REVIEW: ‘Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake’ Made Me A Dragon Quest Fan (Switch)

Square Soft, now Square Enix, goes hand in hand with the classic RPG franchise Final Fantasy. However, there was an RPG before we helped the Warrior of Light defeat Garland and Chaos, Dragon Quest. Regardless of why Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior if you played these games at their first release in the US) never took off as Final Fantasy did, Square Enix has been trying to remind fans where it all started. And maybe even to grow more interest in whatever is coming next for its series full of the late Akira Toriyama’s work. What better way to do that than to show us where the entire story of Dragon Quest began with the release of Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake on all modern consoles.

The story takes place once the Hero comes of age, setting off on his quest to save the world. The child of the great Ortega follows in their dad’s footsteps and finishes the job that he left behind before his mysterious demise. He travels throughout the world, defeating monsters of all sizes to save villages, kingdoms, and kidnapped victims to get clues of what exactly happened to Ortega. All to get closer and closer to the lair of the evil Baramos. However, as the hero gets closer to their goal, the demise of Ortega may not be all that it seems. There is possibly an even more significant threat behind Baramos, one who is pulling all the strings.

With no previous knowledge about Dragon Quest 3 it’s surprising how the story is simultaneously barebones yet deep. On the one hand, the grand tale of adventure and defeating a great evil is basic. Each smaller story of each town, city, and kingdom doesn’t add too much besides just how greedy several leaders can be. Of course, I’d be too if some stranger resembling the fabled hero showed up, asking for passage or a ship. While the story at times follows the Hero, its story feels more about the journeys of someone always having a presence wherever you go — Ortega.

It’s Ortega’s journey, and every revelation of Ortega’s work was always the most gripping aspect of the story. Specifically through meeting all of his older comrades throughout the journey. Each retired adventurer who helped Ortega telling this hero how courageous Ortega was works even more because of the updated cutscenes that play as they talk. Even moreso when the villains try to talk smack about him. But then you see that, oh no, they’re just able to speak because he’s not around and wasn’t able to deal a killing blow even though he devastated them.

The game gradually builds on the adventure aspect as you take on ever-growing impossible odds and fill shoes that somehow grow larger and larger as you keep growing as a hero. Without spoilers, the final reveal of this storyline devastated me in ways I’ve only felt with RPGs that I consider my favorite games of all time.

The primary story is lacking since almost every party member is a random adventurer joining the hero as a for-hire. Starting the game, this was maybe the most shocking aspect of Dragon Quest 3. Just how self-insert the main hero is and how customizable and secondary the rest of the party is. Once you get the hang of the game, the rest of the party can be about as customizable as you’d like. From their name to class to their personalities, ensure they get the exact stat growth you’d like. Even later on, when you unlock class switching for the rest of your party, they are your play-things to create your ultimate adventuring party.

While this can get overwhelming, the game makes it easy for first-timers with pre-built party members of common archetypes that players can adapt later to fit their needs. For an initial party make-up, the best choices seemed to be base Soldier, Pilgrim, and Wizard to start my adventure, and they did a good enough job to get me going. Later, after updating their classes and taking the penalty of changing their level back to 1 with half the stats they had accrued, they quickly grew to become powerhouses.

What was even more shocking was how fun some of the classes I never considered joining my party at first to be. Like the Monster Wranger, who is new to Dragon Quest 3 via the HD-2D remake. Their use of monsters found throughout the world to empower their abilities and their brute strength helped deal massive AOE damage and encouraged me to explore even more to grow their strength. The Sage, a class that requires a special book to unlock, quickly became my greatest spellcaster and healer by the end of the game through its use of both fields of magic.

The use of HD-2D style helps elevate classic RPGs to make them feel more modern and perfect for modern handhelds. This especially applies to Dragon Quest 3. Not only is every environment beautiful, the shifts from day to night astounding, but the implementation of everything in every place you visit makes the world feel even more lived in.

The areas you explore look great, especially when playing the game handheld on the Switch. The characters have such a unique look and style thanks to the late great Akira Toriyama and they’re done justice in the remake. Every enemy and character you interact with and look at on the battlefield hasn’t been altered in any way except to look better. After Toriyama’s passing, his legacy and history with Dragon Quest continues to live on. It’s an excellent send-off for someone whose impact is undeniable.

Yet there are some minor issues with the Switch handheld mode in larger towns. There is a distinct drop in framerate when exploring towns and kingdoms. Does it need some refining? Maybe. It doesn’t take away from the experience overall, it just makes visiting these areas a little annoying even after running smoothly in the large open world and highly detailed dungeons. Even fights with lots of particle effects aren’t affected by this issue. It’s just odd how specific the environments for frame drops occur.

The battles are turn-based, and gives you control over how much say you have in battles. For those who like to have complete control of every aspect of a turn-based fight, I highly suggest going into strategies at your first opportunity and setting your party members to be controlled by you directly. Rather than having certain strategy types with you only choosing what the Hero does.

What I love about these classic RPGs is their reliance on you experimenting and paying attention. While you can brute force through a significant portion of the early part of the game, late-to-end game dungeons require you to remember enemy weaknesses and adapt quickly. One turn, you cast a big ice attack on all enemies. Next, all spells are negated on the battlefield. The importance of relying on ways outside of spells and abilities to attack or heal is also an area that I learned late just how important it is to adapt in those ways beyond just going head first at the enemies until they’re dead in those situations.

Since other classic RPGs lacked these elements, it makes their inclusion in Dragon Quest 3 even more surprising. However, what was also common in this type of classic RPG was the difficulty spike many were known for at the time. As you progress, later dungeons throw some new common types of enemies that are just chock full of BS to make you sweat. From enemies that are immune to almost every spell type except the most expensive ones while other are immune to that as well, and can breathe breaths that stun, put you to sleep, or confuse and/or confuse you all in the same turn.

Overcoming these challenges was a major highlight of my journey, even though those dungeons, particularly the last one, felt almost unfair for how much it required me to spend resources to just stay alive and keep going. Earlier dungeons had a little well occasionally to top the Hero and the rest of the party up. Here some spells that can be cast outside of combat have a chance of not even working, like the resurrection spell Zin or Zing.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake has a great balance for those who may get tired of the difficulty spikes and just want to reach the end of the game. Difficulty can be changed any time outside of combat, whether it’s to make the game harder or easier. After trying a couple of fights on the easiest difficulty, and while it was a little too easy because you can’t die, it was a breath of fresh air to feel like progress was made while leveling slowed to a crawl.

On the other hand, other modern quality-of-life updates are just fantastically implemented. Like a hint system that marks where on the map you should go to next. Or hints at where you may want to visit for something extra. These options are completely extra so they’re still there if you want that classic Dragon Warrior 3 experience with modern visuals, a new class, and some updates to the story. You can enjoy the game in any way you want, which is awesome. Add on a fantastic autosave function and battle replays if you lose to a boss fight, and you’ll never be out of the action for long after making some mistakes.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake made me a fan of Dragon Quest. This remake is an excellent introduction to Square Enix’s third RPG pillar, which will hopefully continue to grow with this and the 1 and 2 remakes coming next year. All of the updates turn this classic 1980s RPG into one that feels modern and accessible. Even with some slight tech hiccups, you’ll not want to miss this stellar remake if you want to call yourself an RPG fan. Now excuse me while I go play Dragon Quest XI to make the wait for the other HD-2D Dragon Quest remakes to come out that much easier.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is available on November 14th on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5