Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
The previous 4 titles had been released on the Family Computer (FC), but this game is the first Dragon Quest title released on its successor, the SFC.
In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by the magazine Family Computer Magazine,it scored 26.29 out of 30, as shown below.
This score placed it 4th among all Super Famicom titles (323 titles in total, as of 1993).
In addition, in the "Best 30 by Category" printed at the end of the "Super Famicom All Catalog '93", a special supplement to the 1993-8 information issue of SUPER FAMICOM Magazine, it took No. 4 overall, No. 6 for characters, No. 3 for music and sound effects, No. 3 for controls, No. 4 for absorption, No. 5 for value for money, and No. 13 for originality.
In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu, it received a total of 36 out of 40, earning a place in the Platinum Hall of Fame.
It is the only numbered title from III onward whose sales have not reached 3,000,000 copies.
Shipments passed 1,300,000 copies in 2 days, and on 4-8, 15 days after release, reached 1,500,000 copies, the most of any remake in the series up to that point.
Within 2 weeks of release, domestic shipments in Japan exceeded 1,000,000 copies, and on 8-12, about 1 months later, sales passed 1,000,000 copies.
As of April 2004, the game has sold over 1.5 million copies making it the top selling Dragon Quest remake game of all time, and is available in Japan as an Ultimate Hits title.
The PS2 remake sold an additional 1.64 million copies.
The Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was the seventh best-selling game of Japan in 2008, selling 1,176,082 copies that year.
The game went on to sell 1.35 million copies worldwide by 2009, including 1.22 million in Japan, 70,000 in Europe, and 60,000 in North America.
To date, it has sold 1.36 million in Japan, adding up to 1.49 million worldwide for the DS version.
The previous 4 titles had been released on the Family Computer (FC), but this game is the first Dragon Quest title released on its successor, the SFC.
It is the last title developed by Chunsoft in the numbered series.
It is the only numbered title from III onward whose sales have not reached 3,000,000 copies.
It later had an enhanced remake only in Japan for the PlayStation 2 in 2004.
Another remake was made for the Nintendo DS, which was released in Japan in July 2008 and worldwide in February 2009; this marks the first time the game had officially released in English.
Square Enix released a PlayStation 2 enhanced remake of Dragon Quest V on March 25, 2004, with first day sales of 722,000.
Dragon Quest V was also one of only eleven games to have received a Famitsu score of 36/40 or above up until 1992.
It became a multi-million seller by December 1992, and ended the year as the best-selling home video game of 1992 in Japan.
The game was also a commercial success overseas in South Korea, where it was the third best-selling game of 1992, below Street Fighter II and Final Fantasy V.
The Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was the seventh best-selling game of Japan in 2008, selling 1,176,082 copies that year.
The way the story is divided by different periods of time has been praised, something that has appeared in very few video games.
The game's execution of its coming of age theme has also been praised, with Gamasutra stating that "never has it been executed so magnificently as Dragon Quest V.
In Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary: Bouken no Rekishisho, published in 2011, Horii said that he had expected almost all users to choose Bianca: "I thought everyone would normally choose Bianca, so it was a bit of a surprise that a lot of people chose Flora."
On April 23, 2008, it was reported that Square Enix had applied for the trademark "Hand of the Heavenly Bride" at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The Nintendo DS remake has been called one of the best RPGs on the DS and has been said to have "some of the best story telling on the system".
In 2014, Sony Computer Entertainment conducted a poll with over 10,000 Japanese fans, where Dragon Quest V was voted the favorite PlayStation game of all time, the fourth best game that impressed "more than a movie or a novel", and the sixth most wanted remake.
Partly because Enix at the time did not enter overseas markets, it long went unreleased outside Japan, but in 2009 the DS version came out in North America as Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, and in Europe, with the V dropped, as Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride.
There is no strict original soundtrack of the game's own audio: the SFC version has only the medley-format "Game Original Sound Story", with sound effects and no chapters; the PS2 version reuses the symphonic suite for most of it; and no DS version was released.
Partly because Enix at the time did not enter overseas markets, it long went unreleased outside Japan, but in 2009 the DS version came out in North America as Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, and in Europe, with the V dropped, as Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride.
On May 20, 2008, Square Enix opened up the North American site featuring the three Dragon Quest DS remakes, acknowledging the game would see a release in North America.
It was initially released as a Label Gate CD2, but was later reissued as an ordinary CD.
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