It was a good mostly calm time like when I played 7. I like that type of break from the massive high stakes cinematic JRPGs I play. The music was pretty good.
(I think there was a duplicate entry of this game and my record of this got 'eaten'. Anyways I've played it twice, once in 2019 and again in 2020 but I've lost the dates)
The original was my favorite game to start with, and this is a gold-standard remake of it. It adds plenty of QoL to smoothen the experience, and lots of interesting new features and content. This is one of the few games from the era that doesn't make me wish for a fast-forward button at any point - it's just really well paced and fantastically balanced. As probably the only Dragon Quest game that I find slightly too easy, I feel like they could have made the enemies slightly tougher to account for the vastly greater amount of tools they give to the player compared with the original, but wow what a good game.
The original was my favorite game to start with, and this is a gold-standard remake of it. It adds plenty of QoL to smoothen the experience, and lots of interesting new features and content. This is one of the few games from the era that doesn't make me wish for a fast-forward button at any point - it's just really well paced and fantastically balanced. As probably the only Dragon Quest game that I find slightly too easy, I feel like they could have made the enemies slightly tougher to account for the vastly greater amount of tools they give to the player compared with the original, but wow what a good game.
A wonderful remake of an absolute classic. They made his cape pink since the NES version, which was bold of them because pink was considered the "gay" color back in the 90s. It was a statement, and that statement was "Loto is gay", but upon closer inspection this doesn't make any sense considering you play as his descendants in the later games. Plotholes aside, it's a classic remake.
Dragon Quest III is a monumental leap forward from Dragon Quest II in basically every way. It represents the point where DQ found its footing in regards to structure, narrative trickery, and game mechanics. This version is also full of QoL additions that seem to be almost direct responses to complaints I had about the previous games.
The massive plot twists of the last chunk of the game aside, I think my favorite aspect of the game was the job system. It's certainly not as extensive and addictive as some later iterations of it (Final Fantasy V!!!), but it gives you so many more options to deal with encounters than you've ever had, and I did find myself incentivized to swap classes over and over to get certain spells and manipulate my stats. For the first shot at one of my favorite gameplay systems this is really excellent.
Even with all the QoL improvements that this remake brings to the table there's still a fair bit of old JRPG crust at play here, but it's not hard to see why this became the gold standard for the genre at the time and led to about a billion other things ripping it off or paying homage to it. Was worth playing just for the many, many moments that made me go "wow I think (game) just took that idea from here"
The massive plot twists of the last chunk of the game aside, I think my favorite aspect of the game was the job system. It's certainly not as extensive and addictive as some later iterations of it (Final Fantasy V!!!), but it gives you so many more options to deal with encounters than you've ever had, and I did find myself incentivized to swap classes over and over to get certain spells and manipulate my stats. For the first shot at one of my favorite gameplay systems this is really excellent.
Even with all the QoL improvements that this remake brings to the table there's still a fair bit of old JRPG crust at play here, but it's not hard to see why this became the gold standard for the genre at the time and led to about a billion other things ripping it off or paying homage to it. Was worth playing just for the many, many moments that made me go "wow I think (game) just took that idea from here"
Great adventure marred by grinding near the end.
Wonderful and customisable in so many simple ways. I'm putting the HD-2D remake on as many radars as I can. #100RPGs
beautiful game. made me realise I never properly learnt cardinal directions tho
remake still needs to come out but slighty better version
Muerte al cerdo capitalista
It's very easy to see how influential DQ3 was for RPGs and Japanese pop culture, which it entirely deserves.
All the designs for the classes are immediately iconic, and the monsters are all memorable and expressive. This game is really good at signposting where you need to go next, until you get the boat, then it gets a little more shaky but still doable without using a guide. Combat is fairly simple but enjoyable, but you never really encounter something to challenge you due to there not being that many boss battles, with almost all of them backloaded.
I enjoyed the majority of this game, but I do feel that once you get to Alefgard, the game starts to drag, even if it is cool conceptually. Ultimately, you are stuck doing another fetch quest, which I did not find as enjoyable as looking for the orbs. At this point, I also started to find combat more tedious, with enemy encounters becoming more frequent and taking longer to deal with, especially in the final dungeon. It would have been nice to have MP restores outside of the limited rings and more types of healing herbs that do more than 30 HP.
Even with all that, it is still 100% worth playing.
All the designs for the classes are immediately iconic, and the monsters are all memorable and expressive. This game is really good at signposting where you need to go next, until you get the boat, then it gets a little more shaky but still doable without using a guide. Combat is fairly simple but enjoyable, but you never really encounter something to challenge you due to there not being that many boss battles, with almost all of them backloaded.
