Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake Update is Live — Here’s What’s New

Square Enix has dropped an update for Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, improving boat travel speed, critical hit rates and abilities, and introducing a new shortcut button that lets you map spells and abilities to specific buttons.

As detailed on Steam, update Ver. 1.2.0.0 specifically addresses issues with three key areas: traversal, vocations, and battle. For the former, Square Enix said it had increased the movement speed when travelling by boat or using Ramia, as well as ensured that if you open the menu while travelling, you won’t see your travel speed continually reset every time.

You’ll also find that critical hit rates for the Hero and Martial Artist have been increased, and The Hero’s Falcon Slash and Gigaslash abilities, as well as The Warrior’s Cutting Edge ability, have been buffed to be “more powerful,” too.

Perhaps most notably, battles have been refreshed as well, and a limit placed on the number of times some monsters can keep spamming the same attacks in the same “turn.” Defence has been lowered for all monsters bar metal ones, although adjustments have also been made to make it a little trickier for both enemies and your squad to be “successively afflicted” with the same status ailments.

Here’s the full list of changes and improvements:

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake update Ver. 1.2.0.0

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.
• Defence 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.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake lets you experience the chronological beginning of the Erdrick Trilogy storyline in this remake of the original RPG classic. We enjoyed our time with Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, awarding it an impressive 9/10 in our review, writing: “Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is a shining example of how to remake a classic RPG and a brilliant reminder of why the original is an essential work.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.