This is an 80’s old-school JRPG with 2024 graphics and a ton of QoL changes.

What do I mean by that? Well - think random encounters, very (and I repeat VERY) light on the story and after of the first 10 hours you’re pretty much free to do whatever. There isn’t a whole lot of structure.

For me, that makes this an amazing title as I can just grind and play through a RPG title without needing to focus heavily on a story. It’s a cozy game if you will.

If those things sound good to you then I can really recommend this game. If you’re looking for in-depth mechanics and an extensive storyline, this isn’t for you.

Dragon Quest III is a game with a tremendous legacy that deserves the utmost respect for helping kickstart the birth of a sub-genre hot off one of its best years ever. But it's also a game weighed down by its legacy baggage, drowning in the sea of outstanding contemporaries it helped inspire. It's a funny situation it finds itself in, where its age is both a redeeming factor and its damning flaw.

Over thirty years removed from the original release, modern game design expectedly moved on, into big overarching narratives, deep progression/battle systems and sprawling seamless worlds. But does this make DQ3 obsolete? Or does it make the old feel new again? I can't lie to you, it's a bit of both and I could put two thousand words here dissecting it all, but spend more than a few hours with this and you won't deny the indelible charm of this game's rather simplistic hero's journey. And coming off the back of Metaphor ReFantazio's evocative character-driven epic, it's been fun to unwind with an experience that's so stripped back.

Running from dinky town to dinky town, you set on a quest to save a mostly empty world, taking just a few steps before the next random encounter slaps you in the face and peels off the lull of the game's overworld theme. You spam the same three attacks, clear the fight and enjoy the next five or so steps before the next one. If you're a sane person, you likely hate random encounters as much as me. It weighs the whole experience down into tedium, a tedium that the DQ3 experience is defined by. But somewhere in all that is a sort of indescribable relaxation found in this game's endless grind.

Away with the cynicism though. The thing I loved most was something added specifically for this remake - the monster wrangler and the newly reformed monster arena battles. You don't know how much you desire something until you've been handed a creature-collecting minigame where I find four-armed monstrosities (and then name them "Steve" for some reason). It gives me another reason to explore and a break from the demands of my straight-arrow adventure. It's a great addition. What else do I love? The music. Specifically Ramia's Flight, like wow. Only at that moment, soaring into the sky, did I truly feel the weight of the journey and believe in the promise of this mystical world.

But really, I very honestly have no idea how to feel about this one, you'd expect more conclusive thoughts after a little over forty-five hours, but I'm gonna have to let this experience sit in my mind. Do I hate it? Far from it. But do I love it? Well, no. More importantly though, for this "review", do I recommend it? All day, every day. It's addictive, focused and visually superb. It's also occasionally repetitive and frustrating. But any fan of JRPGs or even RPGs in general, will immediately realise the particular allure of this one. It's special, very special.

8/10.

(Played on Steam Deck OLED at 720p50fps at Max settings with 10-14w of power draw and 3-5hrs of battery life.)

Great game!