Class of Heroes 3 Remaster

PQube has a history of bringing charming JRPG's to our fair shores, and sure enough Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is the latest in their growing oeuvre. Class of Heroes 3 is, of course, a remake, one of the series of handheld JRPG's that kept things simple and bite-sized for gaming on the go. With pocketable portables now very much out of style, along with expectations of home console experiences on Switch and Steam Deck, how does the humble first-person dungeon crawler fare?

Surprisingly well, actually.

Your first task will be to choose a school in which to work as a teacher, creating your titular class of heroes. You have the choice of three, each of which will see you start in a different region of the world, colleagues quests and roles. The uniqueness of each of these academies are what provide the game with its replay-ability, but for now just choose the one with the uniforms you like best and get training!

In truth, each school really represents a change in difficulty settings - a subtle idea - after which you'll start grinding your way through dungeons to earn more gear, money, items and experience. As you progress, difficult monsters get easier, characters become more adept and you'll ultimately aim to have your class graduate with honours.

Battles are fought in this first-person style, the menus cleaner and easier to follow with the increased fidelity

Remastered this game may be, but it's not been modernised with any quality-of-life functions you might expect. You can't fast-forward battles or have your party automatically defeat foes that are beneath you, every battle requires the same grind and, in some instances, these can be quite lengthy. If you're not in it for the fighting, you might find Class of Heroes 3 slightly frustrating.

You can however swap character classes at any time, just like Final Fantasy 5 or Wild Arms XF. It's cool that you can change paths, but it will start you at level 1, so make decisions early or you'll find that member of your party suddenly far less useful. 

Far more fun is the ability to set up relationships within the party. Getting two close might lead to resentment in another, but fiddling around with this mechanic adds some flavour to the grinding, as it creates buffs/debuffs depending on how everyone gets along. I like this extra element of character meddling and it adds a great deal to the game, which might otherwise devolve into a simple grinding process of venture forth, kill, come home, repeat. Which, when you're playing in short blasts while traveling, is perfect.

The remastered graphics are fine, the portraits in particular are full of colour and character. The larger screen real-estate makes the dungeons feel less cramped and of course it's easy to keep track of HP/MP now that it's sharper and larger. 

Class of Heroes 3 Remastered is the sort of game that requires a use-case. If you like to whip out your console on the go and spend some quality time grinding your characters, this is the perfect dungeon crawler to dip into. For those expecting a more in-depth and complex adventure, you'll find yourself wanting. It's a game that was built for a certain type of player and for those people it'll be a satisfying time-sink. Otherwise it's repetitive grind-fest, and that's not for everyone.