Hands On: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Is Much More Than A Pretty Picture

Square Enix recently invited us to check out the upcoming Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake — both at its London HQ and at Summer Game Fest — to see how it plays. Below, both Jim and Alana have some detailed thoughts on their time with the game.

First up, Jim paints us a picture...

Square Enix's Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has felt a long time coming. Originally revealed during the studio's 35th-anniversary celebrations back in 2021, news of our return to Aliahan has been pretty scarce ever since. A progress update here, a rumour there, it has been a three-year wait in relative darkness but, finally, we're starting to see some light: the Remake now has a release date — 14th November 2024 — and a brand new trailer. All of a sudden, things are moving quickly. The big question is, was it worth the wait?

After exploring the opening locales for roughly 45 minutes, I'm pleased to answer in the affirmative. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a stunning visual upgrade on the 1988 original (no surprises there) with a generous helping of quality-of-life improvements bringing it in line with even the series' most modern entries. Those who have played the original will find more than enough changes to warrant diving in all over again, while those who haven't might just find this to be the perfect introduction to the sizeable series.

As a brief recap, this is the third entry in what has become known as the 'Erdrick Trilogy', following a famed hero's quest to defeat the evil wizard Baramos. Thanks to the magic of the series' Star Wars-like timeline, this final chapter is, chronologically, the first story, so there's no homework required for those looking to dive in for the first time.

From what I saw, the original story has been faithfully replicated in this remake. My time with it only covered a small section of its plot (from first recruiting our party to the end of the Dreamer's Tower dungeon) but everything appeared just as I remembered it from the original version, a port of which is already available on Switch. Of course, there are new things to do peppered in here and there, but I'm not able to discuss those — we'll have to wait for Square Enix to share details closer to launch.

This being the game I remember might just summarise my entire hands-on experience. To many, the OG Dragon Quest III is a game of wonder and adventure, but today's players may find the visuals a bit naff, the random encounters too frequent and long, and the menus too dense. Square Enix's HD-2D remake is not the game as it was, but the game as I recall it to be, taking everything that made the original so iconic and packing it into a much more palatable package for the modern adventurer.

The aim of the remake, we were told in an introductory message from producer Masaaki Hayasaka, was to bring Seeds of Salvation in line with modern-day Dragon Quest.

So just what has been repurposed here? First, let's address the pixel art elephant in the room. Yes, the visuals are gorgeous. Employing the same HD-2D style that we've seen in Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, and Live A Live, Square Enix has completely rebuilt Chunsoft's visuals from the ground up. The character sprites pack in a wonderful amount of detail (that iconic dark, spiked hair has never looked so good) and the 3D environments hammer home the sense of adventure.

Dragon Quest's open plains will be a familiar sight to anyone who has touched the series, but gosh, are things more interesting now. Swapping the classic top-down journeying for something a little more isometric, the Remake puts more of your party's surrounding area on display to great effect. The forests are thick and lush, bodies of water ripple and flow past you, and mist whips off the top of icy mountains in a way that you could only imagine on the NES (or the uglier mobile version).

I did notice some frame drops when traversing busier dungeon areas, slowing my movement for a second or two before reverting to its usual state. It wasn't enough to detract from the gorgeous environments and I never noticed such drops in battle (not that the format would be interrupted by them), but the effect of these things always comes down to your personal tolerance — for me with this pre-release, it wasn't an issue.

The details are intoxicating and I could have happily spent the entirety of my preview time soaking up the sights of Aliahan. However, there were more improvements to behold, so I set out to find them.

The aim of the remake, we were told in an introductory message from producer Masaaki Hayasaka, was to bring Seeds of Salvation in line with modern-day Dragon Quest. And that realignment is exactly what I saw. A local and continental map can now be easily accessed with a simple tap of the 'Y' button. Save points are no longer limited to Kings, but are now also found in town Churches (an autosave is also available). An option for adjustable battle speeds and the introduction of Tactics (a series mainstay since Dragon Quest IV) means that you can blast through random encounters in seconds if you choose to. All these tweaks will feel like no-brainers for those who have played the wonderful Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, but they make this remake's gameplay a welcome improvement over the original.

Other features feel completely new. As we saw in the game's initial announcement, battles are packed with new animations, showcasing our party between actions and making the encounters feel that bit more immersive. Koichi Sugiyama's score has been rearranged, which brought back fond memories of the series' finest soundtracks and dare I say even improves upon them. I was also informed that the job system has been "modernised" for newer audiences, though with my party already set up for this preview, I wasn't given the opportunity to see it.

After 45 minutes, I'd only scratched the surface of what Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has to offer. This is shaping up to be a gorgeous return journey, with additional features bringing things up to the standard that we'd want from the series in 2024. Compared to how long we've waited to this point, the journey from here to release is a short one, but we're already hankering to dive back in as soon as we can. November can't come quickly enough.

And now, after checking the game out earlier this month at Summer Game Fest, Alana shares her thoughts...

The years of Dragon Quest feeling like an afterthought in the West are long gone. Dragon Quest XI has really changed the series' perception worldwide, and its blend of charm, wit, simplicity, and personality has won over fans across the world. With the birth of HD-2D coming DQXI's Japanese release, the franchise felt primed for a stunning pixel art remake.

At Summer Game Fest, we could really tell how passionate Square Enix were about the upcoming remake. The game was tucked away in a hotel room far from the Play Days campus in Los Angeles, and the developer kept tight-lipped about it right up until our arrival. When we walked through the doors, however, there was no doubt as to what we were playing — and my heart swelled. Gorgeous updated art on the walls depicting all of the jobs in the game; the male and female protagonists standing tall and proud at the front; and at the back, the beautiful new cover art from Octopath series artist Naoki Ikushima depicting the hero overlooking the world.

A lot of my thoughts echo Jim's, but what really stood out to me is that, despite all of the quality-of-life updates, this still feels like a NES game in all the right ways. Talking to NPCs to find out where to go next was one of the joys of the '80s and very early '90s, and that's still here in the HD-2D Remake, but you can commit these conversations to memory at the push of a button. It's taking the pen-and-paper approach of the olden days and applying it in-game. Plus, you can only store up to 30 memories at a time, but you can delete memories at any time.

Another thing I particularly loved was the 'Secret Areas' on the map. The remake really encourages you to wander around and look in every single nook and cranny. There are resource points to find, but those 'Secret Areas' give you even better rewards like weapons and armour. The ones we found were trees that we could 'enter' on the map — and there was often an NPC lamenting that they were lost or similar — with a little chest tucked to the side. These small things made me feel like I was on a real adventure.

Because of how faithful the series has remained up to this point, Dragon Quest III feels timeless, and playing it today with those little updates and new features was a dream. Plus, I can't wait to see what the Infernal Armor, Vladiator, and all those delightful DQ monsters look like in HD-2D.

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How excited are you to finally dive into Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake? It's launching on 14th November, so not too long to go. Assemble your party in the comments and let us know.