Someone is porting Dragon Quest III to the Sega Mega Drive
A fan project caught my eye this week: a gamer known as junkatana is working on an unofficial port of Dragon Quest III to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. The original came out in Japan in 1988 on the Famicom (and as Dragon Warrior III in North America in 1991), the same year the Mega Drive launched in Japan, so there is a nice bit of symmetry in giving it a home on Sega's console.
Right now it is clearly a work in progress. The only footage is a short clip shared on X, and it looks closer to the 1996 16-bit SNES remake than to the 8-bit NES original. The write-up even says it has a bit of a Chrono Trigger look and feel, and the clip shows it running with a Mega Drive controller.
The planned changes are a new save system, new shops, a new castle and inn, and sound improvements. One open question is how much AI was involved: the author could not tell, only noting that the YouTube thumbnail looks like it was tweaked with AI.
I like this kind of project because it sits right where retro hardware and fan effort meet. Whether it ever turns into a playable ROM or a cartridge people can flash is still unknown, and the author says they will keep watching junkatana's updates, especially if source code gets released. I will be following it too.
Source: Retro Dodo
Right now it is clearly a work in progress. The only footage is a short clip shared on X, and it looks closer to the 1996 16-bit SNES remake than to the 8-bit NES original. The write-up even says it has a bit of a Chrono Trigger look and feel, and the clip shows it running with a Mega Drive controller.
The planned changes are a new save system, new shops, a new castle and inn, and sound improvements. One open question is how much AI was involved: the author could not tell, only noting that the YouTube thumbnail looks like it was tweaked with AI.
I like this kind of project because it sits right where retro hardware and fan effort meet. Whether it ever turns into a playable ROM or a cartridge people can flash is still unknown, and the author says they will keep watching junkatana's updates, especially if source code gets released. I will be following it too.
Source: Retro Dodo
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