Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake Review (Striker Tenshi)
Beautiful remake of the childhood classic for me. Improved in almost every way: gorgeous graphics, voice acting, sprite animations, and general quality of life improvements. The soundtrack is also something to mention; they used the music from the orchestral symphony that was performed many years ago and IT IS INCREDIBLE.
That said, the game feels a little easier that what I remember from 20+ years ago, but there is a difficulty modifier you can add if you want more of a challenge. It could also be because I'm a grown adult that has better decision making skills than 8 year old me.
Bought it for the nostalgia honestly. I loved the original Dragon Quest 3. Some of the censorship decisions that were made are a little annoying, but honestly the overall experience is so refreshing that I look past them. I look forward to the remake of Dragon Quest 1 & 2.
EDIT: Post 80-Hour review addition:
Still great, the overall experience was wonderful. After 80 hours I certainly feel like I got my money's worth, but again, I bought this for nostalgia. There was some content that was cut from the originals, mainly the Game Track/Parchisi board. Unfortunate as I was looking forward to replaying those portions, but it's not game breaking as you can earn the best weapons from the new post-main story dungeon/content. The new Monster Wrangler class is CRACKED, especially if you complete all the Monster Rescues...
If you're new to Dragon Quest or have never played the original, understand that the original trilogy marked THE beginning of the JRPG genre, predating Final Fantasy by a year or two. That said, the story and mechanics are 'vanilla' compared to RPGs of today because... well, this game is over 30 years old. Given the age of the source game, I think the devs did a great job with this remake. Certainly worth playing, even if you pick it up at a discount.
The biggest let down for me was When you defeat Zoma and watch the epilogue, the final credit roll (in the original) read as 'Thus, the legend was born.' with the crescendo of the DQ3 theme playing, which was so freaking epic when I first experienced it. They changed the ending credit roll to read 'Thus, the Seeds of Salvation were sown.' I guess someone wanted to tie in the subtitle of the game into the ending, but its... SO LAME compared to the original. It's even more frustrating considering that the final steam achievement has the original ending referenced "A Legend is Born"..
All in all, I still highly recommend this game.