Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is the perfect blast from the past

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has been a revelation.

While I’ve been obsessed with Final Fantasy for most of my life, Square Enix’s other massive, genre-defining RPG series — which predates FF by a year-and-a-half — has been something of a blind spot for me. Outside of some exposure through Smash Bros. and the Dragon Quest XI demo, I’ve never played any of the DQ games, despite always wanting to give them a try. Now, thanks to Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, people like me have the absolute perfect starting point.

For one, III is actually chronologically the first in a trilogy of NES games featuring a hero named Erdrick, so newcomers won’t actually miss anything jumping in here. What’s more, as suggested by the name, the III remake features the HD-2D style — which mixes retro-inspired sprites with polygonal environments and high-definition effects — introduced by Square Enix in Octopath Traveler. Several games have since built on those visuals, including 2022’s stellar Live A Live, and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake marks the best they’ve looked to date. From the luscious individual blades of grass swaying in the wind to the miscellaneous dank splotches littering rugged dungeon floors, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is an absolute stunner.

But what I appreciate most about this remake is that this overhauled aesthetic represents the most substantial change that Square Enix has made to the 1988 original. Otherwise, the developer has, quite wisely, opted to preserve the fundamentals of the experience, with the occasional tweaks, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. This means that Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is rather “simple,” in a sense. As the child of the legendary warrior Ortega, your job is to finish your father’s work by setting off to vanquish a fiend named Baramos. All told, it’s a very straightforward, archetypal fantasy story, and the game doesn’t build on it all that much, outside of some neat new flashback scenes that better flesh out Ortega.

But the narrative is also not what Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is about, and by leaving the game largely as-is, you can better appreciate what it really did well over 35 years ago. Simply put, DQ III places a winning emphasis on adventure over a deep story. After a brief intro, the game wastes no time in throwing you out into the grand overworld to the tune of the late, great composer Koichi Sugiyama’s rousing overture. You’re also seldom given much direction, encouraging you to seek out every town and talk to NPCs. (That said, one welcome new feature is, mercifully, an optional system that outlines where your next objective is should you need some help.)

In the context of 1988, it’s easy to see how such an approach would have created a rich sense of exploration that deepened your connection to the world. But even looking at it with a 2024 lens, there’s something beautifully quaint and understated about all of this. It’s an emphasis on quality over quantity, making the world feel purposeful in its size instead of having a contrived open-world simply for the sake of it, like many modern games.

This sense of discovery extends to the game’s surprising level of charm. Whether it’s the opening narrator playfully mocking you based on the results of a personality quiz, a band of Robin Hood-like pirates or your KO’d characters literally being placed in coffins that follow you around, DQ III can often have a rather amusing sense of humour. And, of course, the immaculate art design from legendary Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, who sadly passed away earlier this year, only adds more character to the whole experience.

With all of that said, I’ll confess that it took some time getting used to the combat system. On the one hand, it follows the classic, tried-and-true turn-based structure, which I’ve always enjoyed, but on the other, it can be rather difficult. Besides fighting several enemies at once that can often hit hard, your only initial means of reviving downed characters is to pay a priest or nun to resurrect them. This means that, until much later in the game when you acquire certain magic or rare items, you have to either make do with your smaller party size or exit a dungeon and return to a town. It can feel overly punishing at first, but it definitely adds a lot more weight to character deaths, especially since many players are likely used to cheap and easy ways to undo them, like Phoenix Downs in Final Fantasy or Revives in Pokémon.

Once I started to appreciate that twist a bit more, I came to really enjoy everything else Dragon Quest III does well. Above all else, it has an impressively deep and varied ‘Vocation’ system (“jobs” in other games), a creative lineup of quirkily named spells and abilities (including ‘Blasto’ to instantly remove an enemy from battle, ‘Kaclang’ to turn to metal to resist attacks and ‘Morph’ to transform allies). I will confess that even after a preview a few months ago, I still don’t really like the aesthetic of only seeing the party in between rounds before the camera shifts to a first-person POV when they actually execute commands. However, it’s by no means a major issue, especially when Dragon Quest doesn’t emphasize defined, pre-written party characters in the way that more story-driven RPGs do.

And if anything, that’s only further maintaining Dragon Quest III in its original state, which I wholeheartedly respect. After all, I came into this wanting to learn what all the fuss was about, and so hewing as close to that 1988 experience as possible is exactly what I wanted. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake allows me, and many other players, to now truly understand why DQ III was such a big deal. From its impeccable sense of adventure and world-building to the intricate job system, DQ III was, in many ways, ahead of its time, and I’m glad I can see that now.

Whether you’re a newcomer or veteran of the series, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is another excellent, must-play for RPG fans. After this, I now can’t wait to see what Square Enix does with the Dragon Quest I and II HD-2D remakes coming sometime in the new year.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC (Steam).

Image credit: Square Enix