Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review: A New Classic Of An Old Classic

screenrant.com:

is the latest iteration of the classic roleplaying game that first arrived in the States as back in 1992. The original game is widely considered one of the best RPGs of all time, and served as the blueprint for many RPGs that followed it. Since it debuted, there have been numerous versions — including remakes — on various platforms. That means there are a lot of versions of to compare the to — all while it contends with the original's legacy.

is a game of almost mythical proportions. Its 1988 release in Japan was a zeitgeist moment that inspired one of the biggest myths in gaming — the Dragon Quest Law — that suggested so many people skipped work and school to play thatfuture games were required by law to launch on weekends. From a Western perspective (where has traditionally struggled), it may be hard to explain just how influential the game was — and why it's still held in such high regard, but the release of impressively lives up to the original.

doesn't disappoint. The core premise — a young hero sets off to save the world from the Archiend — and many gameplay mechanics are the same, but there are additional content and quality-of-life improvements that help the stand out.

comes with plenty of great quality-of-life improvements like difficulty settings, auto-save features, and even hints that circle places on the world map to help navigate the more open-world portions of the game. However, it also includes new features that really add to the enjoyableness of this remake. Most notable are the new Monster Wrangler vocation and the Monster Arena, both of which require recruiting friendly monsters to progress through. New story beats featuring Ortega, the hero's warrior father, were another pre-launch selling point.

I kept a Monster Wrangler in my party since it was new, and while it's slow to get going, I found it to be a nice additional vocation — although newcomers may wish to stick to the more balanced Warrior, Mage, Priest combo that the game recommends since