I enjoyed the majority of this game, but I do feel that once you get to Alefgard, the game starts to drag, even if it is cool conceptually. Ultimately, you are stuck doing another fetch quest, which I did not find as enjoyable as looking for the orbs. At this point, I also started to find combat more tedious, with enemy encounters becoming more frequent and taking longer to deal with, especially in the final dungeon. It would have been nice to have MP restores outside of the limited rings and more types of healing herbs that do more than 30 HP.
Even with all that, it is still 100% worth playing.
Influente, especial e quase perfeito.
O único problema é a parte final ser um pouco maior do que deveria, gigante esse jogo honestamente divertido pra krl e muito lindo.
O único problema é a parte final ser um pouco maior do que deveria, gigante esse jogo honestamente divertido pra krl e muito lindo.
Very impressive party building for its time and even now holds up very well, as do most things about this title save for story. They even cut down on the cryptic bullshit that DQ2 had going on left and right. Would highly recommend this to any jrpg fan that wants to visit the basics.
Patiently waiting for the remake.
Gorgeous looking and sounding remake of what is already one of the most important video games of all time. Not getting a western a release despite jrpgs peaking in popularity there during the snes and psx eras was a huge missed opportunity and if it weren't for the upcoming hd-2d remake it might've been the last chance it could've gotten to really get the appreciation it deserved. This is the best version by a pretty wide margin but the gbc and nes versions are still great, though if you only want to play one version absolutely make it this one. GBC dq3 is basically the same as the snes release except it's a bitcrushed (albeit impressive) handheld port with a bonus dungeon that's not worth unlocking but it's the best for solo hero runs which is what I'll probably do next. Snes version is worth it alone for the spritework and soundtrack like damn if the overworld theme wasn't called "adventure" already i'd still probably assume that's what it was called and I mean Adventure with a capital goddamn A because I've never had urges this big to blast video game music through my headphones and run through a big ass open field god I wish dragon quest was real
YoUr FaThEr
the best way to play dragon quest 3 util the new remake comes out.
Regularly subverts your expectations, absolute classic
My rating for this game is based on the combination of rating it how it would be when it came out vs how it would be today. Most of my considerations are to this game's original design in 1988, although the additional features of this 1996 version are worth noting. So let's take a look at the Seinfeld of JRPGs, Dragon Quest III
The original game that really brought DQ to prominence, and there is a single word that can explain Dragon Quest: Simplicity. The combat system is simple, the story is basic and formulaic (though with a few twists that would be impressive for the time), and yet it's all charming because there's this earnestness to the game that turns any potential eye roll into a smile. Simple and Earnest, what a way to be. The Class system even gives it a drip of depth, thinking about when to change your characters and whatnot.
The game isn't without its frustrations, in combat I wish I could select individual enemies rather than just which group, and there could have been more space to tell me what things did before I used them. Also for its cost and inability to crit, the ability for magic to just miss enemies is frustrating. In fact magic as a whole is inferior to physical in most situations, especially bosses. The one thing I will give the game that I did not expect it to have is that you don't get a Game Over when you die, just go back to the last castle and ask if you want to save. Sure there's still reviving your guys if you need to, but it's far kinder than what I expected.
The world is enjoyable even with its many similar areas, the music and sense of secrets in various nooks and crannies give it a new life. Only downside is Random Encounters were still the norm at the time (Mother 2 and Chrono Trigger being the exceptions) and while that makes me tolerate them more it doesn't mean I like 'em. While it doesn't entirely make up for it, the charming animations of the monsters certainly help. The Orb Quest was particularly notable in exploration, as the game lets go of your hand for you to search this entire world on your own. When you figure something out and it leads to an Orb or a Key it feels great!
Simple and Earnest can go a long way, and DQIII is proof of that.
The original game that really brought DQ to prominence, and there is a single word that can explain Dragon Quest: Simplicity. The combat system is simple, the story is basic and formulaic (though with a few twists that would be impressive for the time), and yet it's all charming because there's this earnestness to the game that turns any potential eye roll into a smile. Simple and Earnest, what a way to be. The Class system even gives it a drip of depth, thinking about when to change your characters and whatnot.
The game isn't without its frustrations, in combat I wish I could select individual enemies rather than just which group, and there could have been more space to tell me what things did before I used them. Also for its cost and inability to crit, the ability for magic to just miss enemies is frustrating. In fact magic as a whole is inferior to physical in most situations, especially bosses. The one thing I will give the game that I did not expect it to have is that you don't get a Game Over when you die, just go back to the last castle and ask if you want to save. Sure there's still reviving your guys if you need to, but it's far kinder than what I expected.
The world is enjoyable even with its many similar areas, the music and sense of secrets in various nooks and crannies give it a new life. Only downside is Random Encounters were still the norm at the time (Mother 2 and Chrono Trigger being the exceptions) and while that makes me tolerate them more it doesn't mean I like 'em. While it doesn't entirely make up for it, the charming animations of the monsters certainly help. The Orb Quest was particularly notable in exploration, as the game lets go of your hand for you to search this entire world on your own. When you figure something out and it leads to an Orb or a Key it feels great!
