Did I mention last time that this game is fucking gorgeous!?
I cannot over-emphasize how much attention to detail was given to all these game locations. Towns and dungeons all feel different and unique. When you’re in Khoryv (Kanave), it feels like a town carved out of the wooded mountainside. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered they even thought to re-add the highly obscure “Aurhea’s Fountain” location… sort of? There’s no gift fairy anymore, just a nameless lake with a ledge. Functionally, it’s one of those bonus spots where you can catch a monster. But it’s there! They didn’t forget about it.
But as always, I get ahead of myself.
WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HEROES…
Once I acquired the ship, I used that milestone as a prompt to do some party reconfiguration. I promoted my Monster Wrangler Gwaelin to a Sage, and assigned my Priest Romero to take over cowboy duties. I decided I’d have my Mage Pierre kinda cycle through most of the other classes, starting with Merchant.
I also took the opportunity to make some stylistic changes, because who’s gonna stop me? YOU!?!?
Again, the game doesn’t let you change your character’s “Appearance” (gender), but it does let you change their appearance. Note that for some of the…uh, balder character sprites, your choice of hair color makes literally no difference, but they let you choose it anyway. And again, this includes being able to assign whatever voice style you want, regardless of gender (or pseudo-gender):
Notably, I was not able to change my Hero’s appearance at all… but we’ll circle back to that later.
Anyway, after upgrading my party and satisfying my Soo / Persistence curiosity, the first order of business was to address the New Town. I could’ve just done what everyone does, and make a new level 1 Merchant, and drag his lifeless ass to the New World and sacrifice him on the altar of proto-capitalism. But I did have a default Warrior named Nelson I’d left behind, and so I saw this as a double-opportunity. If I played him to level 20, and then class-changed him to a Merchant, I could log at least a little time as a Soldier (a necessary experience for this review), and simultaneously I could leave Pierre behind for a bit and observe what it’s like to play this game without an active Monster Wrangler.
Monster-catching is its own process. Wranglers gain an ability to sense whether a friendly fiend is nearby, at least giving you an indication where to look. However, regardless of whether you have a Wrangler in tow, many monsters only make themselves available for capture at certain times of day, necessitating time manipulation. And even when you’ve found a catchable critter, some of them practically jump into your lap like trained dogs, while others are much more skittish. To that point, I found a wayward monster at Tedanki, but every time I approached without a Wrangler, he refused to come along.
Funny, that never happened when I had a Wrangler in my party. There seem to be methods to mitigate this difficulty for non-Wrangler parties, such as the use of the Thief’s Padfoot (Tiptoe) ability, or an item called Musk which these filthy creatures find attractive. I guess getting to skip that rigmarole is the “ability” you have for retaining an active Wrangler (much like the Thief’s steal ability and the Merchant’s appraisal of items). At least, even without a currently practicing monster specialist, I could still use my previously recruited fiends in the Arena.
As I was sailing around, expanding my Zoom list, a funny thing happened.
If you’ve played Dragon Quest 3 (or Dragon Warrior 3), you know these jerk birds here quite well. They love to cast a spell called “Blasto” (formerly “Limbo”), that hurls one your party members far over the horizon. It ends up being a fate literally worse than death, because your character can’t be revived; you have to return your whole party to Aliahan, and find your crewmate waiting for you at the starting tavern. They retain all their stats, of course, although your items may get all mixed up. It’s just the pain in the arse of your current quest being over as soon as that spell lands.
But one constant was that this spell could never land on your Hero. This is because your Hero is the central character, and can’t be left as a reservist at the tavern. (This was changed a bit starting with the Super Famicom version, which introduced post-game content. But the Limbo spell still never worked on your Hero.)
So I was dumbstruck when, as I watched the battle text speed by, my Hero got zipped away without warning. I missed screencapping it when it happened, and only caught the aftermath. What the hell? So my Hero can be dumped at the tavern now? What if I just don’t go back to recruit them? How does this even work?
It turns out, the developers changed the “Blasto” spell entirely. The text implies the same circumstance, of your character being thrown a great distance. But now, when the battle ends, you get your character back, right where you are. It’s all temporary. That’s actually a relieving improvement, as Limbo/Blasto was one of the few truly annoying parts of every previous version of this game. Of course, it still made the immediate battle more difficult to win, but hey, not everything can be free. (Oh and yes, for those curious, the dialogue from the guy in Samanao who tells you about Blasto has been changed accordingly.)
