New Rumours About Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Surface

This would be great because I am not a fan of the mobile versions we have at the moment.

The entire trilogy or just the third entry, this is a day one buy, if they have a physical release.

I seriously hope they fixed the intro to DQII, because I was fresh out of my playthrough of DQI, but having to chase down a guy who is continuously in another town was exhausting, and I feel like they need to tone that down a bit...

Not to be pedantic, but Erdrick is a title given to the protagonist, not their name.

Yes, please let this be true cause those awful phone ports of DQ1-3 games we had on the eShop right now are just dreadful to play. Can't stand them, once these remakes come to fruition then I'm getting rid of those phone ports from my Switch forever.

That'd be fantastic news if true! I haven't played any of the first three Dragon Quest games, and the versions currently on Switch that look like a flash game are not compelling. It would make sense that this is why the game got delayed, and I remember the series creator also hinting at other games in the series getting the HD-2D treatment in a presentation (before someone offscreen sounded an air horn for him to be quiet, lol). Here's hoping. Fingers crossed we see it in the June Direct. I still need to go back and finish DQVII at some point.

So when this DQ 3 HD-2D remake comes out, will it be good for newcomers to the franchise?

Midori went from being a fairly reliable Sega/Atlus leaker to suddenly having access to all this inside info from other companies (Nintendo, Square Enix, Capcom, etc) as well?

I don't believe it and neither should anyone else.

It would naturally make sense for all three. I’m not the biggest fan of the Roto/ Erdrick Trilogy, but I’d get this day 1. DQI would be interesting in HD2D.

And as other people already mentioned, the mobile ports on Switch are UGLY!!!!!! Ruins all three games.

Makes sense.

I mean, if you combine the length of all 3 games in their original form, it would be equivalent to a modern day RPG - so might as well make a trilogy out of it!

Why is the “source” linked, just some random dude on Reddit talking about the actual source? Why not just link or screenshot the actual source?

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeap and when you think about it, other than the NES, every re-released of DQII in the past had always came with DQ1. There was never a re-released of DQII that came without DQ1 (Super NES, Game Boy Color, Wii, phones, Switch, PS4, etc.) so I too had high hope that we would get remakes of all three soon.

Day one purchase for me

Wish they’d do something with 4-6 tho, stuck on DS! And the excellent Dq 7 remake stuck on 3ds needs a port (8 too).

Also glad to see this go multi platform. Frankly the HD-2D stuff looks way better on non-switch…

@westman98 why? She’s yet to leak anything that wasn’t true. If she suddenly starts being wrong, ok. Til then, her track record is 100%, bbs.

@John_Deacon midori has a 100% track record.

@Pat_trick While it is a title, the games make it a little more complex than that, and Erdrick (or Loto/Roto) is also used as a name for the hero of DQ III. He did have a different birth name (which is also complicated as you can choose the name yourself or refer to different sources for his in story given name, and in some versions it can also be a female that has her own given name).

Once the hero gains the title Erdrick, people in the game’s world use Erdrick as his name. For example an NPC might say “You’re looking for Erdrick? His house is over there.”.

Any title, generally has the word “the” used in tandem with it. Like “The Luminary will save us all!”. However they constantly use Erdrick as a name, like “Erdrick was buried here”.

I guess it is somewhat similar to how Siddhartha Gautama was born under that name, but once he gained the title “the Buddha” people began to refer to him as though his name had become Buddha. I am not sure if maybe that was even intentional by the story builders of Dragon Quest. Even in Asia, Siddhartha Gautama is often referred to as Buddha rather than the Buddha. And they are specifically talking about Siddhartha Gautama, not a different possible ascended being. So it is used like a name too.

If it has taken so long in order to be the entire trilogy, so be it. But if they're going to be released individually and take 3 years each, I don't like that as much LOL

@LinktotheFuture I am a fan of those mobile versions (even on mobile), but I would also enthusiastically buy HD-2D versions of these games.

@LastFootnote They are better than nothing, but I would have preferred the NES or GBC versions.

I sure hope these games have more to offer here than just a better performing hi definition transfer. We have already got the first 3 games brought back to the switch, it was a lackluster job but they should have got it right the first time. I can’t think of any gen of gaming where we would get multiple failed attempts at the same game. If that’s the case, they won’t be receiving my support.

The original NES game and the surprisingly good SNES remake is more than enough for me. I don’t need a modern visual style or a “budget orchestra” (ala the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters) in this classic.

I wonder who they will use as a composer in the next entry in the series though. Sugiyama didn’t finish his career on his highest note, but he has a really impressive legacy that probably feels quite imposing for whoever gets the job of being his successor.

