Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is the remake this legendary RPG deserves

thesixthaxis.com:

If you had to pin down Japanese games from the late 80s with two key characteristics, it would have to be genre-defining new ideas and baffling naming conventions, especially when bringing those games to the West. Final Fantasy’s number confusion is well known, but Dragon Quest has its own convoluted naming history so that, chronologically speaking, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is retelling the first game in the series – a series originally called Dragon Warrior in the US. Square Enix are sticking with it, though, with an HD-2D trilogy going in canonical order.

Square Enix has often tapped into the rich vein of their 80s and 90s Dragon Quest back catalogue, whether it’s with modern mash-ups like Dragon Quest Heroes and Dragon Quest Builders, or the various enhanced remakes and ports that go all the way back to early smartphones, Game Boy Color and even Super Famicom. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is re-retreading ground in those respects, but given how good the results are, I doubt anyone will complain.

Playing on Nintendo Switch (and with the game also coming to PlayStation, Xbox and PC), this HD-2D remake looks simply sublime. I’m at the point where I think Square Enix should put their entire library through the HD-2D conversion process. Sure, there’s the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series which is a great way of preserving the original art style and adventures for new systems, but HD-2D provides a far more luxurious and appealing feel to the games.

You still have the same form and structure to the world of Dragon Quest III, with an overworld to wander across getting into randomised battles, and then towns and dungeons to venture into. There’s a lot of lovely touches and tweaks across all of this, though. The landscape of the overworld has a subtle topography to it, for example, which you’ll also notice in a town like Reeve, and the buildings that you step into in Aliahan feel larger and packed with more visual detail. All buildings have separate interiors now,