"The best RPG of all time"

Introduction: Dragon Warrior III is an RPG for the Game Boy Color (GBC) system. It was made by Enix (now known as Square-Enix). This game was originally made for the NES system, and was made for the GBC around the year 2000.

Gameplay: This game will keep you playing for YEARS. Even after you defeat Baramos, there is still a lot left to do! There are many side-quests in this game, and there are even quests to be done in this game after you finish off the final boss! If you're a very thorough game player, this game will take you YEARS to completely finish.

This game is fun and enjoyable. While this game is still based off it's original NES version, so much has been added to the game, making it all the more interesting! This is not your typical RPG. The characters have personalities, there are monster medals to collect, Tiny Medals to collect, and if that wasn't enough, there are three grades of monster medals: bronze, silver and gold! There are also Pachisi tracks (they're like a board game, except your character is the playing piece and when you roll the die, your character moves that many spaces) that not just have nice prizes at the end, but also have prizes in chests and vases along the way! These are a lot of fun! And then there are arenas where they pit two monsters (or more) against each other, and you bet on the winner, and if you win, you get more money! If you win the first round, you then get to risk even more money in the next round, and if you bet correctly in that round, you get to double the stakes in the next round! You can keep betting forever and ever until you decide to walk away or you lose. There's a LOT to do in this game.

Controls are easy, though I admit it took me a long time to get used to using the B button for the main menu instead of the Start button (which gets you into the Field Log). Controls are simple and easy to remember.

Story: In Dragon Warrior III, you are the hero. It is your sixteenth birthday, and your mother is sending you off to see the King of Aliahan. The King informs you that your father, Ortega, fell into a volcano on his quest to stop the dark lord Baramos. Because you are Ortega's son/daughter (you can be either a hero or a heroine in this game! :D), you are the next in line to stop Baramos from ruling the world with his harsh and cruel ways.

Graphics/Sound: The songs for the towns and the overworld do get repetitive after an extended amount of gameplay. The songs for the dungeons, however, are awesome. Often, the song changes for each floor of the dungeon you are on.

The graphics in this game are better than your typical GBC game. While some characters look like they have tapered legs, others are well-done. The sprites for the different classes are actually distinguishable from one another! A downside is that some monsters are based off the same sprite, only with different colors, and the same attacks as well. It gets kind of boring seeing one monster with a blue color to it, and then seeing the same monster in a shade of green. However, if you want to get those monster medals, you've just gotta keep on fighting.

Play Time/Replayability: As I stated earlier, this game will take the average RPer about a year to finish, and will take the very thorough RPer about another year to finish. This game is worth playing with both a female and a male hero, as the responses you get from townspeople are different, depending on the gender of your hero.

Be prepared to do a lot of leveling-up of characters in this game. If you want to defeat the final boss, you will need four characters (the most you can have in a party) at the highest level possible. It will take A LOT of tedious wandering and monster slaying for most characters to reach the maximum level (99), especially if that person's class is one of the more highly-authoritive. Each class takes different amounts of experience to level up, and each monster hands out different amounts of experience points. You have to find the monsters that give the most experience, fight them, win, and seek another battle. It will take a long time, but if you want to win, you've gotta do it. :P

Final Recommendation: Buy it. Buy it NOW. It's one of the best GBC RPGs (and one of the best RPGs of all time) out there, but it won't be out much longer because of Game Boy Advance. It's well worth whatever you pay for it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/04