Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake's revamped Monster Arena and beating up Robbin’ ‘Ood at Skyfell Tower - Preview
With the release of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on the horizon, we got another hands-on look at the upcoming RPG as its November 14 release inches closer and closer. This preview showcases one brand-new reworked element in the remake, and a familiar locale to players who have played any of the previous versions of Dragon Quest III before
Square Enix just recently released a trailer formally introducing the Monster Wrangler vocation that’s being added in this upcoming new version of Dragon Quest III. Aside from their unique ability to learn skills from monsters to add onto their moveset, they also open up the possibility for players to rescue monsters as well.
While the exact details haven’t been explicitly laid out to us, there seems to be a new mechanic in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake that will allow people to pet monsters in order to recruit them. It’s unclear if only the Monster Wrangler vocation alone possesses this ability or if you can just encounter friendly non-hostile monsters as you wander around that you can recruit.
Either way, this feature of recruiting monsters paves the way for the revamped Monster Arena inside this remake. Monsters that you have “rescued”, as the game puts it, can participate in up to 3-vs-3 matches against other teams of monsters. This is quite reminiscent of what’s been in the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series for many years, as people do not have direct control over their squad of monsters.
Instead, the trio of monsters must be issued commands from the Tactics menu that merely guides them on their actions - which is similar to how party members are directed if you don’t want to always manually control their turn. The monsters can be told to conserve their MP, go all out, or strike a balance; healers can additionally be told to focus on healing.
In this demo build, Square Enix provided me with an all-star team of Slime, Healslime, and Spiked Hare. Even though I couldn’t directly control their actions, resource management remains a key component because the fights in the Monster Arena consist of multiple waves of consecutive fights. If a team of monsters burns up their MP early on, later fights might end up being more of a struggle.
I decided to dig a little deeper into the status screen of each of my monsters and all of them had their own individual levels and many question marks in their ability list, so my hunch is that there is probably a deep rabbit hole for those that want to reach the depths of this expanded version of the Monster Arena in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. In previous DQ3 releases, the Monster Arena existed in a more basic fashion, in which players could bet gold on monster fights.
Now, achieving victory with your cultivated, customized team of monsters will yield not only gold, but items and even equipment, too.
After checking out the Monster Arena, I was encouraged to ascend Skyfell Tower - a location that Dragon Quest III players should remember. I was caught off-guard just how different this location was reflected in this new remake. Its 3D rendering accompanied my wandering 2D pixel party composed of the Hero, a Mage, a Priest, and a Monster Wrangler quite well.
It was easy to tell that a lot of care was put into the Skyfell Tower’s environmental lighting for this new version of Dragon Quest III. The outside light now subtly creeps into the deteriorating stone structure. Previous releases of Dragon Quest III usually laid out Skyfell Tower’s floors in a square-oriented space, while Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake adapted its floors to be more circular and spacious.
There were several explorable rooms in each of the floors that contained environmental assets that feeded into its abandoned atmosphere; books were laid out with accompanying sparsely-filled shelves. Emptied tables and chairs simply lay there slowly decaying, as if they were all frozen in time.
While the Hero, Priest, and Mage are known quantities at this point, the Monster Wrangler vocation seems to be a universally useful job class depending on how committed a player is in expanding its repertoire of moves. My current Monster Wrangler for the demo filled a rather helpful jack-of-all-trades role that had a single-target and AoE attack, as well as abilities that could buff, debuff, and support the party. It seems like it can fill any lingering roles a player may need for their party set up with the potential to be amazing, if there are any learnable monster abilities that are in a class of their own.
Of course, reaching the top of the Skyfell Tower means encountering Robbin’ ‘Ood and his group of thieves. They still spring the floor trap when you initially catch them thieving the treasure room, which looks splendid in the remake by the way. The boss fight was a bit of a threat due to how hard Robbin’ ‘Ood himself hit and I wasn’t armed with many AoE moves that could reliably hit all enemies consistently.
Nevertheless, I still had the available tools to achieve an effective strategy. Buffing my agility, debuffing the boss’s attack power, and gradually taking out his company one-by-one eventually got me to a comfortable, advantageous position in the fight. My time with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake ended immediately after the boss fight, but the little I’ve played of it here already has me extremely excited to experience one of my favorite Dragon Quest entries in a new way this November.
