Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, Part 5 - Descent to Avernus

 

Today on Dragon Quest: I sail the Santa Maria de la Inmaculate Concepcion to new lands and take on Baramos in what is definitely the final battle of DQ3.

Previously on Riverdale: After being usurped as leader of the New World, Jughead got audited by DOGE, which uncovered all of Jughead's insane government spending:

-10,000,000 G for 18 year old Bunny Girls

-3,000,000 G on new wool caps for himself

-5,000,000 G for a research study into what is holding those Metal Slimes together to begin with

-130,000,000,000 G for Edged Boomerangs for the Azov Brigade

-800,000 G for catering for Bunny Girls

-50,000,000 G to create deadly viral bioweapons

-500,000 G for a fancy display case for the Yellow Orb

-20,000,000 G to rent out Ramia to pretend he has a private jet and impress Bunny Girls

-10,000,000 G for NEW Bunny Girls after the first group all turned 19

-Another 80,000,000,000 G for Edged Boomerangs for the Azov Brigade

This remake adds some new stuff, mostly in the lategame. I think the best part is these flashback scenes of Ortega's adventures as we follow in his footsteps.

This leads to us retrieving the Mountaincleaver, which is what gets thrown into the Necrogond volcano in this version.

The lava looks REALLY nice in this version. So does this version obsolete the original NES version? Is this a remake or rebreak? What about the SFC and GBC versions? I should do a comparison rundown once this is all over.

We get an entirely-new boss fight, which makes sense because this was the perfect place to have a boss fight.

In the original NES version, this is the very spot where Ortega fights an unknown assailant in the intro. This gargoyle could be that unknown assailant, or another similar guard. Ortega seemed to get the better of the one he fought (even lopping off a wing) but we didn't get that scene in this version so this may well canonically be the same foe. Of course, the Ortega fight ends with the gargoyle dragging him into the volcano despite losing the fight, in what is known as "The Balrog Manuever"

I employ the same strategy I always use in this game: Oomph, Sap, and focusing physical attacks. They really de-emphasized this strategy in this version, and it's starting to not work very well.

In this version of DQ3, magic seems to be where it's at, especially with elemental weaknesses now fully functional.

We get another flashback cutscene, and....egad! It's Ortega vs The Assailant, finally! We also see that there are a whole bunch of them laying in wait. So we just fought one of the numerous gargoyles that guard this area.

But yeah, canonically, it was at least the same type of foe that Ortega fought in that legendary intro cutscene, which we're getting now.

That said, I think on the NES it was supposed to be a dragon.

With melee tactics failing me (the Fighter just isn't doing much damage) I decide to go for a third Sage instead. Less variety but in other versions of the game this would result in a pretty OP party.

Editor's Note: Really should have just stuck with Monster Wranglers, as the endgame is tuned around having them.

This means leveling another Goof-Off, but the good news is that with access to high-EXP enemies it only takes about 20 minutes to get to level 20 at this point.

There we go, 3x Sages. So what did Betty's time as a Thief and then Fighter get her? Is she any stronger than anyone else, being on her fourth class (instead of second for the others)? Not really. The rule of diminishing returns really hits home here. Doing a class change at level 20 did a number on her previously-gained stats, as well. A third class is somewhat worth it but that's about it, and really all you need for this game is two classes per character.

After all of that fuss, it's time to get the 6th and final Orb. They really did a fantastic job with the look of this dungeon in particular.

One of the best weapons in the game, though at this point I've only got one fighter and I'll get better weapons soon.

These games are so goddamn weird.

OH MY GOD METAL BABBLES

They're over 10,000 each if you can get them. Monster Wranglers are a huge help here, and in my case I'm reliant on abilities from other classes like Assassin Stab.

Against a big group like this, BeDragon will annihilate all of the metals but it requires two full enemy turns before it fires. Good luck not having any metals flee over two turns. That said, it's pretty damn OP.

Speaking of OP, Betty is ROLLING IN SPELLS.

There's a healing spring in here which makes this an ideal place for Pre-Baramos Leveling.

Last Orb and we're off to Baramos. The Orbs of course unlock Flying Mounts(tm) which we need to reach Baramos' castle high in the mountains.

Ramia (the flying mount in question) is in this shrine in Antarctica, which is tiny in this game. I mean tiny, like one island tiny. With so little content here I can't even make any The Thing jokes.

Place the six Orbs around this egg, and...

BOOM. Looks like a legendary Pokemon. Wasn't this guy on the cover of Pokémon Gold?

This unlocks the power of flight, which is amazing. ...and unfortunately only useful for the 2 minutes it takes to fly to Baramos' Castle. Really prefer when games unlock flight a lot earlier in the game and give you a chance to really make use of it, which most games do. Then again, with the Return spell being what it is in this series, flight is actually a less-efficient way to get around. Still wish we had more use for this thing. Well, there is ONE other location to go to besides Baramos Castle...

