Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is coming out in November – Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D remakes in 2025

thesixthaxis.com:

Square Enix has announced that the long-awaited Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is coming out on 14th November, with the fresh announcement that Dragon Quest I and II will be given the HD-2D remake treatment in 2025! The revamped RPG classic will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Dragon Quest 3 is actually a prequel to the first two games, set years before the original game, telling the tale of an earlier part of the heroic lineage of Erdrick and depicting the first battle with the fiend Baramos. While it’s Erdrick’s descendants who featured in the first two games, this is generally known as the Erdrick Trilogy. It’s for this reason that Square has started off with the third game in the series, to re-release them in chronological order.

Dragon Quest 3 was originally released for the Famicom in 1988, selling over one million copies on its first day of release in Japan. Over the years it has been remade and ported to a number of later consoles, first with the 1996 Super Famicom remake in Japan, a Game Boy Color adaptation of that  for Western audiences, and then more modern ports to smartphone in 2009 which spawn the ports to Wii, 3DS, PS4, and Switch.

This HD-2D remake is a whole other kettle of fish, though. First announced back in 2021 for the franchise’s 35th anniversary, the reveal trailer showed the transformation to the art style popularised by Octopath Traveller, it’s taken the team at AMATA K.K. and Team Asano around three years to approach a full release. We’ve really seen the HD-2D style come along fantastically well since Octopath Traveller, and Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake looks absolutely lovely. We’re keen to see how else the team has tweaked and adapted the game, though I’m sure they’ve been very faithful to the original intent of the game.