Yeah, I did manage to power through DQ1-3 that are on Switch, but in all honest they're not the best way to play — as a complete story it would make perfect sense to include all three of them (not to mention DQ1 is very short) as a nice neat package.

I'd forgotten all about this and will be ALL over them when they finally arrive!

I don't think they would've made the trilogy a surprise, but stranger things have happened. I personally hope it is true because I've always wanted to play the originally trilogy, but hopefully with good QoL improvements since I've waited so long.

@Tyranexx that's a good point actually. It would also explain why it's taken as long as it has

Everyone refers to what we got as mobile versions, but these are actually newer and uglier and far worse than what was released on mobile. Like, a straight mobile port would have been a blessing in comparison. They at least used consistent pixel-based graphics throughout (even if 3 was stripped of T’n’T boards).

I would definitely be excited for a trilogy. But it sounds a little too good to be true. I do think we will probably find out at the Direct in June.

Hope for the best but Dragon Quest III is a prequel to I & II so nothing in that aforementioned video is a hint to it being the whole trilogy, just the chronological start of it.
That being said, anything to replace those sins of god that are the mobile versions of the games are welcome.

I just pray that the remake gets a proper orchestral soundtrack and we can stop being subjected to awful MIDI renditions, PLEASE!!
I'm currently playing through all three versions of DQ V and the PS2 version blows the DS version out of the water with its presentation (namely the soundtrack, it makes so much of a difference!)

Dragon Quest 1 was my first RPG, though over here it was called "Dragon Warrior" and came with a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine. I have many fond memories. I was already sold on DQ3 alone, but the first three games in HD2D style would be overkill, and personally an RPG heaven for me.

It would be awesome if the rumor is true. It's difficult to recommend the first three games to newcomers, because the only versions that are still for sale (in English) are quite awful.
Unless you have a softmodded Switch to be able to patch the sprites back.

@Kingy "Awful"? o_O I've never played a DW or DQ that had "awful" music.

I certainly would love to have them all in that HD-2D style. It would be fun revisiting DQ1 but I never ended up beating the DQ2, so this would likely entice me.

@Asaki Bit of a misunderstanding. Dragon Quest has excellent music, but the majority of the modern games get stuck with low quality MIDI versions of the original arrangements and they sound terrible by comparison.

This isn't across the board, the GBC and SFC soundtracks for DQ I & II and DQ III sound great. But from the DS onwards they started to continuously use the same ear grating renditions all the way up to latest release (The Dark Prince).
To my knowledge DQVIII, the PS2 remake of DQV, DQXI S, and the 3DS remakes of VII & VIII (but only in Japan) are the only games in the entire franchise that got their proper soundtracks. It's baffling, but I think it has something to do with SE not fully owning the rights to Sugiyama's music (at least that's what I remember hearing at one point).

Yeah, the NES, game boy color and some of the SNES soundtracks sounds great, but a lot of what has come after that, hasn’t been of very good quality soundwise. Apart from the orchestral soundtracks. The quality of the compositions is a very different thing, they’ve been excellent in all the games in this series that I have played.

@Kingy I have all of the DS games, and I'd hardly call the music "ear grating". But I only play them on the DS, I don't blast the music over my hi-fi system.

There's nothing baffling about it, it's simply a technological issue. Most PS2 games use DVDs, which can hold 4-9 gigabytes of data. By comparison, the DS ports are only 256 megabytes (one quarter of a gigabyte), so using a sample-based music format makes a lot more sense. If they had used a streaming format, they'd have to compress the music so heavily that it WOULD sound awful.

I don't know the story behind the 3DS games, but I would assume that they wanted to fit the games on smaller chips to save money, since the games don't sell as well in the West as they do in their homeland.

@Asaki Except the original release of Dragon Quest XI, Builders 1 & 2, Treasures, the Dark Prince, and Smash Ultimate all use the MIDI renditions and I don't think you'd argue these games are suffering the same sound limitations as the DS.

@KayFiOS Oops, forgot to reply to this.
There's only a few stops you have to make to chase the Prince down, but if you know where to go, you can skip most of them. I'm pretty sure, if you can make it there alive with just your starting equipment, you can go straight to the Spring, and then straight to Cannock.

@Asaki That's all well and good, but a first-time player, such as myself, isn't going to know that. You can take steps to make it less dumb, but it's still dumb lol

@KayFiOS Idunno, it's really not that many steps, and you're going to want to visit those towns anyway to rest and buy equipment. Especially in the original NES game, the grinding in that one was just brutal.