Continuing on the HD-2D trend that’s been in games for the last few years is Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. A 36-year-old video game for the NES, its world full of wonder, whimsy and adorable little slimes captivated audiences. At least a good chunk of this is thanks to the character design that comes from the late and great Akira Toriyama.
It’s only natural then that this title be the next to get such a treatment. Coming out of a hands-on preview of the game, I can confirm that this should be another successful remake under Square Enix’s belt, both preserving and updating the entry in all the ways that matter.
I was chucked right into the action with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. Situated in a great big arena, I was introduced to the new Monster Wrangling vocation where I set a bunch of beasties to battle it out against another crew of beasties. The audience up in the stands all around me cheered as I achieved victory. I was their champion. I don’t know what this all means yet. This vocation has only been slightly detailed and teased in trailers. I’m sure it’ll have some implications. This trailer details that you can use this vocation to make the hero cast monster-like abilities and even perhaps aid with exploration. While I didn’t get to see that side of things in my slice of gameplay, I’m just impressed they added Pokémon-style battles into the beloved and precious Dragon Quest III.
My primary mission was situated in the North West, as indicated by a waypoint marker on the overworld map. This is already a small but important addition as the original games were a little opaque, all about questioning locals and just finding your way through adventures via word of mouth. It doesn’t wholly hold your hand either though. You will still do well talking to civilians and gathering information about areas of interest. Though you don’t get a quest log for this information per se, a dedicated ‘memory’ button will commit the last few things said by people to memory as a log for you to access for reference. If this fills up faster than you’d like with junk, you can remove unnecessary memories. I appreciated this as someone who’s only really dabbled with the Dragon Quest series, but purists are more than welcome to turn this function off.
Other quality-of-life additions you’ve come to know in modern turn-based RPGs found in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake include the ability to turn up the speed for battle encounters. This will make the many, many random encounters you’re running into thankfully pass by in a flash, though I did find myself wishing that instead of random encounters I could see enemies on the overworld and decide whether or not to engage with them. I think this would’ve been a good means of making combat feel all that more snappy. However, I could also understand people finding this not feeling much like a Dragon Quest game if implemented. You can’t please everyone. If all else, the lack of seeing your party members animate attacks is made up for by the flashy spells and abilities that are appearing on screen, erupting in gorgeous particles depicting flames, lightning storm casts and the like.
What’s fantastic already in this remake of Dragon Quest III is how lively and inhabited the world feels. Predictably, the HD-2D art style has done an immensely good job of illustrating your journey. Flames off torches will dance and illuminate corners of rooms. Mystical streams of magic found off items of interest are striking to the eye. The detail in character models even allows for tidbits like facial hair stubble, something I haven’t seen depicted all that richly before. Let alone the sturdy, old brickwork of temples and other structures. The flair here is on another level.
On my journey to the North West, I made a point of stopping by towns. I found a forest village of fairies that was crystalised in moonlight with the locals hiding away and being frightened by humans, rendering me unable to converse with them. I’m interested to see where narrative and world exploration threads like these go and this is just only a fraction of these breadcrumbs I saw. Glistening objects of interest lay deep in corners of the overworld, with many a random encounter standing between me and that shiny piece of treasure.
If you’re familiar at all with Dragon Quest III you’ll know my journey to the North West was to retrieve a crown for a king. This is where my limited adventure reached its climax where I climbed a tower and went head to head against Robin ‘Ood and his gang of mercs. Here I was treated to glimpses of at least some of the brand-new voice acting this HD-2D Remake has on offer. The good news is it’s done really well. ‘Ood has that typical gravely mook voice with a British inflection. There were moments when he let out guttural screams and jovial, over-the-top laughs when he was cocky and believed the party wouldn’t be able to defeat him. It matches very well with his memorable design of a mask, shirtless ripped body and battle briefs.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake looks to be exactly what we expect: a hell of an RPG throwback with a flashy and captivating new coat of paint and small quality-of-life additions. Some might be disappointed that it’s not making bolder and braver steps to modernise what it’s got under the hood but of the same token, you can’t exactly turn your nose up at how faithful the damn thing is.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake releases on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 14. We can’t wait to be pulled into its world once more.
Bandai Namco flew the journalist to Sydney for this preview.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
