Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, Part 4 - Nothing Good Ever Happens At Zero

 

Today on Riverdale: Boy, this latest season sure has gotten weird.

Looks like the title screen has transformed. It transforms a lot to reflect where you left off (in this case, Orochi). The funny thing is, it took me this long to notice it because I simply hadn't quit out of the game yet. This is a difficult game to put down.

I'm still keeping an eye out for monsters to recruit, because if you get 50 of them you get a wildly-overpowered ability on the Monster Wrangler class that lets the caster act 2x per round for a few rounds at a time.

Forker, huh? Reminds me of elementary school where I once said that a guy was courting a girl, and a teacher overheard it and thought I said "corking", and got me sent to the principal's office over it. School was awesome!

This wench is the leader of the thieves, like Faris in FFV. Can SHE join the party?

She isn't having any of my attempts to silver-tongue her. Basically you have to be rude to her to get her approval. This is lore-accurate.

This leads to the easiest-to-get orb in the game. Push this statue of Jack Sparrow out of the way to get to...

...the Red Orb, with no boss fight or anything (surprisingly). Combine this with the Purple Orb from Jipang, and that's two down, four to go.

A clue for one of the others. Much like Stephanie McMahon in college, the Yellow Orb has passed between many hands. It could be anywhere!

Some interesting elemental-resist gear. This remake adds a lot of elemental and status resistance stuff, which goes well with A) Elemental damage being much more of a thing now and B) Status effects being WAY more common than I remember.

At this point I finally got around to checking out the Monster Arena, mainly to see the dynamo of charisma known as Forker in action. So basically it's an AI-controlled series of battles between your recruited monsters and a set of enemy foes.

There are a bunch of Monster Arenas in a bunch of different towns and they ascend in difficulty. I'll probably hold off on this until the endgame. Editor's Note: This is kind of a mistake because the Monster Arenas give a TON of gold and are a huge help in being able to afford to gear up. Then again, doing them all at the end with endgame-level monsters that obliterate everything is also fun.

In other news, the Queen of Ibis has really firm haunches. And doesn't know who built the Pyramid.

Fun Fact: If the Great Pyramids were actually built 5000 years ago as popular belief indicates, then Cleopatra was further-removed from their construction than we are from Cleopatra. It's interesting because people associate her era with their era on a regular basis.

Time to look for more orbs. Next stop: Edina (AKA Edinburgh), the British Isles portion of the world.

Always thought this place was really underutilized. Especially in this new version with how gorgeous it looks. They could have done a lot with this place, but it's basically just a short infiltration / stealth mission.

After using an invisibility item to sneak past the guards, I get Edina's treasure, and that's it for this place. Damn, really?

That nets me the Ultimate Key, which unlocks a ton of hidden stuff around the world. Always like when this happens in DQ games. It's like getting the boat, a magical moment where you can run around opening all the doors that eluded you before.

Time to recruit the final member of the Riverdale main cast...

...teen heartthrob Jughead! What a dreamboat, am I right fellas! Jughead got a raw deal in this game. He puts on his unwashed hat and off we go.

The next step takes us to the New World (that's North America, though it looks like it's seen better days, with the Mississippi River completely plowing through it).

Pilgrims are building a town in the northeast (Either NYC or Boston, no doubt) and they need an enterprising Merchant-class to help out. This means you, Jughead!

Go easy on Jug, he's been having a tough time since the Juggalos got designated as a terrorist organization.

He's all like "we've been through so much in our travels together". Literally all we did was take a boat over from Portoga! Was it the endless boat ride from Berserk?

Next stop is a town in South Africa, where I'll find the Green Orb. This town is interesting because EVERYONE IS DEAD. During the day the town is empty, and at night you can talk to everyone's ghosts. Come here with the Ultimate Key, and the prison is home to a boss:

It's actually six foes and in some ways it's a glorified regular battle. Having big AOEs makes this a snap, though if you don't, this one can drag on for a bit. Which reminds me, my Sages are dramatically outperforming my Fighter. Not sure what's going on, but mid-game physical attacks are dwarfed by spell damage.

3 down, 3 to go. It'd be cool if these orbs did anything, like if you could use them as an item in battle for various effects. Like what 7th Saga did, one of the things that game did well.

Let's check in with Jughead and see how the town is going.

Soon as the place starts to do well, he's already wanting to build a cabaret club and employ fetching young women in bunny costumes. They haven't even set up any farmland or agriculture yet! Even though the people will be starving, at least they'll have fetching women prancing to and fro. Sounds to me like a recipe for success.

Next stop is Australia, home to Gaia's belly button. This is one of the more interesting parts of the game, because the hero has to go it alone for the next dungeon. Like the previous one, the Ultimate Key is required here.

