REVIEW: Dragon Quest/ Dragon Warrior III 1988/1991 Famicom/NES
	By: Enix Type: RPG Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard

This game never gets the attention that it deserves. This game is one of the best Dragon Quest/ Warrior games in existance. Now, the other games require a lot of leveling up and magic. Let me tell you now, Dragon Quest III and V are the only games I know of where it's actually essential to spend time leveling up. It isn't like DQ4 where you could just get a few hundred gold. In DQ1, and 2, you actually need the gold. Dragon Quest III is the last game in the "Erdrick/ Roto" trilogy, which explains Erdrick/ Roto. This game was remade on the Super Famicom, but sadly, it never reached our shores.

One day, the son/ daughter of Ortega (you) are awaken by your mother. You have just turned 16, and your father has not yet returned. So the king asks to see you. Your mother will escort you there. The king says that you must go after your father, and defeat the archfiend Baramos, who plans to ruin the light world. Since you are on your own, you don't have any descendants of Erdrick (you'll see why in the ending), but you can form a party. Male or female (I usually have more females in my group). This game is quite long, since there is more than one world. The light world is different, so you can't understand what this has to do with Erdrick, and the music is also different, either. I will list the classes that you can recruit. Here they are:

Protagonist (DW3 uses "Hero", DQ3 uses "Protagonist")
You can't enlist the hero at Luida's/Louisa's place, and you cannot change your class. In the beginning, it will ask for your name, (which it has been doing since the first DQ) and then it will ask for your gender. After that, you become the main character. Woo hoo!

Fighter (Literally "Fighter" in Japanese, but is a martial artist)
The fighter has no spells, which is when you could change your class. You should change your character to do this job. The fighter is like Alena in DQ4/DW4. He/ she isn't expensive, and she (I chose female) is very strong. She cannot learn any spells, which is why you should have one of your monks/ wizards changed to this class. Another thing is, this class isn't very intelligent and has poor agility, having a wizard/ monk changed into this class will fix that.

Soldier (Fighter, Warrior, whatever)
The soldier is another class that is lacking in intelligence. The soldier is highly expensive, like the protagonist. He demands swords, and axes, and good armor. He does not have any spells, and he has below par agility. Your remaining magic user, excluding the protagonist, should be switched to this class.

Monk (Priest, called "Pilgrims" in DW3)
A good thing about this class is that the monks can use swords, no matter what gender may be. They have high intelligence, they are pretty strong, and they are like white mages. You should have this first, and you should only have one of these until you change classes, in which it won't be there at all. They also have good HP and MP, surprisingly. A very useful job!

Magician (Magicians, Wizards, Witches, etc.)
If there is one thing all job related games need, it's one of these. However, they aren't as strong as the monks, but their attack spells make up for it. They are cheap, and can learn good spells. They have more intelligence than the monks. You should change this into a soldier, and let the monk be a fighter.

Playboy (Literally "Playboy", but since this was too inappropriate for us Americans, they were translated to "Goof-off")
Enix of Japan really messed up when they created this job. It is a useless job at most times, mostly because you don't know what he's going to do. It's like Dragon Quest V's Artificial Intelligence battles. However, he can become a sage at level twenty without Satori no Hon (Book of Satori). He also uses swords.

Merchant (I forgot the real translation)
This job is kind of odd. He has good agility. The female merchant has a sword that the male merchants cannot use.

Sage (Wise Man, whatever)
The sage knows almost every single spells, and is much like the protagonist. He is expensive. However, you can't enlist this character, that would make the game way too easy. Instead, at level 20, you can use Satori no Hon, unless you have a "playboy", and change that into a sage. If you look below, the second person in line from bottom to top is the female fighter. This is the only one that you would change. If you have a monk and a wizard, the remaining character should turn into a sage, while you change the others into soldiers and fighters..... or whatever.

While this game isn't like Final Fantasy VI, the are elements that are superior. There is more to the story than simply saving your father and killing Zoma, because like most RPGs, someone ends up dying, and then they carry on the anger. The box really tells you about the jobs, because you see nearly every job, unless you play Dragon Quest III remake, or Dragon Warrior III, their boxes have only one visible thing. To tell you the truth, the light world is one of the largest worlds to exist. As for the dark world, it isn't. It is the worlds from Dragon Quest/ Warrior III's predecessors. Yep, you go back to the worlds that annoyed you. This game really confuses me with that though. The enemies are stronger, and it's a dark world, and you can't tell what Erdrick's _____ is! However, you do get to see the wrecked city (Haukness) before the King Dragon/ Dragonlord annihilated it. You have a ship as well, and Alefgard is there. Thing is, you go there to receive the items you looked for in DQ1, and yet I don't know where Erdrick put his token (he's alive in the dark world, only when you are there), etc. Naturally, after you collected the items you needed in DQ1, you go to fight Zoma, in what will be the Dragonlord's castle. Now, you need the Ball of Light, and this is why the game is so good. It's simply amazing what happens there.

This RPG isn't like my favorite Dragon Quest, DQ5, however, it is not a bad game. I say you get all versions where you can find them. For those Dragon Ball Z fans, the artist that did that (Akira Toriyama) made the graphics for this game, so get it. It is also good that you do that, just to say you want to learn Japanese, and if you are a beginner and can only read Katakana/ Hiragana, play the Famicom version. If you want to test your wits, play the kanji version for the SFC. If you just want English, or you DQ fans want to learn English, play DW3.

Dragon Quest III can't be missed. If you do, you'll have a small chance of getting it cheap, and I mean from $15 (for DQ3)-$70 (ending with the remake of DQ3). Dragon Warrior III sets in the middle of those price ranges, but, they all will get expensive if you don't go out and buy that game. - Squire Nomad, signing off 91%

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