Dragon Quest III

Dragon Quest III arrived on mobile phones in 2014 as a port based on the remastered version from the 1990s, not the 1988 original, when the game caused literal lines outside stores on Japan's Famicom and children skipping school just to buy it on release day. It's a title that, along with the series' first two entries, laid the foundations of the entire JRPG genre - the vocation system, where players assign professions to their characters themselves, thereby changing their abilities and combat style, was revolutionary at the time of release, and the series kept building on it for a long time afterward.

On touch, the simple turn-based interface works surprisingly well - menus, selecting commands in battle, and moving around the map are all adapted to virtual buttons without major compromises, since the game was based on a remastered version already designed with cross-platform portability in mind. The graphics are stylized into simpler, colorful sprites, which visually corresponds more to remasters from the turn of the millennium than today's mobile game standard, while the music and sound effects remain faithful to the original.

Dragon Quest III today is mainly an archaeological experience - it shows where the mechanics that today's JRPGs still commonly use came from, but its pace, simplicity, and difficulty match its era of origin, not today's conventions of more open and accessible JRPGs with more detailed player guidance.

Why play it: For players interested in the history of the JRPG genre who want to see the roots of the vocation and character-development system firsthand, while accepting the simpler pace and older graphics.