Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation rounds out the Erdrick trilogy that started the series. It’s also the best of the three, a fact that holds true even as all three now exist on the Nintendo Switch eShop. It offers way more choice than its predecessors in how you form and develop your party of heroes. The game is, however, a faithful recreation of an 8-bit RPG from 1998. That means grinding, random encounters, and a very basic story.
That very basic story puts you in the shoes of a sixteen-year-old son or daughter of the legendary hero Ortega. Just with that, the game shows where it offers more options than Dragon Quest I & II. Letting the player choose a female protagonist is a pretty big deal for an old game, even if it doesn’t really change anything about the story. You’re also given a personality test in the opening, with the result affecting how your stats are distributed. It gets more standard from there, though. You form a party of heroes and set out to do what your father couldn’t: slay the Archfiend Baramos.
Make Friends. Kill Monsters. Repeat.
Dragon Quest III uses the same core game mechanics as the first two. Reaching the Archfiend Baramos requires you to traverse a world map, find items of importance in dungeons, and kill lots of monsters along the way. The big difference is that you have friends this time. Yes, Dragon Quest II introduced the idea of a party with the main character’s cousins, but III lets you recruit three companions of your choice from a guild. Their classes are naturally more limited than anything found in modern games, but still offer a surprising amount of depth. You could make a balanced team consisting of mage, warrior, and priest. Or you could go with three martial artists and take on the world Dragon Ball-style. There’s also more utility than you’d expect from an old game. Specialized classes like merchant and thief make an appearance, and you can re-class your party to create a gang of multi-talented monster slayers.
You’ll find the customization to be a godsend, as fighting monsters will be the bulk of your playtime. Dragon Quest III has a big world map, at least compared to its predecessors, and monsters can attack you every step of the way. Random encounters are never not annoying to me, so I definitely count this as one of the game’s negatives. It gets worse in that this game really isn’t designed to let you win boss battles the moment you encounter them. You’re meant to spend time seeking out fights to grind experience points and gold. Having class changes to work towards gives you some long-term goals in your grinding, but it’s still grinding.
Port Problems
If this were a straight port of the original Dragon Quest III, or even its Game Boy Color remake, this review could end here. It’s a dated RPG that mostly holds up thanks to its surprising customization, as long as you can stand the grind. Sadly, there were “enhancements” made to this Nintendo Switch port.
Look closely, on the right side of this screenshot. What even is that horse? I’ll tell you what it is: a victim of the port’s visual direction. Since Dragon Quest III was originally on an 8-bit system, someone over at Square Enix thought it would be a great idea to smooth out the character sprites for HD screens. So, now we get this weird mix of the original sprites and a misguided attempt at anime-style art. It neither pays homage to the original art direction nor builds on it in a meaningful way. At least the wonderful soundtrack survived, and actually benefitted from, the technological upgrade.
Remember Erdrick As He Was…
If you’re a Switch owner who’s curious or nostalgic about the origins of Dragon Quest, then Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation is your only choice. Just remember that this is not Dragon Quest at its peak, but rather a look into its humble beginnings. The trappings of late 80s RPGs are all over this game, even if it offers more customization than you’d expect. Just don’t look directly at the horse.
3 Out Of 5 Stars
A review code for Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation was provided to TheGamer for this review. Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation is available now for Nintendo Switch.
