A Review

[Katie]

I'm torn about recommending Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. On one hand, it’s likely the best version of the game, even with the Body Type A/B nonsense that confuses and alienates players due to the gender-based mechanics that are core to the original.

I’d give the remake an 8/10 overall, docking points for last-minute changes seemingly imposed by the woke ideologues at Square Enix, and for failing to add some basic quality-of-life improvements that could have made the game more enjoyable. However, as a game to play in 2024, I lean closer to a 6/10. While I recognize the massive influence this game had on JRPGs and other titles we enjoy today, that legacy doesn’t make the moment-to-moment experience any more fun—it feels more like a history lesson.

There are many frustrating mechanics. For example, the boat accelerates painfully slowly after stopping, which feels bad given how frequent random encounters are. Worse, actions like Padfoot expiring abruptly stop your boat or character, breaking the flow of exploration. Why can’t these effects just expire visually without interrupting movement? Traversing the overworld or dungeons becomes tedious.

Random encounters are exhausting at times. While the game faithfully recreates the original’s difficulty, it’s not very fun anymore. Spells like Thwack, which can instant-kill multiple party members, feel unfair—especially when enemies spam them in a single turn. Even with protective accessories, you’ll still lose party members frequently, forcing you to waste MP on Zing after every fight. It’s not challenging; it’s just a time sink.

Exploration can also be frustrating. I often wished I could zoom out in dungeons or on the world map to better assess hidden areas or potential treasure. The HD-2D perspective makes moving south especially annoying since it blocks visibility, often leading to wasted trips into empty areas. Abilities like “Nose for Treasure” and “Animal Instinct” are helpful but irritating to use, as they require constantly opening the menu. Worse, using these abilities closes the menu, forcing you to reopen it repeatedly. Why couldn’t they just be mapped to buttons?

The localization feels dated, with text that seems ripped straight from the NES/SNES versions. The dialogue doesn’t feel modern, making it hard to connect with characters outside of Ortega. Cutscenes are brief and forgettable, so if you’re playing for the story, it’s not worth it.

That said, the remake has some high points. The art style and visuals are fantastic, making this the best-looking version of the game. The sound and music are excellent, and the optional map guide is a nice touch. I ended up using it after struggling to find orb locations late in the game.

The Body Type A/B system deserves special criticism. It disrupts the game’s gender-specific mechanics for equipment and personality while being poorly implemented. Choosing Body Type B, for example, defaults to she/her pronouns and female-specific mechanics, rendering the feature entirely performative. It doesn’t even solve the problem it’s meant to address, leaving non-binary players unserved while alienating everyone else. Square Enix’s attempt at inclusivity was abysmal and only managed to confuse or frustrate players across the board. They should have just stuck with Male/Female, which at least worked for the vast majority of the audience.

Overall, this is a decent remake, but I wish I could leave an “informational” rating instead of a thumbs up or down. If you’re interested in Dragon Quest 3 for its historical significance or are already accustomed to dated mechanics, it’s worth buying. But if you’re expecting a game that’s fun and enjoyable by modern standards, I’d recommend passing on Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake.

[jmac2007]

Katie: "There are many frustrating mechanics. For example, the boat accelerates painfully slowly after stopping, which feels bad given how frequent random encounters are."

These points are valid. I do want to say that while I agree the boat / bird is stupidly slow in this game, one thing not to ignore is you can avoid the random encounters by spamming "Holy Protection" over and over.

But, I do not like how quickly the Holy Protection wears off. Maybe this is closely the same as Dragon Warrior 3 (NES)? But, given how slow the boat is.... sigh.

[LordKaiserX0]

Copy and paste this on the Review tab unless you already did.

[Boby Happy]

I really don't understand the body type A / B =.=

really what's the point ?

[Katie]

Originally posted by Boby Happy:

I really don't understand the body type A / B =.=

really what's the point ?

Here’s what an activist who genuinely believes in these features might say: "In order to be inclusive to non-binary people, who don't identify as male or female but may have a male- or female-looking body type, we need to offer inclusive body types with options to change pronouns in case they don't match like most people’s."