Simple and Earnest can go a long way, and DQIII is proof of that.
an incredibly special game to me, definitely an all time favorite, an opinion i feel will be more cemented with the HD-2D remake
Pretty good I just found parts of it boring or frustrating, and it was kinda grind-heavy
I guess something was up with the listings for this game before but anyways DQIII On The Super Famicom is a GOATed RPG
still fairly vanilla, but the remake is extremely well made and way more charming than either one of the previous games - plenty of moments of fantasy nerd rush and a pretty decently written story
also goes without saying but the music is obviously fantastic
also goes without saying but the music is obviously fantastic
'' The legend was born....''
wayyyyyy better than 1 and 2, I think that what makes DQ3 stand out so much over the other classic ones is how much freedom you really have to play through it with how your party works. Thanks to the class system and how it prestiges, you can be as overpowered or underlevelled as you want, as well as the fact that you can make your party fit any one of your needs, which leads to infinite replay value, which is something that I don't think a lot of other RPGs really strive to have. I think that's why this game is one of the fan favorites, and is my favorite out of the original famicom dragon quests.
The episode that defined it all. Dragon Quest III introduces classes and jobs, which are going to be absolutely key through the rest of the series. Its quest is much, MUCH longer than the previous episodes, especially since it introduces post-game content. The scenario itself is still pretty basic, but solid nonetheless. One of the most important episodes in the series history.
It continues to be very very humbling going back through this franchise. Not just this franchise but, it seems, all RPGs that descend from the philosophies and design ethics of Dragon Quest constantly remain in the orbit of this game. DQ3 takes the runaway phenomenon of the first two games and manages to make its closed-circuit adventure formula map to a much larger map. Chosing your party members within the job system provides ups and downs unique to your cast in the way any great job system should. The path through the world is delicately threaded with level checks carefully designed for the amount of grunt work you'll need to do to piece together your next steps. The echoes of your father's path and the repercussion of your own actions boom throughout the world as your team deals with your adventure strongly resembling the one that came before it. Dragon Quest 3 is a game about lineage and discovery in ways which I think wordier entries later in the series struggle to land. If you try to halfheartedly blaze through this with a guide or without optimizing your party, I could see a modern palette rubbing against the level checks, but I think this game is really an unavoidable and vital puzzle piece in the legacy of Video Games.
Dragon Quest III was a momentous game in 1988. It rounds out the trilogy very nicely and the SFC remake is an excellent rendition.
In 1988, DQIII outsold and outscored Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Japanese charts, but despite that, it doesn’t have the same legacy; many consider SMB3 to be the greatest game of all time. I can see that. But the bottom line is: I would just rather hang out in the world of DQIII than in the Mushroom Kingdom, and sometimes, a videogame is just about hanging out.
In 1988, DQIII outsold and outscored Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Japanese charts, but despite that, it doesn’t have the same legacy; many consider SMB3 to be the greatest game of all time. I can see that. But the bottom line is: I would just rather hang out in the world of DQIII than in the Mushroom Kingdom, and sometimes, a videogame is just about hanging out.
первая треть игры – великолепна.
первые 10-15 часов меня поражал невероятно богатый эксплоринг, выверенный пейсинг, игра не тянет тебя за руку, но при этом не позволяет тебе потеряться в этом обширном мире. игра удивляет тебя постоянно, каждая новая область отличается от предыдущей и геймплейно и нарративно, каждая область органично вписана, а мир чувствуется целостным, в него определенно веришь, несмотря на такую простую графику. геймплей будто вобрал в себя всё лучшее из визардри, ультимы и днд, представив довольно таки богатую кастомизацию, при этом отбросив всю перегруженную хуйню. ты чувствуешь что это именно ТВОЁ приключение, ты не ощущаешь себя наблюдателем чьей-то чужой истории как во многих jrpg, игровой процесс крайне аддиктивен, тебе постоянно хочется продолжать свой путь продумывая как ты будешь выстраивать СВОЁ приключение.
однако ближе к середине тебе дают лодку, говорят плыть на все четыре стороны, искать какие-то ебучие шары… и в этот момент игра меня почти потеряла… если в первой трети игры ты ощущал свободу при этом зная что игра все равно держит тебя в неких рамках для твоего же удобства, то теперь тебе выдают теперь уже весь мир для свободного исследования, ориентироваться в котором без гайда уже просто невозможно, игра превращается в криптик хуйню, в которой в одном конце мира тебе дадут ОЧЕНЬ НЕОЧЕВИДНУЮ подсказку как найти шар в другом конце мира, пройти это без гайда – быть ебанутым человеком с неограниченным свободным временем и безграничной посвященностью игре.
