Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake may have "never happened" without its gorgeous pixel art, and after playing for 30 minutes I can see why

There's no denying that 2024 has been – and continues to be – a phenomenal year for JRPGs, and just in case there was any semblance of doubt, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake seems to be shaping up to be the icing on the cake.

I was given around 30 minutes with Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake at Gamescom 2024, and to tell you the truth, once I was set loose on its huge open world, which is full of secrets to unearth and an enticing main quest to follow, I struggled to decide what to do first. However, I set off by entering the Monster Arena – an area that's been tweaked a little from the original game to become a 3v3 monster battle showdown, where you can pit the monsters you've captured with the new Monster Wrangler vocation up against increasingly tough opponents for glory and prizes (mainly prizes). 

My arena showdown was a piece of cake – its foes were no match for my trusty trio of Healslime, Slime, and Bunicorn – although I was told that you can expect these battles to become much more challenging the further you progress. More generally speaking, I noticed that the game's three difficulty levels – Dracky Quest, Dragon Quest, and Draconian Quest (the latter of which reduces the gold and EXP you get as well as making battles harder) can seemingly be swapped between at any time during your adventure, which should make fine-tuning your experience on the fly super straightforward. 

After that, I took to exploring the world, and spent arguably a bit too long hunting for secrets hidden in barrels – which was very worth it, by the way. Taking in the sights is a joy in itself, and I had a delightful stroll around the colorful town of Romaria, admiring its grand water fountain and castle. The HD-2D art style is a real treat for the eyes, as everywhere you look is packed with intricate details and pixel art that pops beautifully, nailing that modern-yet-retro vibe that Square Enix has perfected in previous titles like Octopath Traveler. 

Pixel perfect

In a group Q&A session with fellow media, I had the chance to ask the game's producer, Masaaki Hayasaka, as well as series creator Yuji Horii about the importance of the HD-2D art style for this remake, as well as the upcoming remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and 2. Hayasaka goes as far to say that this game potentially "would have never happened" if the team didn't have this style at their disposal.

"They are quite retro games, and we just thought that this HD-2D style was the perfect style to represent them graphically in a remake," the producer says (via interpreter). "I think pretty much everyone in the company was in agreement about that. There wasn't ever a question, so in terms of how important it is, I think it would be fair to say that if we didn't have this HD-2D art style accessible to us, then maybe this remake would have never happened."

Horii adds: "And I think that rather than 3D, being able to explore this space in 2D is really what was part of the enjoyment of the original. So we wanted to keep what made the original so special and so fun and bring it into the modern era, which is why this HD-2D style just works so well."

The pretty visuals certainly contribute to the overall feeling that this world is begging to be explored – I had to rein the urge to examine every corner of the screen in favor of ascending the Skyfell Tower dungeon, but I could have spent hours poring over every inch of the open world. Hayasaka notes that the devs took inspiration from "a lot of modern games," including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when it came to this overall design philosophy. "As you're traversing the open world in Breath of the Wild, you can see a building in the distance and be like, 'I want to go there,' and then it makes you want to go there and travel. We wanted to capture that same feeling with the world map here," he explains.

Improvements galore

As I was eager to progress as quickly as possible during the demo, I really appreciated the option to speed up battles on the go. While you can expect your journey to be interrupted by sudden random encounters, speeding things all the way up makes them fly by – it's a simple but exceptionally useful quality of life improvement that I'm sure many players will find themselves using a lot.

I also can't resist mentioning just how fantastic all the music is. Composed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, every track so far sounds just as triumphant and majestic as you'd hope for the Dragon Quest series, which really instills that feeling of importance into every step of your journey. 

I'm incredibly excited for when Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake releases in November, especially since it'll be followed by HD-2D remakes of both Dragon Quest 1 and 2 sometime next year (while the names might be a tad confusing, they are, in fact, releasing in chronological order). Horii tells me that this trilogy is a "really approachable" entry point for fans, even if they've never played any of the previous installments. "So I do hope it will be a good introduction for a lot of people to Dragon Quest as a whole," he says.

GamesRadar+ was in Cologne playing the most anticipated new games of 2024, and speaking to the developers bringing them to life. For more of our hands-on previews and exclusive interviews, visit the Gamescom 2024 coverage hub.