And here’s what a marketing department, a risk-averse corporation, or a company that thinks pandering to certain groups will increase sales might say: "Let's just add labels for body types A/B instead of male/female so that we appear inclusive, even if the game isn’t truly inclusive or if this change makes the game feel even less inclusive than male/female labels would have been."

At the end of the day, neither approach is ideal. If you're the marketing/corporate person, stop pandering. If you're the activist, stop making changes that confuse, divide, and alienate 99.9% of people.

If you really wanted to implement this feature properly, you’d include: 1) Male, 2) Female, and 3) Customize. Under Customize, you’d allow players to change voice, pronouns, and body type, creating genuine inclusivity while not alienating 99.9% of players. Most people wouldn’t even need to click the Customize option, and those who do would find it meaningful. That’s the right way to handle it, if you’re going to do it at all.

It’s also worth noting that a trans person would likely pick Male or Female too, so oddly enough, this change alienates them as well. Ironically, the original game catered to them better. Essentially, this is Square Enix taking a massive L here.

Luckily, this is such a minor, performative change that it doesn’t affect the game much overall. If you can mentally replace "Appearance A" with "Male" and "Appearance B" with "Female," it’s easy to move past. You shouldn’t have to do that, but it doesn’t detract too much from the game. It’s annoying, I agree, but it’s not worth boycotting or making a big deal over. Still, it’s absolutely fair to criticize.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Thanks for the balanced review. I haven't played the game yet because of the price, but thank you for confirming my suspicions regarding the gameplay. In particular, enemies spamming Thwack, the poor localization, lack of meaningful QOL, etc. Other than having a pretty looking game, I don't see any reason not to just stick with a modded version for the NES.

One small note: There's a mod that improves ship and other forms of movement on Nexus. Might be handy if you ever do a replay of the game. Mods are very easy to install; just put the files in the Paks folder, as instructed on the mod page:

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquest3remake/mods/14

[Katie]

Originally posted by jmac2007:

Katie: "There are many frustrating mechanics. For example, the boat accelerates painfully slowly after stopping, which feels bad given how frequent random encounters are."

These points are valid. I do want to say that while I agree the boat / bird is stupidly slow in this game, one thing not to ignore is you can avoid the random encounters by spamming "Holy Protection" over and over.

But, I do not like how quickly the Holy Protection wears off. Maybe this is closely the same as Dragon Warrior 3 (NES)? But, given how slow the boat is.... sigh.

I didn't use Holy Protection. I probably should have lol. Padfoot mostly works though, which is why I didn't find other alternatives.

I think it would have been better to allow the player to bind 4 spells/abilities to various keybinds. There are a lot of buttons or button-combinations on a modern controller that you could use for this purpose to at least avoid having to go into the menus. I would have put Animal Instinct, Padfoot/Holy Protection, Nose for Treasure and even that other treasure spell that highlights treasures on the map as keybinds. I used all 4 of those all the time.

Another option for Holy Protection is just to have it as a toggle and have it drain MP at about the same rate as the number of steps the spell typically lasts for. There are a lot of modern QoL ways to handle this without actually changing the game.

I also didn't like how Safe Passage, Fade and many other things just stopped your character from moving, paused for a few seconds, opened up a dialog box, etc. There were so many better ways to deal with this visually.

[Boby Happy]

Originally posted by Katie:

Originally posted by Boby Happy:

I really don't understand the body type A / B =.=

really what's the point ?

Here’s what an activist who genuinely believes in these features might say: "In order to be inclusive to non-binary people, who don't identify as male or female but may have a male- or female-looking body type, we need to offer inclusive body types with options to change pronouns in case they don't match like most people’s."

And here’s what a marketing department, a risk-averse corporation, or a company that thinks pandering to certain groups will increase sales might say: "Let's just add labels for body types A/B instead of male/female so that we appear inclusive, even if the game isn’t truly inclusive or if this change makes the game feel even less inclusive than male/female labels would have been."

At the end of the day, neither approach is ideal. If you're the marketing/corporate person, stop pandering. If you're the activist, stop making changes that confuse, divide, and alienate 99.9% of people.

If you really wanted to implement this feature properly, you’d include: 1) Male, 2) Female, and 3) Customize. Under Customize, you’d allow players to change voice, pronouns, and body type, creating genuine inclusivity while not alienating 99.9% of players. Most people wouldn’t even need to click the Customize option, and those who do would find it meaningful. That’s the right way to handle it, if you’re going to do it at all.

