Welcome to our review of the third installment of the Dragon Quest Series, The seeds of salvation! Out now on Nintendo Switch!
DRAGON QUEST III: The Seeds of Salvation, the third installment of legendary RPG series, comes to Nintendo Switch.
The ground-breaking RPG from 1988 comes to Nintendo Switch with updated controls. Can you succeed where your father failed and vanquish the barbaric Baramos? Now all three installments of the Erdrick Trilogy can be played on Nintendo Switch! Every wondrous weapon, spectacular spell and awesome adversary in this rich fantasy world is yours to discover.
On the morning of your sixteenth birthday, you are charged with a seemingly impossible task by the King himself: to assume the mantle of your father Ortega, hero of the land of Aliahan, and slay the Archfiend Baramos, master of darkness! What trials await you, intrepid hero, as you set out on a quest not even your legendary father was strong enough to complete?
Set out on an adventure with a party of up to four characters who can be customized to your specifications at Patty’s Party Planning Place: choose names, genders, and jobs. Assign your party member any of up to 9 vocations, a choice which will dictate their stats, equipment, spells, and abilities. Though the hero’s role has been decided by fate, the jobs of all the other characters are yours to change as you see fit.
Embark on an epic RPG adventure with over 30 hours of gameplay with added features to the original release! Travel across multiple continents and dungeons as you level up your characters and unlock new spells and abilities.
Observe how the personality system changes how your character grows, making your party always unique. Have fun with mini-games like medal collecting to unlock powerful new items that were not available in the original release. Discover and explore bonus dungeons and locations after completing the main plot.
My love for Dragon Quest has been well known, my current Facebook timeline wallpaper is actually the logo of the XI-S game for Switch! I was so overjoyed that the third game got released as well as that is called a gem and a true classic by my Japanese friend Tetsuro. He said it used one of the best ways for maps and battling, so I was excited to get going.
As my previous screenshot shows, you free up the map as you walk around. It is easy to see where you have been and where you have not. For example, in my map, the bottom island was neglected on the Northside… It will allow me to go back and discover previously undiscovered places and really allow me to fully enjoy the world we play in.
The second thing Tetsuro mentioned was the amazing battle system. But I have a remark to make here. As a reviewer, I purposely went into the open world without getting a band together of fellow fighters at the previously mentioned Patty’s place. I died so often, it became frustrating, to say the least. I managed to level up a few times but after around 5 tries of the first big mission, in which I never really got anywhere, I decided to get some help.
And that very help… Astounding how subtle the game suddenly shifted from very challenging to just about perfectly balanced at first. I say at first because, towards the end of my gameplay, I did notice more and more that I was running out of money and was unable to buy the top tier items in shops. Might have been my way of playing, it was something that I did notice once I left the starter island. Nothing too disturbing as some basic grinding can get you the needed money after all.
Storywise, it is also better balanced compared to the first game and I would say it is about as good as the second game. It pales compared to some of the later titles, but we are comparing games that are well under 40 hours to games that easily go towards 100 hours and more. In all fairness, it was great for the time it was released and in my humble opinion, it never felt stale either. I would say this port did age well for the classic JRPG genre.
Unlike my usual self, I will be giving some insight on whether or not I would buy the three games myself, knowing what I do now. This is a tough nut to crack really, I would really buy this third game, maybe the second too and because of that, only because of that, I would go for the first title too. I stand by my original review and will say the original game was the least appealing of the three. Its price would be the main factor if sold separately to buy it as it happens to be the cheapest of the three. All in all, I am very grateful I was able to get the review codes for all three games, otherwise, I would have gotten the physical Asian edition for my collection anyway. I love Dragon Quest!
In conclusion, the third game is also the best. Providing the added bonus of the group mechanics and its fine approach to both story and appeal, I would say that if you enjoy JRPGs, this is the one to grab first! (but in all fairness, try the DQ11 demo first to see if you like the general DQ game/genre)
