Dragon Warrior III, known in Japan as Dragon Quest III: Soshite Densetsu e... (ドラゴンクエストIII そして伝説へ…, Doragon Kuesuto Surī - Soshite Densetsu e..., Dragon Quest III: And thus into Legend...), is a role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix (now Square Enix). It is the third installment in the Dragon Quest series (known as Dragon Warrior in North America at the time of its original release), first released for the Famicom in Japan, and then the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. The game later was ported as an enhanced remake on the Super Nintendo in late 1996 and then on the Game Boy Color in 2001.

This is the final game in the Loto trilogy and is the first chronologically. The story follows the traditional Dragon Quest Hero, who is on an adventure to save the world from evil. Putting together a party of assorted classes, the Hero must travel the world, stopping at various towns and other locations, eventually making his or her way to the Demon Lord Baramos's lair.

While the combat system remains close to the previous Dragon Quest games, keeping battles turn-based and in first-person, Dragon Warrior III expanded on the open world and nonlinear gameplay of its predecessors, and introduced innovations such as a persistent world with its own day-night cycle, and an innovative class-changing system, which is later seen in Dragon Quest VI, VII, and IX. This class system allows the player to customize his or her party by changing character classes during the game, and keep a character's stats and skills learned from previous classes.Dragon Quest III's class-changing system shaped the gameplay of future RPGs, especially the Final Fantasy series, while a similar class-changing system later also appeared in Wizardry VI and VII.

Dragon Warrior III is noted for greatly expanding upon the original Dragon Warrior and Dragon Warrior II. The game uses basic role-playing video game conventions, such as leveling up by gaining experience points and equipping items. Battle is turn-based like the other games in the series.

Dragon Warrior III features a class system, in which each character has a certain class. While the Hero always keeps the Hero class, the other characters can choose among the following: Soldier (Warrior in the GBC version), Fighter, Pilgrim (Cleric), Wizard (Mage), Merchant (Dealer), Goof-Off (Jester), Sage, and Thief which was available only in the later versions. The choice of class greatly affects the character's stats and spells he or she can learn. Furthermore, upon reaching experience Level 20, a character has the option of changing classes at the temple of Dhama, found halfway through the game. The game starts with just the Hero in the party, who then is able to recruit a party of three at the local tavern. Unlike most Dragon Quest parties, aside from the Hero, the party is not made up of characters involved in the story. Although only four characters can be in the party at a time, extra members of the party can be kept at the tavern, allowing room for new recruits. Another innovation is an arena where the player can place bets on the outcome of monster battles.

The remakes incorporated some interface changes from later games in the series, such as simplified door opening; the bag, which replaced bank item storage; the item sorting "Tidy Item" and "Tidy Bag" commands; and the "Full HP" command, which can be used outside of combat to automate the process of casting healing and status restoring spells.

While the earlier Dragon Quest games were also non-linear, Dragon Quest III was the most substantial example of open-world gameplay among the early Dragon Quest games. It also allowed the player to swap characters in and out of the party at will, and another "major innovation was the introduction of day/night cycles; certain items, characters, and quests are only accessible at certain times of day."

Classes

Dragon Warrior III features a class system. At the start of the game, the player begins as a single hero, male or female. After the quest begins, the player can eventually build up a team of diversified party members through the local tavern in Aliahan. This team can be made up of Wizards, Pilgrims, Goof-offs, Fighters, Soldiers, Merchants, and Thieves (only in the remakes) in either male or female form. The Hero cannot change classes, but all other characters can change classes at Dharma once they have reached experience Level 20, and can change classes any number of times. A character who changes classes has their stats halved and restarts at experience Level 1, retaining their spells and, in the remakes, their personality. This allows a player to create a character that knows Wizard spells, but has the defense of a Soldier.

In the remakes, after selecting a character, the player can change the person's starting abilities with five magical seeds, given by the tavern listrar of heroes. Also new in the remakes, each character has a personality trait, which affects the rate of stat growth. The Hero's personality is determined by the player's choices and actions during a dream sequence at the start of the game, while other characters' personalities are determined by their stats at the end of the character generation process, most personalities are available to both male and female characters, while a few are exclusive to male or female characters. A character's personality can be temporarily changed by equipping certain accessories or permanently changed by using certain consumable books.