After class-changing Nelson and dumping him off at New Town, I got my real team back together, and returned to my mission. I’ve always liked how the Jipang side-quest never requires the Final Key, giving you the opportunity to start there if you fancy tackling things in an unusual order.
Once again, Jipang (standing in for real-world Japan) gets its own town music, and its own NPC sprites. All the locals’ dialogue has been changed into this sort of haiku-ish style. Anyway, the quest is basically the same as it’s always been. Vanquish the dread Orochi and save the day.
Along the right side, you can see icons for all the little buff spells I’ve cast on my characters. This is the phase of the game where you really start to rely on buff effects for the big battles. However, in this version, each of these effects expire after a few turns, adding increased tension and strategy when you have to choose between buffing and healing. Notice also Orochi’s name hovering above him. During battle, each enemy’s name appears above them as they get weaker, with (I believe) yellow indicating their HP is below 50% and reddish-orange indicating less than 25%. In fact, all enemies everywhere have this helpful name-color feature, but of course you see it more when fighting bosses who stick around longer.
At any rate, Orochi was slain, and the liberated citizens rejoiced. Oh, and uh… you transphobes may want to look away again.
From there, there wasn’t much to do but get the Ultimate Key, which first required a “Fading Jenny” (Invisibility Herb). While there are a few places to acquire these, I chose the intended route through the town of Lanson. Now this may come as a shock to you, but Lanson is actually supposed to be a stand-in for real-world Australia.
I know, this is some pretty obscure trivia. As I can now personally attest, real Australians sound much sillier.
But at least that dialogue wasn’t read aloud. After sneaking in to Edina and solving the same boulder riddle for the five-thousandth time, you’re greeted with the Bottomless Pot. Except this time, there’s a note stuffed inside. Written by an “Ed” (of perhaps equine nature), this note is then read aloud in a voice that would’ve fit in on Dukes of Hazzard.
The original game was quite obtuse with progression clues. You basically had to talk to that one horse to know where to take the “Vase of Drought”. Now, they have that horse, this note, I think another clue, and they even circle the location right on the map, as if to say “GO!!! HERE!!!”
It was around this time I had a wacky idea. See, you can technically visit the shrine east of Samanao (now called Manoza) without the Ultimate Key, by way of a distant travel portal. Heck, on that map above, you can even see it as having been visited, as indicated by the little shrine marker on the easternmost part of the map. So the game knows I’ve been there.
I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if I unlocked that shrine as a return point, then used Zoom to travel there, and use the “Land Outside” option without having gotten the Ultimate Key? Then I could get arrested by the Manoza guards and thrown in their jail without the ability to let myself out of my cell. It would surely be a softlock, but you know, stress-testing games is fun. Not my fault if the developers don’t know their shit.
Unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately as the case may be – the developers were prepared for this exact outcome. Yes, you can visit what the list identifies as “Wayfarer’s Chapel” prior to acquiring the key, and as we saw the map marker was there, but it’s specifically (likely manually) excluded from the Zoom list until after the Key is safely acquired. Boooooooooriiiiiiiiiiing.
LOTS MORE BOSSES
After acquiring the Ultimate Key, the next easy Orb was in Tedanki… or so I thought. For starters, the Night Light (Lamp of Darkness) for some reason no longer operates within a town or dungeon. You have to leave to the overworld and use it there. (The same is true for the spell Tick-Tock.) But after forcing nightfall, I had a bigger problem.
Guarding the Green Orb in the prisoner’s cell was one of those new bosses, called Dying Fires. I wasn’t prepared for the fight, much less with a Gadabout in tow, who as you can see was having his usual fun throughout the battle. Dying Fires also kept summoning copies of itself, which was the gimmick of this fight.
You may recall this Dying Fires bloke (blokes?) was one of four additional boss fights identified in the PSN trophy list, with Ripper of the Rift already having been encountered previously. Again, it seemed obvious one would be found on the Phantom Ship, and the other would be guarding the Blue Orb, where you can only send a solo character. After vanquishing all those little fire goblins, with my options for advancing the game growing limited, I decided to return to ‘Straya and cross that off the list.
