While the Western world is more focused on Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest remains one of Japan’s most important video game exports. In fact, without Dragon Quest, we likely wouldn’t have many of the modern Japanese-made RPGs we see today; it’s the game that defined the parameters of the genre as we know it today.
This makes Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remaster A particularly important title. The first three Dragon Quest games are arguably the most important trilogy of the genre; of the three, the third is actually the first in the narrative, a prequel to its predecessors. It’s the ideal Dragon Quest entry point – any remake stands out as not just a fun video game, but a brilliant piece of history four decades in the making.
Of course, it’s hard to judge how good a full version of a game like an RPG will actually be based on a demo that’s less than an hour long. But from what I’ve seen so far, Dragon Quest III’s HD remake looks like the perfect choice for the task. It hopes to keep all the great elements of the original, but modernize them. It hopes to provide a fresh, yet retro, entry point into the Dragon Quest series. And it looks like it’ll do just that.
What’s interesting about this remake is that the Dragon Quest games are very traditional – especially the earlier ones. This means that modernizing them while still staying true to the original style has some small but curious consequences.
Take the addition of the mini-map, for example. It’s a big world by Famicom standards, but even compared to the world that Final Fantasy introduced a generation later, it’s actually quite small and limited. The mini-map constantly points you to the next main story destination, which prevents some of the natural flow of the original DQ3 – you don’t spend hours getting lost and struggling through random encounters. The friction elements of the original have been removed – veteran players who can remember have been playing DQ3 anyway.
This will cause some minor ripples, though. Some NPCs are apparently being placed in small houses in fairly random areas of the world map, and now it feels even more Random, because at the time their purpose was to deliver some dialogue that would lead the player back in the right direction.
These NPCs embody the essence of these games – very innocent and simple. By modern standards, they’re artificial. Games made a few years later would start fleshing out stories for NPCs, handing over key items, imparting reasoning and motivations, for example, whereas these early games didn’t feel necessary. “Take this, great hero!” they’d babble, handing over something valuable without hesitation, just because. It’s part of the charm. In a modern context, it makes the game stand out. In the original versions, the straightforward dialogue also made these games one of the best games for foreigners to practice their Japanese – I hope the final version includes all the language options for each region.
Another factor that makes this remake stand out is the game’s art style. Developer Artdink previously worked on the art for Triangle Strategy, while co-developer Team Asano pioneered this art style in Octopath Traveler and Live A Live. This art style not only beautifies the game, but also adds an extra layer of interest to the game, which works very well.
Back on the NES, all areas of Dragon Quest III’s world looked relatively similar – but in the HD-2D remaster, the range of colour and visual fidelity has been used to give each area a more unique look. It’s a journey across the world, and now the visuals match that, with the look of each new continent, country or town taking clear inspiration from real-world locations and rendered in lovely new pixel art.
The visuals also had a bit of a cinematic feel. It was rare, but at one point, when a character mentioned that my destination was a town, the camera panned down – giving me a completely different perspective, as I could see the pixels of my destination looming in the distance. It looked great.
The rest of the remake is as you’d expect, including a gorgeous new score from the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, new secrets and challenges scattered throughout the adventure, and some voiceovers (though not all dialogue is voiced.) The UI has been redesigned, and of course the animations and still visuals are more detailed.
It all looks and feels good – like I said, it feels like a faithful and clever remake of a very important game. After losing two of the three creative minds behind Dragon Quest in recent years, it seemed fitting that Square Enix and remaining creator Yuji Horii would revisit where it all began. Thankfully, they did so with intelligence and respect.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remaster will be released on Nintendo Switch on November 14. It will also be released on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC on the same day. Dragon Quest I and II will then be remastered to complete the original trilogy in 2025.