Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is a pixel-perfect overhaul of a 36-year-old JRPG classic that's tough to recommend to newcomers

Venturing forth from your small town on a quest to slay a demon king with a party composed of warriors, mages, and the like, in Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake you're best off patrolling a circle for a bit to let the experience points flow. This is an old school RPG through and through, and while this is the latest in Square Enix's "HD-2D" remake trend – adding some real visual flair while retaining its retro-looking pixel art core – it still feels like it's from another age. No bad thing for those who can appreciate the classics, but it might be tough to win over new fans.

Wandering the overworld, time passes as you go, turning from day to night and back again. After a certain point, your party members can swap classes while retaining some of their skills and stats, a warrior becoming a buff sage, for instance. Different personality types can modify those stats as well, affected by books your party reads or accessories they wear. Par for the course now, but in 1988 when Dragon Quest 3 first released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, these were new concepts that really pushed the genre forward. For comparison, that's the same year Final Fantasy 2 released. Massively popular, Dragon Quest 3 helped to solidify many of the pillars that hold up the best games in the genre to this day.

Of course, if you don't know that, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake just feels like a fairly basic RPG adventure. Simply recruiting a party from an inn at the beginning (who you can swap in and out later), they're blank canvases that you make story with through clutch wins and losses in battles rather than anything more narrative-focused. The new Monster Wrangler class is, admittedly, a nice addition (and can learn monster moves).

Which isn't to say there's no character arcs whatsoever, but, following in the footsteps of your father who failed to slay the great demon, they're played out as flashbacks with him and the friends he made rather than your own. It's odd but it works, keeping the story lightweight while leaving just enough breadcrumbs to keep you curious as you travel the world in search of a way to track down and slay your foe.

World warrior

The best bit arrives several hours in, once you've finally earned a boat as a reward from a king in exchange for some pepper (really). Given the task to track down six orbs, there's very little restriction in how you set about getting them other than just sailing around in your boat and talking to the people in new lands you can reach. It's so freeform that it feels refreshing to return to nowadays, where most games are afraid to let you get stuck. With that said, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake does offer objective markers as an accommodation for those who find that too time-consuming or overwhelming.

It's one of few accommodations that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is really willing to offer. There's a "Dracky Quest" difficulty that makes fights easier and essentially makes it impossible to die in battle. But there's not much in between. Don't expect anything like the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series that allow you to multiply experience gained, toggle battles off, or fast forward action.

The party's auto-battle AI seems quite clever, which can help when mopping up weaker goons in random battles. Nominally there is an "Ultra fast" speed toggle in battle too. But even though the hits fly somewhat faster, it's still quite a slow-paced affair, much of it coming from slow text crawl at the end of each fight, or brief though frequent load screens. In some ways, the (much) visually inferior 2019 version of Dragon Quest 3 already available on Nintendo Switch has the edge on Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D on the same platform. While random battles' backgrounds here can be quite pretty, the classic approach of having them appear as pop-up windows helped keep things a bit snappy – though even there it's not exactly quick.

Playing normally, you'll be seeing a lot of battles. They appear constantly, and it's a good thing too as some parts of the game will absolutely kick your ass if you're not levelled properly or have a bad party composition. It's typical of the era, and for classic Dragon Quest, but as nice as it is to revisit such a mechanics-first RPG, the effort can also be a bit exhausting – even though the HD-2D visuals make the game look gorgeous.

Visually speaking, every town and dungeon has been modernized fantastically to feel more like real, natural spaces even when the structures are obviously corridor heavy. But for everything else, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D resists modernization. It's admirable and nostalgic… but, lacking in the accommodations that make it easier to recommend my other favourite RPG classics to friends (like Final Fantasy 4), it feels like the HD-2D approach is missing a trick here.

Did you know that the Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii says losing half of your money after falling in battle was intended as a kindness? Looking for another adventure? Check out our best JRPG games list for what to play next!