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.