Dragon Quest HD-2D Remakes Include A "Surprise" If You Play In Chronological Order

@Ooyah It's at least going to be crap yhea! 😂

$60 for a remake of a 34 year old game. I will put my head in a vise before I overpay that much.

@Maulbert Ever heard of inflation? Because that’s why prices for video games are so high.

Bait used to be believable back in my day…

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil Game prices are one of the few things that have remained pretty constant over the years, at least where I live. They were always the equivalent of 60 bucks. From Atari2600 up to now. Always the same.

In fact, we have way more cheaper options now than we did back then.

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil @Maulbert look up flyers from the 1990s and see how much video games cost then. The PlayStation brought some stability in price, but it wasn't until the PS2/GC/Xbox era that we saw a universal pricing structure. Otherwise, especially in the NES/SNES/MS/Genesis days, it was the wild west for prices. There were some N64 games that came out for $70 brand new. Wouldn't be surprised if the original DQ3 released at $50-60 or more dollars when it came out as Dragon Warrior III.

So they're releasing them out of order and rewarding you only if you play them in order?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

@Pat_trick If you read the article they make it clear that you play them in "Chronological" order. So basically timeline order. Dragon Quest 3, then 1, then 2. Basically beat them in the order they're releasing the remakes in.

@Daniel36 Phantasy Star IV was $99.99 in 1995. Game prices have not been “always the same” over time.

@Pat_trick No. The chronological order is III, I, II. That’s the order they’re being released in.

@Pat_trick No, back in the NES days, they released I first, then II, then III.

Now, III (the prequel story) is coming out first, followed by I & II. The order of the NES releases has the prequel placed after II, but the remakes are fixing that.

@Daniel36 "Game prices are one of the few things that have remained pretty constant over the years, at least where I live. They were always the equivalent of 60 bucks. From Atari2600 up to now. Always the same."

I agree with you on the cheaper options thing, but weren’t video games (not consoles) HELLA cheap in the 2010s?

@VoidofLight Yeah fair. This part "and then move on to the second and third title in 2025 when they launch" confused me. I could've been better worded, calling the DQ II the third title didn't make much sense to me.

Gameplay wise, going from III to I is pretty jarring.
I get why they went for DQIII first and all, but yeah.

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil the original was like $49.99 so it didn’t inflate much.

This version is completely redone, top to bottom. $60 is more than fair.

@Synecdoche phantasy star was a huge outlier. It was an expensive cart to produce.

@LadyCharlie for the original versions, sure, but they’re remaking the things. It will be considerably less jarring.

Really looking forward to these releases. HD2D had me in love from the first reveal of Octopath Traveller.

Oooh! I was planning on playing these I didn’t know three came first in the timeline, I was going to wait for one to come out as I thought that was first, looks like I can play three without issue!

@Liam_Doolan Thank you for clarifying! I got a little bit confused, but other people explained it to me.

It's a nifty trick to convince people to buy all 3 games

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil If they were building the entire game from the ground up, sure. They already have the blueprint, and the engine.

This should be $30, maximum.

@progx Completely ignoring the fact that this is not a new game.

It might unlock gender selection and bikini armour!

Sounds like a good incentive to get all three and play them in the chronological order.

@Maulbert Which is very clear, it's a remake. People had to write all code of the game again. So it's basically a new game. Then the $60 price point isn't that strange. It's even cheap seeing PS5 games being sold for $80.

I think you aren't going to like the next generation if you think $60 for a game is too much.

@progx ...and in those days you got a manual, map and physical cartridge with lots of hardware inside. These days you get a little flash card, nothing else.

Also if you think game prices haven't inflated much. You are just completely mistaken. Even if the regular purchase price hasn't gone up much. Games these day almost always come with post purchase upsales (dlc, lootboxes, subscriptions, etc). Also games try to make you play them as long as they can.

So basically I and II will have save data bonuses. So long as it isn't something daft like you get an NPC say 'you know what happens when you add I and II together? You don't get III, you get XII' Dragon Quest XII logo appears

@jesse_dylan Virtua Racing was also $99.99 in 1994. SNES Street Fighter II was $69.99 in 1992 (that would be more than $150 today). Streets of Rage 2 was $64.99 in 1993. Chrono Trigger was $79.99 in 1995. Neo Geo games were $199-$299 in 1991. It’s simply not true that games have “always” been the equivalent of $60 today.

