III

Again, offset by the late release of Dragon Quest as Dragon Warrior in the United States in 1989, we did not get it until 1992, when we got this AND Dragon Warrior IV in the same year. III is one of the most complex of the early series, being as now all the standard RPG earmarks are there, a party of 4 characters, character classes, class changes, fuller stats, large scale battles with multiple, sometimes up to 8 enemies on the screen at a time, 2 different worlds to explore, a day-night cycle which Ultima had already been using by Ultima V in 1985 on computers. And the quest was quite a bit more open-ended than Dragon Warrior II that split froma linear path to a exploratory path about halfway through, with just a little linear guidance at the beginning to get new players acquainted.

The story was about a 16 year old kid commissioned by the king on his birthday to help defeat the evil in the kingdom. The kid then has to go to a cafe, find some companions, and go about his quest, eventually landing in familiar territory (ie Alefgard), telling the tale told posthumously in the origiinal Dragon Quest/Warrior Game. This title did not sell to well and is quite rare. I picked up my copy in 2003 for about $36, it's way more expensive than that now.

I started getting serious about 3 years later, on my weekends and days off work, playing Dragon Warrior III for hours, grinding, grinding, grinding, going through desert Oasis, and Pyramids, and Dungeon after Dungeon, having a very hard time keeping track of everything going on at that point, often playing till I woke up at 3 a.m. with a headache and on the brink of insanity after listening to the battle or overworld music for the last six hours in my sleep from my Mitsubishi CS1984R console TV on a reasonable volume. On a weekend, if I was really bored - I'd play Dragon Warrior III, and usually end up waking up from a nap, and probably humming the 30 second loop of music I'd been listening to inadvertantly the last few hours until I was on the border of going insane. So I identify this game pretty yheavily with SLEEP. I find it the most relaxing (and forgiving) release of the lot.

I just picked this one up where I left off on my previous savegame, turning out I'd actually made it just a mere stone's throw from fighting the Archfiend Baramos. IT took a COVID-19 induced haze and lots of time on my hands (and a brand new Hyperkin NES wireless controller) to send me toward progress. AS of this writing, I'm now sitting pretty in the strange enemy array that is Alefgard 100 years before the first game.

Preface - So when we start the game, it's your 16th birthday and you are summoned by the king to join in the fight against the Archviend Baramos. He gives you a few hints and objectives, as will talking to the townspeople. Your primary goal - at first - is form a party, and level them up. Just to hint at the difficulty, this is when Dragon Quest became a little more "forgiving" about the grinding, as you will find, as we progress.

preface - In DWIII, we now have a REAL RPG system. No longer do we have a, or a team of, pre-made characters (well, we do, but not in the typical fashion) that we have to go on a fetch quest for or spend hours upon hours grinding enemy after single enemy for gold and XP to advance. Now we can form a party of 4 charactes, either of your own design, or premade by the game (some with some familiar names).

Plot: 8/10

So your travels take you all over the actual REAL world, with phonetically displaced namees such as "Jipang" or "Soo" or "Samosa" or "Eigerbear"...leading you all over the world to do the deeds for many kings all over the world. Everything from fighting Mummies of Egypt to fighting the Oriochi Legend in Japan! Or helping the Soo tribe, or starting your own city in the United States!...with all this geographical mentions, where's Ian Dury and the Blockheads when you need im'!? Hit me with your bamboo stick...hit me (hit me) hit me (hit me)! All the while, working your way up to fighting Wart's Dinosaur cousin, who lives under his Swimming Pool in his backyard like some kind of demented version of "Earth Girls are Easy". Seriously, if I find some comical dinosaur man with chaotic attacks living in a altar in my swimming pool.....it's seriously time to call the Ghostbusters, STAT!

But after beating up Grandpa Sinclair with the attack force to kill 12 Dragonlords in one hit - you come to find out he's just Zoma's Pool Guy, in a bizarre twist, sort of like Five Nights at Freddy's 2, you realize this is a PREQUEL - you ARE "the Erdrick", and it is your mission to fight Zoma in a hauntingly familiar "underworld" cast in darkness with the "Sphere of Light" (Balls of Light) - yeppers....this is the events leading UP TO Dragon Warrior/Quest - the first one. So after playing on the edge of a sink hole and riding a magical phoenix, you now get to go item gathering in the land where it all began, and get thoroughly bamboozled by Magiwyverns in the Cantlin Swamp of Death.

No princess, so much artifact gathering you need to have a bank vault to store it all, spending so much money Jeff Bezos is beginning to arouse and drool thinking about it! Seriously, for what I paid in Weapons/Armor in this game in in-game currency, I could have foreclosed on Baramos castle and outsted him that way! Flying the friendly skies via the USS Kiwi Phoenix, and fighting so many bears you'd think this was Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and not the World Tree! Still not as grabbing or compelling as Dragon Warrior IV's 5 chapter long novel of betrayal, lust, love, vengeance, misanthropy, and mad science!

