It is the third installment in the Dragon Quest series and was first released for the Family Computer (Famicom) in Japan and later for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America.

A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan on September 25, 2014,[3] and worldwide as Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation on December 4, 2014.

Gathering a group of companions into a party, the Hero must travel the world, stopping at various towns and locations, and make their way to the Demon Lord Baramos' lair.

At the start of the game, the player begins as a single male or female hero but is able to recruit members at the local tavern.

[6][7][11] Furthermore, upon reaching experience Level 20, a character has the option of changing classes at the temple of Dhama, found halfway through the game.

[12] A character who changes classes has their stats halved and restarts at experience Level 1, retaining their spells and, in the remakes, their personality.

[13] Another innovation is an arena where the player can place bets on the outcome of monster battles in order to win more gold.

Like the rest of the Dragon Quest worlds, this castle is set in a medieval-like time period, complete with knights and magicians.

The geography of Dragon Quest III largely corresponds to the actual geography of Earth,[10] and many towns correspond to their real-world cultures, including "Romaly" for Rome, "Portoga" for Portugal, "Assaram" near present-day Iraq (derived from "as-salamu alaykum"), "Jipang" for Japan (where the hero fights Yamata no Orochi) and even a "New Town" in eastern North America that experiences a revolution against an overbearing ruler (derived from the American Revolution against the United Kingdom in 1776).

[17] The story revolves around the Hero,[6] son or daughter (the player can choose to be either male or female, with few gameplay changes) of the legendary warrior Ortega.

[18] On their sixteenth birthday, the Hero is summoned to the castle and is given by the King of Aliahan the challenge to rid the world of the evil archfiend Baramos, which Ortega attempted in the past but seemingly perished in a volcano.

The Hero leaves their home country of Aliahan to travel the world and complete their father's quest to defeat Baramos.

After saving two people of the town of Baharata from the rogue Kandar and stealing back the King of Romaly's crown, the Hero receives Black Pepper, which they then trade for a sailing ship at Portoga.

[20][21] With the ship, the Hero acquires the Final Key and the six mystical orbs which are used to revive the legendary bird Ramia.

[24] The Dark World is, in fact, Alefgard (of the previous installments of the series), where the Hero must acquire several of the artifacts that were collected in the original Dragon Quest, including the Sun Stone and the Rain Staff.

[25] These items, as in the original game, create the Rainbow Bridge which leads the Hero to Zoma's castle for the final confrontation.

The Hero later vanishes from Alefgard, leaving their sword and armor to be passed down throughout the ages so that their descendants can continue to protect the world from evil.

[29] Chunsoft president Koichi Nakamura, co-creator of Dragon Quest, stated he contributed about "10%" of the games programming.

[32] The password system used on the first two Dragon Quest titles was dropped in favor of a save slot due in part to Horii's dislike of the long codes that players needed to memorize or record .

Among them were the addition of a new title sequence (in the original, it was on a simple black screen with the title of the game in the center), and a new prologue which depicted Ortega, who also was given a brand new sprite in this version, fighting a Dragon, and being dragged into the volcano (in the original, the player was unaware of Ortega's fate, until talking to the King for the first time).

There were also brand new music cues, including one for the title sequence, and one that played after a non-player character death late in the game.

Many of the names of the classes were changed in the English localization of the Game Boy Color version, such as Soldier to Warrior.

A pre-game sequence in which the player answers moral dilemmas similar to that in Ultima IV determines the Hero's personality.

The personality of the other members of the party is determined by the stat-raising seeds that the player gives them during the character generation process.

[50] All tracks are written by Koichi SugiyamaDragon Quest III sold over one million copies on the first day, with almost 300 arrests for truancy among students absent from school to purchase the game.

[78] Together with the sales of the remakes, Dragon Quest III is the most successful title in the series and one of the best-selling role-playing games in Japan.

The staff chose it over the other Dragon Warrior titles due to its job system which they felt had depth and was influential to video games.

GameSpot gave the Game Boy Color version a "good" 7.6/10, saying that "DWIII is a worthy port of its old NES ancestor, but its firm grounding in the RPG old-school means that only the hard-core need apply.

[94] A sequel series, Dragon Quest Retsuden: Roto no Monshō ~Monshō o Tsugumono-tachi e~ (ドラゴンクエスト列伝 ロトの紋章 ～紋章を継ぐ者達へ～, Dragon Quest Retsuden: Roto no Monshō - To the Children Who Inherit the Emblem), published by Square Enix started in 2005 and is still ongoing; as of December 2012, fifteen volumes have been released.

[97] Its sequel Dragon Quest Retsuden: Roto no Monshō - To the Children Who Inherit the Emblem has also sold well in Japan.