но не смотря на это игра продолжает развлекать и увлекать, в игре имеется немалая часть контента, которую ты можешь пропустить и пройти в разном порядке, что вкупе с местной кастомизацией делает игру крайне реиграбельной. эндгейм же довольно приятно подытоживает игру, вознаграждая довольно таки простым но весёлым эксплорингом на манер первой трети игры.
возможно мне больше зайдут более линейные последующие части серии, с вышеуказанными проблемами (и нередким и длительным гриндом) честной оценкой была бы четвёрка, однако я не могу перестать хвалить игру за общий опыт что она мне подарила, за то что это один из немногих представителей жанра jrpg что берёт за основу эксплоринг, а не сторителлинг, что игра не тратит твое время на ненужную экспозицию, при этом всё равно даря тебе нарратив в который ты веришь. мне кажется что создать что-то простое, но при этом работающее и цепляющее порой ничуть не проще чем что-то монументальное и комплексное, dragon quest III – наглядный пример. игра удивляет и спустя 35 лет
первые 10-15 часов меня поражал невероятно богатый эксплоринг, выверенный пейсинг, игра не тянет тебя за руку, но при этом не позволяет тебе потеряться в этом обширном мире. игра удивляет тебя постоянно, каждая новая область отличается от предыдущей и геймплейно и нарративно, каждая область органично вписана, а мир чувствуется целостным, в него определенно веришь, несмотря на такую простую графику. геймплей будто вобрал в себя всё лучшее из визардри, ультимы и днд, представив довольно таки богатую кастомизацию, при этом отбросив всю перегруженную хуйню. ты чувствуешь что это именно ТВОЁ приключение, ты не ощущаешь себя наблюдателем чьей-то чужой истории как во многих jrpg, игровой процесс крайне аддиктивен, тебе постоянно хочется продолжать свой путь продумывая как ты будешь выстраивать СВОЁ приключение.
однако ближе к середине тебе дают лодку, говорят плыть на все четыре стороны, искать какие-то ебучие шары… и в этот момент игра меня почти потеряла… если в первой трети игры ты ощущал свободу при этом зная что игра все равно держит тебя в неких рамках для твоего же удобства, то теперь тебе выдают теперь уже весь мир для свободного исследования, ориентироваться в котором без гайда уже просто невозможно, игра превращается в криптик хуйню, в которой в одном конце мира тебе дадут ОЧЕНЬ НЕОЧЕВИДНУЮ подсказку как найти шар в другом конце мира, пройти это без гайда – быть ебанутым человеком с неограниченным свободным временем и безграничной посвященностью игре.
но не смотря на это игра продолжает развлекать и увлекать, в игре имеется немалая часть контента, которую ты можешь пропустить и пройти в разном порядке, что вкупе с местной кастомизацией делает игру крайне реиграбельной. эндгейм же довольно приятно подытоживает игру, вознаграждая довольно таки простым но весёлым эксплорингом на манер первой трети игры.
возможно мне больше зайдут более линейные последующие части серии, с вышеуказанными проблемами (и нередким и длительным гриндом) честной оценкой была бы четвёрка, однако я не могу перестать хвалить игру за общий опыт что она мне подарила, за то что это один из немногих представителей жанра jrpg что берёт за основу эксплоринг, а не сторителлинг, что игра не тратит твое время на ненужную экспозицию, при этом всё равно даря тебе нарратив в который ты веришь. мне кажется что создать что-то простое, но при этом работающее и цепляющее порой ничуть не проще чем что-то монументальное и комплексное, dragon quest III – наглядный пример. игра удивляет и спустя 35 лет
Dragon Quest III is one of the best sequels (or prequel in this case) in video games, which marked a before and after not only for the Dragon Quest series, but for JRPGs in general. And this is a remake at the height of the legend.
In 1988 this game was a sensation in Japan, everyone wanted it. It was the first game to sell more than 1 million copies in a single day (which is remarkable for a time when video games were not as popular as they are today), there were endless lines of people with the sole desire to try the title, so much so that many of them were students or workers who skipped their duties. It was a social phenomenon.
~ And thus, the legend was born ~
Dragon Quest I and II were the foundation of JRPGs almost in their entirety, but in retrospect, they feel like portotypes of what a true solid RPG is. DQI had good foundations, but a combat system that was too simple, and while DQII was a giant step forward that improved and evolved many aspects, the development team had many problems during the production of the title as they still did not have so much experience and had a very limited time, making the final game had no clear direction and had many balancing problems. Well then, Dragon Quest III comes to be the pinnacle of the idea that Yuji Horii and Chun Soft had always dreamed of creating for an RPG, a game that had enough time to be developed and tested properly, and in which you can see its developers were quite satisfied, so much so that even Yuji Horii considered it a perfect game. This game was such a significant leap in game design and quality that it takes it to a completely different level, making even JRPGs that were released years after this one feel like mediocre products.
