In keeping with Dragon Slayer tradition, this sixth game has virtually nothing to do with its predecessors beyond being yet another Yoshio Kiya joint; breaking from Dragon Slayer tradition, this game doesn't profess to represent the cutting edge of RPG philosophy, nor is it even an action-RPG—it's an extremely conventional, narrative driven turn-based RPG in the Dragon Quest vein, albeit one designed with a lot of conveniences that would rarely be seen in other games of its vintage, including relatively detailed auto-battle settings that can be applied per party member, an interface that could be solely controlled with a joystick and a visible enemy encounter system (or, more accurately, an invisible enemy encounter system: enemies are not visible in the overworld by default but they are there and battles aren't just being triggered by RNG, and certain actions will make them visible, and therefore actively avoidable). It's probably not going to tattoo itself onto your brain the way games like Sorcerian or Xanadu might but it certainly acquits itself well against the other turn-based RPGs of its day, including Dragon Quest.
Legend of Heroes (and its immediate, Ys 2-to-Ys-esque sequel) received the typical run of micom and console conversions, including a pair of Mega Drive ports produced by Sega Falcom as part of Sega of Japan's "Mega ロープレ Project" initiative which sought to bolster the MD's reputation as a destination for RPGs ("ロープレ" was a short-lived attempt at coining an alternative genre term for "R.P.G.", which Bandai had trademarked at the time.) The trilogy that succeeded them adopted a real time quasi-automated tactical battle system and turned their focus towards linearity and a ton of character/NPC interaction, and the modern day Trails series is made by people who grew up with LHIII~V and wanted to pay homage to those games with the talkiest games known to humankind.