Wizards & Warriors III

Since the mid 90’s I’ve always been a big fan of RPG’s and the one game that drew me into this fold was the PC Baldur’s Gate series. So I decided to try and find the equivalent for the NES and despite the Ultima games (which I think are US only) there aren’t many that might appeal. However there are plenty of hybrids and W&W III falls into the category of RPG. I’ve never really got on with the Ultima games in the past besides VII on PC (which was a God send) but there is at least 1 Ultima game for the NES and if readers want me to pick a copy up then drop a line in the comments section and I’ll see what I can do.


It’s a strange mix between platformer, action and RPG with elements that cross over all three categories. You start the game as Knight returning from his quest of the previous game in charge of killing some evil wizard Mongo or Mongoid or something similar and a cut scene of sorts is played before the main title screen. The game opens in a town that is built mainly of stilts with each level working its way up towards the Wizards castle. Carrying your trusty sword you can work your way up through the levels by jumping and slashing at various town folk (who tend to retaliate so be careful. Inside the various buildings are guilds that you can join working your way up to becoming a stronger knight, a thief or even a Wizard.

I didn’t have the manual for this and despite searching online I couldn’t find one to download so I was pretty much on my own. Controls wise I couldn’t complain as the main character responds quite well, responsive jumping and using the sword seemed easy enough. But without a manual I was a bit lost and just spent most of my time wandering around the town trying to find something to do. At one point I almost joined the thieves’ guild after picking up some random statue in a house so I must have been doing something right!


A bit of internet research later and I discover that the game is quite detailed with various dungeons, tunnels etc to explore and that you can join 3 different guilds each letting you build a character class. With a bit of time spent exploring further and perhaps concentrating on each guild at a time it should be possible to build an amazing character. It seemed quite accessible but certainly not as pick up and play as other NES titles, one for long rainy nights. I think I’ll be returning to this one quite a lot.