Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake review

Image credit: Eurogamer/Square Enix

Some excellent enhancements make this the ultimate version of Dragon Quest III, but it could still do more to make it wholly welcoming to newcomers.

When meeting someone for the first time, you don’t tend to start by eviscerating their personalities and pointing out all of their deepest flaws, but Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake doesn’t shy away from insulting you and getting straight to the point. This is an old-school JRPG where how you approach your stats matters and it won’t hold your hand to guide you through it. There are dragons. There are quests. And there are a whole lot of deaths.

To be fair to Square Enix, it does try to hold your hand a little as you form a party and travel the world to fight the archfiend Baramos. You’re given difficulty options and battle speed adjustments, but it also sticks steadfastly to the original Dragon Quest III’s core fighting and story systems. Being a remake of a game that first released in the late 80s, it inherently feels dated even with all of the changes. It tries valiantly to walk that thin line of appealing to nostalgia while accommodating modern conveniences, but it often stumbles as it leans more heavily to the side of the original game.

The HD-2D overhaul is stunning. Blocky sprites are replaced by ones with much higher detail, and they’re placed on 3D backgrounds with a camera tilt that still retains the proportions of the old sprite style. It looks exactly how you remember old games felt to play – the goggles of nostalgia made real – only everything’s a little smoother now thanks to its new autosave, a greater number of places to save more generally, objective markers to help direct you, and an easier way to teleport between visited locations. There are also a few new features such as some extra story chapters, monster battle arenas, and even a new Monster Wrangler class to add to your team, which lets you learn different monster attacks and turn them back on your enemies. However, things start to look a little rusty once you start getting a few fights under your belt.

DRAGON QUEST III HD 2D Remake – Release Date Trailer – Nintendo Switch

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Being an old-fashioned turn-based RPG, fights involve selecting attacks and spells et al before watching them mash a crowd of monsters. It’s a lot like Square Enix’s older Final Fantasy games, except Dragon Quest has never truly tried to reinvent itself over the years by adding more advanced systems or new twists to familiar concepts. Instead, it’s just that age-old back and forth of trading blows, and in Dragon Quest III in particular, you’re often fighting a lot more monsters than you’re perhaps used to in other RPGs.