DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined

DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined plays on the iPhone at 30 fps, as on the Switch. On the Mac, nxnative lifts the game's frame limits so it runs at 60 fps. Its Packed app came to about 5.9 GB when the project developers last published sizes.

How it runs

On the Mac, it was tested through the logos and opening movie, the title, a new adventure log with name entry and settings, the opening cutscene and the first playable stretch at Pilchard Bay with its controls tutorial, and continuing from a saved log. The game steps its world by the time that really passed, so it plays at normal speed at 30 or 60 fps.

On the Mac, textures and lighting stay sharp after an area loads. The game's Switch settings give it a small texture pool, so a second after loading it drops the finest detail of what is in view, as it does on the Switch. On the Mac, nxnative raises the pool to the size the game's Windows version uses. The iPhone keeps the Switch's pool for now, because it is not yet known whether the larger one fits the phone's memory.

60 fps on the iPhone is not fully tested yet: one iPhone session held it for three minutes, with some short hitches while new shaders compiled.

Controls

The Packed app starts in the 3D touch layout: a left stick, a D-pad and the face buttons, with a right stick that is not drawn. Touch anywhere in the right third of the screen that has no control on it, and that touch works as the right stick, centred where your finger lands.

Good to know

• Shadows cast by point lights are not drawn, because most of the shaders behind them do not build yet.
• If you would rather save battery, a frame-rate setting of 30 keeps the game at its original 30 fps. Set it on the app's settings screen or with DM_FPS_TARGET=30 in the app's env.txt file.
• Tested on update 1.2.0. Other versions may behave differently.