Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake review: make more mods for modern gamers

I love the HD-2D art style, but the remake lacks the quality-of-life changes that Dragon Quest 3 so desperately needed

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake / Square Enix

As we enter the age of ray tracing, path tracing, DLSS, frame generation, ambient occlusion, anisotropic filtering, chromatic aberration, temporal anti-aliasing, and volumetric lighting, game development is becoming more drawn out and more expensive. This has led to an era of remakes, remasters, re-releases, ports, and reboots, which are quicker, cheaper, and easier to make much to the ire of gamers. I don’t need to see Joel’s nose hairs to enjoy The Last of Us, but the almost 40-years-old Dragon Quest 3? That might need an update.

Square Enix has been yassifying plenty of its old-school RPGs over the last two years, but arguably its biggest series, Dragon Quest, has been oddly overlooked. That’s until the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, and soon, remakes for 1+2 as well. If anything deserves a remake, it’s a 40-year-old RPG with an incredible story that suffers from slow pacing, limited save points, and a map that looks like a densely patterned curtain. Better yet, Square Enix remade it in the gorgeous HD-2D style popularized by RPG eye delight, Octopath Traveler.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake / Square Enix

The Dragon Quest 3 Remake does look good, though it doesn’t quite have the fancy sheen that Live A Live, Triangle Strategy, and Octopath offer. If I was a graphics snob, I wouldn’t have had to ask a coworker for some fancy technical words for the opening paragraph, so this didn’t matter much to me. It does look good, or at least good enough, and what I’m really in it for is the gameplay.

This is where things start to fall apart. Dragon Quest 3 changes some things but not quite enough to make it palatable for the modern gamer. There are quick saves, so you can save and exit at any point, but these delete when you boot up and it’s always a terrifying experience. You can speed up the pace of combat, but the highest setting “Ultra Fast” feels like what normal should be. It also offers an easy mode called Dracky Quest but this doesn’t reduce enemy health or increase damage, it just prevents your party members from dropping below 1hp. You’ll still have to grind if you want to be effective in combat. When it comes to changes it feels like Square Enix was aware things couldn’t stay the same, but also didn’t want to push it too far.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake / Square Enix

What made Dragon Quest 3 so great 40 years ago is still here: the expansive world full of secrets, the story to find out what happened to your father, as well as the team building and job hopping. But every time I played, I was so focused on the frustrations that I found it hard to enjoy. The map is either full screen or zoomed in so close you can see cells separating. Unequipped items don’t go to your equipment bag, they go into your limited inventory. During battles, your cursor always defaults to Attack rather than staying on the last command you selected. The level-up screen also takes about ten seconds to load. None of these are deal breakers, but when you add them all together, it creates a more frustrating than fun experience.

I so badly wanted to play the story of a teenager collecting a party of misfits, traveling all over the globe, throwing weapons into volcanos, and discovering the truth behind their father’s disappearance, and I wanted to do so with all of the comforts of modern gaming. I wanted to be able to save before a big boss fight, to quickly input the moves I wanted to make, and to keep in pace with enemy levels even without hours of grinding. I love Dragon Quest 3, I love the HD-2D art style, but I hate that the remake didn’t bring the quality-of-life changes the old boy so desperately needed.

Score: 6/10

Version tested: Nintendo Switch