Backlog Game Reviews 54 : Dragon Quest III On The Famicom

 

Introduction

 

Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews. Today let's talk about Dragon Quest 3 on the Nintendo Famicom. Released in Japan on February 10th, 1988, it wouldn't get a North American release until March 12th of 1992. It was incredibly successful in its home country of Japan, selling over one million copies on release day. It was also reported that 300 kids were apprehended by police for skipping school to buy the game. This caused the game's developer, Enix, to only release Dragon Quest games on the weekend.

 

While I can't find a number for how many copies Dragon Quest 3 sold in North America, it did not sell as well as it did in Japan. One reason for its poor sales was that by the time it was released in North America the Super Nintendo was already out, and people had already moved on to the 16-bit era of gaming.

 

In Japan, Dragon Quest 3 was heavily praised by critics. It was given almost perfect review scores and won awards for game of the year, best RPG, and best character design. While in America, it got more lukewarm reviews. Some aspects of the game were praised, like the newly added day and night system, but overall, it was criticized for playing the same as the first two games.

 

Is this game as good as the Japanese sales numbers would have you believe? Or were the Western critics right when they said it wasn't a bad game, but looks too much and plays too much like the first two games? Let's take a look and find out how Dragon Quest 3 holds up today.

 

Story

 

In this game, you play as an unnamed protagonist and you are the son or daughter of a famous hero named Ortega. Your father, Ortega, went off on a journey before you were born to defeat the demon king Baramos but never came back while Baramos remained alive.

 

 At the start of the game you name your character and pick their gender.

   When the game starts it's your sixteenth birthday, and you're woken up by your mother who reminds you that you had an appointment with the king today. When you go to the castle and speak with the king, he informs you that since your father failed to defeat Baramos and you are now of age his mission falls upon you. You accept and set off on a journey to do what your father could not, defeat Baramos and save the world.

 

 The game starts with your mom waking you up.

    The story for the third entry in the Dragon Quest series is a step up from the first two games. The first two games had more or less the same story. You were the decedent of a legendary warrior and were tasked with saving the world from a villain who was evil just for the sake of being evil.

 

 After giving you your orders the king gives you some money and your quest begins.

    This game's story is kind of the same, you are the child of the kingdom's strongest warrior and are tasked with saving the world from a powerful evil. What this game does that the others didn't is that it expands on the lore of the series, by teaching us about the origins of the legendary hero Erdrick that the first two games spoke of. It's a nice reward for people who played the first two games and wanted to know more about Erdrick.

 

 The first town in the game.

 

While the story is still simple it is much better than what came before it. It teaches you about the mysterious Erdrick that past games kept talking about, nicely tying it to the other games. This kind of storytelling is not often seen in NES games.

 

Gameplay

 

The game is very similar to the past two titles but also does a lot to set itself apart from Dragon Quest 1 and 2. The basic formula is the same, it's a turn-based RPG with a first-person perspective during battles. What Dragon Quest 3 does differently is that it introduces a new party and class system. Dragon Quest 1 only had one party member and all battles were one-on-one, Dragon Quest 2 gave you a premade team of three people and had you battle multiple monsters at once. This game allows you to create your own party members, and you can have a team of up to four characters.

 

 The battle screen.

    Unlike Dragon Quest 2 where your party members were premade story characters, Dragon Quest 3's party members are created from scratch. By going to a special building in the first town of the game, you can create your own team of characters. This leads us to Dragon Quest 3's most distinctive feature, the class system. When you go to create your party members you can choose what class you want them to be. You have classic classes like the warrior, a physically strong character with high HP and high attack, but can't use magic. There are also more unique classes like the goof-off, a character that has high luck but often doesn't listen to your commands and will waste turns putting themselves to sleep or telling jokes.

 

 The encounter rate is high in this game. It's good for when you want to level grind, but annoying for when you just want to get from point A to point B.

    Once one of your party members reaches level 20, you can change their class by taking them to a certain town. Class changing will put that character back at level 1, but they retain certain aspects of the last class that they were before. For example, changing a spellcaster into a warrior will result in a warrior who has MP and can use magic. Warriors can't gain MP or learn spells by leveling up, but they will retain the MP they had and spells they knew when they were a mage.

 

 Dragon Quest III has a day and night cycle. Walking around the overworld will cause time to pass. You can find secret events in some towns during the night.

    These new mechanics give the game way more depth than most RPGs on the Famicom. You can form a party to fit pretty much any playstyle. If you just like to hit stuff really hard and don't want to spend much time thinking about what to do, then make a party of warriors. Or if you like buffing your party and debuffing the enemy then a team of spellcasters would suit you well. This party system also gives the game some replay value, you can go back and try to beat the game with different party combinations or try to beat the game with only the main character since it's not necessary to make a party.

 

 The overworld.

    Just like how Dragon Quest II was way better than Dragon Quest I. Dragon Quest III is much better than Dragon Quest II. The improved party system makes the game a lot of fun to play. The main quest isn't an open-world scavenger hunt like in Dragon Quest II. The game makes it pretty clear as to what you need to do next so you're never confused on how to continue the story. Dragon Quest III is a very fun retro RPG that you should check out sometime if you're a fan of the genre.

 

Presentation

 

There's not that much to say about the presentation. Dragon Quest I had good graphics for the time it was released, and Dragon Quest II improved upon those graphics. But there isn't much they could have done this time around. It feels like they pushed the Famicom as far as they could with Dragon Quest II, so there really wasn't anything to improve upon in terms of graphics.

 

 The overworld of Dragon Quest II

 And Dragon Quest III. Graphically the two games are similar.

 When it comes to the music there is almost nothing to complain about. The music is just as good as it was in the past two games. The overworld theme, the battle theme, and the final boss theme are all great. The only complaint I have is that there is no title theme. The first two games had a cool title screen accompanied by the now iconic Dragon Quest title theme song titled, The Overture. This game though, has nothing of the sort, just a black music-less file select screen. Maybe they didn't have enough space on the cartridge to fit a title song and screen, but when you compare it to the first two games it feels kind of lazy.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Dragon Quest III is a great game and probably one of the best JRPGs on the NES and Famicom. The battle system was greatly expanded upon with the class system and the ability to change your party member's classes. And as expected from a Dragon Quest game the music is great, even though the title theme was excluded. I highly recommend giving this game a try if you're a fan of retro JRPGs.

 

That's all I have to say about this game. I don't know what game is going to get reviewed next, so you'll just have to wait until next time to find out. As always, thanks for reading! I hope to see you again here at Backlog Game Reviews.