DragonQuest/DragonWarrior III

 Rating: 15/10 😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻

Ages 8+, violence (but not animated), some scary bits of the story, but mostly it's all still cartoons, a few very mild innuendos and gambling but those aren't necessary to the story

DragonQuest III is seriously one of the best RPGs I've ever played.

The game is a huge open-world experience that just keeps giving. You think you're down to just one last area, but wait! There is more, lots more. And that final boss? Not the final boss, there's more. The ending is hands-down the most satisfying ending I've experienced. That said, I'm not sure it would have had the same impact if I hadn't played the first two games. So go play DQ 1 and 2 first, then get ready to spend hours with this one. The story is that big, the world is that big, the whole experience is that big. Very little of it is grinding for levels. That happens organically as you search for the next pieces of story.

In this one, you are the HERO. You can't change your class. I tried. But you get to pick three friends to travel with you - names, classes, abilities, and all the rest. And if your friends aren't what you want for a particular area, you can swap them out with other friends. In fact, there's a whole inn in the first city just for your friends you create to hang out and wait for you. There are so many subtle things you can do with your characters in this game. If you want to micro-manage them in combat by picking what they do, you can. Or you can have them play automatically. You can set their preferred strategy for the auto-combat mode, too, so they will focus on healing or buffing the party or just slaughtering whatever monsters you are fighting.

They did some tweaking to the balance in this update which just made it that much better. I loved all of the story, although I really hate the apes. Still.

The world has very few hard barriers. You can explore whatever you can reach. The worst that happens is that your party gets slaughtered, but then you resurrect back at the first city. That only happened to me twice in the entire game. Usually if one of the other members of my party died, that was my cue to run away and get higher level characters before I attempted that particular challenge again.

There are some strategies to what class you choose for your companions and when to switch them to other classes. But mostly it was just fun to experiment and see what happened. A lot of the newer jRPGs get really complicated when it comes to combat. DQ3 keeps it on the simpler side, which I appreciate.

There are fun side stories and side quests to complete, that are actually part of the main storyline. The whole thing was just such a joy to play. It ticked off all my boxes for a good game - rich storyline, fun characters, some silly moments, monsters to fight that weren't too hard, a few boss fights that stretched my strategy muscles, and not too much grinding for levels or resources.

I'm a fan for life of the first three games in the DragonQuest series. This one was the perfect culmination for the trilogy. I actually cried over the ending, partly because I wanted it to keep going but mostly because it was such a satisfying and emotional arc over all three games.

Seriously, if you like the old-school exploration RPGs, go buy these three.