I am amazed how Dragon Quest III was originally a NES game. It's a fairly complex and deep game for such an old console.

I think part of the appeal of Dragon Quest for me is the game is kind of hard, so you have an incentive to strategize. Of course, leveling up solve a lot of issues as usual, and FAQs really make the process fool proof BUT compared with other jRPGs where I can make a party of whatever, play blind and still one-shot the last boss, yes, the game is old school "nintendo hard".