 So, the Dragon Quest 3 Remake was announced by Square Enix using the Octopath Traveler Engine. I can't say it's too surprising, this is one of the most famous Dragon Quest games out there and it's actually been remade numerous times before in the past, but I am really excited for this new remake in particular for a number of reasons and I think you should be excited too. I talked about Dragon Quest 3 in my Top 5 Dragon Quest Games video where I call it one of the best games in the series and I recommended it for newcomers to the series despite its age. To me, this is a game every RPG fan needs to play. Decades after its release on the Famicom, it remains the most influential Japanese role-playing game ever made. Yes, it is the number one most influential JRPG ever. If you've ever played and enjoyed a JRPG, whatever game you played probably owes a whole lot to this 1988 classic in terms of the innovation it brought to the table. Despite being the trendsetter, it still holds up even today and stands among the greatest RPGs ever made. The gameplay, design, and story are so highly refined it's almost like the Dragon Quest team set out to make the game as perfect as possible. This is a non-linear, open-world adventure where you make meaningful choices and no two players will have the same journey. You can visit the many towns and dungeons at your leisure and fight the game's bosses in any order you want and that's not to mention the optional pathways that feature their own unique rewards. There are several quests and stories in the game that you can ignore and still proceed with the game which is really unique for the genre. This gives potential for different play styles. This is not to mention that there's tons of choices and customization in the game with a party system allowing players to create their own characters with their own gender, class, name, skills, and personality. There are just so many different options for the characters you create. The classes include martial artists, warriors, mages, and more. And each class has its own strengths and weaknesses as well as their own unique equipment. And probably the best part about Dragon Quest 3 is that you can change your party's classes at level 20 which allows you to transfer skills between character classes making for infinite possibilities. You can mix and match different vocations to transfer spells and attributes between classes to take advantage of the strengths of both. This is just an extremely deep game with many layers to it and tons of possibilities and I haven't even talked about the expertly craft of world design that invites players to explore which includes a day and night cycle that plays into the main gameplay as well as the great characters and writing. That's a lot to say that this game is great and I'm super excited that it's being remade. We've never had an expansive Dragon Quest game with this kind of choice and freedom since DQ3. They've mostly been rather straightforward with preset characters since this game. So it is really a unique entry in the series and I'm especially happy that they chose to remake this one in particular. The reason you should be excited for this remake is because it has the potential of being the best version of the game we've ever had. This is being made by the developers who worked on Project Octopath's Traveler and they are bringing over their HD2D art style to the table. This game looks absolutely incredible. Visually it already blows the other versions of the game out of the water. This looks so much better than that mediocre Switch port we got two years ago. That game was a port of the mobile phone version from 2009 and it just looks like doo doo. I mean seriously it looks like shit. That version of the game had these smoothed over HD sprites in a 16-bit world which clashed and the monster didn't even move when attacking. The amazing 2D backgrounds during battles were also botched and you can't even see the entire thing. That's not to mention that it was missing a ton of content from previous versions but we'll get to that shortly. This was basically a Nokia phone game that they repackaged to sell to us but this version of the game clearly has actual love put into it. This new remake is expressive and beautiful. The monsters in battle have idle animations moving in place when you're facing them and when the monsters get hit there is even a special animation where the enemies get knocked out like this Stark Raven over here. There's clearly a ton of detail going into this game. Dragon Quest has never had animations on this level before. The DS remakes of 4, 5 and 6 came close but were never this good. Even the overall characters look amazing. There's more walking frames than before so walk animations look smoother and you can actually see the characters during battles with unique idle animations that just look so good. There's amazing lighting and particle effects. We see towers with light peeking through the windows that illuminate the characters. The day and night shift looks amazing with dust in the wind and light in the distance. There's even an interesting scene in the cave dungeon with the hero being seen holding a lamp lighting the way which is a great inclusion that wasn't in the original and it makes me think they're focusing on this kind of attention in detail. A lot of the environments and graphics in this game are paying homage to Dragon Quest 3 and the Super Famicom as the 3D models for the buildings as well as the battlefield are based very closely on the tiles of the 16-bit version. This game is faithful to the vision of the original game but is bringing it to the current day with new technology and overall I'm very happy with this 2D, 3D hybrid look. It just came out so perfectly. It's the same great game with a brand new look. So this game looks amazing but that's not the only reason I'm excited. You see Dragon Quest 3 was remade multiple times before with new features that refined and enhanced the game over the years. It was remade on the Super Famicom with a bunch of new features including new classes and collectibles as well as various balancing changes. We actually never got this version in the West. However, we did get the Game Boy Color version that released later with all the same content plus an extra added bonus dungeon. A lot of the cool features we got in these two remakes were removed in the lackluster Switch port that we got years later. So there's no Pachizi board, no bonus dungeon, no monster animations. It's overall a disappointing port and so the debate over which version of Dragon Quest 3 is the best has been raging on for years. With this new version, the debate can finally be over. They can add all of the missing features from the remakes into the new remake giving us a complete and definitive version of Dragon Quest 3. Heck, maybe they can add even more content to the game extending the play time. There could be new dungeons, quests, locations, maybe new classes. They can simplify the menu system and introduce more quality of life and they can even add new plot elements linking the game's story to newer Dragon Quest games fixing some inconsistencies in the series lore that have lingered over the years. The potential of what is possible with this remake is what really makes this whole thing exciting. To me, this is without a doubt the best DQ35th anniversary announcement and I'm beyond excited. It is currently my most anticipated game and I really hope Square Enix reveals more info soon. Are you excited for Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D remake? What are you looking forward to most? Let me know in the comments, I would really like to hear. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.