Dragon Warrior III

Written by Daniel Ekman  on October 30, 2001

Second Opinion: If you crave a good RPG for a handheld console look no further

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УMany years ago, the kingdom of Aliahan ruled the world. Although its former influence had diminished, its people lived in peace. That is, until the raise of the Demon Lord BaramosЕ The kingdom's great hero, Ortega, embarked on a journey to defeat Baramos, but was said to have perished from a plunge into the maw of a volcano.

Over a dozen years later, a single youth strides purposefully into the castle of Aliahan. The youth is the hero Ortega's only child. The King, recognizing the youth's determination to succeed the fallen father, commands, СDefeat the Demon Lord Baramos'.Ф

When you start the game you are introduced to the storyline I narrated above by a nicely animated sequence. Afterwards, you'll be asked to start a new game in one of the three memory slots and to choose your name and gender. However, starting a new game has never been this complicated. Please keep in mind that complicated doesn't necessarily mean Уnot fun.Ф As soon as you start the game, you are whisked away to a huge waterfall Ч in a very nice Уepic chivalryФ style, I might addЧ where a disembodied spirit will assess your personality with a quiz. Answering to those questions is only the first step, however, as when you are done with them the spirit will place you in a scenario to see how you react to a particular situation. This is a very precise assessment, as there are 45 different personalities possible for your character. Your personality will affect your stats and your relationship with the rest of the world, and is meant to be as close to your own as possible. It's not a perfect system by any means, of course, but it's highly original and quite enjoyable.

After having gone through the first part of the game you'll find yourself waking up in your hometown, Aliahan. The city is characterised by the king's castle (as you might understand, not every city has a king's castle in it), a Weapon & Armour store, an Item Shop, an inn, your house, a church and finally Ruida's Tavern. Almost every city has an inn and a church, even the smallest villages, but the quality of the item and weapon shops decreases with the size of the town you are visiting. Inns let you rest and recover your energy and magical points, while churches offer special services such as resuscitation and removal of curses. Royal castles are more rare to find, but they offer you the chance to permanently save your position. There actually is the option to create a field log at any time in the game, but that means that once you start the game again from that point the log will be deleted. Moreover, there is unfortunately only one field log for all three memory slots. This means that whenever I create a new field log my girlfriend's one gets deleted, and that leads to very violent consequencesЕ

Going back to practicalities, the unique feature of Aliahan is Ruida's Tavern, where teammates are created and recruited. To create a new companion you will need to choose gender, name him or her and decide his or her job class. The game sports seven job classes to choose your companions from, such as thief, mage, warrior, jester and dealer. These job classes are thankfully perfectly balanced so that each of them actually has as many advantages as it has disadvantages. In the end, the choice of your companions will rather depend on your tastes and needs than on the strength of their classes. Furthermore, you'll be asked to enhance the character's stats by feeding him with Strength, Intelligence, Agility, Luck and Vitality Seeds. The way you choose to increase the statistics will assign the character a specific personality, which will affect the growth of his or her stats throughout the game.

As many RPGs, Dragon Warrior III is based on experience points and random combat. To get anywhere in the adventure it's required that you travel a lot with your team, from town to town through mountains, valleys and forests, and it won't be uncommon for you to be attacked by wicked creatures and monsters. Talking about monsters, the enemies in this game amount to 142 types. When you start off in the fields around Aliahan, basic and quite slow-brained monsters will face you, but as you walk through the world map the monsters will start to use magic and other nasty tricks. It is therefore very important for your team to be well balanced. When you choose your party you must also fully understand the advantages it has or lacks. For example, if your team is composed by a warrior, a hero, a thief and a magician, your tactics should be based on heavy physical attack and wise use of the little magic you are able to produce. If your team is instead based on clerics and mages, then your tactics should also include lots of protection spells, as magicians are usually quite frail and weak.

A feature worth being commented upon is the presence of monster medals and tiny medals to be collected on your journey. There is one monster medal for each enemy species, while the tiny medals are hidden round discs of metal that are scattered all around the globe. Somewhere in Aliahan you will find a person who is extremely interested in those medals, and will reward you with nice prizes.

Dragon Warrior III also sports a wide range of weapons and armour: around 50 weapons counting sticks, swords, axes, staffs and wands, whips and boomerangs (there is also a very funny variety of unusual weapons such as fans, abacus and needles). There are up to forty different types of armour, counting clothes (including funny ones such as dandy suit, party dress, or even plush squirrel shaped suit!), robes, heavy armour, and hmmЕ underwear (the tight swimming suit and the sacred bikini are quite interesting). As for defensive equipment, there are around 30 shields and helms, and as many accessories (even a garter belt, hehe). The number of different items that you can collect in the game amounts to 70, more or less, and the same goes for magical spells. When I say that there are plenty of objects to keep you occupied during your DW III gaming sessions you should believe me.

The world map in the game is actually our world map, even though a few small islands have been added. If you've grown weary of travelling afoot in the big world, do not fret; during the course of the game you will be given a boat to sail with from continent to continent.

Though clearly affected by the limited capacity of Game Boy Color, the title's graphics are still fairly detailed and original. If you listen well enough there are also some very nice tunes in there that will create an adventurous atmosphere of peril and heroism. As for longevity, this is a game that will require a long time indeed before you'll be able to finish it, and by then you'll still have to find all the secret bonuses and items, not to mention medals and such. Plus, you can always try it out again with a different team and altered personalities.