If you played the first game you will know that there was always mention of someone named Erdrick/Roto, who according to everyone's words was a very important figure in the story, so much so that being his descendant directly made you someone important as well, but what did he really do to earn that title, well, Dragon Quest III is the answer to that question. The story begins with an introductory cinematic that tells us how our father, the greatest hero of that time, once tried to stop the archfiend but failed in the attempt, and obviously, as offspring of the great hero, we are tasked with the mission to finish what our father left unfinished. I won't go into spoilers (even though it's a 35+ year old game), so I'll just say that, if you played Dragon Quest I, this game has a plot twist that makes it connect as a prequel in a pretty satisfying way. And it's impressive that only in the third game alone this kind of homage has already been made to the first title, the game that started it all, and it's something I loved very much the first time I played this title. Even with everything, though, the premise is just as simple as the previous games, a simple "go and collect the 6 magic items and save the world from this villain", but I think that what this game lacks in story it makes up for with adventure and simple to understand, but pretty solid gameplay.
This game allows you to customize your party, having a variety of 7 classes for 3 of your party members, it gives you total freedom to build and customize your play style, and it is quite entertaining to experiment with different combinations, because even though there can be difficult places because of having (for example) only warriors and a mage, the game is built in such a way that having a solid strategy, enough wit and a decent team is enough to overcome the adversities, and although I do not deny that the possibility of getting stuck for having a poor party at the end of the title is a possibility, but unlike the first Final Fantasy where if that happened you had to restart the whole game or grind to death, Dragon Quest III allows you to create more characters than you can fit in your party, thus opening up the possibility of you having reserves, and all of this expands further once you get to the place where you can change classes, allowing you to create "hybrid" characters, such as monks with the ability to cast healing magic or mages with better attack and physical defense. Each class levels up and grows in a very satisfying way, which for example with mages and priests, not only makes them more useful in battle by expanding their arsenal of attack or support spells, but they are learning magical abilities that are useful even outside of battles and make exploration more comfortable, for example, you can learn spells that help you get out of caves/dungeons instantly at any time.
Many of the elements that make this game great had already appeared for the first time in DQ2, however, it was in this game where they really made use of them properly, which as insignificant as this may seem, make a big difference between being just a good game and being a great game. For starters, the battles are incredibly well balanced and far more entertaining by far. Dragon Quest III is also the first game in the series where you actually need to strategize to overcome battles instead of just overcoming them by brute force as in the previous games. Something that highlights the difference between DQ2 and DQ3 despite having the same combat system, is the final battle, where one will require a simple strategy and the other will require you to really be careful and act cautiously if you want to have a chance to be victorious.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about what makes combat entertaining. Something I really like, is how Dragon Quest makes a lot of emphasis on not only using brute force to defeat your enemies, many times using the most powerful attack magic for example is not the most convenient, but the game encourages you to use status altering magic to overcome battles (even those against bosses), for example, it is of vital importance to lower the defense to enemies that are damage sponges to be able to defeat them or, on the contrary, when there's an enemy that with two hits could knock you out, raising your defense several times makes them not even have a chance to scratch you, not to mention that you'd be surprised how many common enemies are vulnerable to the "sleep" or "death" status, yes, their effectiveness is random, but when it manages to hit it feels incredibly rewarding. And another thing I love about the battles is how many monsters have a "personality" so to speak, you can tell by the way they fight and have their own strategies. For example, there are monsters that will try to call on other monsters to heal them in battle (we all know who I'm talking about), while others will be cruel and use vicious tactics to try to defeat you, such as attacking a specific member of your party all at once. There are also some that may look very scary but are so dumb that they will try to use spells even when they have no MP (others will be smart enough to steal MP from you). These are small details, but complemented with the fact that they are designed by Akira Toriyama, give a lot of personality and charisma to the enemies of this game and make the progression and the very fact of playing very fun and entertaining because of the great variety in the gameplay.
The world is gigantic, full of kingdoms, towns, shrines, towers and dungeons to discover, and although your mission is simply to stop the bad guy on duty, you must travel the world in search of the path that will allow you to reach your ultimate goal. From the very beginning the game is very open, you can go explore at your leisure and get to know the world at your own pace, you can go mostly in the order you want, even presenting you with many problems and places that are completely optional, such as awakening the sleeping village or returning the crown to the king in the second kingdom, and once you get the ship the world opens up even more and allows you to progress in the order you want, similar to an open world. I especially like how the 6 magic orbs aren't just obtained by beating a dungeon and that's it, but there are some that have very unique situations and are quite memorable. One of my favorite things and one that I am quite thankful to have is the "Zoom" spell, which allows you to instantly travel to any town you have previously visited, and it is to be admired that since this game there is the option of fast travel, something that other video game franchises took years and even decades to implement. Although a negative aspect of this game is that it has one of the worst defects of the games of that era, as there are many things that are a little ambiguous in their method of obtaining, it is not as serious as in DQII, but for example the strongest sword in the game is obtained in a very particular way, even so, it is nothing that a guide can not solve, although I only recommend the use of this when you are really stuck and do not know what to do. Dragon Quest III is simply a game that has a very good sense of adventure and that is about feeling that sense of progress and exploration in its purest state, because rather than being a burden, it feels like something engaging and a primary aspect of the experience.
