Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review : While Final Fantasy is the first name that comes to mind in the West when it comes to RPGs, there is a much more famous and beloved series in Japan, Dragon Quest. Reviewed Dragon Quest XI and we’ve talked about classic JRPG games. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake invites us almost back to the beginning, to play one of the most important games in JRPG history in its renewed form.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review: Here Is The Sword, Here Is The Enemy
When I say Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a JRPG classic, I mean it, all the standards of the genre that come to mind have emerged with these games, and one of them is the story. There is a huge evil enemy, and the task of stopping it is in our hands as the child of a great hero. We make various companions along the way, help people and kingdoms, and work to write our name in history as the new hero.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
The story is very standard, it is a game that progresses in the traditional “you save the world, my child” style, as I said at the beginning, the game itself is the one that reveals these traditions. On the one hand, we follow the footsteps of our father, who is a great hero, and on the other hand, we help the people around us. In the meantime, the game gives us some information, but we find our own way, and in the meantime, we do side missions.
For example, at first I was trying to find a tower to find a key in the hands of a bandit, but I went a little too far north because I got the directions mixed up. I saw that all the people in the town were sleeping, and the only person who wasn’t sleeping told us that the solution to this was in the hands of the fairies. I went west and found the fairy village, where everyone was running away from humans, and the queen hated us. Finding the queen’s daughter who ran away with a human would also solve the sleeping problem, so I found the relevant place and barely reached the end. In the end, the whole town woke up, but how successful I was in the mission is relative. I realized later that what I did was irrelevant to the main story. It was a nice side adventure experience.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
With Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, although the main story of the game remains the same, it has been expanded with new dialogues and different content. It did not disappoint me with its voiced dialogues for important parts and the magnificent world it offers, I do not think it will disappoint any JRPG enthusiast either.
The Hero’s Personality Is Important
The original Dragon Quest III, released for the Famicom in 1998, had several remakes before, but they were all versions released for different consoles and had no new features other than graphical improvements. This time, we have a complete remake with a lot of improvements in sound, graphics and gameplay. Let’s see what’s changed.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
First of all, let me state that they have managed to preserve the JRPG atmosphere of the game. It offers the old-school JRPG game experience with its turn-based combat, many different class and personality options, and random battles that start to get tiring after a while. If only the difficulty was a little more brutal, it would scare away new generation JRPG players.
There are many improvements on the gameplay side of the game, newly added classes, renewed Monster Arena, a fuller map, a lot of QoL features that increase the gameplay pleasure and a quick save system are some of them. QoL features are really good, you can speed up the battle (normal is extremely slow) you can make all the characters attack on their own, you can even escape death depending on the game difficulty. On top of that, the game autosaves a lot and if you need to quit suddenly, there is even a quick save option that is deleted the next time you log in.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
There are many small points on the map you use while traveling around the world, some of them contain treasures, while others we encounter friendly monsters that we can also use for the Monster Arena. I will touch on this part separately. In addition to the world map taking on a more full and exploratory structure, there are also updates to the mini map in the game. We now have a map in dungeons and can directly examine the location we entered. This is a nice feature for those who do not want to take the wrong path and waste their valuable resources, especially after difficult struggles. By the way, there is a day and night cycle in the game and you can encounter different people or monsters in the same place at different times of the day, and they have integrated this into the game nicely.
The classes and personality system in the game were already detailed, they reworked it with HD-2D Remake so that it would be more complete. First of all, a completely new class, Monster Wrangler, has been added to the game. This class can learn the abilities of friendly monsters that you find in the environment and add to your Arena team and use them against enemies. I bought it because I wanted to create a team of interesting types and used it with pleasure throughout the game. The game’s class system already allows the character to start over with a different class after a certain point, and different combinations emerge. At first, I had very difficult but fun fights by taking a wizard, a merchant and a Wrangler with my own hero. While at first, it was a team that threw stones at the enemy’s head and ran away, trying to collect more money, it was also nice to see that it turned into a solid force as it got stronger.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
Another important factor in character development is our personality (in the game). When starting the game, each player is subjected to different tests, including helping an old man who asks for help or not listening to the sign that says “don’t go right”, which determine our personality according to the choices we make. I also say “you get what you pay for” to the game that made me stubborn just because I didn’t listen to the sign. Each personality determines the rate of the statistics you get when you level up. You can also change your personality with books or equipment in the game. With over 40 personality types and classes that you can combine in many different ways, we can say that the game’s customization options are incredible when you add things that increase your statistics.
Monster Arena is a mode that was also in the old version of the game, and offers great innovations with the 2D-HD Remake. Friendly creatures that we find in the environment and send to the city go to the arena on our behalf and enter a kind of Pokemon battle. Even though we cannot control these characters directly, we give them some tactics and watch their fights. Among the trainers of the Arena, there are children or elderly people at first, but as we progress, we defeat higher society opponents and earn various items and money. A nice side activity, especially if you run out of money, spend some time here.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
Dragon Quest Traveler
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake looks great on the new generation with its completely revamped art style. I constantly repeat in my reviews that I love the HD-2D style that started with Octopath Traveler, and the same applies to this game. The character models are very nice, the environmental design is great. When we first enter each city, I can’t help but say to myself “how nice it looks” in the parts where it shows the area from different angles. Switching to the first camera angle during fights and the lack of attack animations can be considered a minus, but we can attribute this to not spoiling the classic atmosphere of the game.
I mentioned that all important dialogues and attack sounds in the game are voiced. Although there are silent dialogues at most points, the voiceover shows itself when we encounter important characters or find a note that advances the story. I should also mention that I usually play in Japanese, but when I install the game on a different device, I forget about English and play it this way for a long time without any discomfort.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
As someone who listens to a lot of game music, I was more or less familiar with the music in this game, and I loved the re-recorded version with a symphony orchestra. The music, which changes in tempo depending on the time of day and in every place you enter in the game, is magnificent. Although I remembered that I haven’t played an old-school JRPG in a long time, when I got bored with the same fight music playing over and over while my team was barely standing. But the music is very good.
Conclusion
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has become a game that embraces players who have entered the genre with new generation games while preserving its original JRPG roots. It is a special game that manages to show how different it is from new generation games even with just the personality tests at the entrance, combining a true JRPG classic with magnificent HD-2D graphics and unique music. It is a game that stays in the back of my mind even when I can’t spare enough time due to various works, and makes me think all day long about how to progress when I get stuck at night.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review
I recommend Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which I finished after an average of 60 hours of adventure, to anyone interested in JRPGs. However, one effect of the game maintaining its old style is that it has brought with it various features that will annoy the audience that is used to new generation games. Sometimes you will not be able to figure out what to do, if you are not playing on the easiest way, you will get tired of random attacks and get stuck. Despite the many QoL features it brings, the game does not take the player by the hand and direct them to what they need to do, which is great for me because I feel like I am playing the game myself. Whether everyone will feel this way is up to the player.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake