Friday, March 20, 2020

Dragon Quest III #8 - Paragon

Buffy returns to Aliahan, a hero to MILLIONS.




A festive celebration is had, complete with trumpets.

But wait! Here's Zoma, the TRUE BAD GUY behind Baramos. Zoma is incredibly one-dimensional. Only thing missing is a black hat and a dastardly mustache.

Think again! Zomamania is about to run wild!

After a little detour, I get this sword. It can be used as an item to charm foes, though I'd think Faith wearing a garter belt would do that well enough.

This thing is awesome. You better get used to that funky music.

Meanwhile, the huge pit near Baramos' Castle has turned into an abyss. And down there... is HELL. Or Zoma's domain. One or the other.

Dropping down into the abyss lands us in Alefgard, land of the first two Dragon Warrior games and home of Red Slimes galore. Wow. So it was just a lower-plane for Earth all along? One planet is another planet's hell?

Seems Kandar somehow found his way here. Luckily, he's not our enemy anymore.

He has fallen on hard times, because the IRS seized the Hentai Emporium.

Here we are, Tantegel Castle. Now in 16-bit technicolor!

There's the DragonLord's castle across the bay. Is it Zoma's Castle in this time period?

For a frame of reference... SNES versus NES.

Much like the first game, you run around collecting items in Alefgard just to get to the final area. This explains how all of Erdrick's equipment ended up here, at least.

Barely got out of that dungeon in one piece. These Alefgard locations are no joke. Seems the enemies got a lot weaker over the next few generations, if the DW1 hero could handle them by himself.

Why is this thing so expensive? It's a downgrade. And it isn't even visible!

Rimuldar is a rad name. Great to be in these places again, though Alefgard seems to be in a state of eternal night at this point. Perhaps because of Zoma's nefarious influence.

I get another item with a familiar-sounding name. Rain Staff + Sun Stone = Rainbow bridge, if I'm not mistaken.

Kragon? That's the second-worst translation of Kraken that I've seen. The far and away winner? The abysmally bad Tecmo Secret of the Stars, with "Clark Ken"

I sail to the edge of the dark world, and... there's actually an edge. It doesn't loop around. WTF? You couldn't sail in the first game, but you can sail in the second and the world loops around in that one. Between that and Alefgard being the DQ1 version again, this game totally kills DQII's Alefgard lore.

Find a precious ore in the litter box of a horse, bring it to this merchant, save, reset, start again, and check the merchant... and all of a sudden Buffy's ultimate weapon is for sale. How would anyone know to do all that?

Note: This is Erdrick's Sword in its original form.

Angel may not dance, but he prances to and fro like Pan as he plays the flute.

Here's Erdrick's Armor. Also got the Hero Shield from a cave, and that rounds out the top tier of equipment.

Also, the tower with the armor is the best place in the game to level grind. The enemies aren't nearly as strong as Zoma's Castle enemies, but they give almost the same exp. There are also tons of Metal Babbles.

Our heroes de-petrify Rubiss, the goddess of Alefgard. Why doesn't she fight Zoma? ...maybe she tried to and that's how she got petrified.

Poortega? ...I'll show myself out.

It's comedy gold as we learn Ortega didn't fall in battle... he tried to swim across that pond to Charlock. Finally, somebody at least tries. Too bad he didn't bring a boat. Or any other party members.

This mad scientist is building Golem to protect the town. Of course, it's a boss in the later-in-time original Dragon Warrior. We can only conclude that it went haywire, like Skynet.

This guy clarifies something that no one else in the game ever does. There are a lot of un-reachable treasure chests. He also gives up the Rainbow Drop, the last item needed to get to Charlock.

It creates a bridge to cross this tiny stream. On the other side lurks the final area.

Just like that, techno music hits as Alefgard becomes a flashing display of rainbow colors and "Move Your Body" by Eiffel 65 plays.

MOVE YOUR BODY! EVERY EVERY BODY! MOVE YOUR BODY! COME ON NOW EVERYBODY!

Angel still refuses to dance.

2 comments:

  1. Some townsfolk in various places of Alefgard give clues about how to forge the Sword of Kings. No one blatantly says reset because of fourth wall, but there's a similar event in DQ2 with the Water Flying Clothes.

    ...or Nintendo Power! Get the power! Get the moves that you can use Nintendo Power!

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  2. Coming to this world is so original and awesome. I applaud them for it.
    Putting the Dragon Lord's castle in sight of the first town was such a brilliant design decision. Made you want to get all the way there.

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