Games › Super Famicom › 1996
Cover art © its publisher, shown small to identify the game (source). Request removal.
1996 · Super Famicom
Facts from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Spot a mistake or a gap? Fix it yourself or tell us.
Ortega went after the archfiend Baramos and seemingly died in a volcano. On the Hero's sixteenth birthday, the King of Aliahan hands the job down to Ortega's child, and you choose whether that child is a son or a daughter. Nobody else in the party comes from the story. You walk into the tavern and make them yourself, up to three companions, each with a class: soldier, wizard, pilgrim, merchant and more, plus the thief, new to the remakes. Then you cross a world shaped like ours, with towns standing in for Rome, Portugal and Japan, gathering six orbs to wake the bird Ramia.
Battles are classic Dragon Quest: turn-based, with up to four in the party. The depth is in the build. At level 20 a character can change class at the temple of Dhama, halving stats and dropping to level 1 but keeping every spell, so a wizard who retrains as a soldier keeps the magic and gains the toughness. The remake adds personalities. The Hero's is set by moral choices in a dream before the game starts, everyone else's by the seeds you hand out at the tavern, and personality decides which stats grow each level.
The 1988 Famicom original came from Chunsoft, with Yuji Horii's scenario, Akira Toriyama's art and Koichi Sugiyama's music, and it was a national event: over a million copies on day one, and almost 300 students arrested for truancy. This remake, developed by Heartbeat and published by Enix, reached the Super Famicom on 6 December 1996.
It never left Japan. Enix's American arm closed in 1995, and by the time it came back the Super NES was gone from North America. It still sold 1.4 million copies at home, nearly 720,000 in 1996 alone. The changes run deep: a bag instead of a bank, Tidy and Full HP commands, animated monsters and attacks, a new opening showing Ortega's fight with the Dragon Queen, hidden Mini Medals, a Pachisi board game and two bonus dungeons after the main quest. Square Enix re-released it on Wii in Japan in 2011, and the Game Boy Color remake, built on this version, carried it into English.
This is Dragon Quest III with the rough edges sanded off, and it plays beautifully. Building the party is the fun: four strangers, four jobs, then a trip to Dhama that turns them into hybrids nobody planned. Day and night still delight, with people and quests that only appear at certain hours, and the world opens out once you have a ship in a way that feels big even now. If you know the first game, the twist in the back half lands like coming home.
Two things to know. Underneath it is a 1988 design, so expect random battles and some grinding, and a party of recruits you made yourself never gets the warmth of a cast with their own stories. And the cartridge is Japanese only. The menus are easy to learn if you've played any Dragon Quest; the dialogue is a wall.
Dragon Quest III's best trick is a return. After you beat Baramos, Zoma opens a pit to a Dark World, you jump in, and it turns out to be Alefgard, the land of the first game. The Sun Stone, the Rain Staff and the Rainbow Bridge are all waiting. A prequel ends where the series began, and the Hero earns the title Erdrick, Loto in Japan, the legend the earlier games were built on.
Research on nostalgia found it is mostly a warm feeling, often full of the people close to us, and that it leaves us more connected and better about ourselves. This remake is nostalgia twice over: a beloved 1988 game rebuilt eight years later, ending in a land players already knew. And you don't walk back into Alefgard alone. Beside you are the friends you made at the tavern, given personalities in this version, who have crossed the whole world with you. Coming home feels best with company.
Read: Why old games feel like home →
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
In the game. At level 20 you can change class at Dhama. Stats halve and you drop to level 1, but spells stay, so a wizard who retrains as a soldier keeps the magic and gets the toughness.
Do it on purpose. Before you build the party at the tavern, write down who each member becomes after Dhama. Stick to it, or note why you changed your mind.
Off the couch. Career moves work the same. Take a step back to learn a new trade and you come out with both skill sets.
In the game. Day and night change the world: some items, people and quests only show up at certain times. The remake also hides Mini Medals you can collect for new items.
Do it on purpose. Visit every town twice, once by day and once by night, and talk to everyone both times.
Off the couch. Ask the second question. People open up when you actually want the answer, and being interested beats being interesting on any date.
In the game. This Super Famicom remake never came to North America, so the cartridge is Japanese only. The Game Boy Color version is built on it and came out in English, which makes a decent crib sheet.
Do it on purpose. Learn the kana for the class names at the tavern first. You'll read them every time you build a party.
Off the couch. A few real words of Japanese turns a holiday into a conversation. Shopkeepers, hosts and new mates notice you tried.
Verdict · 9/10
The finest version of the game its makers said perfected the Dragon Quest structure, with every rough edge of the original smoothed. If you can find a way past the Japanese, few 16-bit RPGs are this generous.
