Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is, as you might imagine, a faithful and gorgeous remake of one of the most iconic games to ever grace fuzzy television sets in the ’80s. Taking on the role of the child of Ortega, a renowned hero, it is your task to journey the world, saving countless people, and taking on otherworldly threats.
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Naturally, as a remade classic, there are a bunch of old-school trappings to deal with, along with some new features that might throw veterans for a loop unless they’re paying close attention! If you’re struggling with the opening hours of this mammoth RPG, though, we have some tips to help ease your journey.
Think Carefully About Your Stat Seeds
As you make your way through the game, you’ll get your hands on more stat seeds than you can count. A tempting reflex to indulge would be to feed them all to your Hero – they’re the character you’ll always be using, right?
We would heavily recommend against feeding everything to your Hero. They are only one part of a four-person party, after all.
The second your hero falls in battle, all those seeds you fed them would go to waste. The better option is to give the seeds to the party members who will benefit the most from them, capitalising on their strengths.
By capitalising on strengths, we mean that you shouldn’t be trying to make up for flaws! Warriors will always have low MP, your magic-users will always be casting spells and not attacking. Spend your seeds appropriately.
Searching For Treasure
A good and classic feature of the game is being able to find items within pots, barrels, wardrobes, bookcases, and satchels hanging on walls. Dutiful explorers will find a hoard of items and coins just by being diligent searchers.
As you play, you’ll come to realise that the models used for searchable locations is very consistent. A pot with an item in will look identical regardless of where it is. Learn what these look like and you’ll not only save time in trying to search dud areas, but you’ll start to notice them more frequently when in a new area.
Stock Up On The Essentials
While the game is quite forgiving, especially early on, there are a few items that make for handy and trusty companions that you should always have in your Item Bag, regardless of where you are:
- Medicinal Herbs are crucial at the start of the game, where random encounters can whittle down your HP quickly and they’ll heal up a good chunk of your health. They’re also handy later on, being so cheap that they can be stockpiled easily and make for great ways to heal up outside battles to save on MP.
- Prayer Rings are incredible ways to restore MP, as they have only a slight chance to break upon usage. Our advice would be to use them liberally when you have multiples, and to save one for emergencies – a little extra MP can help you eke out a victory over a tough boss or push a little deeper in a tough dungeon.
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Until your hero (or your mage or sage) learns Zoom, you’ll absolutely want to make sure you always have a few Chimaera Wings on hand. These will allow you to escape dangerous dungeons, return to a safe town from the depths of the world map, and quickly travel between settlements to complete quests or set off in a new direction.
- It’s still important to keep these on hand even when you have Zoom – dead party members cannot cast spells, and you don’t want to be trapped in a dungeon with three dead party members and no way to zip out back to safety!
Dungeon Double Dips
With high encounter rates and tough enemies, especially in the mid and late-game, dungeons are truly perilous propositions. The unfortunate thing is that they’re also stacked with valuable and useful treasures, tempting you to explore thoroughly, which takes a lot of time and risks much with your HP and MP reserves falling quickly.
The tip here is not to worry too much about searching every inch of a dungeon on your first visit. When the world opens up a bit, it’s quite likely that you’ll end up taking on a dungeon that you cannot complete in one trip. We recommend splitting your trip up into multiple – some dungeons are arduous on a trip to get all the treasure chests, and then far kinder when you’re returning for a quick trip to the boss.
Monsters Are Stronger At Night
This tip is quite self-explanatory. While monsters don’t actually get stronger, you’ll face more difficult random encounters at night, which can make things problematic when making a long journey to the next town or dungeon.
Until you get a handy way of changing the time of day at will, we recommend staying at inns or waiting manually until dawn before making a long trip.
Autosave Will Save Your Funds
Falling in battle is, classically, punishing. Being revived at the last church you visited will halve your funds, which is incredibly frustrating. The classic way to avoid this frustration is to save your money in the game’s banks, which will prevent you from losing tons of gold coins just because you bit off more than you can chew.
This version of the game, however, has a far more versatile and convenient way to avoid financial ruin: autosave. In the vast majority of cases, falling in battle and simply reloading your last autosave (which will never be too long ago) will place you in a situation where you can cast Zoom or use a Chimaera Wing to get out of danger and try again.
Unless you’re in one of the few situations where Zoom is blocked and your autosave doesn’t give you an escape route, use autosave before resurrecting at a church.
Experiment With Monster Wrangling
New to the Remake is Monster Wrangling and its associated vocation, the Monster Wrangler. Early in the game, you’ll be introduced to Monster Wrangling and given the ability to recruit monsters you find over the course of your adventure.
This feature is intrinsically linked to the power of the Monster Wranglers in your party, who gain new moves when you hit certain thresholds of monsters recruited. Wranglers also learn some very useful moves, such as early group healing and stunning moves, making them excellent all-rounders like your Hero.
We recommend having a Monster Wrangler in your party at all times. Not only do they make for excellent combatants, but they make it so that you do not need to use the Musk item or a Thief’s silent steps to recruit monsters. They’re versatile and wonderful at their jobs.
Don’t Neglect Mini Medals!
Easily missed, there’s a well in the starting town, Aliahan. You can enter this well and meet the Mini Medal collector, who will give you very valuable and powerful treasures when you hit certain thresholds.
Mini Medals are found throughout the entire game, making it important and rewarding to explore every nook and cranny – even being careful to check out suspicious patches of ground where you might find the items around your feet.
Thieves learn a skill that will highlight patches of ground to explore! If you have a Thief in your party, it’s a good idea to make liberal use of this in every new (and old) area you come across!
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Dragon Quest 3 Remake: Most Useful Abilities
These are the abilities that will help you get through Dragon Quest 3 Remake.