Vimm's Lair: NES Reviews - Dragon Warrior III

Nintendo
Dragon Warrior III

Graphics:
Sound:
Gameplay:
Overall:
8.62
8.67
8.96
8.96
Votes: 76
Reviews: 4


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Reviewer: Znr4123 Date: Jun 4, 2003
The Dragon Warrior/Quest series is about a bloodline of heros who dispatch evil from thier land. In the third instalment you follow in the foot steps of your father, the brave Ortega. He was the first dispatched to destroy the Archfiend Baramos. The journey is long. Thankfully, you can create a multitude of characters and recrute, at most, 3 into your party. This game introduced the concepts of Day/Night and gender to the series.

Graphics: 7
The art is not bad. It just lacks variety and the outside does not flow. They still have parrallel trees. They enhanced it abit from the second installment by moving one of the trees slightly north. One sprite/terrain cell equates to one mountain. The graphics do thier job at informing you what type of terrain you are in. Nothing more. A little vareity couldn't hurt. We begin to see a little variety within the towns and dungons, and this is why I gave the graphics a 7. The towns and the dungons are more lively, varient, and flow much better than the previous installments. Although not complex, when you attack a monster it flashes. This shows what you attacked without having to read every line.

Sound: 9
I think the music & sound effects are excellent. There are more songs, so you don't just hear the same 3 to 5 tunes over and over (Zelda). They kept the same style of songs from Dragon Warrior II where the song has to play 20/30 seconds or so before you hear it repeat. The sound effects are timely. They issue a sound as you lunge to attack, then issue a sound when you make contact or it dodges. This quardination gives a dramatic effect and is well done.

Gameplay: 7
Gameplay overall is great. You can obtain multiple methods of travel. The return spell allows you to move instantaniously between towns. Later, you can aquire Ramia, which is a bird. Although later in the game, the bird is nice because it doesn't require to you hold the controller to move. Just press a direction and let it go. My biggest complaint is the inertia effect. If your stationary, and you hold left, it takes about 1 second before the characters move left. Once moving, the characters can change directions almost instantly. It's that "from rest" state, that really bugs me. In the second installment they used this pause so you could change the direction your facing without moving. This one you just sit there waiting to move. This is why I gave it a 7. At least the pause is shorter.

Overall: 10
Overall this is an excellent game. It has an enriched controlable story. A vast array of equipment. Multiple character types. Each town has a day and night state for variety. You can choose your characters on gender. Build a party of 2,3 or 4. If you like, you can just play the game without party members. A vast array of spells. Of usefull spells. A long line of monsters to beat. Increasing in complexity and difficulty, but not to make it near immpossible (unlike 7th saga). This is also the first of the series where you didn't have to spend a vast amount of time leveling up, or fighting to get gold so you could buy some over priced equipment.

This really was a joy to play and probably one of my favorite games. A game, that in my opionon, is better than anything out thier today, and I still play it. A good game is more than just good graphics & sound. It intermixes everything well. It has an almost endless story line. One that does not force you to do one thing right after another like most of the Final Fantacy series. Always ariving at one location with the exact same stats and abilities. It alows most of the story to be written by you.

 

Reviewer: anizaniacs Date: Apr 3, 2002
This game is excellent. It has everything a DW fan could want. Action, plot, music, etc. Dragon Warrior 3 fulfills the needs of a DW fan. No wonder, this game is great. I love it, because of its potency, the way it stands out in every shot. It is divine.

Graphics: 9
They were very good for the NES. The drawings were supreme over most all NES games. Especially the towns looked 2D but they were good none the less. I was actually impressed by the graphics.

Sound: 10
Perfect timing of the music. The songs are very catchy for Dragon Warrior 3. I liked about 90% of the songs in the game. They also had a variety of songs so you didn't have to listen to the same songs over and over again.

Gameplay: 10
This game is by far better than Dragon Warrior 1. It deals with you being Erdrick's heir. Going on a journey to find your father. It has lots of professions to choose from. I especially like the way where they can mix classes such as the Sage class. There are many save points in towns and castles. It has many more dungeons for you to explore. The only problem is the frequent occurance of battles. About every 3-5 steps there is a battle. It is mostly about preparing for Zoma. It is very easy to know where to head next because they mostly tell you where to go. The hard part is finding where ""that place"" is.

Overall: 10
It's a great game for the NES. I like DW3 better than DW2. One more thing that I find very interesting is the fact that each game going up is delving deeper into the past. That is actually great compared to Dragon Warrior, Dragon Warrior 3 is basking in glory and fame. It surpasses even the early FF series.

Play a game to enjoy it, not to just master it and forget about it.

 

Reviewer: hectometer3 Date: Jul 19, 2001
I guess I can't be too harsh on rating graphics since it is the NES. I d/l this game and the handbook and I couldn't stop playing. I loved DW1, but I didn't care much for 2, but this one kicks ass! Seriously. I didn't like the end sequence, but overall this game deserves a 9. This game is as good as it gets for this genre on the NES.

 

Reviewer: Drewq Date: Jul 4, 2001
One of the BEST NES games ever created. It takes a while to get use to it but after you move through the levels it gets really fun. Download the walkthrough, it'll help you out a lot. In my opinion, I think that this game was better then the Final Fantasy series that were made for the NES. Any hoo, down load it because it kicks ass plus Enix is selling it right now for the game boy. Why buy it when its here for FREE!!!