Dragon Warrior III

Dragon Warrior III
Publisher(s)	Enix Corporation (Japan) Enix America Corporation (NA)
Developer(s)	Chunsoft
Designer(s)	Yūji Horii
Artist(s)	Akira Toriyama
Composer(s)	Koichi Sugiyama
Released	February 10, 1988 (Japan) June 12, 1991(NA)
Price	{{{retailprice}}}
Genre	console role-playing game
Mode	single-player
Platform	NES
Series	Dragon Quest
Rating	N/A
Media	2-megabit Famicom cartridge 4-megabit NES cartridge
Input	NES Controller

Dragon Warrior III (ドラゴンクエストIII そして伝説へ… or Doragon Kuesuto III Soshite Densetsu e...), translated as Dragon Quest III: And Into the Legend..., was the third game in the Dragon Quest series of role-playing games published by Enix. Originally released in North America in 1991, the game was remade for Gameboy Color in 2001. Another remake for the Super Famicom was never released outside of Japan.

Prologue

The game opens with a massive battle over a volcano between a man with blue hair and a dragon. The battle rages on for several seconds until the blue haired man cuts the wing off of the dragon causing the battle to continue on the ground. The blue haired man eventually runs the dragon through, however the dragon takes hold of the blue haired man and turns and begins to walk into the volcano. The volcano erupts and there is a scream heard, the screen fades to black.

Story

The hero is awakened by his mother on his sixteenth birthday, and is brought before the king of Aliahan for an audience. Apparently the blue haired man in the opening film was your father Ortega,the great hero of Aliahan, who had been charged with defeating the Archfiend Baramos. With the passing of your father the king lays the responsibility of safe guarding the world on your shoulders, after giving you some gold and telling you to head to the local tavern to enlist help, he sends you on your way. After getting some much needed help your party begins to explore the country of Aliahan.

Characters

Hero

Ortega

Baramos

Zoma

Gameplay

Dragon Warrior III was the first game in the series to feature a customizable party, the Hero could recruit up to three party members including a Soldier (known as a Warrior in the GBC version), a Fighter, a Pilgrim (Cleric), a Wizard (Mage), A Goof-Off (Jester) and a Merchant (Dealer). There is also a Sage class that can only be obtained later in the game and a Thief class that was added for the remakes.

Any character could also have their class changed as long as they were above level 20. They would revert to level 1 and would lose half their previous stats but keep all their learned spells allowing players to make characters that had some of their abilities from their previous class.

The remakes also introduced the first and only appearance of the Personality system in the Dragon Quest series.

Classes

Hero: This is the class that the player starts with and is the only character that cannot change class, nor can any other character become a Hero. The Hero levels up slowly but is fairly well balanced, with his stats favoring HP, Strength, and Defense with the rest being average. The Hero also learns several offensive and defensive spells, some of which are the best in the game and unavailable to other classes.

Soldier: Professional warriors who have high attack and defense stats. Soldiers can equip some of the best weapons and armor in the game and can both give and take quite a beating. On the down side, they are fairly slow and do not know magic.

Fighter: Martial artists who are both faster than Soldiers and more likely to score critical hits in battle. Fighters are deadly, even when fighting bare-handed. However, they can equip only light armor, making them very fragile, and certain weapons, meaning upgrades are few and far between. Like the Soldier, Fighters have no magical ability.

Wizard: This class has powerful offensive magic spells at it's disposal, as well as powerful attack buffing skills for your allies. Most of the time their magic can do more damage than anything else in the party, however it uses up MP quickly. They are also the most fragile, with bad defensive stats and weak armor.

Pilgrim: This class gets healing spells as well as spells and debuff monsters and buff your defense. They also get decent defensive stats and when not casting can do decent damage with physical attacks.

Merchant: This class has decent stats but gets few armor and weapons to equip. They can earn you extra money after battles and can tell if items have extra effects. They also get a couple spells useful outside of battle.

Goof-Off: This class is useless in battle. Not only do Goof-Offs ignore battle commands, but their stat growth is terrible with the exception of Luck. However, a level 20 or higher Goof-Off can be promoted to the Sage class without having a Book of Satori.

Sage: The ultimate magic class. Sages learn every spell of both the Pilgrim and Wizard classes and have much better stat growth than either. Further, Sages can equip relatively strong armor and weapons, which makes them powerful both as physical fighters and magic users. However, a character may only become a Sage by using one of only two Books of Satori in the game, or by getting to level 20 as a Goof-Off first.

Thief: This class was added for the remakes and is the most well-balanced class. Thieves have high Agility and average stats everywhere else. They can equip unique weapons like Whips and Boomerangs that hit multiple enemies, and can equip decent armor. They can also sometimes steal items during battle and will learn several unique spells that are useful outside of battle.

Other than the robust class system Dragon Warrior III also introduced even more spells, equipment, items, and monsters, most of which are still used in later games in the series. Also new in the game was a day and night system. As you traveled around the world time would flow and go from day to night and night to day. Visiting towns at night allowed players to do and see some things they normally wouldn't during the day. Dragon Warrior III is also the first Dragon Warrior in which you can obtain a method of flying around the world and features monster battles which you can bet on the monster of your choice and have a chance of doubling your bet or better.

Version Differences

Like most Dragon Quest games, Dragon Quest III was censored in its initial appearance in America as Dragon Warrior III. The Priest character class was renamed "Pilgrim," while the priests at churches were renamed healers. The churches themselves were referred to as Houses of Healing and had their Christian crosses replaced with six-pointed stars. Finally, dead party members were depicted as ghosts rather than as coffins with crosses on the lid as they were in the Japanese version of Dragon Quest III.

The Japan-only 1996 remake of Dragon Quest III for the Super Nintendo featured updated graphics and sound, a new Thief character class, a new Personality statistic that affected character development, the Tiny Medal collection game first introduced in Dragon Quest IV, Monster Medals, bonus dungeons and the Pachisi minigame. The later Gameboy Color version of the game, which saw release in America in 2001, was based on this version.

World

Dragon Warrior III initially takes place in a world very similar to Earth. The world map itself roughly resembles a map of Earth and many areas are modeled after different cultures like Romaly (Rome), Isis (Egypt), Jipang (Japan) and Soo (America) and are located in areas of the map roughly equivalent to their inspirations. Later in the game, the party travels to Alefgard, a world that exists beneath the surface of the first world. This world is familiar as well, encompassing the lands from the first Dragon Warrior.

Spin-offs

On top of being remade for both the Super Famicom and the GameBoy Color, Dragon Warrior III also inspired several mangas including Dai no Daibouken and The Emblem of Roto.