Dragon Quest III Is Getting an Unofficial Mega Drive Port

Anyone who played games in the late 1980s or early 1990s will likely know Dragon Quest III. First released in Japan in 1988, it arrived in North America as Dragon Warrior III in 1991. The game remains a Nintendo classic, debuting on the Famicom/NES—the home console that helped launch Nintendo—and later appearing on several Nintendo systems through compilations and remakes.

One console it has never reached is the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. That is now changing: a gamer known as junkatana has started an unofficial port to the Mega Drive, which launched in Japan in the same year as Dragon Quest III.

So far, the only footage I’ve seen is a brief clip, and its visuals look closer to the 1996 remake for the 16-bit SNES than to the original 8-bit NES release. The overall appearance and feel bring Chrono Trigger to mind, though the game is being played with a Sega Mega Drive controller.

In a video shared on X by Renpou, the project is shown with a new save system, new shops, a new castle and inn, plus some sound improvements. Development is clearly still underway. At this point, I can’t say how much of the work uses AI and how much does not. The YouTube video’s featured image does appear to have received some AI tweaking, though, so that remains something to watch.

If I had to guess, AI may be used for some of the more routine tasks, as is becoming common these days. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more details from junkatana in the coming weeks, particularly if the project’s source code is released.