Dragon Quest III

"Probably the best remake ever."

Dragon Quest III was always a alright entry into the series for me. When I first played it on the NES I was blown away. It was much better then the disaster that was Dragon Quest II. The game not only had job classes, but a larger world to explore. More items to get and it allowed for a decent amount of customization in your party. When I began to later play it I realized the game had aged terribly. Later on, Enix fortunately remade this game for the SNES. This remake is amazing and did not disappoint me at all.

Graphics:10/10:The Graphics in this Dragon Quest III remake is amazing. Areas are beautifully designed. Character designs are amazing and I love how each job class looks unique. I especially love the Fighter's design! In battle enemies look absolutely amazing. They also get animations as well when they attack. The animations are nearly flawless if not perfectly done. What really impressed me was the battle backgrounds. They are gorgeous and just beautifully designed. As the time of day changes so do the battle backgrounds. Terrain also effects the battle background as well. Overall the Graphics in this Dragon Quest III remake is amazing. Probably one of the best SNES Graphics capable games for the system.

Gameplay:10/10:Dragon Quest III is the same old-school Gameplay you'd expect from the series. You'll travel from town to dungeon. Buying better equipment for your party and resting at the Inn. If you don't have enough gold to buy equipment or need levels then you'll battle enemies. Exploration and battling is done with a four man party. You recruit three other party members at the beginning. You can choose your own job classes to recruit. To allow for more customization when you recruit your characters you can also distribute seeds into any status of your choice. If, your unsure of what stats to distribute the five seeds to the computer can do it for you. Once, you've recruited your other three party members the journey begins!

As you explore encounters are initiated in a decent amount of steps. So you won't be frustrated going across the World Map or exploring a dungeon. To make exploring even better you walk much faster in dungeons and towns. Battles are done from a first person point of view. You can see the enemies, but not your characters. When attacks are done animations are shown though. Due to this style of battling battles go by quickly. Battles are usually fairly easy. Most of time you'll encounter easy battles. Occasionally you'll get unlucky and you'll run into enemies that use buffs/debuffs. While random encounters are easy the boss fights certainly aren't. The beginning bosses aren't too hard. With the right levels and a decent strategy they can be beaten easily. Towards the middle and end of the game bosses get much harder though. Bosses then take not only the right levels, but a good strategy as well. What's a little disappointing is the final boss. He was a little bit too easy due to a item you get in the final dungeon that has infinite uses and heals your whole party for a small amount of HP.

Now, later on in the game Job Classes get more interesting. You'll come across a place called Dhama Shrine. Here a character can change their job class. The catch is the start back at level 1. This is actually a good thing though. Characters still retain half of their original level's stats and the spells they had learned. Want a Soldier who can cast Magic? Just change a Wizard to a Soldier. Of course, you'll have much higher DEF, ATK and HP, but in return your MP will take a major decrease. Believe it or not the classes do truly have a lot of depth to them. Even to this day there are several debates about which classes are better then others. Just due to how the status mechanics work in the game. The personality system also just adds more depth and customization to the game. Overall the Dhama Shrine was a brilliant idea and it adds a great amount of customization to Dragon Quest III. As mentioned before, but briefly the personality system needs to be discussed.

In the GBC/SNES remakes of Dragon Quest III a personality system was added. The Hero's personality in the beginning is determined by the choices you make. Once that's done and you go off to form your party it gets quite interesting. Basically personalities determine how your character's stats build. For example if you get the Agile personality. That character will get high AGL stat gains from level ups, but most likely suffer in other categories not related to Agility. Your created characters get their personalities based on how you distribute the Stat Seeds you get whenever you make a character. The personality system is great because it adds a lot more customization and depth to Dragon Quest III.

The main problem of Dragon Quest III comes when you get the ship. You'll have to do a ton of World Map exploration. It gets annoying when you have to sail for about five minutes to a location. Only to do something there that takes about ten minutes then sail to another place. You'll be sailing a lot in the game. Due to the fact at most places the things your required to do don't take much time. Overall despite it's problems Dragon Quest III ages greatly with this much needed remake. The Gameplay got some major improvements from the original especially with the new personality system.

Music:10/10:I love the remixed songs in this remake. I especially love the town songs and the epic World Map theme. The final boss song also was greatly improved. Sound effects are very impressive as well and standard DQ fare. Overall the Music is very good and so are the Sound effects.

Overall:10/10:This remake of Dragon Quest III is great. It improved the Graphics amazingly. It's easily one of the best SNES graphically capable games on the system. The Gameplay is still the same thing, but improvements over everything else makes it better. Music is greatly remixed and I love the Music a lot. Overall this Dragon Quest III remake for the SNES is a must get. I beat it without knowing Japanese, but a guide was needed at all times.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/08, Updated 11/25/08

Game Release: Dragon Quest III: Soshite Densetsu e... (JP, 12/06/96)