Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, Part 3 - La Santa Maria

 

Today on DQ3, I get a boat at last, and sail from Portoga to the New World.

Alltrades Abbey (formerly Shrine of Dharma) is my favorite part of DQ3 and the other games in the series that have it. Here you can switch your classes around and try new things, while retaining learnt abilities.

In this case, it's time to make this party significantly more powerful so I can defeat the dynamo of power known as Kandar. Upon class changing, the character goes back to level 1 while retaining half of their stats and all of their abilities. So it's a level 1 with the stats of a level 10 and whatever abilities the previous class had. Outside of ability-learning, the stat component is a "diminishing returns" situation.

For example:

-Level 20 character re-specs to level 1 -> Starts at level 10 stats

-Character gets back to level 20, now with the stats of a level 30, and respecs to level 1 -> Starts at level 15 stats

-Character gets back to level 20, now with the stats of a level 35, and respecs to level 1 -> Starts at level 18 stats

Character gets back to level 20, now with the stats of a level 38, and respecs to level 1 -> Starts at level 19 stats

However with ability-retention there's still a point to going through a bunch of classes. And getting to level 30ish before switching would also slow down the diminishing returns.

Even more importantly than Betty going Fighter, Cheryl goes Goof-Off to Sage.

In addition to being hot as f***, Sage is the best class in the game, and gets all the spells of both Mage and Cleric.

New party. Usually I change all three of the cohorts into new classes here, but I'm going to stick with Monster Wrangler a while longer and see what it has to offer.

I mean, this old guy would probably have a lot more fun in life if he looked like this:

Old Man: "Tee-hee!"

This woman tells the tale of a guy who went through four different classes, showing that it's okay to change them around. In this situation he'd have ended up back at his starting class with a bunch of new abilities, but not much for further stat growth circa 20 (assuming he changed at 20 each time).

The best way I've found to train up your new level 1's is to go back to the Pyramid and clean the place out (since on the first go I usually just rush through to the goal, and it has a ton of side-areas). This room is particularly great since every treasure chest is trapped by an enemy battle and these fights give a lot of EXP.

A magical skirt? This is definitely a Cheryl outfit.

Actually a lot of the better equipment in this game is female-only, to the point that male characters are kind of nerfed in comparison.

There isn't much at the top of the pyramid besides this, but it's cool to get up there.

Finally, there's one more big item to get here...

...the Golden Claw! A superb weapon for the new Fighter. Of course, this causes you to get attacked every few steps on the way out, which makes this a primo time to gain some levels on the new classes.

Next stop is the Tower of Transcendence north of Alltrades Abbey, which is also good for leveling, and has the Zen Book that'll allow me to get a second Sage later.

It's no mistake that this place has scores of Metal Slimes. The place is intended to be a big leveling zone.

Veronica's four-hit ability is super-good here, and usually allows me to bag at least one of them.

The formerly-known-as Zen Book requires a bit of exploration to find, but well worth it. I stuck around and kept leveling here, since it's such a good zone for that, then returned to Kandar with this new team.

....might have overleveled a bit. Also Veronica is now dressed like a giant cat. Is she taking this whole thing a bit far?

He almost gets Archie, but our new onslaught is too much, and I finally take down the Lord of Hentai.

As Kandar crashes to earth, baby oil splashes all over the ground.

I let him go, of course. Legend says that he made his way to Midgar and opened a brothel in a place called Wall Market.

The next step is to get back to the quest of finding "pepper" for the King of Portoga. This means talking to various Indian folk after rescuing Gopal and his girlfriend from the slippery clutches of Kandar.

Gotta say though, that Zen Book is burning a hole in my pocket, and the temptation to start a second Sage is too great.

I got Monster Wrangler to level 28 and was hoping that was enough to get most of their good abilities (Editor's Note: It isn't) before switching over.

Returning to Portoga, I serve the king with the "pepper". "WHOOOO!" he says after having a big snort of it.

The servants file in and begin forming piles of "pepper" on the king's desk so he can bury his face in it like an angry Al Pacino at the end of Scarface.

After our heroes have some "pepper" they trip balls and have a conversation with a glowing light.

The next day, the King turns over the best reward in the game: La Santa Maria de la Inmaculada Concepcion. With this boat I can sail to the New World...or anywhere really. Being able to explore a Dragon Quest world by boat is always a fun moment.

I SET SAIL. There are a bunch of potential objectives at this point, and the second act of the game involves finding a bunch of Orbs that can be gathered in any order.

These guys in a nearby lighthouse explain what's going on. It's awesome how you can see Portoga in the background.

Suffice to say, gathering all six Orbs will grant great power to whoever does it. You know, like Dragonball. Have I mentioned that this series drew heavily from Akira Toriyama's mind?

I decide to go for the jugular and head straight for one of the tougher challenges in the game: Jipang, home of Orochi.

Jipang is themed after Japan, which makes this a good time for a reminder that DQ3's world is heavily based on the real world:

Props to them for not making Greenland the size of Africa like most of our (inaccurate) modern maps do. I'm trying to figure out which of those two points in Southeast Asia is supposed to be India, though.

Jipang's townsfolk have two noteworthy things about them: One, they all speak in Haiku.

Two, they REALLY look down on foreigners. I saw how they ran off poor Duncan Macleod! I'm just waiting for someone to call me "barbarian".

"BARBARIANS" yelps the town leader. So it looks like we'll need to win these people over by saving them from the local monster, Orochi, a hydra that demands sacrificial young women for it to murder.

Orochi Cave is full of lava and deadly foes... as well as pajamas.

There's also a helmet with the best defense in the game (by a mile, too). The problem is that the wearer is always confused. Is it worth it? No, but it's tempting with all of that defense. It MIGHT be okay to put it on someone who can't AOE in any way. Nothing worse than a friendly-fire AOE.

At last, Orochi. This is one of the beastlier foes in the game, with multiple turns per round. I usually leave it for later in the Orb hunt, but I'm confident in this group.

Sapping the boss' health, buffing the Fighter with Oomph, and letting them wail on the boss has always been my go-to DQ3 strategy. It's a pretty nerfed strategy later in this game, but for now it's decimating everything.

Orochi fires back with FIRE BREATH. It was a tough fight, tougher even than Kandar, but I survived even at this early stage.

Returning to Jipang, we make a strange discovery: The town manager is injured, as if she was just in a huge battle.

Pimiko decides to end the charade and transforms into Orochi. So the town manager has been sending young women to be sacrificed to...herself? What a tweest! This fight is pretty much the same as the first one. Just need to two-peat to prove it wasn't a fluke.

That gets the Purple Orb. One down, five to go.

Annnd we're back on the ocean. Nice, chill episode of DQ3 today.