.
We love the Dragon Quest series, but because we dont own the older consoles Ive only been able to play DQ 8 and 11 on our own. Bought this on a whim and while it didnt take us long to beat Im really happy we finally got to play the original dragon quest game, even if its a remastered port. Hooray for Dragon Quest.
Definitivamente los mejores $3 dlares gastados en este adictivo juego, estaba dudoso por el formato del telfono pero se maneja excelente, si te gustan los RPG y eres fan de dragn quest este juego no te lo puedes perder, compra recomendada.
We like this game, but we when we press the screen we cannot get the search function to come up. Can someone help.
Dragon quest 1-3 runs and looks great on iPhone XR. Please update DQ 4-6 to take advantage of the bigger screens.
Works perfectly on the iPhone. The game was as fun as we remembered it but we were a lot more efficient this time around. Great for a quick download and can finish in in a long weekend. Cheers.
Graphics revamped and looks and plays well our only dislike is we cant get it to go widescreen.
This incarnation captureth all that was the original Dragon Warrior, yet it lacketh a true understanding of Early Modern English. We shall grant thee that ye olde NES game suffered worse. But if it be thine desire to bear witness to a classic for all tyme, then thou shouldst look no further. It be a fantastic adventure for a paltry sum of silver coins. Thy quest awaits thee.
We notified Square Enix of the issue in this game when we contacted them about the same one in Dragon Quest 3. The support ticket was escalated with a fix on the App Store a few days later. Kudos to the app developers on fixing this! What issue was: Broken back button and button for switching directional pad on iOS 11 + iPhone SE. App works ok on iOS 9 + iPhone 4S This game is a classic RPG and the Portrait oriented UI and touch controls work well too. Treat yourself and get this app.
Thankfully, an update was just released that fixed the back button being untappable on iPhone 6 devices. This is probably the best was to play the game, good job devs.
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.
We were in a mood to play a classic RPG and was looking for something cheap to play on our phone. We originally was going to get ffvi but it was way more expensive than we wanted to pay at the time so we 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. Its such an old game, and old RPGs 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 youre doing it doesnt take that long, and you will probably need a guide, but after talking to townspeople and examining the world youll 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. We think its a port of a remake so when we looked stuff up we 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 dont have to go bit by bit looking for the mark or a staircase. The only thing that we didnt like with this port was that the audio was buggy. It wouldnt let us play background YouTube vids which is ok. The music is fantastic (which we shouldve brought up earlier) but the audio itself would cut out sometimes and eventually just didnt work for the last stretch of the journey which made events like playing the fairy flute kind of awkward as we had to just sit there waiting for the game to move on. We also have seen people point out that you cant 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 couldve 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.
So we got this on our iPad and on our phone it cost money and on iPad its free make it free on phone pls but over all we love it.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.7
- Size: 28.95 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN, KO, ZH
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: [SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.]()
Last updated: 16th September 2025 | Genre: Roleplaying | Developer: SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.