Dragon Quest III successfully synthesized a litany of RPG systems into an incredibly polished game with few real issues.
The core game is basically a second upgrade to the first two games, yet again featuring a bigger world, more spells, and a fourth character in your party. For any sequel of this day, that would have been enough, but that was just the beginning here. On top of these iterative enhancements, the game added a job system that worked far better than Final Fantay II's skill grinding system, a day/night cycle that I think was more interesting than Ultima V's, unique quests that allowed you to do one-off things (like being a king temporarily) and quality of life improvements to systems like fast travel and quest reminders to keep the game moving along.
From a technical standpoint, they just absolutely nailed it here. My only personal qualms are minor in that I still dislike the first person view of the combat, and I felt that the story, just like in the first two existed primarily in service to the gameplay.
To summarize, at the time of its release in Japan, I think it can be argued pretty easily that this was the best RPG around due to the size, scope and successful execution of its many game systems.
The core game is basically a second upgrade to the first two games, yet again featuring a bigger world, more spells, and a fourth character in your party. For any sequel of this day, that would have been enough, but that was just the beginning here. On top of these iterative enhancements, the game added a job system that worked far better than Final Fantay II's skill grinding system, a day/night cycle that I think was more interesting than Ultima V's, unique quests that allowed you to do one-off things (like being a king temporarily) and quality of life improvements to systems like fast travel and quest reminders to keep the game moving along.
From a technical standpoint, they just absolutely nailed it here. My only personal qualms are minor in that I still dislike the first person view of the combat, and I felt that the story, just like in the first two existed primarily in service to the gameplay.
To summarize, at the time of its release in Japan, I think it can be argued pretty easily that this was the best RPG around due to the size, scope and successful execution of its many game systems.