Baramos' mountain lair is shrouded in evil, and all of the world's monsters and problems emanate from this area. Probably because there are holes that lead to The Underworld all over the place up here.

This is probably the toughest dungeon in the game overall unless you went on a big leveling spree beforehand. The "level you can comfortably progress at" floor pretty much jumps by about ten with this place.

The dungeon is also full of damaging floor tiles, which look awesome in this version (while also being nerfed compared to the NES).

After getting through the castle, our heroes are face-to-snout with Baramos, the lord of evil.

They made this guy WAY more threatening than he ever was in previous versions of the game. When he gets mad, the entire room bursts into flames. He's also really into eating people's organs.

Next List: "Top Ten Maous". Baramos would get high on that list for the DQ series as far as bad guys go. I guess Saro would be above him in tier, but I consider Saro more of a Magus-type character who is led astray. The main maou-type guy in DQIV is probably Radimvice, his Ozzie.

Baramos would be #1 if the list were "Top Ten Thicc-est Maous" as he is most certainly the most thicc, as the kids say.

Anyway back to Baramos. He looks just like I remember, only with feet planted instead of mid-step. I made the mistake of starting this fight with low MP, which is an auto-loss and would mean I get to repeat the entire dungeon on the NES version.

In this version we've got autosaves every time you change floors. Which leads me to the game's big lategame sploit: Prayer Rings that restore MP. These things have a lot more charges than they do in other versions of the game, and I've seen them activate over ten times before breaking. It's totally random, too. So what I do is walk back up and down the stairs every few Prayer Ring uses to trigger the autosave. Then if a Prayer Ring breaks, I just reset and reload the autosave and keep going. Before too long I'm at full MP without having to leave the dungeon to rest, and it's easy enough to do this with no Prayer Rings even being lost. That said, I've got 13 of them, and with their high charge count, I can lose a few without issue. If one breaks after like two uses, though, that's a good time to reset and load.

Now with full MP, I take the fight to Baramos. He's the toughest foe in the game to this point, but a wall of Insulatle, Magic Barrier, and several Kabuffs really neuters his offense. Going with 3x Sages was also a very good call, as magic seemed to do a lot more damage to him than physical attacks (nothing new there). At this point I've got the hero spamming lightning magic instead of attacking, as well.

Baramos blows up into a giant purple cloud! That's it for the lord of evil... for now. That's right, the game isn't over yet.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch! Fireworks are being set off all over the place in celebration of Baramos' defeat.

The King is overjoyed, like everyone else, and much celebration is to be had. Commence the orgy!

Betty and Veronica are already orgy-ready. They're going to role-play 50's housewives!

But wait! Before everyone can even begin to get naked, a shadowy figure appears.

That's right, it turns out Baramos was only the lord of evil on the surface world. He's got a boss who rules the underworld, and by defeating Baramos we managed to draw the ire of said higher power.

"......So uh, does this mean we're not havin' an orgy?" says one of the guards.

Our hero bids farewell to his mom...for the last time. Yeah, he's going to follow Ortega down into literal hell.

But first, we have one more thing to do on the surface world. Which means Ramia has TWO uses. There's a castle encircled by mountains somewhere in Siberia, which is home to the Dragon Queen.

Yeah that's cool and all but WHY IS THIS CAT TALKING?

This could have been an optional uberboss of some sort, but nope, it's a good dragon, and here to help. Much like the one near the end of Dark Souls 2 that you don't have to fight. While the Dragon Queen is very powerful, she's also old and can't deal with Zoma herself (or even Baramos). What she can do is give our heroes the Sphere of Light, which will weaken Zoma (and also let us cross the shadowy medium to reach the underworld to begin with).

The Dragon Queen then fades away, in what's probably the game's saddest moment, leaving behind a dragon egg that she was presumably incubating.

This egg will be significant later. Who/what is inside? We'll find out by the time this is over.

 

Now our heroes can break through to the underworld at one of the abyssal maws near Baramos' Castle. The Sphere of Light clears the way. Good stuff.

Which leads our heroes to... DUN DUN DUN!!! Alefgard. In the worst-kept secret of the DQ series, Alefgard from the first two games is the underworld of the third game, and by crossing into Alefgard to save it, your hero has become the legendary hero of the first two. Which is why they remade DQ3 first: It's canonically the beginning of the whole story.

Yep, that's Alefgard, exactly as one would remember it. From here the final act of the game involves running around and collecting a bunch of things to get into Zoma's Citadel at the center of the world. That's right, he doesn't just have a castle, he has a damn citadel. This is my favorite part of DQ3 and maybe my favorite part of any Dragon Quest game, as there's something awesome about revisiting places from an earlier game (at an earlier point in time). Super Metroid captured this same vibe by having you revisit a bunch of locations from the NES original in that series. These things stick with you decades later.