One of the longest-running role-playing video game series has been Dragon Quest. The first three games of that series were connected narratively, and the third – which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year – was actually the first story, chronologically.
The story follows the Hero Erdrick (known as Loto in Japan and later English remakes), who is the child of the legendary warrior, Ortega. They are tasked with destroying the evil and demonic Baramos, a being that Ortega had fought once in the past and failed to defeat. Erdrick travels throughout the land, gaining allies and resurrecting the legendary bird, Ramia, who helps them travel to Baramos’ lair. But they eventually learn that Baramos is not the mastermind of the world’s evil, and the party travels to the Dark World – revealed to be Alefgard, the setting of Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II.
The game first released in Japan in 1988 for the Famicom, and was instantly popular – it was actually responsible for several hundred students being arrested for truancy, as they had skipped class in order to buy the game. It made a number of innovations in regards to the franchise and to RPGs in general, with regards to its class and character system, open-world nature, and streamlined mechanics.
Dragon Quest III was localized a few years later for America under the name Dragon Warrior III, and it made a handful of changes, including a new title sequence, a new prologue focusing on Ortega, and additional musical sequences.
The game remains the most successful and the most popular of the Dragon Quest series, and has been remade several times, for the Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Wii, and mobile devices. Across the various platforms, the game has sold more than five million copies worldwide. Critically, it remains one of the most popular RPGs of all time in Japan, though it – like many other Dragon Quest games – never gained quite as much notoriety in America (likely due to how it, an 8-bit game, arrived after 16-bit systems were already popular in the States). However, it’s still looked on as a classic, particularly with regards to the changes it made from the first two Dragon Quest games.