Yes, even presumably ancient graven stone faces here talk like Crocodile Dundee (but with no actual vocals). I checked the dead-end path, as I am wont to do, and found something interesting embedded in the wall, but which I was unable to access. Along the correct path, I was correct to expect the Chiromancer, based on the sprite reused from the one-on-one JRPG classic. And yet, dude cheated anyway! He brought a friend named Madvlad, and they attacked me together!! That’s not how this one-on-one business is supposed to work!
I’d show you a pic of them together, but I forgot to get a capture before I’d swiftly dispatched them both lol. All the bosses you kill have this death rattle scene, where they get this last bit of trash talk out before they croak. It’s a nice reward for thrashing their asses.
Proceeding onto Manoza, the funeral scene begins as soon as you enter town, and then disperses as soon as it concludes. Thankfully the devs changed it so the gathering doesn’t linger around forever until you manage to hit just the right sequence of story triggers or whatever. Seriously, who wants to hear about some dead guy for weeks? I’ve got new swords I wanna buy!
There was one interesting change I took note of. No, not the cat suit. As you can see above, that still works just fine. But no, you no longer walk up to Boss Troll and specifically use Ra’s Mirror. It’s buried in your “Important Items” sub-bag, where it can’t be transferred out, and the option to proactively use it is permanently greyed out. Instead, once you possess it, you simply talk to the sleeping king, and you will be given the option to use the Mirror within that dialogue. I guess this solves the question of whether players can figure out which items to use at which times relying on NPC clues alone, though being as acquainted as I am to the otherwise obtuse nature of these old games, it does feel a bit like easy street.
Speaking of hand-holding, following my victory over Boss Troll and another nighttime visit from the distended voice from the intro, I was prompted with a cue that maybe things had changed for my boy Nelson back at the New Town, and that maybe it’s time for me to pay him another visit.
But as you Dragon Warrior 3 veterans know, I had far more important matters to attend to first.
Yes, even with other MP-restoring items at my disposal, I still wanted my Wizard’s Rings, dammit. The Mod Rod (Staff of Change) is a little more annoying to use, now that it’s buried in “Important Items”, and you can’t item-swap it to the first slot on your first character for easy spamming. Also, the elves still see through some of your monsterly forms, and at least one elf seems not too fond of dwarves either. But as a surprise to no one, the dwarf form still opens up that sweet elf shop, with the usual classics and a few new goodies. In addition to the Strong and Special Medicines, you can splurge out a ton of cash on another new item called Elfin Elixir, which fully restores a single character’s MP. (Sorry FF fans, these elixirs do not restore HP as well.)
Sadly, the game still forces you to trade in the Mod Rod for the trinket that makes the Phantom Ship appear. And the old man at Greenland gets to have all the Change Staff fun you’re missing out on, appearing as a random form each time you arrive. When he’s a monster, he tries to scare you, when he’s a male form, he threatens you as a home invader, and when he’s a female form, he… offers to show you around the house?
I was curious how the Boatman’s Bone would work, given the overworld is very much no longer tile-based. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it doesn’t work at all!! At least, you can’t proactively use it, with the option greyed out like with Ra’s Mirror. Instead, having the item in your possession makes the Phantom Ship appear on the overworld as a marker on your map.
So at long last, I arrived at the Phantom Ship, the most sure-fire can’t miss guaranteed bonus boss ever, and there I found…
…Nothing? I just walked in, got the Locket, aaaaand my story objective updated. I mean, if you want a fight, that Minidemon NPC is still strutting around, looking for attention. But he’s just an appetizer. The usual added care was taken with this area, with different battle backgrounds for encounters above and below deck. And you can still talk to the despondent Eric and hear his tale of woe. But there were no surprises. (Wait… was that the surprise!?)
So I proceeded with my quest. And it didn’t take long for me to find where this final bonus boss had run off to. After speaking to the Ghost of Simão, who regaled me with a flashback of his time with his “ally” Ortega, I found myself at the maw of a great volcano, ready to hurl a legendary sword into the crater below. You know, a typical Tuesday in RPG land. I did check, and yes, you can equip the Mountaincleaver, but as before, you can’t just proactively “use” it; you have to approach a story trigger, which prompts you to use it.
It was at that moment I got my next surprise:
Hey buddy! What are you on about? I’ve got plenty of gorms! I’ve got more gorms than you’d know what to do with.
