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The story
Square Enix brought in Google’s Gemini AI to handle quality testing on its remaster of Torneko’s Great Adventure, a Dragon Quest spin-off, but reception has been poor since launch, with bugs turning up even on the official website. On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board (Gehazai), posters questioned the whole premise of AI-driven automated debugging, with some pointing to Monster Hunter Wilds as an earlier case where AI use reportedly led to insufficient testing. Others called for outsourcing to Chunsoft or a proper remake of the older titles, while still others took issue with a development setup that seems to depend on AI in the first place — the discussion never settled on a single takeaway.
Square Enix automates game quality testing with Gemini — AI watches the screen and operates the controller itself to run checks
And apparently even the official website is buggy
RIP to all the paying customers turned unpaid debuggers who can’t even get a refund…
Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
They pulled the same 'AI chants the spell' stunt before with Dragon Trash (a mocking nickname for Dragon Quest) too — just unequip that cursed gear already.
Look forward to Square Enix-sensei's next release!
That 'blame the new hires' excuse keeps popping up lately.
Don't need a next release — stop parroting that brain-dead line.
Your post is just as lazy as Square Enix.
Or did they check, but couldn't fix it because AI wrote the code?
It's supposedly great at mimicry, yet it can't even manage this?
https://www.famitsu.com/article/202607/82951
Why Square Enix's dev team needed 'Gemini' to protect the world of Dragon Quest X
https://kn.itmedia.co.jp/kn/article/2608/18/1260818041/
So basically, without AI they couldn't even nail the world-building properly lol
So what did they do before AI existed, then?
but actually play the thing and check it works.
If Spike Chunsoft (スパチュン) had properly made this themselves, it never would've turned out like this.
Even relying on today's Spike Chunsoft, they'd probably have served up garbage that's barely any different.
Has this guy never even played Shiren 6?
Well, you can't play it on PSW (PS/Switch), so… lol
but a company as big as Square Enix should have actual people for this.
Did they finish their rookie years still useless?
Square Enix basically outsources everything, so does 'new hire' even factor in?
Well, the Torneko remaster was made in-house, though.
Torneko 3 was the one I sank the most hours into.
Can't be helped — the whole dev team are 'airplay' devs (they never actually play their own games).
Reminds me of FFT — the pathing bug, wasn't it?
Isn't this the same kind of thing happening again lol
The DQ remake had messed-up window widths too, didn't it
And they're using RPG Maker on top of it
Then you wouldn't get to see the users' pleading faces, would you? (written in exaggerated 2ch-speak)
'Just porting an emulator is a cop-out' — according to AI
Couldn't they do the same thing here — auto-play through every possible pattern to debug it?
This is a problem way more basic than that.
They've probably never even used 2ch, so really it's the users' fault.
There's just no way a human actually playtested this.
Kids today might see something broken down at the bottom of the screen and just go 'huh? is something off?' without even noticing it's actually wrong.
Square Enix learned this from the DQ3 remake —
even if the content's garbage, suckers will still buy it as long as the name carries some weight.
Gemini didn't even exist back in that era, come on.
I don't think the AI actually understands what it should be doing when debugging a game.
It's not like it shares a vision with the director either.
In the end, I think it's hopeless unless skilled staff are the ones training and directing the AI.
'A Slightly Lovely Remaster,' is it?
What an extravagant name.
From now on, your name is 'A Slightly Shoddy Remaster.' Got it? 'A Slightly Shoddy Remaster.' (parodying the famous renaming scene from Dragon Quest III)
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
In July 2026, Square Enix told ITmedia about a system in which Gemini watches the game screen and automatically operates the controller to run QA checks, and the Torneko remaster drew attention as a real-world example of that approach. That said, theories floated in the thread — that this was ‘new-hire training,’ or that the AI was never properly ‘trained/directed’ — remain speculation; Square Enix has not officially confirmed that development was actually left to AI. The disagreement centered on whether to fault the use of AI itself or a botched QA process: alongside concrete bug reports, like a broken UI aspect ratio, there were plenty of posts that oversimplified the cause as simply ‘blame the AI.’ Since the Torneko series’ SFC and PS entries still command a devoted fanbase, comparisons to those earlier games make for fertile ground for harsh criticism.
*This article was compiled and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (Gehazai) board thread ‘[Square Enix] Here’s the verdict on the unpopular Torneko remaster →.’
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