Dragon Quest III HD-2D is one of many reiterations of its original release on the Nintendo entertainment system. Originally released on February 10, 1988, in Japan, Yuji Horii and his team set out to continue their growing successful Turn-based RPG Franchise into the much-celebrated IP it is today by attempting to make it far more open-ended, and packed with options to keep the player enticed.
The system would push the bar to the implementation of the vocation system, adding immense replay value since it allows the player to tinker with how each of their custom party members performs in battle, which at the time was a big deal as other big RPG brands like Final Fantasy were beginning to push the idea of creativity, alongside improving the writing and narrative of their games.
As the years have gone on since the first release of the original Dragon Quest, each title attempts to push the envelope further. In the case of Dragon Quest III, it holds a very large pair of shoes to fill as being one of the most celebrated among the 11 main title entries of the series. Would it work as a modern remaster? To say the least, it is a disappointing question to answer, right from the bottom of my heart.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake
Developer: Artdink, Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch (reviewed)
Release Date: November 14, 2024
Price: $59.99
Dragon Quest III HD-2D, like most games made or published by Square Enix wastes no time in dazzling the player in its pioneered HD2D art direction. Particle effects, lighting, and geometry of each area look colorful, eye-catching, and packed with memorable monster designs. The Character sprites themselves are tall, charming and the perfect thing to have printed in vinyl for a display cabinet!
There is a slew of personality voice options which are all quite wonderful and add a lot of excitement when they attack or react to being hit mid-combat. However the praise begins to wane here as you will start to notice something very disappointing, and it is the lack of animations they possess. No running animation, if you decide to run, it’s just the walk animation sped up.
This is rather obtuse as much older games from the same company such as Chrono Trigger even had run animations, not to mention very expressive face animations based on the tone of a particular scene. Dragon Quest III HD-2D has absolutely no emotions or expressions in its sprites.
The disappointment doesn’t end there regarding the hero character sprites you control, as when you enter battle, your hero and each of your three made party members only have one idle animated sprite visible when you select your combat actions.
This was possibly one of the biggest letdowns when the game first revealed itself. Despite every previous release of Dragon Quest III’s iterations having nothing at all, I was hoping they would push the envelope much further with how the battles play out, much more similar to other HD2D games, Octopath Traveler being a primary example.
The gameplay is one of the game’s better features. Team Asano, Artdink, and Square Enix managed to keep everything from Dragon Quest III HD-2D‘s predecessors mostly in check. Battles themselves can flow from very brief to kind of endless depending on the situation.
Some enemies will straight up waste the player’s time endlessly defending during random encounters but several spells exist that allow you to kick them from the encounter entirely like Poof. Leveling up your heroes feels incredibly rewarding as you explore the treasure-packed open-world map and even the many dungeons and towns you will visit.
It’s always exciting to explore as there always seems to be something almost in sight that you can examine and loot. Many times you can receive the highly coveted stat-increasing seeds to further tinker your characters, which is easily my favorite aspect when playing the game.
Each town and major city seems to also follow this trend of having voice accents from countries of the real world adding to some fun and charming variety as you discover the many regions. Dragon Quest III is what every old-school JRPG gamer would love, but a feature in the menus that will outright ruin any hope of immersion: the difficulty system.
The stellar exploration and adventure all go to waste the second you realize you can choose to become invincible at the cost of virtually nothing. Lowering the game’s difficulty at any moment out of battle will not only reduce the enemy’s strength but make it so the party never dies.
Your health will never go below zero. Poisoned? doesn’t matter. Being blown down by a powerful area-of-effect fire-breathing dragon? It won’t matter in the slightest. You will beat any encounter as long as you can provide even the slightest amount of damage.
This all would have been acceptable if lowering the difficulty prevented you from increasing it back up. Other titles like Persona 5 and Ys X include this restriction to remove any issue with difficulty forbearance. In the case of Persona 5, lowering the difficulty to its easiest locks you into it and never lets you go back up, a pinnacle example.
It’s possible to argue to simply avoid changing the difficulty entirely. There’s no reason not to obey that as the point of any game or adventure is to use what is available to you. Being invincible saves the player an immense amount of time needing to grind.
It feels as if the developers had very little faith in the outsider demographics that don’t tend to play JRPGs by including such a horrendous feature. Even your captured monsters are invincible when you do the monster arena, completely making finding more monsters out in the wild nearly redundant.
Some features have been added such as the aforementioned monster arena, which is needed to build the newly added Monster Wrangler class. However, the Pachisi board game was removed. This cut upset me because I liked that minigame in the Gameboy Color version of Dragon Quest III.
The music is Dragon Quest music, meaning there isn’t much else to say as they keep recycling the same compositions in every game. It’s orchestrated now, but that’s the only notable feature. The franchise could use some new tracks.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D was very much in bed with DEI consultancy. Possibly the biggest possible crime any developer can commit when trying to win over potential buyers for their game. There are no Female or male options, just “Appearance 1” or “Appearance 2”. This can be confusing as the sprite options for the main hero don’t look too different at first glance.
Several outfits have been vandalized too. One that has caught the most attention is the female warrior’s armor now including disgusting-looking tan baggy shorts under her chain bikini. This is unacceptable by any means and highly offensive to the late Akira Toriyama’s original vision of the character design.
Other obtuse changes can be found throughout the game such as the recoloring of the Troll’s Lips to match its skin, because the “Ethics Department” thinks it looked racist somehow. What makes this confusing is that a lot of things seemed to have gone under the radar such as a lot of male and female gendering is still used throughout the game.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D is a good game that’s only tainted due to the many awful modern business practices forced upon it. DEI meddling, lack of effort put into giving the character sprites more life and animation, and built-in invincibility that can be toggled on with impunity.
What’s interesting to note is that a lot of these game-breaking issues can easily be resolved with a patch. Assuming that day never comes, this is a quest I wouldn’t recommend to anyone other than the usual Dragon Quest fans who would buy it anyway. Some things should be left untouched since the modern audience does not understand what made it good in the first place.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a copy purchased by Niche Gamer. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is now available for PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
