Perhaps here it won’t enjoy the same monstrous popularity it enjoys in Japan, but if you’re a fan of JRPGs it’s impossible not to have at least heard of Dragon Quest. The brilliant series created by Yuji Horii it set the foundations for the entire genre, becoming a real cult in its homeland and also earning a following in these parts that is anything but underestimable. Now, we could make long speeches on the actual evolution of the saga over the years, just as it would be interesting to talk about how popularity has in some ways forced the developers of Dragon Quest to preserve certain elements in an almost unchanged form from chapter to chapter, but today we’re not here for that. No, today we are here to talk about the return of the origin of everything, since in the past few days we had the chance to test Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remakethe rumored remake of the origin of the Erdrick saga, with a fair number of interesting modernizations.
In reality this remake should not be limited to containing Dragon Quest III but the entire starting trilogy, which makes it fascinating to say the least for anyone who wants to take an informative dive into the past of JRPGs or simply relive the origins of one of the genre’s most important names. We, however, only had the opportunity to try the remake of the third chapter for a few hours, which as a prequel is in all respects the most sensible one from which to start from a narrative point of view.
The hero you expect
Dragon Quest III puts you in the shoes of the hero Ortega’s son, who at the not exactly venerable age of 16 finds himself having to continue the mission his father failed years earlier against the powerful demon lord Padramos. Since this is a game belonging to eras ago, its narrative is rather direct and without frills, and the group of companions available to the player is decided practically immediately, without particular introductions. What still maintains all the original charm today, however, is the curious gameplay loop, which, whether due to a rather brilliant management of the difficulty, or due to some fairly unique elements of the development system, still manages to entertain today. This remake indeed it does not touch almost anything of the original structure, simply modernizes it by perfecting some characteristics: basically the game allows you to use only the hero, who obtains numerous skills as he levels up; your companions fight automatically, and usually use the most appropriate skills based on the enemies faced and the behavioral tendencies set by the player (selectable from a limited menu). It is a very simple system, where however the characteristics of the attacks vary based on the weapons equipped (a boomerang, for example, does area damage) and the absence of the facilities of modern RPGs keeps dungeon exploration interesting. You do not automatically regenerate at every battle, nor is it possible to bring knocked out characters back to life at any time, in fact: if someone in the team dies it is mandatory to drag their coffin to the nearest church and pay to bring them back to the living. Considering that at the beginning of the campaign even battles against monsters that aren’t particularly powerful can cost you your life, and that if you get to the most difficult battles unprepared it’s even too easy to get kicked badly, to continue the Dragon Quest III campaign easily you need the right quantity of clashes and resource management, which is still fun enough today to make it easy to understand why the series has achieved all this popularity over time. Although the base remains fascinating, however, we are still talking about a mix of basic mechanics, which has therefore been improved here with some “classic” interventions, such as the possibility of significantly speeding up battles (highly recommended), or that of saving churches.
The other big change is the presence of a system of objectives that can be deactivated at will, which broadly indicates the next direction to take to advance the campaign. Purists will avoid it (also because the game still gives fairly precise indications if you talk to the various characters), but it is certainly a nice facilitation for those who want to relive this experience without too many headaches. And the technical sector? Well, clearly the remake is completely redone graphically, with a mixture of 2D graphics for the character sprites and three-dimensional graphics for the backgrounds. The version we tested was the Switch one and, it must be said, in portability the general impact was clearly better (on the TV screen the filters used on the pixels are quite clearly noticeable, on the Switch screen absolutely not), but the work done is generally excellent and maintains all the charm of the original game, significantly improving the look of every single area of the map. The interface has also been cleaned up and improved, and even the music has been rearranged thanks to the work of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony. Yes, in short, considering that this is a cult series, Square Enix has decided to opt for a conservative approach, while making sure to properly improve everything possible within the limits of the original vision.
© ARMOR PROJECT/BIRD STUDIO/SPIKE CHUNSOFT/SQUARE ENIX
© SUGIYAMA KOBO
℗ SUGIYAMA KOBO
All images and screenshots are from a version of the game still in development.
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is, predictably, a work designed to practically completely preserve the experience of the original titles, with a renewed graphic design and some marginal but highly appreciated changes to the quality of life. We expected exactly this, given that these are cult titles considered untouchable by many fans, and we sincerely appreciate the preservation work done, because it allows us to appreciate the classic formula even today. It only remains to be seen if, after all these years, the first chapters of the series can still capture new fans, or if this remake will just be a nice nostalgia operation.