That’s right, not only did I get a new boss in a place I was not expecting at all, but it’s literally the guy who sent my pops to his apparent death. Despite being relatively unprepared for the fight, I managed to vanquish Garboyle, who then taunts me with a recalled cutscene of the time my father did the stupidest thing imaginable, and leapt over a pool of magma trying to lunge at some twerp he couldn’t even reach. Oh, and then I get to throw away a perfectly valuable sword, and watch a volcano blow up.
The Cave of Necrogond was probably the hardest stretch of the original game. It was Dragon Quest 3’s answer to the absurdly difficult Cave to Rhone from DQ2, if you will. Not too shockingly, it was softened just a bit for this version. The floor layouts are mostly the same, with one brief added floor at the end. But they do give you a full healing spot midway through, like the one in the Elf Cave way back in the Noaniels sidequest.
On the way to trade in my six special coupons and claim my bird prize, I thought to check the bestiary, just to see what it showed among the boss listings at the end:
It listed only one remaining boss after Garboyle. A nice bit of spoiler-avoidance which games from the NES and SNES era often lacked. Of course, the regular monster bestiary listings still went on for a ways, but you know, that could mean anything.
A LEGEND WAS BORN
By this point, most of the fun observations to be made were done, and most of my curiosity had been satisfied. But we still had a game to play! The denizens of the world still needed their legendary hero to save them. And, who knows, maybe the devs had a twist in store regarding the fate of my old man.
Baramos’ Castle was terrifyingly gorgeous, and yet so familiar. Once again, the floors all line up pretty much how I remembered, though the staircases and such were arranged to impart the added feel of ascension and descension. Oh, and don’t forget, we’re still living in the era of previously impossible enemy encounters:
When I finally arrived to where Baramos’ chamber should be, this weird thing drew my attention:
I don’t trust shit like that, so I cast Zoom out to save before exploring it. Turns out, it was just a helpful portal, lol. Once you enter it, it takes you back to the beginning of the castle, and opens a portal from that end which takes you right back to Baramos. It’s one of those handy features so newer players don’t have to struggle all the way through Baramos’ winding castle every time they want to fight him. I guess I still have some PTSD from the old days when games would just fuck with you for no reason, and you couldn’t let your guard down about anything.
Not gonna lie though, the long staircase down into Baramos’ demesne was sweet as fuck.
After grinding up a couple Prayer Rings, it was time to face the big guy himself. As with all the other upgrades, Baramos got some gravelly voice acting, properly vowing “I shall rend you asunder and devour your innards!” I’m glad these devs knew this game’s true non-negotiables.
Baramos and some other enemies always had a hidden healing factor in previous versions of the game. But for the first time, this was made apparent, with green numbers (accompanied by a healing noise) that appeared over him every round. Just 80 or so HP, but it was something to be mindful of. Unlike earlier editions, I had to constantly keep up on my party buffs lest they dissipate after a few turns, though this meant anything Barry did for himself was also temporary.
I was doing fine into the second half of the fight, when… he started flinging around Blasto!
First my Hero went bye-bye. And then my Priest-turned-Wrangler took an untimely break. I was down to two players on the field! Thankfully, I still had a healer, and I’d gotten the Archfiend low enough on HP that I was able to finish the deal. The friendly disembodied voice that’s been following me around returned, and brought us back to town. Everyone back home gave my Hero all the credit, even though he didn’t even stick around to finish the battle. But at least my Martial Artist was given the official title of Chuck Norris following the battle.
At this point in the game, you’re supposed to visit the king, to prompt some story stuff. Previous versions of the game constrain your movement by temporarily erasing all locations except Aliahan from your Return list. This time, the game directly drops you into Aliahan, and places guards at all entrances, keeping you in town until the sequence in the throne room is completed. And while you can bring up your full Zoom list, once you actually try to cast it, you get a message saying “a mysterious power nullifies the spell”.
Aside from that, everything seemed pretty standard… except…
Oh my goodness, please tell them to stay home!! Do they not know what happens at these things? This is like finding out your loved ones will be attending the Red Wedding.
