Review: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Does a Classic JRPG Justice

Dragon Quest is at a challenging turning point as Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake debuts, and it one that few gaming franchises will ever have to weather. It is exceptionally rare for a series this old to have retained so much of the same core creative staff from its inception to the present day. From Dragon Quest to Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, three individuals have driven the mainline entries. Yuji Horii, the designer and scenario writer. Akira Toriyama, the character and monster designer. Koichi Sugiyama, the music composer. In an industry where change seems to be a constant, it’s unusual to have a creative team stick with a series for their entire lives.

That trio of talents was stable core that led to perhaps one of the most consistent franchises around. Sadly, the march of time has broken up that band, and Dragon Quest will now have to get by without the direct contributions of Toriyama and and Sugiyama. A series long steeped in its traditions now has no choice but to turn to a new page. While we wait to see what that new direction looks like, it’s as good a time as any to celebrate the games that made Dragon Quest so special to begin with. The original Dragon Quest trilogy of games has rarely out of circulation for long. With remakes for a wide array of platforms over the years, these three games have almost constantly been available.

Unfortunately, the quality of those remakes hasn’t always been ideal. The most recent versions have their roots in feature phone releases, and it shows. Much of the combat animation found in previous releases was cut, perhaps to reduce the size of the download for data-conscious customers. For Dragon Quest III, some content was also removed. The end result was a version that took a step back in many ways from its predecessors. That would be fine had it not ended up so ubiquitous, but that was the version that ended up serving as the basis for the most recent console releases on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

Dragon Quest III deserves better. Luckily, “better” has arrived. Putting that fancy HD-2D tech to spectacular use, Square Enix has done a complete remake of Dragon Quest III with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. It just rolls off the tongue. This fresh take on the 36-year-old game aims to put a lot more meat on these old bones, and not only in terms of its presentation. But, you know, also in terms of its presentation.

This isn’t the first time Square Enix performed this trick, with the HD-2D reissue of Live-a-Live showing already how a classic game can be juiced up via these means. This one feels a little different, though. Where that game was a late-era 16-bit release hailing from 1994, Dragon Quest III sits squarely in the middle of the 8-bit era. Its original February 1988 release puts it scant months after the debut of Final Fantasy, when JRPG developers were very much still figuring things out. Is a new coat of paint enough to entice modern audiences?

Time will ultimately have its say on that one, but whatever the outcome no one can accuse Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake of putting in a half-effort. Beyond the candy for your eyes and ears, there are a lot of new things to explore here. Every area is bigger, there are new things to discover in just about every location, and the story has been expanded upon. There are some new enemies to fight, a new character class to play with, and a significantly expanded Monster Arena that provides further incentive to poke around every nook and cranny of the world.

As a result of all of these changes, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a much longer game than its previous incarnations. A person could easily spend twice as many hours making their way through this version, perhaps even more if they seek to do and see everything. There is a slight cost to all of this, with the brisk pacing of the original game taking a modest hit. Some of the dungeons in particular can feel a little too big, since most of them haven’t become any more complex in the process. The distances between locations of interest are much bigger, too. It’s not a huge issue, but those familiar with previous versions are probably going to notice.

Those new to Dragon Quest III are going to have to keep the original game’s age in mind as they play. While it has been expanded upon, the narrative of this game is fairly lean. You’re the child of the brave knight Ortega, who disappeared while on a quest to put a stop to the villainous Baramos. Upon reaching your 16th birthday, you set out on your own quest to finish what Ortega started and perhaps find some clues as to what happened to him. You’ll have to travel the entire world on this journey, and we can see the eventual Dragon Quest custom of each stop having its own problem forming here in a prototypical fashion.

I think Square Enix did its best to flesh out the story of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake as much as it could. We get some cinematic angles, fully voice-acted cutscenes, and additional dialog to make the NPCs feel less like props. There are some new story beats in here as well. The original game didn’t give the main character much more than a basic quest and an ending, so having some additional narrative reinforcement along the way is nice. Nevertheless, this remains mostly true to the source material when it comes to the main plot and your party’s place in it.

Your companions on this journey are characters you roll up yourself, more or less. You choose their vocation and appearance, and can then distribute a few stat boosters to customize them. Each comes with a pre-assigned personality that will affect their stat growth, but that’s all it affects. They will almost never speak any dialog, and mostly serve as extra bodies in combat. You can choose whether you want to directly command them when the time comes or have the AI handle things via one of a few different routines. Basically, you shouldn’t expect any narrative development for your team members. It isn’t that kind of game.

One thing going for this remake is that for an 8-bit JRPG, Dragon Quest III‘s world has always felt lively and connected. The remake builds on that nicely. There are lot of NPCs milling about in every town or city, and the layout of the world makes a fair amount of sense for a game of this vintage. There’s a reason for that, of course, and those who have played a version of this game before will know what I’m talking about. I’ll leave that as something fun for the new players to pick up on, though. The presence of a day and night cycle adds further to this sense of place, and the ability to rest at any inn until the time of day of your choosing helps avoid some of the irritations that system originally caused.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D has a lot of new features like that to make the play experience more comfortable. You can choose between three different difficulty settings. Veterans will probably want to go with the Draconian Quest option, which more closely mirrors the original game, while those who simply want to enjoy the story can pick Dracky Quest, where you literally cannot die. There’s a new system that will point you towards your next goal should you want to make use of it, but you don’t have to use that if you don’t want to. Another pleasant change is that you don’t need to talk to royalty to make a hard save anymore, as any person of the cloth will be able to handle that. With both a frequent auto-save and a quick-save option on top of that, you can pretty much stop and resume your quest whenever needed.