Exploring villages is usually something fundamental, and Dragon Quest always makes it entertaining thanks to the NPCs who always have something useful, something interesting or even something silly and funny to say. Something I love about this game is the day and night cycle, which basically makes all the villages have two faces and there are certain changes accordingly, this is also a main mechanic, because many times in order to advance we will have to wait for nightfall, because that way some of the villagers' dialogues will change and with that different clues will be at your disposal, or simply because different things happen in some cases and it's just fun to see it. And something that I really love about this game is how it always rewards your curiosity, which encourages you to stay curious and keep exploring or going back to places that you had already explored so you can access and discover places that were previously locked and get a little reward.
Speaking of the OST, it's superb, if you like classical style music the tunes you'll find in this game will delight you. Koichi Sugiyama may have been a despicable person, but his work on the Dragon Quest series was vital in giving this series that heart and soul that we all love. The soundtrack of this installment shines from the rest of the series especially for the cultural representation that they tried to give to some of the locations that we can see throughout the game, like an Egyptian-inspired pyramid, or Jipang, whose name is self-explanatory of the place it is based on. But talking about the rest of the songs, the battle theme is simple, but it is entertaining and engaging unlike the first and second battle theme of the series which were a bit boring. The overworld theme is heroic, and conveys that feeling of being on an epic adventure very well. Strolling through the villages is always enjoyable when what's playing in the background is a sweet melody like this one. And there are other songs that I love, but I won't leave without mentioning my favorite song; Heavenly Flight. The moment I heard it tears came out of my eyes from how beautiful and majestic it is, simply one of my favorite songs in the whole series.
The graphics in this edition are gorgeous, they really enhance the immersion and are one of the most remarkable of the 16-bit era because of how colorful and well done the art is. I really like how the day and night cycle is very well portrayed, making the background of the battles match the time of day, the villages at night look very pretty especially. Each monster also has animations for each action they perform, which gives a little more life to the battles. And finally, Akira Toriyama's designs are still very nice to have, featuring many monsters and even characters that would become super iconic like the hero or the martial artist.
This remake was made by Heartbeat and is made with the Dragon Quest VI engine, which was the last game in the series at the time. Talking about the changes, it rebalances a lot the game without sacrificing totally its original difficulty curve, it adds many quality of life improvements like the bag and a more agile menu navigation. It also makes some small improvements to the gameplay, for example, now you can change equipment in the middle of the battle (as in DQVI). It renews and modernizes the graphics and adapts the songs to the Super Nintendo. And god, the result is amazing and in my opinion makes the game a thousand times better. The soundtrack is expanded by adding new pieces to the game, the graphics are some of the best the Super Nintendo could display, it still looks beautiful to this day and the range of random encounters was reduced considerably to make exploration and the overall experience much more enjoyable.
Conclusion
Despite its age and simplicity, Dragon Quest III defines what a good RPG should be. It is able to offer a solid experience even today that generates an immaculate sense of adventure and a great feeling of accomplishment when you finish the game, thanks to its simple, yet solid design and gameplay mechanics that are still present in many games even today. It was the game that defined and set the gold standard in the JRPG genre. It is directly one of the most important and influential games of all time and to be honest, it is still a very solid and entertaining game despite being a 1988 original, but the fact that this remake puts it on par with any other SNES game is proof of how well designed it was from the beginning in its time.
Dragon Quest III is a game that defined me as a player forever. While not my top 1 of the franchise, this to me is the most important of them all because of the impact it had on me the first time I played it. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I were to one day consider it my true favorite video game of all time, because frankly, to me this game is that precious. It wasn't my first game in the genre, but I consider this to be the game that made me fall in love with RPGs and taught me to really appreciate them.
← Dragon Quest I & II - Review
→ Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen - Review
In 1988 this game was a sensation in Japan, everyone wanted it. It was the first game to sell more than 1 million copies in a single day (which is remarkable for a time when video games were not as popular as they are today), there were endless lines of people with the sole desire to try the title, so much so that many of them were students or workers who skipped their duties. It was a social phenomenon.