Thankfully, only some soldiers got zapped by Zoma’s grand entrance. The king once again decreed that no one should learn of Zoma’s existence, although… this seemed slightly less tenable with more surviving attendees. You’re given a bonus scene in mum’s house, where she acknowledges that you can’t stay and settle down when there’s an evil villain out there ready to be vanquished. (For some reason, it also replays some of the sequence with Ortega’s helmet, I guess in case you never found it during your game play.) Then, as moms do, she makes you cry a bit.
Oddly, for the rest of the game, mum seems to retain her original dialogue indicating she has no idea why you’re still out adventuring. C’mon mom, you were literally standing there when it all went down! And her free inn has closed up shop as well. Why knows, maybe her memory is failing her.
At any rate, you see a castle in a dream, and are then directed to find that castle. Previously, you the player have to learn from NPCs that you need to visit the Dragon Queen, which (once you have the bird) you can do at any time. Failing to do this will result in a nigh-unwinnable Zoma fight, but such is the price of not paying attention. However, this time the game forces you to see the Dragon Queen first, by way of a dark mist at the Pit of Giaga which can only be dispelled by the Sphere of Light.
Before giving you the Sphere, the Dragon Queen asks if you will honor her dying wish, and vanquish Zoma. If you tell her “No”, she gives you an amusing answer:
lol “But thou must!”
Before proceeding to Alefgard, there were some bits of business to follow up on, including claiming the Siren Sword in Portoga. Also, I’d caught enough monsters, I figured it was time to catch up on Monster Arena shenanigans. At each Rank, you have to crush the dreams of some character you’ve met. For Rank 7, I had to disappoint the little kid whose father was killed by the Boss Troll. And for my reward, I received…
That’s right! The “Sexy Book”, a.k.a. “Guns ‘n’ Buns”. The porno-coded final treasure of Dragon Quest 3 on mobile, which in that version required sacrificing your father. (Yeah, these video game scenarios get pretty wild.) As a reminder, the in-game purpose of this book is to bestow one of your characters with either the “vamp” or “charmer” (formerly “lothario”) personality, which the designers decided should be the strongest stat-boosting personalities in the game. (See: Cultural silliness.) Per the PSN trophy list, I knew Xenlon still awaited me, but the fact that you can acquire one of these books before even reaching Alefgard did make me a bit curious what other curveballs may be in store.
Around this time, I did check the boss listing in the bestiary. There was now one mystery entry after Baramos, but only one…
So we arrived in Alefgard. All the locals still talk with “thou”s and “thine”s, except with the added emphasis of voice acting. In fact, this is the first version to canonically settle the pronunciation of many of these classic locations from the original games. It’s nice to know I had most of them correct in the first place. The one I’d been saying wrong was “Ay-lef-gard” instead of the proper “Ah-lef-gard”, but ironically as a kid I used to pronounce it the correct way. The only reason I started saying it the other way was because one time some normie friends misheard me and thought I told them I had to go save the world of “Olive Garden” lmao.
Once again, the town of Brecconary from Dragon Warrior 1 is smooshed together with Tantagel Castle, with any separate name for the town being omitted. As is tradition, Zoma’s Citadel looms over the fair denizens of Tantagel. If you speak to the right person, you get a good sight of it. Of course, it turns out your pops is alive and well(ish) in this world, and everyone and their mother here has met him and remembers him well, although he seems to have forgotten everything about his world of origin.
Alefgard is once again blanketed by eternal night, with all the game mechanics that entails. The “Rest Awhile” option at inns is gone, with your only choice being “Stay Overnight” (whatever that means in the land of eternal night). On the plus side, it’s much easier to catch monsters in Alefgard, as you don’t have to worry about what specific time of day they appear.
One quick thing I may have forgotten to mention… This game is fucking gorgeous!!
In exploring the land, the overworld map of Alefgard feels way bigger than before. Like, it just seems like it takes forever to get from town to town. This isn’t a bad thing, of course. The long journey adds to the adventure feel, and you only have to make these treks once before each locale is added to your Zoom list. And who knows, maybe they’re setting up an expanded landscape in the DQ1 remake? Naturally, the in-game map of Alefgard still looks as small as ever.