Graphics: 8/10

That said, castles are now a PART of the town they are in usually, unless it's a standalone, like Archfiend and leader of the Pool Guy Cult Baramos and his strange McMansion on the outskirts of the pit of Giaga, where he hosts a corpse in his lawn mower shed, a stairwell layout of the twilight Zone, and several concrete, fat Ned Flanders roaming the property like Seth Rogan in a Marching Band (give em' a tuba - it'll be like blowing in a toilet!)! It makes it feel more like I'm Urbexing Bill Gates' old Windows 3.1 era mansion rather than some kind of supervillan world. C'mon, step it up Baramos - you're getting your butt kicked by Richard Garriot, the creator of Ultima - he has a high powered Telescope - you hhave a what?!?! A Swimming Pool Shrine!?!? Sure your tool shed is the size of a tiny house, but it's also seriously devoid of a decent Briggs & Stratton machine or two!

Ahyway...back to "earth" - the graphics have been upped, mixing the smaller tress with bigger tress, a new water texture that's a little more "water-like", every texture has been redone in some capacity. The old Sand and grass are still there, but have been re-done with new pallets that seems a little more natural, if a little more subdued. We start to see new land features such as double-wide towns, double-wide caves, hulking castles, and blank spaces representing volcanoes and sink-holes to Alefgard. We have a new Day-Night cycle that gets locked in eternal night-time later in the game. So much graphical overhaul it looks like basic Dragon Quest at first glance, but once you learn to appreciate the details, you find this is a step in a very detailed direction for an 8-bit RPG.

Townsfolk sleep in proper beds now and not on stark, white, beach towels. We have tables and chairs, and statues, and roman columns now. It gives the land a more whimsical flavor that says more than just "I am a Video Game" and says more of "I am a place, a thing to stay at". The sheer variety of NPCs gives each part of the world it's own flavor from the indigneious people of the Soo to the Kimono clad warriors of Jipang. To Edinburgh Castle warriors to turban clad shopkeepers in the humorously named commerce center that is "Assaram" (someone at Enix knew what they were up to). Even Baramos himself looks like some kind of sporadic dancing misplaced muppet on his post-aqua throne. It's a feeling unique to Dragon Quest III's aesthetics that are both serious, cool, and hilarious all at once.

Sound: 9/10

It feels like a symphonic soundtrack now, instead of a chiptune attempt at one. The overworld march feels like a march of soldiers prepared for war with it's stoic "duhdundun dun, dun, dundundun," in it's 2/4 implied Loverboy-esque 4-on-the-floor tempo march. Seriously, let's get Matt "Matty" Frenette on those Simmons Pads hooked to a NES right now....this would blow a few speakers out. Seriously, I want to try to make a New Wave version of this in the Loverboy style - it's frekain KILL, especially with some Paul Dean esque guitar leads for the main melody and some classical, baroque, Doug Johnson style keyboard fills for texture....and some marching Sinave style bass guitar - lotta flanger stabs.

The city theme sounds like something that would play in England as a little birdie lands on your window-sill as you get up in the morning as you sip your tea. I literally could see this being a Beatles type tune. Probably Ringo on vocals. I'm thinking something off Yellow Submarine here. Maybe throw some Cars in there too with a little bit of Elliot Easton style legato guitar work, a this one would kick some serious butt.

The castle theme is a return to form from the Scorpions Ballad that was the previous installment's castle music. I'm thinking again, a very Yngwie Malmsteen flavor on this - neo-classical - scalloped strat and all. It feels like a castle, just not as dreary or "Blackstar" as the original theme, but not as much like Klause Meine should be belting out the melody ala Winds of Change.

The battle theme continues where we left off with Dragon Warrior II with the Hebrew hymn style of pulsating triangle/square rhythm section, and locrian scale structures, wild trills, and so on. Something like a cross between Meghugga and Meshugga Beach Party would probably fit the bill on this, or Los Lobos. Were riding the waves of pure war! Or we could bring in my own Offset Baritone Chorus Metal for this (hehehe, Drop CG for the win!). This is where we can kind of start to see a formual in Sugyama's compositions to fit the bill and fill ALL of the emotions of a space...

Castle themes in general, in Dragon Quest, from the second one on, tend to invoke a feeling of anxiety mixed with a feeling of relaxation. It starts off a little low-key anxious with minor tones and some baroque feel (usually), or at least the feeling "something's wrong" but then resolves into a major key as in you take our eyes off the King as he tells you the evil Dinosaur is about to lay a big stinky egg on the populace, and realize the Wizard is over there, staring into his whirlpool, the cook and mother is tending to her kids between lunch and dinner, the guards are just standing around looking for transients to rough up, and everything is in it's place - for now - then you pay your attention back at the loop and boom - you're back to thinking about Mystery Muppet and his Magical Electric Mayhem.

