Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Hands-on | A Charming Remake of a JRPG Icon

Announced way back in 2021, series fans had to wait a long time before Square Enix finally revealed more details on the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. To be exact, the game’s release date announcement was made back in June, though to make up for the radio silence since its initial reveal, we got lots of details about the game over the past few months.

With the game’s release coming in just under two months, I got a chance to get a hands-on experience of the game ahead of Tokyo Game Show 2024. It was quite a meaty demo session as I played the game for around 3 hours, experiencing its opening areas along with some locales that open up later in the playthrough.

I have to admit though, I’m not exactly a seasoned veteran of Dragon Quest. While I’ve played my fair share of classic JRPGs, Dragon Quest has long been on my radar though not a series that I have dived deep into. After my hands-on with the HD-2D remake though, I came away charmed.

The Dragon Quest III Remake Experience

The session began with me experiencing the game’s opening, complete with the personality quiz that will determine your character’s personality, and in turn affect stat growth. Soon, the game introduces its premise where you play the son/daughter of Ortega, a legendary warrior who died facing Baramos (the game’s big baddie). As his child, your role is to succeed where your father did not and vanquish the threat.

After this, you recruit party members to join your adventure, and your journey begins, with the first goal being to find the thief’s key which leads to the game’s first major dungeon. The first half of my session ended when I found the said key, but not without doing a bit of exploration of the game’s overworld (as you would in any classic JRPG).

During this time, I also got to experience the game’s combat and other mechanics. If you’ve played any “old-school” JRPG, you’d feel right at home here. Battles play out in turn-based fashion, and the key is to figure out the enemy’s elemental weaknesses. Of course, while exploring, you’ll also need to mind your party’s MP, not to mention that party composition itself is important as always.

The earlier parts were fairly easy even on the standard difficulty mode. For more of a challenge, the next part of the demo had me explore Skyfell Tower and face the boss Robbin’ ‘Ood. Getting to the boss did come with some dangerous encounters, though anyone familiar with JRPGs shouldn’t find it too hard. The same goes for Robbin’ ‘Ood which is also fairly challenging, yet definitely doable based on the demo’s build.

What is nice about the game is that it has various difficulty options, meaning those who really want to get into Dragon Quest III without a challenge can opt for easy, while JRPG veterans will have a more engaging time with the harder mode.

Aside from difficulty, the HD-2D Remake also has a bunch of helpful quality-of-life changes, including the faster battle speed which is always a plus for these games given that combat looks rather basic animation-wise. Other helpful updates include the Recall function which lets you read through previous conversations, along with quest guides so that you don’t get lost on where to go.

Another new addition is the Monster Arena. Here, you can participate in monster battles where your team of three friendly monsters faces off against a gauntlet of other monster teams. Gameplay here is basically just you setting their attack pattern depending on the enemy. Yes, this means you don’t have full control of the monsters. As such, this is more of a fun diversion, though long-time fans should still love it.

These monsters can be found throughout the world, so you are incentivized to seek them out. Even if you’re not into the whole Monster Arena aspect though, exploring the world is still a treat here thanks in large part to how pretty the game looks.

HD-2D is an Excellent Choice

Since Octopath Traveler, Square Enix has released a couple of other HD-2D games. This style is a perfect fit for Dragon Quest III based on my time with it.

Typically, I like JRPGs that lean darker (though not too edgy), so I wasn’t sure if I’d be into Dragon Quest III given that it is more of a quintessential fantasy adventure. So it was quite a surprise to me that I was utterly charmed by the game’s presentation.

There’s just something about the HD-2D style for these games. The look is very much the classic RPGs of the 90s, though the HD (or 2.5D) aspects of it make for a way more immersive and engaging. It also helps that the music is also lovely as it gives your adventure a nice cozy feel. As such, it’ll be interesting to see how this changes during the game’s more serious moments in the later parts.

While I’ve heaped plenty of praise for the game’s style, that’s not to say I enjoyed everything about the game. At the end of the day, the HD-2D Remake is still very much Dragon Quest III, down the classic RPG-isms of random encounters in dungeons and the overworld, as well as MP management in dungeons. The turn-based combat system can also seem a bit basic especially when compared to many modern JRPGs.

The various quality-of-life changes do help a lot in making the game more accessible and modern, though you will still have to be interested in old-school turn-based RPGs to enjoy this. On the flip side, the fact that it’s very much faithful to the original should delight long-time fans, especially considering this game was announced for the series’ 35^th anniversary.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Initial Impressions

My key takeaway from Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is this – if you’re a big fan of the series who wants to re-experience this iconic series entry, or if you’re a JRPG fan who is looking to get into Dragon Quest, this remake might just be for you. This is thanks to its charming presentation and various enhancements that make the experience much more modern.

Meanwhile, if you’re fairly new to the genre, chances are that the core Dragon Quest III game may have aged just a bit too much to be as engaging. As such, you may want to check out some of the later series entries if you’re keen on giving the franchise a try.

Of course, these impressions are assuming that the whole game would have this quality. Hopefully, that will be the case when the game launches this November.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake will be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC on November 14, 2024.