If Dragon Warrior I is the genesis of the franchise and II is the awkward explorative middle child, III represents the first truly great peak for the series. This is the game which first codifies both a ton of Dragon Quest staples, but also influenced a generation of games to come.

I love this game's approach to role-playing. At the beginning you complete an odd little personality test which determines the stats of your main hero. Party members are created and recruited in-game, and each one comes with both a class chosen from a modest range of options and an assigned personality which determines their stats and can be augmented with items. This makes for an unprecedented level of personal role-playing and connection with your party!

Both the difficulty balance and player direction have been hugely improved, making the world a sheer joy to explore, which is good because it's a pretty big world map! Towns change depending on whether it's night or day, so sometimes you'll need to revisit places at a different time of day to get more clues to progress, and there's even the first occurrence of my favourite Dragon Quest staple as the late-game pulls a stunning surprising move that entirely caught me by surprise.

Dragon Warrior 3 was one of the first major RPGs I played outside of Pokemon and Super Mario RPG. It's exactly what it says on the tin and is the quintessential "JRPG" to me, somebody who has played very little Final Fantasy games but enough to know what I'm talking about.

There's almost a purity to how basic Dragon Warrior 3 is. You build a party with different classes, get geared up, go exploring, killing things, and leveling up. There are no frills involved and it feels almost like you're telling your own story. It felt like a grand adventure that could fit into your pocket, with the overworld music fitting that to a T.

Honestly I think a reason I look back so fondly on DW3 is because it laid a lot of the groundwork for the Etrian Odyssey series, one of my favorite series of all time. Dragon Warrior 3 felt like an epic adventure in your pocket in 2000, and it still probably is.

+ Same Dragon Quest Charm
+ Allusions to previous Dragon Quest games
+ Introduced base foundation for all other Dragon Quest games
+ Hero can be female or male
+ Dungeons / Areas have distinct personality
+ Open Exploration
+ Cutscenes are impressive for age
~ Personality system is interesting, but complex
~ Mostly good at guiding the player
~ Several dungeons are optional or have one point of interest
- No map dungeons make navigation a pain.
- Most job classes are gimmicky
- Very few bosses
- Sun Stone Location is terrible
- Boss rush at end

During the first 70% of the game I'd describe it as the first Dragon Quest that's actually fit for human consumption, but the final area is so brutal, I had to put the game down for a few days, just turning in on to grind a bt from time to time.

This is one of those games where if you're unlucky, a monster in the final area will just wipe one of your party members whole, and the game is quite stingy with its resources. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but there are FOUR bosses at the end.

Aside from difficulty this game is just a bit too simple. It doesn't have much story, much like previous DQ games. Music is ok at best, too. Monster design is fun, but encounters are incredibly slow and the game feels like it not only encourages grinding, but it seems that's the only way to progress. I've spent some free time for 3-4 days just grinding in the final area, killing enemies that award 5x more exp than entire groups, and it still took me a bit to level up even when I killed them.

The game is also unreasonably horny for an 8 bit RPG. There are various sexy armors, and some even change your lady companions' overworld sprites, tons of innuendo and the like. Can someone show those developers a boob? It's just so childish. Never understood games that do that. Am I supposed to be on a Beavis/Butthead level of intelligence to go "huehue boobs" every time something like that happens? Also some humor seemed to be kinda... racially charged? I'm no expert on that type of stuff, but DQIII's overworld is just Earth map with some differences, and Africa and Middle East not only have tribal enemies but also villages that try to rip you off on every step unless you barter. Again, I'm not a professional political correcter, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth somewhat.

I don't know why this game was so popular. Honestly, as much as I've enjoyed DQXI, the series' beginnings were so simple and uninteresting during its first few entries. Final Fantasy tried to tell a story with twists since its first iteration and evolve each and every sequel, while DQ seems to have been doing baby steps. It was the first jRPG, sure, but the original trilogy feels like every game is only barely different from each other.

Honestly might have some of the cleanest animation on GBC?? The intro cutscene and monster sprites are oddly fluid at times.
This is my first playthrough of DQ3 and realizing how much it inspired games I already adore or grew up with has been quite the experience. It holds up if you have a tolerance for games that came out around and before 2000. It’s all classic JRPG charm with some mazey towers and areas, but mostly straightforward points from NPCs telling you where things are relative to them or how to unlock the next part of the game.

Super charming by my standards. Great bedtime or lunch break game.