~ And thus, the legend was born ~
Dragon Quest I and II were the foundation of JRPGs almost in their entirety, but in retrospect, they feel like portotypes of what a true solid RPG is. DQI had good foundations, but a combat system that was too simple, and while DQII was a giant step forward that improved and evolved many aspects, the development team had many problems during the production of the title as they still did not have so much experience and had a very limited time, making the final game had no clear direction and had many balancing problems. Well then, Dragon Quest III comes to be the pinnacle of the idea that Yuji Horii and Chun Soft had always dreamed of creating for an RPG, a game that had enough time to be developed and tested properly, and in which you can see its developers were quite satisfied, so much so that even Yuji Horii considered it a perfect game. This game was such a significant leap in game design and quality that it takes it to a completely different level, making even JRPGs that were released years after this one feel like mediocre products.
If you played the first game you will know that there was always mention of someone named Erdrick/Roto, who according to everyone's words was a very important figure in the story, so much so that being his descendant directly made you someone important as well, but what did he really do to earn that title, well, Dragon Quest III is the answer to that question. The story begins with an introductory cinematic that tells us how our father, the greatest hero of that time, once tried to stop the archfiend but failed in the attempt, and obviously, as offspring of the great hero, we are tasked with the mission to finish what our father left unfinished. I won't go into spoilers (even though it's a 35+ year old game), so I'll just say that, if you played Dragon Quest I, this game has a plot twist that makes it connect as a prequel in a pretty satisfying way. And it's impressive that only in the third game alone this kind of homage has already been made to the first title, the game that started it all, and it's something I loved very much the first time I played this title. Even with everything, though, the premise is just as simple as the previous games, a simple "go and collect the 6 magic items and save the world from this villain", but I think that what this game lacks in story it makes up for with adventure and simple to understand, but pretty solid gameplay.
This game allows you to customize your party, having a variety of 7 classes for 3 of your party members, it gives you total freedom to build and customize your play style, and it is quite entertaining to experiment with different combinations, because even though there can be difficult places because of having (for example) only warriors and a mage, the game is built in such a way that having a solid strategy, enough wit and a decent team is enough to overcome the adversities, and although I do not deny that the possibility of getting stuck for having a poor party at the end of the title is a possibility, but unlike the first Final Fantasy where if that happened you had to restart the whole game or grind to death, Dragon Quest III allows you to create more characters than you can fit in your party, thus opening up the possibility of you having reserves, and all of this expands further once you get to the place where you can change classes, allowing you to create "hybrid" characters, such as monks with the ability to cast healing magic or mages with better attack and physical defense. Each class levels up and grows in a very satisfying way, which for example with mages and priests, not only makes them more useful in battle by expanding their arsenal of attack or support spells, but they are learning magical abilities that are useful even outside of battles and make exploration more comfortable, for example, you can learn spells that help you get out of caves/dungeons instantly at any time.
Many of the elements that make this game great had already appeared for the first time in DQ2, however, it was in this game where they really made use of them properly, which as insignificant as this may seem, make a big difference between being just a good game and being a great game. For starters, the battles are incredibly well balanced and far more entertaining by far. Dragon Quest III is also the first game in the series where you actually need to strategize to overcome battles instead of just overcoming them by brute force as in the previous games. Something that highlights the difference between DQ2 and DQ3 despite having the same combat system, is the final battle, where one will require a simple strategy and the other will require you to really be careful and act cautiously if you want to have a chance to be victorious.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about what makes combat entertaining. Something I really like, is how Dragon Quest makes a lot of emphasis on not only using brute force to defeat your enemies, many times using the most powerful attack magic for example is not the most convenient, but the game encourages you to use status altering magic to overcome battles (even those against bosses), for example, it is of vital importance to lower the defense to enemies that are damage sponges to be able to defeat them or, on the contrary, when there's an enemy that with two hits could knock you out, raising your defense several times makes them not even have a chance to scratch you, not to mention that you'd be surprised how many common enemies are vulnerable to the "sleep" or "death" status, yes, their effectiveness is random, but when it manages to hit it feels incredibly rewarding. And another thing I love about the battles is how many monsters have a "personality" so to speak, you can tell by the way they fight and have their own strategies. For example, there are monsters that will try to call on other monsters to heal them in battle (we all know who I'm talking about), while others will be cruel and use vicious tactics to try to defeat you, such as attacking a specific member of your party all at once. There are also some that may look very scary but are so dumb that they will try to use spells even when they have no MP (others will be smart enough to steal MP from you). These are small details, but complemented with the fact that they are designed by Akira Toriyama, give a lot of personality and charisma to the enemies of this game and make the progression and the very fact of playing very fun and entertaining because of the great variety in the gameplay.
