There are few video game franchises that have been around longer and been more influential in the industry than Dragon Quest. With the resurgence of the JRPG genre and fans eagerly waiting for the next mainline game in the series, Square Enix has decided to delve back into the history of the series with a remake of Dragon Quest III in their patented HD-2D art style. Why start at Dragon Quest III instead of starting at the first game, you may ask? While it may not be oldest game in the series, it is the first game chronologically in the first trilogy of the series. First released in Japan way back in 1988 which is five years before I was even born, Dragon Quest III expanded on what the first two games set as a foundation and was considered one of the absolute best games in the genre at the time. Now, almost 37 years later, let’s see how Square Enix brings a classic JRPG to the modern era.
Unlike what Square Enix is doing with the remakes of Final Fantasy VII with their updates and changes, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a completely faithful remake of the original game. It feels like you are still playing a NES game, but with quality of life updates that make the game way more digestible for a modern audience who may not have the patience for how games were back then. The quality of life features such as quest markers, increasing battle speed, and mini map are fantastic additions to have for a modern player. All of these can be turned on or off in the menu at any time to adjust your experience. There’s even a system where you’re able to save NPC dialogue to reference back to so you can recall specific things such as hints to a specific location or how to solve a puzzle.
The thought of playing the original back in 1988 sounds daunting without these systems as it would be so easy to miss something or not know where to go next. However, this game does give a sense of exploration and adventure that you don’t get from modern games anymore, and makes you want to see every inch of the game’s massive map. Traversing the map does become far easier as the game progress, and fast travel is a breeze and unlocks fairly early into the game. While not everything you find is of vital importance, I’m glad I did scour the map and look around or I would have missed a side quest that was far darker than what I was expecting from the tone of the series or how I would’ve totally missed the item needed to change to a hidden class.I even became king of a different kingdom for a day!
Then, there’s the art style of the game. Since debuting the HD-2D art style seven years ago, Square Enix has continued to make it one of the best type of art styles in all of video games. While not as stylized as other games that are HD-2D games such as the Octopath Traveler series or Triangle Strategy, Dragon Quest III is absolutely stunning to look at and is a testament to how impressive this art style is especially for remaking classic NES or SNES era games. This game forgoes the aforementioned stylization and instead is focused on making the world of Dragon Quest III as beautiful as possible, and do they succeed brilliantly. There would be so many times I would watch the time of day change in a town or in the overworld map just to see the colors or lighting change in the world.
As mentioned earlier, the game is a faithful recreation of the original. That goes for the story too which is where the game falters a bit in my eyes. The game sees you play as the child, either choosing a son or daughter, of the great hero Ortega. On your sixteenth birthday you are tasked with completing your father’s mission of slaying the evil Baramos, and thus begins your journey. You then recruit a small party of characters in the starting town. Unfortunately, these characters have no impact on the story whatsoever nor do they have any interactions at all outside of being used in combat. I don’t think a single recruited party member speaks aside from one, and that’s when that specific class of character leaves the party as part of the main quest. With the Hero also being a silent protagonist, this really brings down any connection to the story, and puts all the onus on the NPCs and the world to carry the story. While they do a decent job, especially with the small addition of voice acting to some scenes, I do wish the characters I am playing as would have some input and emotion for what’s happening in the story.
The battle system is where I also find a bit of an issue with the game. You will be battling a lot in this game as it is full of random encounters while you’re exploring the overworld or in a dungeon. I love turn based combat, so combat itself is no issue as you can fully control the entire party, set them to automatically fight a certain way, increase the speed of the battles, or change the game’s difficulty all on the fly. Where I find issue is how plain and boring a lot of the battle arenas are. In a game that is as beautiful as this one is, it a little sad to see just a group of monsters on a mostly empty background. This is compounded by the retention of the first person attacks, so you’re never seeing your characters actually engage in combat. There are some arenas that are more engaging to look at, but when you see monsters standing against a flat background and a sword swipe or a little bit of elemental magic, until you unlock some of the later spells, hit them for the umpteenth time, battles lose a bit of their luster.
Overall, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake does a wonderful job at bringing a classic game to the modern era without losing what made it special all those years ago. The story of the game may not be the strongest, but the sense of exploration and adventure through the world is something even modern games could learn from. The quality of life enhancements and HD-2D art style are sure to capture those who are fans of the original or wanted to experience this classic for the first time.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5