Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is updating a classic without taking away from what made it special

Not to freak you out or anything, but 1988 was a long time ago. The biggest movie of the summer was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Iron Curtain was only beginning to crack across Europe, and the person writing this preview wouldn’t be born for another 12 years. The point is that things have changed a lot since then, and video games are no different.

Dragon Quest 3 was beloved and revolutionary at the time, but as someone who wasn’t alive when it was first released, going back to games of this era can be difficult. This is less because they are a challenge (I love a good punishing RPG), but usually because they are just much less friendly in other ways. The grinding demanded of players is high, random spawns can be infuriating when you just want to get to the next destination, and a lot of the quality of life we have grown accustomed to is hard to live without.

Therein lies the challenge of remastering certain games. While they were brilliant and revolutionary in many ways, we wouldn’t make them like that now. So when bringing back a classic like Dragon Quest 3, how much do you update and how much do you leave the same? At what point does something go from being “in keeping with the original” to “frustrating for a modern audience”?

DQ3 HD-2D Remake draws a very hard line in the sand declaring that almost nothing should be changed from a gameplay perspective. You wouldn’t repaint the Mona Lisa with more vibrant pigments and you wouldn’t put Dragon Quest 3 back out into the world without random enemy encounters. While there are some QoL updates like speeding up attack animations (and even an auto-battle feature if you really just need to grind), Dragon Quest 3’s gameplay and balancing remain almost identical to the original. 

That’s not to say the game hasn’t been updated, the killer HD-2D over all the start of the show. In fact, it even feels noticeably more detailed than that of Octopath Traveller 1 and 2, Triangle Strategy, and Live-A-Live, especially when it comes to the quality of the non-pixelated terrain textures. However, there have also been other updates. 

Lead Producer, Masaaki Hayasaka, told us at Gamescom that the game will allow more party customization, including the ability to change the appearance of your party from what they are wearing right down to their hairstyle and voice. The town of Romeria’s monster coliseum has been reworked, and instead of placing bets on monster fights, you can now build a team of monsters and partake in the competition a lá the Dragon Quest Monsters games, something Hayasaka-san noted was more appropriate for the modern era. This new format for the arena also unlocks the new Monster Wrangler vocation which allows you to take monsters into battle on your side.

While Hayasaka-san was tight-lipped in many regards, he also noted that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D will have new story elements and details to create a more cohesive narrative. While he didn’t mention what these elements might include, it would make sense that these additions will be used to add more connective tissue between this game and the upcoming Dragon Quest 1+2 HD-2D Remakes as both those games take place after DQ3.

Thankfully there isn’t too much longer to wait to see what new elements are being added as Dragon Quest HD-2D Remake releases on November 14th, this holiday.

This preview is based on an early build played at Gamescom 2024. The final product is subject to change.

Lexi Luddy

Contributing Editor

Lex Luddy is a freelance writer and journalism student. She has written for Vice, Fanbyte, PLAY Magazine, Gayming Magazine, Push Square, startmenu and more. She can be found on X (Twitter) @BasicalliLexi talking about Yakuza, Kirby, and queer representation in media.