It’s also worth noting that a trans person would likely pick Male or Female too, so oddly enough, this change alienates them as well. Ironically, the original game catered to them better. Essentially, this is Square Enix taking a massive L here.

Luckily, this is such a minor, performative change that it doesn’t affect the game much overall. If you can mentally replace "Appearance A" with "Male" and "Appearance B" with "Female," it’s easy to move past. You shouldn’t have to do that, but it doesn’t detract too much from the game. It’s annoying, I agree, but it’s not worth boycotting or making a big deal over. Still, it’s absolutely fair to criticize.

yeah the type A / Type B was also present in Elden ring and BG3 and it didn't prevent me from enjoying these games

however I am a man or a male, not a type A
it's just changing words with no change on the end result

again no big deal but if it was really for inclusivity, then I would have the ability to change it to still have male / female

[Lucas the Thief]

TLDR: I'm going to drink the "this game is woke" Kool-aid. I have never played an old school JRPG so I am frustrated by random combat. I am spoiled by current RPGs that hold your hand. I am also going to complain about things that the original game and every version of the game had to justify giving this game a bad review. More anti-every nonsense crying cuz Asmongold hasn't told me what new game to be mad at yet. Oh also I don't like characters with european accents in my Dragon Quest game.

Boom, just saved ya'll about 6 paragraphs.

[ShockedHearts]

Originally posted by Lucas the Thief:

TLDR: I'm going to drink the "this game is woke" Kool-aid. I have never played an old school JRPG so I am frustrated by random combat. I am spoiled by current RPGs that hold your hand. I am also going to complain about things that the original game and every version of the game had to justify giving this game a bad review. More anti-every nonsense crying cuz Asmongold hasn't told me what new game to be mad at yet. Oh also I don't like characters with european accents in my Dragon Quest game.

Boom, just saved ya'll about 6 paragraphs.

pretty accurate, can vouch for this tldr.

[Zagreus]

Have the "controversy" threads died so muich down, that another thread is needed to bait more people? Can we get a preview what the next thread will contain? The suspense is killing me!

[Katie]

Originally posted by Zagreus:

Have the "controversy" threads died so muich down, that another thread is needed to bait more people? Can we get a preview what the next thread will contain? The suspense is killing me!

It's not a controversy thread. This is a valid review. So things are only controversial because you disagree with them?

[Zagreus]

Originally posted by Katie:

[...] you disagree with them?

Nice try, but I won't feed the troll today :) Just notify me when one or another person has a better thread :)! Now you have another message to keep the momentum going! You can do it!

[Do It For Hargon]

Originally posted by Lucas the Thief:

TLDR: I'm going to drink the "this game is woke" Kool-aid. I have never played an old school JRPG so I am frustrated by random combat. I am spoiled by current RPGs that hold your hand. I am also going to complain about things that the original game and every version of the game had to justify giving this game a bad review. More anti-every nonsense crying cuz Asmongold hasn't told me what new game to be mad at yet. Oh also I don't like characters with european accents in my Dragon Quest game.

Boom, just saved ya'll about 6 paragraphs.

i wish this spot-on assessment could have been pinned at the top above op because i lost precious iq points reading all the nonsense in this "review", lol

[Lucas the Thief]

Originally posted by Do It For Hargon:

Originally posted by Lucas the Thief:

TLDR: I'm going to drink the "this game is woke" Kool-aid. I have never played an old school JRPG so I am frustrated by random combat. I am spoiled by current RPGs that hold your hand. I am also going to complain about things that the original game and every version of the game had to justify giving this game a bad review. More anti-every nonsense crying cuz Asmongold hasn't told me what new game to be mad at yet. Oh also I don't like characters with european accents in my Dragon Quest game.

Boom, just saved ya'll about 6 paragraphs.

i wish this spot-on assessment could have been pinned at the top above op because i lost precious iq points reading all the nonsense in this "review", lol

I wish I had seen it sooner so I could have put it at the top

[Call Sign: Raven]

All the people trolling this thread read two sentences and then started typing replies. The review is balanced, but the rainbow defense force doesn’t care.