Cool. Looking forward to that... as well as DQ2, obviously. ;)

Very nice. Pity I stopped playing the game and probably won't continue.

The old art is way better. Additional detail is good, but Azra's new face is just a big nope. And pixel art should stay pixel art. So I'm very happy the changes are optional. The only improvement I would make would be to allow recoloring of the original characters' outfits, with cutscene art changing accordingly.

Hero mode on the other hand.... duuuuude. Great news is great. I hope some battles are rebalanced for the game to be fully winnable in hero mode -- according to reports on the old forum, it wasn't (because it wasn't planned -- the whole thing originated as a self-imposed challenge, and the winnable portion of it later made an achievement), and the new forums are unreadable so I can't check the current progress status.

Yo, I'm upping this thread with a lenghty and interesting article written by Lars Doucet about why is the HD upgrade of DQ1 free:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20141113/230132/Why_are_we_releasing_DQ1HD_as_a_free_upgrade.php

No TLDR because I haven't finished it yet :)

I read through the article, it's quite interesting. In short there's 2 major reasons they are upgrading for free.

1) They are doing very well (Sales and financially)

2) Technical glitches that can occur, having to start over with their perfect 10/10 rating, and managing the system that lets them figure out how many people are playing and other things could get screwed up, vs just replacing the current system. Which includes getting versions confused of 'which one is the real version?'

Then of course the sorta third reason

3) They look awesome for putting up new free content and it drives more sales...

They mention they wanted to get away from Adobe Air which i think is a good thing as that thing is slow as balls to run.

All in all, a good read.

BTW, for those lurking around, Defender's Quest is currently in the flash sales for 2,39€ (-80%)

same here.. for personal reasons (lack of proper time to enjoy this indie masterpiece)
but when I see HD written somewhere well, for me, it's always a chance to give some more love to it! :)

Thanks for the heads-up 8).

Wow. For a second my brain registered it as 'Depression Quest free HD upgrade coming' and almost had to chew back some hurl. Sometimes it's nice being wrong.