Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, Finale - End of the Beginning

"Considering as we have the ancient disease of pride which has caused innumerable homicides, the people of Alefgard agreed that no other house should be built higher than the towers of Zoma's Citadel." - Thomas Aquinas, probably

I've been keeping a lookout for monsters to recruit, despite the lack of a Monster Wrangler. It's nothing splashing on some Musk and popping an invis potion can't cure. This dragon here is a big one.

Really, all you need are 3 heavy-hitters to run the whole gamut, and after finding a couple more monsters lurking around Alefgard, I'm ready.

With this trio, I totally steamroll most of the monster arenas. There are a bunch in different towns and they have different fights / ascend in enemy level as you go.

Winning causes your hero to get mobbed by multiple Bunny Girls, and the number increases as you win more battles. Good to see the Bunny Girls finding work after the collapse of Jugheadtown.

The announcers have region-specific accents in each new arena.

The Harem Grows

Alright this is getting kind of ridiculous

There isn't much of a challenge here until the last few fights, since I took so long to get to it. The final boss is Monty the monster wrangler.

So this is what Jughead's life was like?

Onward to Zoma's Citadel. Levels going in are sufficient but not super high.

We get more awesome electric floors!

Atmospheric spiralling stairways!

......more of those arrow-tiles that make you move in the wrong direction. Well, they can't all be winners.

Key item that lets you do unlimited group heals for no mana cost. This'll be very useful, along with Power Shields for no-mana single-target heals.

Get to the end and we see Ortega battling the King Hydra. Looks like we caught up to him just in time for the final battles!

...then he gets obliterated. Welp.

We get the full Darth Vader death scene, where he recovers his memory at the last moment before expiring.

Zoma lurks at the end of the hallway, with the last of his goons standing in the way. Time to wrap this game up!

First up is King Hydra, the joke boss of Zoma's goons. This guy's basically a gimme fight before the real final battles, and never posed any real threat in any other versions of DQ3. So this should be no problem.

Wait what

Alright, I lost the fight after being inundated with status effects. Just some bad RNG, kinda surprising that this goofball could pull off an upset. No problem, goin' again.

He seems to have an AOE Stopspell that is unresistable and lasts for several turns, but I can turtle up with Power Shields when that happens. Unfortunately, this magic-heavy party is completely nerfed by the AOE Stopspell, which is new to this version and kind of random.

Alright, this fight is ASS. He regens a substantial amount of HP per round, and a lot of rounds I can't even do damage due to the Stopspell and status effects. He spams AOE Sleep and AOE Fear and between the two of them I can usually only move one or two characters per turn, and that's with everyone wearing sleep-resistance accessories.

So what's goin' on here? Why did the jobber King Hydra get such an upgrade?

I'm with the first guy, this fight is designed to waste time. So I turn on Easy Mode and just autobattle-win the fight. Yay.

So this is probably gonna be patched (if the game ever gets patched) because they went way overboard here. The fight is definitely tuned around your party having Monster Wranglers, specifically Wild Side and Call to Arms. With potent physical attacks you can mop this guy fairly quickly. The longer the fight goes, the more impossible it gets, as once he starts stacking status ailments, it just gets more and more ridiculous until you're locked-down.

If I were to replay the game I'd make sure to have a couple characters with Monster Wrangler abilities by this point and the endgame would be much more doable. At this point, not going to bother on this run.

After dealing with the King Hydra for several hours attempting a legitimate win, I was basically done with the game. Next up is Baramost, who is pissed about losing twice.

I was so mad about King Hydra that I forgot to heal. This guy also uses a good amount of status effects, but not the total barrage that King Hydra does. It's another fight that's easier if it ends quick. No random Stopspell AOEs this time.

Finally, the Bones of Baramos, which is presumably the last gasp of Baramost. This thing mainly just uses physical attacks, so it's a joke compared to the previous two fights.

Lastly, Zoma himself is supposed to be the toughest boss of this game, but he's easier than King Hydra.

Use the Sphere of Light to weaken his forcefield and the rest of the fight is basic. I overleveled a bit in my failed bids to take down King Hydra, so this fight is probably easier than it should be.

If they didn't, we wouldn't have a series. Moychandizing!

The darkness is lifted from Alefgard and it now looks much nicer. Unfortunately, the gateway to the upper world also shuts for some reason, so our heroes are trapped here for the rest of their days.

Walking around a bit, I get a look at what DQ1 might look like in a few months. Wouldn't be surprised if this version of the overworld was straight-up lifted from DQ1's development.

The King: "Time for the orgy!"

Why is it always an orgy with these kingdoms?

Everyone poses, then Betty and Veronica rush out of the room to get changed into their cheerleader outfits. Maybe I should go let Jughead out of jail.

The hero disappears, and thus the legend of Erdrick is born. I guess he went off somewhere and had kids (who mysteriously all had different hair-colors) and a generation or two later one of them picks up his mantle.

In Cantlin, construction has just about concluded on Golem. Future generations would wonder who the hell built it and why.

More importantly, we get a stunning revelation: Hargon, villain of DQ2, finds the egg left by the Dragon Queen and decides to oversee it, ensuring that the future Dragon Lord will grow up on the side of evil. This sets up...

...the next two games, which will be a day-one play for me. Looking forward to seeing DQ1 finally have a postgame (probably) and DQ2 has so much room for improvement that it should be much better than it used to be.

Speaking of postgame... this game has two major postgame dungeons, each with a superboss. Again, these are tuned around having Monster Wrangler abilities, so it ruled me out. Wild Side + Call to Arms really obliterates these guys. Wish I'd known all of this beforehand. Regardless, the bosses in question:

Xenlon, the Eternal Dragon, who was the optional uberboss in the SFC version of DQ3.

Then after the second postgame dungeon - which is a total pain in the ass - you get Grand Dragon, the optional uberboss from DQ3 on the GBC.

So does this version obsolete the original NES version? What about the SFC and GBC versions? Well, I've played all of 'em, and this version is hands-down the best out of all of them. I just wish they hadn't overtuned King Hydra so much, or tuned the lategame around Monster Wranglers. That limits the endgame party options which hurts DQ3's whole appeal (party customization). It's still the best version of one of the best DQs. I like that it builds off of earlier remakes by including things like Thief while making new additions.