First game in the series to feature a job class system.
Though the third released, this is actually the first game chronologically in the series (so the proper order for the Erdrick/Loto Trilogy is III I II.)
Reissued for the Game Boy Color with some enhanced features and graphics, following a similar reissue for Dragon Quest I and II.
With the exception of the Aliahan continent, the world map is very similar to that of the real world, and some town names and regions are variations of actual places around the world (e.g. the town of Romaly is a fusion of the names of Rome and Italy, the town Jipang is a variation of Japan, the ice island of Greenlad is a variation of Greenland, etc.)