New Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake update increases Ramia and ship movement speed, adds shortcut menu, and more

Square Enix has released a new update for Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake with quality of life improvements, balance adjustments, and more.

This update is currently live on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam (Update: Added English patch notes below). The highlights of the update are increased movement speed for Ramia and the ship, a new shortcut command menu you can use by pressing the appropriate button (R on Switch, R1 on PS5, and RB on Xbox controllers) and assigning any of the d-pad directions, and various balance adjustments and fixes.

You can find the full Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake 1.1.0 update patch notes here in Japanese and also below via the official Steam announcement:

Dragon Qust III HD-2D Remake version 1.2.0 update patch notes on Steam

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 III HD-2D Remake is now available worldwide for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). Read Cullen's review of it here and my handheld comparison article here. You can also find our many Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake guides here including a full walkthrough.