The world is gigantic, full of kingdoms, towns, shrines, towers and dungeons to discover, and although your mission is simply to stop the bad guy on duty, you must travel the world in search of the path that will allow you to reach your ultimate goal. From the very beginning the game is very open, you can go explore at your leisure and get to know the world at your own pace, you can go mostly in the order you want, even presenting you with many problems and places that are completely optional, such as awakening the sleeping village or returning the crown to the king in the second kingdom, and once you get the ship the world opens up even more and allows you to progress in the order you want, similar to an open world. I especially like how the 6 magic orbs aren't just obtained by beating a dungeon and that's it, but there are some that have very unique situations and are quite memorable. One of my favorite things and one that I am quite thankful to have is the "Zoom" spell, which allows you to instantly travel to any town you have previously visited, and it is to be admired that since this game there is the option of fast travel, something that other video game franchises took years and even decades to implement. Although a negative aspect of this game is that it has one of the worst defects of the games of that era, as there are many things that are a little ambiguous in their method of obtaining, it is not as serious as in DQII, but for example the strongest sword in the game is obtained in a very particular way, even so, it is nothing that a guide can not solve, although I only recommend the use of this when you are really stuck and do not know what to do. Dragon Quest III is simply a game that has a very good sense of adventure and that is about feeling that sense of progress and exploration in its purest state, because rather than being a burden, it feels like something engaging and a primary aspect of the experience.
Exploring villages is usually something fundamental, and Dragon Quest always makes it entertaining thanks to the NPCs who always have something useful, something interesting or even something silly and funny to say. Something I love about this game is the day and night cycle, which basically makes all the villages have two faces and there are certain changes accordingly, this is also a main mechanic, because many times in order to advance we will have to wait for nightfall, because that way some of the villagers' dialogues will change and with that different clues will be at your disposal, or simply because different things happen in some cases and it's just fun to see it. And something that I really love about this game is how it always rewards your curiosity, which encourages you to stay curious and keep exploring or going back to places that you had already explored so you can access and discover places that were previously locked and get a little reward.
Speaking of the OST, it's superb, if you like classical style music the tunes you'll find in this game will delight you. Koichi Sugiyama may have been a despicable person, but his work on the Dragon Quest series was vital in giving this series that heart and soul that we all love. The soundtrack of this installment shines from the rest of the series especially for the cultural representation that they tried to give to some of the locations that we can see throughout the game, like an Egyptian-inspired pyramid, or Jipang, whose name is self-explanatory of the place it is based on. But talking about the rest of the songs, the battle theme is simple, but it is entertaining and engaging unlike the first and second battle theme of the series which were a bit boring. The overworld theme is heroic, and conveys that feeling of being on an epic adventure very well. Strolling through the villages is always enjoyable when what's playing in the background is a sweet melody like this one. And there are other songs that I love, but I won't leave without mentioning my favorite song; Heavenly Flight. The moment I heard it tears came out of my eyes from how beautiful and majestic it is, simply one of my favorite songs in the whole series.
The graphics in this edition are gorgeous, they really enhance the immersion and are one of the most remarkable of the 16-bit era because of how colorful and well done the art is. I really like how the day and night cycle is very well portrayed, making the background of the battles match the time of day, the villages at night look very pretty especially. Each monster also has animations for each action they perform, which gives a little more life to the battles. And finally, Akira Toriyama's designs are still very nice to have, featuring many monsters and even characters that would become super iconic like the hero or the martial artist.
This remake was made by Heartbeat and is made with the Dragon Quest VI engine, which was the last game in the series at the time. Talking about the changes, it rebalances a lot the game without sacrificing totally its original difficulty curve, it adds many quality of life improvements like the bag and a more agile menu navigation. It also makes some small improvements to the gameplay, for example, now you can change equipment in the middle of the battle (as in DQVI). It renews and modernizes the graphics and adapts the songs to the Super Nintendo. And god, the result is amazing and in my opinion makes the game a thousand times better. The soundtrack is expanded by adding new pieces to the game, the graphics are some of the best the Super Nintendo could display, it still looks beautiful to this day and the range of random encounters was reduced considerably to make exploration and the overall experience much more enjoyable.
Conclusion
Despite its age and simplicity, Dragon Quest III defines what a good RPG should be. It is able to offer a solid experience even today that generates an immaculate sense of adventure and a great feeling of accomplishment when you finish the game, thanks to its simple, yet solid design and gameplay mechanics that are still present in many games even today. It was the game that defined and set the gold standard in the JRPG genre. It is directly one of the most important and influential games of all time and to be honest, it is still a very solid and entertaining game despite being a 1988 original, but the fact that this remake puts it on par with any other SNES game is proof of how well designed it was from the beginning in its time.
Dragon Quest III is a game that defined me as a player forever. While not my top 1 of the franchise, this to me is the most important of them all because of the impact it had on me the first time I played it. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I were to one day consider it my true favorite video game of all time, because frankly, to me this game is that precious. It wasn't my first game in the genre, but I consider this to be the game that made me fall in love with RPGs and taught me to really appreciate them.
← Dragon Quest I & II - Review
→ Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen - Review
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