@Crono1973 They also had to ship those games and put them in warehouses and retail space. Funny how often these things are forgotten.

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil Well, maybe Call of Duty games that were churned out faster than one could buy. Sure, there were probably many games on sale quicker than average.

But the same still holds true. I missed out on Unicorn Overlord. Sold out everywhere! Several months later I found a copy in the wild for 60. Instantly bought it. Two weeks later I saw the game for 35 in the same store chain, in different cities.

Suffice to suy I was pretty ticked off. Pretty much same thing with all RPGs I bought day one, though. Rarity no longer seems to be an issue.

@Synecdoche Outliers be outlyin'

so, buy 3, wait until whenever 1 and 2 come out, but them, play chronological?

@Archius9 3 is a prequel to 1. So the chronological order is 3, 1, 2.

@Maulbert Well there's the awful mobile port on the eShop for $13 if you want that. It is not mind blowing like DQIII 2D HD but it's still just DQIII.

@sanderev I literally knew this ha. not sure why i blanked on it

My Type 1 body is ready

I really want to get this but ill also be playing brothership at that time!

@Pat_trick Chronological order means timeline/storyline order, not the order the game originally released. A good example of this is Street Fighter. By release order it's SF1, 2, Alpha, EX, 3, 4, 5 and finally 6 but chronologically the storyline order is SF1, then Alpha, then 2, EX, 4, 5, 3, and finally 6. Fortunately SFEX is non-canon so it shouldn't be on the timeline but if you include it, it makes more sense that it takes place between SF2 and SF4. Also do know that SF Alpha is just Street Fighter 0, in Japan they wrote as Street Fighter Zero instead of using the number zero.

@Maulbert Agreed, $60 is far too much, even for a NES remake (I felt the exact same way with Link's Awakening, a GB remake at $60). I really don't think that much is going to be added to justify that price based on the previews. However this game will definitely go on sale, so worth the wait. $60 for the full remake trilogy would have been a much more justifiable price.

@Axecon The thing is Dragon Quest III is a much bigger and longer game than DQI and DQII so it make sense for it to cost $60 especially if it's going to include some surprises in there too. DQI is only 10 hours long and DQII is only 25 hours long but DQIII is 40 hours long so it make sense for both DQI and II to be bundle together for the same price. I'm sure in the future Square Enix may bundle the three 2D HD remakes together but that's still a long way coming.

@Maulbert Refer to the comment from @jesse_dylan about the price of the original Dragon Quest III back in the day.

@Daniel36 Yeah, I remember Call of Duty games being total shelf warmers. My dad had only played a few of them (MW2, MW3, Black Ops 2, Black Ops 3, and the remakes of Modern Warfare 1 & 2).

@RygelXVIII Yes, that is true — everything else is affected by inflation.

@JohnnyMind Dude, you are the most sensible and optimistic person I've ever seen on comment sections. Please stick around!

@Synecdoche yes, I agree, but you’re still listing outliers. Final fantasy 3/6 was up there too. The point people are trying to make is that games haven’t gone up in price much, if at all, especially taking inflation into account. If anything games are too cheap.

Gonna need a lot more than that to convince me not to just play the originals or GBC versions on the Pocket again. Especially after they clearly illustrated they don't care about preserving the artistic vision.

"Sorry we took out the surprise plot twist by releasing the trilogy in the wrong order. Hopefully we can make up for it by including a different surprise plot twist!"

@_@

@Coalescence I'm not usually taken in by "ooh, shiny new remake!" but I'm excited for these. I just hope the translations do the games justice, I'm rather love/hate with modern DQ in English (I do find charm in the original NES translations, but GBC really did them best).

I think I'm more excited for all the people who finally get to play these, because there's no way I can recommend the terrible ports that are currently for sale. Barf.

...people complaining about the price as if brand new console games haven't been ~$60 for decades now...
Besides, if one is that concerned about money, it's DRAGON QUEST. Keep the case and cart in good condition, and its value will go into the triple digits before you know it.