Not really? Can we send Betty in there instead? Get 'em, Betty!

The entire Australian land mass is basically just this one desert with this one cave. It's another place that I wish had more to it, like Edina. A town in France would have been rad too. Fact of the matter is that DQ11 spoiled everybody with all of the different real world equivalent towns and dialects.

The solo dungeon is short and easy thanks to the ingame maps pretty much showing you where to go at any given time. However, it won't be THAT easy because there's another new boss here:

This one is potentially a tough fight because the mage can revive the imp goon. They've got some damage output too. Luckily I have a secret weapon.

Meditation is a super-powerful ability that I don't remember being in other versions of the game. It's a self-only Fullheal with a low MP cost, and I got it just in time for this dungeon.

That was a great fight and there were a bunch of close calls. The challenge level really picked up starting with Kandar 2.0.

4 down, 2 to go. So far none of the orbs have been a particular hassle to get. This part of the game is always fun because of the non-linearity, where you're only limited by what you can handle.

Everyone is happy to see Archie emerge from the dungeon, all beat-up. The hero isn't as OP compared to the other characters as it often is in other RPGs, but chances are only he could have handled this solo challenge due to Meditation.

Our next stop is South America, home to the festive town of MANOZA. Not everything is festive there, however. The king may have been body-snatched.

Deep in the depths of Brazil is Menoza Castle. This requires an expedition. The southern part of the continent is a massive forest in this version of the game (unfortunately, not much to find there).

Reggaeton is heard while women dance and Vin Diesel steps out of his car in slow-motion.

Well, that WOULD be the scene here, but right now the place isn't so festive after all. The people are struggling under the tyranny of the false king, and even the reggaeton has been shut off.

We hear more tidings of the evil false king. Not only did he steal the crown, he also threw the real king in prison for questioning him. Somehow nobody noticed that it was the real king being jailed. Turns out, if you swipe the king's crown, he suddenly becomes unrecognizable.

Next is a quest to find a mirror and expose the false king. Don't think he'll be joining us like the Princess of Moonbrooke does in DQ2 after you reveal her true form.

Another stealth mission follows. Going to the castle at night lets you catch the false king unawares and use the mirror to reveal his true form. And this is a shock:

Is that The Rizzler? I think he's doing the Rizz Face! A 75% female party is no match for that!

I win after several tries, in what turned out to be the toughest fight yet (and the only one to hand me a loss since Kandar). His damage output was obscene. Speaking of obscene, let's move on quickly.

The real king is freed from jail, and everyone lives happily ever after in Manoza. The reggaeton is back on and the women are dancing in the streets.

What was the point of all of that? Not an orb, no. A magic wand that changes the party's form. One of the most fun items in the game, and one you only get for a short duration (which is really lame). In this version you can get another later, at least, which was a good call.

I make sure to immediately turn everyone into pink-haired maidens.

Somewhere, the old man in the Shrine of Dharma...

Turning into faeries (or dorfs) lets me talk to the racist faeries in the Faerie Village and buy some stuff. Funny how they sell a book called "Being a Better Person" while the rest of the time they screech at me because of my immutable characteristics and tell me to get out of their establishment.

Either way, the big item to get here is the Prayer Ring. I bought as many as I could, because they aren't sold anywhere else, and they're great for MP restoration in the endgame. They hardly ever break in this version of the game, so you can get like 500 MP out of one of them if you're lucky.

Let's check in on the new town and see how Jughead is doing.

Looks like the people have gotten tired of having no food or crops while cabaret girls flit about pouring champagne on each other. Jughead and the women are really well-fed while the townspeople struggle.

My God, one of my own allies has become the very tyranny we've been fighting against in all of these other towns! Why, Jughead? Why?

Jughead now lives in a gaudy palace while the other townspeople have to sleep on piles of rocks. Not sure this is going well...

Back to the main quest, Archie trades his rod for a bone. Then he waves his bone all over the place, which leads us to the location of...

...the ghost ship, which I remember being a big deal when I played DQ3 in the past. But now with the maps and knowing where to go, it was like a 2 minute long dungeon. This gets a locket which will be important later.

But wait! I've just gotten an urgent message from Jughead. What's happened now?

The town is in shambles and Jughead has been imprisoned in his own jail! My God!

We could probably post his bail money but instead we leave him in here to think about what he did. He'll be safer in here anyway, what with all of the townspeople who want him dead.

Looks like they totally trashed his gaudy palace. Destiny, in its most brutal form.

Anyway, we grab the Yellow Orb from behind the couch and take off. Got places to go, things to do. Good luck Jughead! 5 down, 1 to go.