the Dark World, which the Hero jumps into. The Dark World is, in fact, Alefgard (of the previous installments of the series), where the Hero must acquire several of the artifacts that were collected in the original Dragon Quest, including the Sun Stone and the Rain Staff. Rubiss, a legendary sage, has been turned to stone and is rescued by the Hero, and the Hero receives the Sacred Amulet in return. These items, as in the original game, create the Rainbow Bridge which leads the Hero to Zoma's castle for the final confrontation. Along the way, the Hero briefly reunites with Ortega as he is slain by Zoma's monsters, then continues on to defeat the revived Baramos, now turned into the powerful Baramos Bomus and later into the skeletal Baramos Gonus. With the Ball of Light given by the Dragon Queen, the Hero defeats Zoma and frees Alefgard, but Zoma boasts that evil will eventually return to the land and the Hero will not live long enough to stop it. For their bravery, the Hero receives the title of "Erdrick" ("Loto" in the Japanese version). The Hero later vanishes from Alefgard, leaving their sword and armor to be passed down throughout the ages so that their descendants can continue to protect the world from evil. Development As with the other main games in the Dragon Quest series, Dragon Quest IIIs scenario was designed by Yuji Horii, whereas the artwork was done by Akira Toriyama, of Dragon Ball fame. Koichi Sugiyama composed all the music for Dragon Quest III. Chunsoft president Koichi Nakamura, co-creator of Dragon Quest, stated he contributed about "10%" of the games programming. The game was released a year after the original, a longer period of development than its predecessor, and reflected the ever-lengthening game development process of the series. Yuji Horii, in a 1989 interview, said that developers had perfected the series' game structure in Dragon Quest III, and this was reflected by the transition from one character's quest to a party of heroes. The password system used on the first two Dragon Quest titles was dropped in favor of a save slot due in part to Horii's dislike of the long codes that players needed to memorize or record . Horii had a policy of removing any features from his games that had been used elsewhere, which turned out to be unworkable during Dragon Quest IIIs