Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake aims to give this classic RPG the masterpiece treatment. The original game from 1988 has been swathed in absolutely breathtaking 3D and 2D visuals and quality of life updates. Some scenes have been slightly altered to focus more on character development. I got to check out the first 6-or-so hours of this game, and what I found was a classic RPG remake unlike others. The aim of this remake isn’t to give you boosts and shortcuts so you can skip the boring bits and focus on the story; that would be cutting the Quest out of Dragon Quest. You need to explore, you need to take care of your party, and when the need arises, you need to grind, just like the original. It’s just that Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake makes all these experiences simple, beautiful and fun to play through.
The most obvious change is the brand new graphics. Characters and enemies stay 2D and pixelated, but every single environment is in a more realistic 3D art style, and the two art styles blend together perfectly. The towns and dungeons I visited had the exact same layout they did on NES, but buffed out to be much larger, and much more opulent. Individual towns now have their own visual personality; one is defined by streams of flowers hung across shops roofs, while another has you walking between huge trees. You’re encouraged to explore every corner of this world if anything because of how pretty and elegant it all is.
The start of the game lets you choose your gender (grumpy boy or butch girl) and gives you a personality quiz to determine what kind of hero you will be. Then your mum wakes you up on your 16th birthday, and takes you to tell the king you’re ready to go on a quest to defeat the evil Baramos. This remake adds a tiny extra scene, as your mum sadly remembers your dad going on a similar quest years past and never coming home, before going up to wake you. This tiny change – and this remake’s slightly increased focus on story – felt like something out of a modern game, helping you care about characters you won’t see often.
“Heck, you can now teleport indoors!”
You are then told to pick up your party members from the local pub. Three complete strangers who never speak and have no bearing on the story, but you get to choose their classes, and customise them more than ever. If you don’t want to go to the trouble, you can choose the three default characters the game recommends, but I only picked two of them because I wanted another lady other than the protagonist on my team. I chose the Wizard class, and after I chose the more feminine spriteset, I was then given four more spritesets, letting me further customise her hair and clothes. I was then asked to choose her voice out of surprisingly many choices. I accidentally gave my Wizard a masculine voice, but who cares, she’s still a girl.
Voice acting is a massive new inclusion to Dragon Quest III, with characters speaking out loud during many important story scenes, an interesting way to find out our protagonist’s mum is Irish! Your party will also grunt, shout, or say the names of spells they cast during battle. Unlike something like the Tales of series, these barks never get repetitive, just a small occasional inclusion to keep combat exciting.
Combat works extremely similarly to any other Dragon Quest game you may have played. You choose what your party members do on their turn, then those abilities are launched alongside enemies’ according to initiative order. By default your three companions are controlled by the AI, and you’re encouraged to set your protagonist to do so as well. Random encounters are frequent and often feature the same enemies per area, so, as per series tradition, you’re free to let the characters figure out what to do on their own.
Your party AI is very intelligent depending on which AI command you set them on, learning enemy weaknesses, healing each other, and not wasting their MP if smacking an enemy with a wand is enough to down them. The AI was useless during the game’s first boss, though, so you should be cautious where you take advantage of it. The encounter rate can be high, especially in tough dungeons, and encounters can’t be turned off at all, but coupled with new battle speed settings, fights can go quickly and smoothly, and are less scary. The difficulty does gradually ramp up, even in the first few hours, which makes sense for the series that basically invented grinding.
There are multiple quality of life additions to make Dragon Quest III, if not easier, a smoother ride. An objective marker now tells you where the next major story beat is, which you’re free to ignore or turn off entirely. You now have a sprint button, making those overworld treks that little bit faster. The inventory system is much more streamlined and shared inventories are now bottomless. You can remember every conversation you’ve had (but can only store 30 at a time) so you can refer back to hints. You automatically have the maps of every town and dungeon you’re currently in, but you still need to explore for treasure. Heck, you can now teleport indoors! These all meaningfully elevate Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake to modern standards in an impressive way, something future remakes should have in mind (and frankly, what the recent ports of Final Fantasy 1-9 should’ve been).
As a relatively recent Dragon Quest fan, I’m excited to see what the rest of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake will have in store when it launches later this month. And with similar remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and 2 on the way next year, it looks like the oldest instalments in this venerable series are getting the modern respect they deserve.
About the Author
Pedro Cooray
he/him
Pedro would like to apologise in advance for talking about Final Fantasy XIII-2 during a totally unrelated conversation. He really can't help himself.
