Dragon Warrior III - Reception and Sales

Reception and Sales

Dragon Quest III sold over 3.8 million copies in Japan. It is often mistakenly known as being the game that in 1988 caused the Japanese government to outlaw further releases of Dragon Quest games on school days. In truth, Enix themselves decided to hold off the release of future Dragon Quest games until weekends. A survey conducted by the magazine Famitsu in early 2006 among its readers placed Dragon Quest III as the third most favorite game of all time, being preceded by only Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII, and the best game on Famicom. In Japan, the Super Famicom remake sold 1.4 million units, with nearly 720,000 units sold in 1996 alone. The Game Boy Color version sold a lower 604,000 copies in Japan by the end of 2001. However, 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 North American release of Dragon Warrior III did not meet as much success. Considered an improvement over the first two games, Dragon Warrior III "kept the same ugly graphical style and clumsy interface", explained Kurt Kalata of Gamasutra. North American's poor sales are also partly due to the fact that the game was released after the release of 16-bit gaming systems, making it seem even more archaic to gamers. Critics found the new day/night system and the addition of an in-game bank praiseworthy.

As is the case with other early North American releases of the series, Dragon Warrior III did not come close to meeting the success of its Japanese counterpart, although the Game Boy Color remake received very good reviews from critics. 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." Nintendo Power gave the remake a respectable 4/5, while IGN gave the game a perfect 10/10. Dragon Warrior III was 176 on Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list.

Dragon Quest Retsuden: Roto no Monshō - To the Children Who Inherit the Emblem has sold well in Japan. For the week of August 26 through September 1, 2008, volume 7 was ranked 9th in Japan having sold 59,540 copies. For the week of February 24 through March 2, 2009, volume 8 was ranked 19th in Japan having sold 76,801 copies. For the week of October 26 through November 1, 2009, volume 9 was ranked 16th in Japan having sold 40,492 copies for a total of 60,467.