Fifteen years ago, the original Class of Heroes 3 arrived on PlayStation 3 and PSP. However, it never departed Japan, leaving Western fans of the franchise to either import it and learn Japanese or not play the game. Now, this classic dungeon crawler finally comes to the West as Class of Heroes 3 Remaster. Has the wait been worth it?
DRPG is one of those fascinating genres with a rich and unexpected history. While these games have been huge in Japan in recent history and have barely existed in the West for the last twenty years, this is likely the reason why the original Class of Heroes 3 never came out here. It might lead one to think that this is a genre with its roots in Japan; however, its roots go far, far deeper than most people realise today.
The genre was born with the legendary game Wizardry in 1981, making it one of the oldest genres of games on the market, and, more significantly, one of the genres that has seen the least change over the years. DRPGs mostly follow an exceptionally rich and honed tradition that makes them feel oh-so-familiar to fans of the genre. It is a formula almost perfected from the get-go, with an addictive, challenging, yet relaxing gameplay cycle that quickly puts the player in a thoughtfully meditative state.
Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is a great game to look at for an insight into the genre’s history, as it was initially released fifteen years ago, neither at the beginning of it, nor in what would be considered the current age of gaming. A lot of the old genre quirks are there. Spells with very odd names that look like code, a relic from an era where there was limited space for words, are now deliberately left in as part of the genre’s DNA; the classic trope of borderline unfair traps being the hidden main antagonist of the game; and the items in the initial shop being so pricey that the player realises they are definitely pick-ups for later in the game, initially giving them a glowing carrot on a stick to chase after.
These old relics are mixed in with some more modern elements, such as spells that serve as significant quality-of-life improvements, making the experience feel more fair and digestible, even for those who are not hardcore fans of the genre. It is a lovely mix of the old and new in so many good ways.
The systems of Class of Heroes 3 Remaster are a phenomenal display of why this genre has not gone through so many changes throughout its history. There are so many micro and macro accomplishments that happen all the time. Every time the player visits a new tile in a dungeon, it gets filled in on the map, and every encounter gives both experience points that will level up the character and gold with which to buy those sparkling items in the shop. Everything that happens progresses the game in one way or another, constantly feeding the player with feedback for even the most minor accomplishments.
This kind of constant rewarding is highly addictive and fun. Even if little to no progress happened, any progress will still feel really rewarding. This microprogress is why games of this genre often not only get away with being painfully punishing but thrive in part because of it. The biggest weakness of this genre is usually that it becomes repetitive, as players often use the same classes throughout the entire game. Class of Heroes 3 Remaster solves this in a fun way, with a very fleshed-out class and sub-class system.
Class of Heroes 3 Remaster features 45 different classes, ranging from classical fantasy staples like fighters to real-time jobs, including journalist, funnily enough. There are also some weirder anime trope classes, though, like a tsundere class and an otaku class. This amount of variety makes the possibilities for party building almost endless. To make sure the player even tries out most of the classes in a playthrough, the level of a class is independent of the character level, making class shifting far less punishing than in many games. They also level up quite quickly to the point that the player can get to fully experience several classes on each character in a single playthrough without the need for excessive grinding. A nice bonus in addition to making the game less repetitive is that it also adds yet another little system that dripfeeds rewards.
While the systems of Class of Heroes 3 Remaster are phenomenal, there are sadly some quite massive flaws in the gameplay. As mentioned earlier, the DRPG genre often gets away with having brutal difficulty, as it usually is part of the experience to make small steps of progress. Early on, this game really hits the mark difficulty-wise. The player can quickly be sent back to town due to minor issues, such as poison traps and enemies that really push the party’s resources to the limit over time. The third dungeon, Labyrinth of the Underworld, in particular, is sadistic in ways that even Etrian Odyssey would be proud of. It really leaves a thirst for more challenging content to match it, but after that dungeon, the difficulty goes downhill very fast.
The issue is twofold. First of all, after completing Labyrinth of the Underworld, the player will likely have acquired many of the more powerful tools in their toolkit, as this is inevitable due to the numerous battles they will encounter in the underworld and the brutal nature of some of the traps. The biggest problem that is completely unforgivable is the fact that the power of the enemies actually drops after this area.
It is excruciating to go back after the peak of the game’s difficulty to fight trash mobs that are often even easier than those seen in the second dungeon for the next ten to twenty hours. Once the power of the enemies has gone up again to be even near that of the enemies in the Labyrinth of the Underworld, the player is overleveled for those encounters as well and can push out encounter-deleting spells like it is nothing.
The only threat that remains past that point is those treasure chests – the treasure chests with their sometimes total party killing (TPK) traps. While it is always fun to get met with a wonderful TPK in a DRPG, it feels so hollow when the only way to encounter them is by opening a treasure chest while the enemies never even do anything to the party.
This ease of gameplay is not exclusively an experience when powergaming by playing as a highly optimised party, either; it even happens when starting fresh classes to level up. It makes all of the carefully created systems drown out, as the player really does not need to experience it for the rest of the main story after the first couple of dungeons. It feels like pure cruelty that Class of Heroes 3 Remaster gives players a taste of actual difficulty in the DRPG genre to immediately pull the rug away afterwards, making the rest of the game a picnic.
The outlier here is the first three dungeons, which are challenging. It feels like these were designed for a more brutal, grindier DRPG, while the rest of the game is for a more casual game. Neither is bad in itself, but the issue is that when the player and party are tuned for a harder DRPG, which is required to get out of the wonderful early game hell, it makes the rest of the game boring at that point.
While difficulty spikes are annoying no matter the genre, RPGs with level-based progress are harmed so much more by it than other genres, as it does not get more relaxing; the numbers become way off. Class of Heroes 3 Remaster makes this issue so clear. When an average player can defeat late-game bosses in just a couple of turns without any grinding at all, the difficulty is too much on the easy side from a purely numerical perspective.
It is sadly not the biggest problem of the game; another huge issue is the localisation. There are so many painful and game-disrupting mistranslations. For example, several stats have two different names depending on which menu the player is in. Before the player realises this, it becomes really confusing to see an item give stats that are not even on the character sheet. Then, more cruelly, some spells are mistranslated, saying they do something entirely different from what they do. While this is definitely a genre mainstay, as weird descriptions are almost as old as the genre itself, this is clearly not on purpose, nor is it good game design.
The dialogue is also filled with misspellings, bad grammar, and text that actually goes outside of the textbox. This isn’t really that damning, as Class of Heroes 3 Remaster isn’t exactly a game that stands or falls with its story. Still, it makes it feel more like a cheap fan translation than an officially published localisation.
All of these issues are just sad to see. The core systems of the game are spot on and wonderful, the class designs are beautiful and varied within its simple system, and the dungeon designs are actually diverse and excellent in a way that is rare in the genre. Some dungeons are big open fields when it makes sense for the story, while others are massive, quirky labyrinths that feel more typical for the genre.
The very sharp difficulty spike in the early game, followed by the slowest rebuild up there in the history of the genre, makes a lot of the game feel like dungeon exploring with short interruptions, rather than like delving into dangerous locations. This destroys the outstanding gameplay in all other areas. Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is a prime example of what makes the genre good, with all of its perfect systems, and why the formula has remained almost unchanged for nearly half a century. Still, it is also a firm warning of what happens when the difficulty tuning is off.
