Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake gets quality-of-life enhancements in new update

We've written several times before that 2024 could be a serious candidate for the best year ever for Japanese role-playing games, with titles like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Persona 3 Reload, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Visions of Mana, and Sand Land being just some of the acclaimed titles released.

At this point, one might suspect that a HD-2D remake of an ancient title such as Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake would get lost in the shuffle, but this was not the case, far from it. It was a huge success for Square Enix (over two million copies sold in just three weeks) that far exceeded their expectations, and as a result they have been keen to look after the game.

Now a new patch has been launched, which in addition to the usual bug fixes and optimisations also includes some major news such as faster travel, changed conditions in battles and above all a "short-cut button" that allows you to assign spells and abilities to specific buttons.

You can find the full patch list below.

Traversal

• The movement speed when travelling by boat or using Ramia has been increased.


• Adjustments have been made to avoid boat travel speed being reset by opening the menu or getting into a battle while travelling by boat.


• A feature has been added whereby pressing the menu button while flying with Ramia allows the player to switch between automatic and manual flight modes.

Vocations

• Critical hit rates for the Hero and Martial Artist have been increased.


• The Hero's Falcon Slash and Gigaslash abilities have been made more powerful.


• The Warrior's Cutting Edge ability has been made more powerful.


• The Priest can now equip the Duplic Hat.


• The Monster Wrangler's Monster Pile-On ability has been changed to have reduced power until all friendly monsters have been found, and to carry out a random number of attacks between 3 and 5.


• The amount of MP used by the Monster Wrangler ability Wild Side has been changed to 30.

Battle

• A limit has been placed on the number of times that some monsters can perform certain actions within one turn.


• Some monsters have been adjusted so that they no longer use Defending Champion in the next turn after they become the last remaining monster.


• The status-ailment resistance of boss monsters has been increased for Draconian Quest difficulty.


• Adjustments have been made to make it more difficult for both enemies and party members to be successively afflicted with the same status ailments.


• Some monsters (Metal Chimaera and Hardy Hand) now yield more experience points when defeated.


• Defense has been lowered for all monsters except for metal monsters.


• Minor adjustments have been made to the way that damage is dealt.

Miscellaneous

• Once the Mini Medal Manor has been visited, it will be added to the list of Zoom destinations.


• A new "short-cut button" feature has been added that allows spells and abilities to be assigned to specific buttons. For more information, please refer to Traveller's Tips in-game.


• In the Temple of Trials, the number of Elfin Elixirs required to be handed over to the guard has been changed to 10.


• A treasure chest has been added to the Temple of Trials, allowing players to acquire one more Gringham Whip.


• Fixed a bug whereby levelling up after using the Seed of Life or Seed of Magic items would cause the status increase value to be calculated twice.


• Adjustments have been made so that if trophies and achievements have not been acquired correctly, selecting Misc. > Info in the menu allows some of them to be reacquired.


• Miscellaneous fixes for minor bugs.

Don't forget to read our review where we explain why this is a saga you should play through if you like classic Japanese role-playing games.