@RygelXVIII and inflation hasn’t increased the price of games. You’re making an (entirely correct) political argument, but it’s beside the point.

But when it comes to this game, the amount of work and effort that’s gone into it is commensurate with a completely new game. If you want to play dragon warrior 3 from 1990 instead feel free

People who make games need money too. Their salaries haven’t gone up enough with inflation either. I’d rather games cost more to buy and less to make, and developers were treated better. We’re in a race to the bottom. Soon, just like with clothing and electronics, the labor on video games will be shipped overseas to China where people cost less. You’re not in favor of that are you? Of course not, my friend.

@Maulbert no. I’m not. It still takes work to rework these games from the ground up. I don’t know anything about programming and design, but this belief these games are remade need to be $20 is a matter of perspective. To me, $60 is a bit much for this game, but I had no hand in the complete redesign of it.

A year ago I was very hyped for this game, but thanks to censorship on Akira Toriyama's work (RIP) I don't want anything about this game anymore.

@Cronodoug if you hadn’t heard about it, would you even have known while playing the game

@jesse_dylan DQI doesn't have party members, so it will still be pretty jarring going from III's super customizable vocations to just a single hero. A remake won't really change that.

@ReaperMelia Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it will necessarily be jarring. Even the game boy color versions held up fairly well, 2 in particular. I think people underestimate the amount of work put in to revitalizing them.

@Cronodoug that’s a pretty narrow view, just because the warrior decided to put on shorts under her unrealistic plate armor bikini.

Seen a few comments about how going from 3 back to 1 is going to be jarring from the game mechanics perspective since 1 didn't have a party and was much shorter. That's been bugging me a little too. I'm wondering if they're going to do anything to try to help with that transition. Hopefully nothing too drastic, but especially for people new the series it'll be a big, wait what just happened, kinda deal.

Either way, I'm super looking forward to getting DQ III this year. I put it on my Christmas list for the family to buy for me, so it's going to be painful not playing it at release. Maybe we'll get a little more about QoL stuff that's been added before release. I also assume they'll be one more really nice trailer before release.

Should have just released all 3 together.

Considering the "surprise" at the end of another DQ game that linked to III, I wouldn't be surprised to find that carrying data from III to I & II will add some new content that links back to that game. There's even the possibility that it may even be an extra party member

@jesse_dylan I wasn't saying it would be bad. I like all three, but it's still going to be a little jarring going from a more open-ended game to one that's much smaller in scale. That being said, I'm not complaining, either. DQ is one of my favorite game franchises, so I'm very excited for all three remakes.

@ReaperMelia Well, it will definitely be interesting to see how they handle it (or don't handle it)

Inflation tends to raise prices so something back 34yrs will not cost the same so unless you go back and redo the software to work on Switch. People tend to forget the cost to re-master codes/programming to work on Switch. You don't just dump to Switch cart and it works. People have simple mindset here and can't grasp the concept what you pay is has inflations added to it.

I'll get the game because it's on Switch why else. If that person is so additament to play the 34 yr old game go get the retro cart game and retro console and play on that.

These old JRPGs can be so long I wouldn't even be done until the next two games are out, even if I started at the launch of this one.

I one has to start with 3 and then go 1 then 2 then I can do that to see what rewards it gives.

Yuji Horii comes to your house and gives you one DQ Burger Blizzard combo meal.

@Serpenterror Oh nice, I didn't know that about DQIII before. 40 hours is kind of my sweet spot right now for an RPG, not including the grinding, party tinkering, side questing, exploring and ambiance enjoying!

@Pat_trick read the article: 3 is a prequel to 1 and 2.

@ChromaticDracula Read the comments. People clarified it to me. Part of the article was confusing to me and it was explained.

Thanks for posting what 4 other people already said but in a much more rude and useless manner.

I'm a DQ fan and only dabbled in 1 & 2 for shame. III onwards was where it was at for me. Still, I will play HD-2D remakes of the first two with QoL hopefully. Looking forward to III HD-2D

@Maulbert it was probably $80 when it came out, so I imagine it went down in price!