A lot of the additions to the game take the form of more information at your fingertips. Full area maps, quick references to how many Mini Medals you’ve collected, and so on. You have more traversal options, too. You can Zoom to another location even if you’re indoors now, and Zoom points extend to almost every location you’ve visited instead of just the towns. If you Zoom from a location and then use Zoom again, it will take you right back to the original point. This helps cut down on a lot of trekking around, and I think it’s a good way to offset the larger size of the areas you’re exploring.

There are other incentives to keep you exploring those spaces. First of all, you’ll find a lot more random loot laying around in just about every space via jars and barrels. For the most part you’ll find basic consumable items, but they can be welcome relief if an outing goes longer than planned. The overworld map offers even more thrills. As you journey, you’ll see sparkling spots strewn about. Searching them will give you caches of items and gear, and you can sometimes find really nice things this way. They appear to be random, and new spots will appear as you play.

Less random are the new Secret Spots. These places tend to stand out on the map. Maybe it’s a bigger tree of a different color in a forest, or an oasis in the desert. Whatever the case, visiting them will take you to a separate screen. You’ll sometimes find NPCs with helpful advice, some goodies in jars or barrels, treasure chests, or even stray monsters. Don’t worry, they won’t attack. Instead, they tie in with the new Monster Wrangler vocation and the reimagined Monster Arenas. The time of day you visit is important, as certain things will only appear if you come at the right time. You’ll come across stray monsters in other locations as well, such as towns, and again it’s all about that timing.

The Monster Wrangler vocation is an interesting new element. In their basic form, they’re strong fighters who can make use of a decent array of gear. They aren’t quite as good at this as the other combat-focused classes, but they make up for it with their abilities. As you find stray monsters and take them in, your Monster Wranglers will get access to some seriously powerful moves. We’re talking group heals in the early game, strong multi-hit attacks, and more. How well they keep up with the other classes depends on how much work you put into finding those stray monsters, though. They’re helpful to that end, at least. Some monsters are skittish but if you approach them with a Monster Wrangler in your party, they’ll easily come with you.

There’s another benefit to finding these critters. Square Enix adjusted how it handles the Monster Arena in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. Once a place where you could scare up some cash by betting on monster battles, these are now places where you take a more direct hand in the action. All the stray monsters you’ve collected find their way here, and you can pick a team of three to go into the arena. Each rank offers a nice reward for winning while also giving you access to the next rank up. The battles themselves are fully operated by the AI, but you can give them the same guidance each turn that you would give your normal companions. It’s typically good enough to get them to do essentially what you want them to.

You can only have one of each monster type in your party, but finding more monsters of the same type will strengthen that first one you picked up. This is the only way to power them up, so make sure to look around every corner. You can find monsters in Secret Spots, in towns and dungeons, and even in castles. Since some of them only appear at certain times of the day, you’ll want to scour every spot at every time of the day if you want to fully fill out your collection. It’s not necessary to complete the game, instead serving as a treat for those who want to get as much out of the game as possible.

The main quest is essentially as it always was, when you dig down to the core. It starts off relatively linear, but once it’s confident the player has their sea legs, it opens up dramatically in more ways than one. You can choose the order in which you get things done to a great degree, but it all needs to be done. You’ll also eventually get access to the Alltrades Abbey, allowing you to change your companions’ vocations for some sweet multiclassing power. This has always been one of my favorite elements in Dragon Quest III, because you can absolutely create some broken characters that will tear through your enemies.

With that core intact, it means that newcomers are going to have to brace for what is in many ways still that 1988 game. You’re going to be fighting a ton of random battles, and even the hyper-fast-forward option can’t help that fiftieth fight with an assorted bunch of monsters feel fresh. Sure, they’re gorgeously animated, but even that shine can fade when you’re deep in a dungeon. The inventory management’s UI has seen some improvements to cut down on the busy work, but characters still have their own inventories with limited space. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s something some might not be used to.

The sense of adventure that drove the original Dragon Quest III is as powerful as ever, even with the wrinkles from its age. You’ve never staying too long in one place, and there’s a surprising amount of variety in the tasks you’re given in each. There’s a good balance between guiding the player and letting them find the way forward themselves. The vocation system gives you a lot of customizability in setting up your party members, and this remake gives you plenty of options in terms of how they look and sound. I think the case could be made that Dragon Quest III is where the series finally got all of its pieces in place, which makes it perfect for a modern reimagining.

Beyond all of the nuts-and-bolts gameplay adjustments, the impressive new visuals and excellent new orchestral recordings of the soundtrack bring this quest alive in a whole new way. Seeing your next destination peek up over the horizon as the water glistens in the morning sunlight and the triumphant score swells up is truly something else. The cities are beautiful, the caves are extra-creepy, and every structure feels carefully hand-built. Even the battle backgrounds look great. The lighting effects in all of these scenes help everything pop just that little bit more.

While there is no denying that the heart of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake comes from another era, the level of quality across every aspect of this redo cannot be denied. If you love the original game, taking a trip through this version of its world is simply a must. If you’ve never played it, I can’t imagine a better way to experience one of the genre’s all-time classics. Its intentional adherence to the source might make some aspects of it hard for newcomers to swallow, but everything that could be done to make it palatable without changing it too much has been. It’s a true celebration, both of the game and the series.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake will come to the Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on November 14, 2024.