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So I’ve played Dragon Quest 1 many, many times. I DID pick up and look at DQ2, 3, and 4 a few times, but I never got super into them. That finally changed recently, with me finishing Dragon Quest 2, and now 3. And of all of them, DQ3 was the one that interested me the most, for all these years, for several reasons.

First, this game is a HUGE upgrade from DQ1 and 2 in so many ways. DQ1 was a large game for its time, with a giant sprawling world you had to explore, with many towns and dungeons and caves. This was compounded in the sequel, which practically doubles the size of the world, gives you a ship, and allows you to explore around, INCLUDING on the old game’s world map. How can they match that for Dragon Quest 3? By doing it again. DQ3 is fucking HUGE. And its one of the first RPGs I can think of that does the bait and switch “Whoop, here’s a second world map!” twist at what you THINK is the end. Final Fantasy 3 KINDA did it, but it feels a bit less large than it does here. And in FF3, it’s like “oh we’re already out of places to explore, and we’re not even that far in the game. Oh snap, it’s a floating island!” In DQ3, you’re told to fight Satan, you go on a LOT of adventures through this GIANT map, kill Satan, then learn OH SHIT THERE’S SATAN 2, THE BOSS OF SATAN, GO TO HIS WORLD, ANOTHER GIANT WORLD MAP, TO STOP HIM. That’s nuts. For this era, that is NUTS.

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The second thing that interested me as a kid, and still today, is the game’s party system. In DQ1, you had one character. In 2, you had three characters who were all like, characters. In this one, you name your hero, and then get to build a party out of randos at the local bar. They each have their own classes, so you can build a team of 3 randos that you name and concept, from about 6 classes. That’s pretty rad, and creates cool replayability value. And especially when you get reclassing later, so you can make soldiers with spells and stuff, if you wanted to. This game ALSO allows you to choose the GENDER of your characters. Which is absolutely stunningly ahead of its time. Confusingly though, the dialogue does NOT change if you make your main character a girl.

If you’re female, every character refers to you as a man. Except for two. There’s a kid who’s like “Hey, you’re the legendary hero! Wait, you’re a girl!” and then your dad who finds you in the final dungeon, and doesn’t recognize you, telling you to go to his daughter in your hometown, and let her know of his passing. This implies to me that your main character is, in fact, cross dressing. Which is fucking hilarious. Only your mom, dad, and some random kid notice. Mulana the RPG. It’s never really explained though, so it feels confusing when you first pick it up, like “But I chose girl though…”

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Other than that, it is Dragon Quest, though it feels a lot more concise and… dare I say, pleasant this time around. Yes, there’s still grinding, but all of the puzzles and dungeons and things you do feel better telegraphed than hearing one dude in a random town go “Oh there’s one tile in a swamp you need to check, good luck”. And like I said, it’s huge. Hyuuuuuuggggeee. This game blew me away, honestly.

The story is also exciting and fun for an NES RPG, especially as a fan of DQ1 and 2. It looks like it’s disconnected at first, with a completely new world map. But then with that plot twist you find out this is a PREQUEL, as you go to Alefgard, the location of the first game, and see how different it was hundreds of years prior.

One other fun thing about the game though, is that I played this not long after the Switch remake, and I was finding it difficult to find good information online about the original. Also, what the hell is with new Dragon Quest’s magic translation? The ice spells are Crack now? WTF does Kazam and Kafrizzle do?? Or how about Swooshmurta? Yeah, I know people shit post about the NES DQ translations, but I actually kinda prefer it. ESPECIALLY because, in your world, the first world map, everyone talks… normally. It’s only in the fantasy Alefgard world that they speaketh liketh thiseth. It’s also really kinda neat, cause in Dragon Quest 1, when you find the tablet from Erdrick, it DOESN’T speak like that. There’s a reason. Erdrick was from a world where they just… don’t speak like that. That’s a cute detail.

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DQ3 is by far the stand out of the Erdrick trilogy, and a shining jewel of an RPG on the console. It can be mean, very mean, with some of its bosses, and I DID need to grind to stand a chance at the end, but I didn’t really mind much. A very fun time I’d recommend.