I really wanted to love this game.

I loved the original on PS1, and after how fantastic the Erdrick Trilogy remakes were, I fully expected this to land the same way. Unfortunately… it just doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad game. The story is still solid, and the remake faithfully retains the original plot and character designs. But nearly everything else feels watered down. Many of the puzzles have been simplified or outright removed, and any real sense of difficulty is gone. There’s virtually no challenge here. At times, it genuinely feels like a Dragon Quest designed to introduce toddlers to the series.

Another major issue: performance. On my system, the game crashes a lot. Sometimes it throws an error, but more often it just freezes, lags, and closes to the desktop. This is despite my drivers being fully up to date. For a modern re-release, that’s unacceptable.

And then there’s the price. $60 is way too high. Even if the game ran perfectly, I still wouldn’t say it’s worth that asking price. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend paying more than $30 for it. If you absolutely want this version, do yourself a favor and wait for a deep sale.

All that said… one final question:
Does Prince Kiefer remind anyone else of Jay Leno, or is that just me?