Battle themes from the second game onward take a vibe in that middle eastern, hebrew, and surf vibe. half-step note changes where in any other situation we'd have whole steps, to build tension. Usually these battles from day one announced their coming with a startling report, just to drag us into a high tempo, high energy, minor key melody of stress, strain, and war, only to lead us down a path of chaotic, Cobain-like Chromatics, into a stabbing resolve before looping back to Meshugga Slime Party's semi-religious meanderings about slaying slimes and the glory of Rubiss.

Small towns get a nice soft song, something like a cross between The Cars and Milkwood (The Cars precursor acoustic act) as a group of bards singing a Medevil version of "Lincoln Park" with a tempo of "Don' Cha' Stop" driving the whole thing along. A far cry from the Swiss Miss Advertisement that was sthe origianl town theme. Why they never put a band of NPCs in there, aside from technical limitations, s beyond me.

Dragon Warriror II saw the start of the stumbling, funky, dungeon themes, something right out of a cartoon show. But Dragon Quest III adds a bit more new-wave jangle to it with the high pitched, crystal square wave bells. All of these themes start off funky and weirid, almost atonal and dissonant, before resolving into some kind of melodically more sound bit that's either relaxing, disturbing, or both. I seriously could do renditions of this style whilst ripping off DEVO.

Gameplay: 7/10 Dragon Quest III's gameplay is the most complex of the series to date, making II look simple by comparison. Sure all the standard earmarks are there, buying weapons and armor, grinding for gold and XP, talking to townspeople to learn of clues on where to go next. But things get INSANE here, more so than the next game, Dragon Warrior IV.

First and foremost, and the most complex, is the CLASS system. Unlike Dragon Warrior I, where you were just a lone hero with Magic and Melee at your command, or Dragon Warrior II where you had yourself as the hero, the Prince of Cannock as a dark mage, and the Princess of Moonbrooke as a light mage - now we have Soldiers, Pilgrims, Heros, Warriors, Paladins, Wizards, Clerics, Alchemists, Sages, Goof Offs....and they can be pre-made or ready made, something I wonder if Horii lifted from Ultima III: Exodus which came out the year before in Japan by FCI. Ultima Exodus had the same deal, you hade races of human, elf, bobit (!?!), Fuzzy, Dwarf, and then you had Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Wizard, Bard, Lark, Theif, Alchemist, Barbarian....and so on, and you could choose between "Pre-Made" or "Hand-Made" characters. The Ready-Made Characters in Dragon Warrior III are going to Lucia's Pub and selecting from a list of characters from different worlds - pre-made - to recruit for your party, while Hand-Made is if you go upstairs and CREATE a character to your particular custom specs, and join them to your party. This allows for an infinite amount of design - but wait - there's more....

At some point in the game you will find a place called "The Shrine of Dharma" (Would have loved to hear Sugiyama do "Don't Fear the Reaper" or "Burning for You" as the background music for this place, lol - the shrine of BUCK Dharma, lol). Where you can train your characters up in a new class. This adds a new level of complexity Ultima did not have. Now you can make Wizards with Warrior strength or if you get the book of Satori, a Sage who can deal light and dark magic - best of all, at the cost of sanity and patience, you could recruit a goof-off and turn them into a sage later WITHOUT the book of Santari.....er Satori. Though being able to combine a Last Starfighter and a Sage would be awesome though! Hold races with Ramia the Phoenix in the skies for entertainment between quests. Anyway, all this class changing could be kind of interesting, I'm half tempted to recruit a team of Goof-Offs at some point for a humorous Side Quest Let's Play at some point. You know, sort of like Police Academy in Dragon Quest....we can name the hero "Lt. Harris" - and one goof-off "Proctor" ~ "PROCTOOOOOR! PUT DOWN THAT STONE OF SUNLIGHT NOW! IT'S NOT A TOY!".

Even without the class system, the world is expanded to two worlds, and the item count is so high it's the first game we see a "Bank" of sorts, to both store your essential quest items for retrieval later on, and gold so you don't lose half of it when you die. I mean, this game has about 10 items for every single one in the original Dragon Warrior. It's nuts. It's a big reason I don't reccommend III to first timers because it can be somewhat overwhelming. I recall starting back up after leaving off a save game for 15-20 years, and I had to literally jet around the world a few times to see what I had done, and what was left. Whereas if it were Dragon Warrior I all I'd have to do is look at my stats, listen to King Lorick, and see if a Rainbow Bridge is up and a Princess is present.

The complexity also comes in the form of AI and fight management. Knowing how to order your party, how to form attacks, how to arrange each character in a "firing order" like sparkplugs in an engine, can really benefit your success in fights.

Overall: 9/10