I Â want to preface this review by saying that I personally purchased this game.
I wasn’t provided a review copy or code and played this game on my own.Â
Preface
Dragon Quest is a series that requires no introduction; It is the original JRPG series that set the stage for all others to come. However influential as it may be, It is a series that gets little love in the West. Finding a way to play the older games in the series is no easy task unless you have time to sit in front of your computer at an emulator or own the NES or GameBoy Versions of the games (Still a daunting task to take that with you). Lucky for us, Square Enix has released most of the titles in the series on iOS and Android! This particular review will be based on the third game in the series which serves as a prequel to the first two games. This particular port marks the first time we got an official release of the 16-bit Super Famicom(Super Nintendo) version of Dragon Quest 3 and the first official translation of the game.
Story
(Mostly Spoiler Free)
The story starts with you, The Player, as a 16 year old son of a hero by the name of Ortega. You are awoken by your mother who sends you to meet with the King of Aliahan in the castle. He tells you of your father’s demise at the hands of the Archfiend Baramos and sends you off to become a great hero of the kingdom like your father. You don’t have to go alone, however.
The King gives you gold and equipment to recruit up to three party members of your choice from Rudia’s Tavern. These guys can either be customized with a name and one of 7 classes, or you can pick from the randomly generated characters. After you get the party you want and outfit them with weapons and armor, you then set off after Baramos and to avenge your father.
Gameplay and Controls
The gameplay is that of any RPG. You travel from town to town, talk to NPC’s, fight in turn-based battles, and level up your characters as you  traverse the world. For the most part, this transferred fairly well to mobile. Moving your party is done with an on screen touch D-Pad and menu buttons for navigating your inventory and all necessary RPG functions. This, for the most part works well and makes the touch controls as painless as they can be. At times though, you want to interact with something in the environment and not be able to until you are positioned where the game would like you to be. There should be a little bit of correction for player error here, considering this is a mobile game.
     
One of my favorite parts of this version is that the battle  scenes are completely revamped for mobile.  The touch interface makes battles an absolute breeze and gets you through them quickly and concisely. I would have liked some small sprites on the buttons representing your party though.
    
Graphics
As I said before, this a port of the Super Famicom(Super Nintendo) version of the game. The sprites and tile sets are all identical to that version of the game. They are very clean, pretty, and colorful just like Enix was known for back then. The main issue here for me is the fact that the game is stretched vertically to fit phone screens in portrait orientation. In some areas with small maps this isn’t even noticeable, but in large maps it just looks ugly and the character isn’t in the middle of the screen like he should be. I would have much rather just had the black space for you finger and the game scaled to half of the portrait screen.
Another small gripe I have is the enemy animation in battle. The Gameboy Color version of this game had enemies with fluid attack animations, but that is absent from this version. Would have loved to see them animated for each attack.
Overall this game is a visual treat to the eyes if you are a fan of  the sprites and pixel art of yesteryear.
   
Conclusion
Overall, I really enjoyed this version of the game. I played on the iOS version with an iPhone 7. As someone who has played and owned all previous versions of this game, I can say this version holds up well and was a pleasure to play. The Pros vastly outweigh any Cons I have. Even if you aren’t a fan of mobile games (I can honestly say I am not!) this is worth your time. Indies need to take some notes from old man Square here. This is how you make a mobile RPG.
Go forth and defeat Baramos!