Of course, this world is in the prequel era, so there’s no Garinham – though I did swing by Garin’s (or “Galen’s”) home to swipe his harp. “Hauksness” is still no more; no, no, the town is alive and well, but the classic name is long gone. Its former replacement name “Domdora” has now been relocalized as “Damdara”. But I am glad to report that the original name of Cantlin (previously rebranded as “Mercado”) has returned! I’m guessing these are the names we’ll be seeing in the DQ1&2 remake soon. Anyway, I hit up the last (for now) Monster Arena in Cantlin for a new Mod Rod, with those Arenas once again serving as a replacement vehicle for all the goodies the old Pachisi tracks used to provide.
From there, I dropped in on Rubiss’ shack. Once again, the old man beat me to it, although he was long gone. But I did get to finally meet that disembodied voice, who in this version (as we saw) kept chatting it up with me throughout my quest.
Awww, she knows me so well.
As I rounded the cape for Rimuldar, I saw a sparkly spot out in the sea. I didn’t think much of it at first – there are so freaking many of these darn things, you can’t collect them all on your first trip anywhere. But then I did a double-take and looped back to it, when I realized… this sparkly spot was inside Alefgard’s inner sea!
“Woahwoahwoah Wait a second!”, I thought. In every other version of this game, the inner sea is blocked off from ships. There’s a mass of rocky shoals right at the one entryway that stop you from sailing in.
That’s the whole point – You have to collect the rainbow MacGuffins to build a magic bridge to the central island. So how does this work? If you can just sail around and collect these sparklies, then what’s to stop you from just landing on old Zoma’s private island?
Obviously, there’s an answer for that – and a pretty simple one, too. No they didn’t cop out and say “You can only dock at ports” like in FF1. This game’s overworld has an added dimension all the previous flat tile-based versions lacked. So the devs just threw up some giant ass cliffs all around Charlock Island.
One addition I noticed were these weird witches hanging out in the different towns, speaking in riddles. I never did figure out what they were about. The one in Rimuldar at least spoke straightforwardly about a secret in the seas around Charlock.
I don’t think I ever did find whatever it is she was referring to, but I did find a hidden area where this evil feminist nun was spreading her wicked communist agenda.
OH IT WAS A MONSTER! BUT OF COURSE IT WAS! ONLY THE DEVIL’S ILK SPEAK LIKE THAT!!
As you get deep into the game, you notice a few more things about basic combat. First, the numbers – hit points, damage, etc. – all feel a little juiced up. Not much, certainly not game-alteringly so, but just enough for a grizzled old vet like me to notice that something’s different. One thing that felt very apparent is that physical attacks are much weaker than before. Even late game, I used to be able to plow through encounters with melee attacks and an occasional supporting spell. Now, even with the best melee gear equipped, if you’re not casting magic or using abilities, you’re losing. And I did get quite a good impression of how strong magic attacks are, throughout the game. By using “Fight Wisely” battle tactics on my companions, they showcased all their strongest spells and abilities every step of the way, always automatically moving on to the next new upgrade they learn. Monster Wranglers also have a couple abilities which themselves get stronger the more critters you capture. However, as you discover early on, enemies have gained some of these new abilities, too. Sure, you can startle Ravens by licking them, but don’t be too shocked when some of them lick you right back. And when you get into the late game, you’ll find a few normal encounters double-attack when they did not before.
Back in Rimuldar, I stole some guy’s Recovery Ring, as is tradition. But this time, it wasn’t just anyone’s ring – it was the Ring Ortega gave to some local shmuck. I swear, everything in this game’s gotta have something to do with Ortega. And with the ring was a written diary, where ol’ Orty, deadbeat dad that he is, recalled leaving a family behind in a far off land. But as he recalled, “there are more important things for me to be getting on with”, indicating I may find him in Zoma’s direction.
There’s a lot of the usual modern hand-holding during your Alefgard quest. The Sunstone spot in Tantagel, which used to at least make an attempt at staying hidden, is now out there in the open. The Orichalcum in Damdara is marked with a sparkly. The Fairy Flute in Kol is super-obvious with both a sparkly and an exclamation point hovering over it. And the tower where you have to free Rubiss is circled on your map, so you know exactly where to go. Still, I appreciated that the path to the jailed guy in Rimuldar who gives you a vital clue about Zoma’s Citadel is still at least a little hidden. When you go to the main second floor of that building, you can see that this guy’s chamber is adjacent on that same floor (as you always could in the original), but even in the isometric view the exterior door is cleverly obscured by an overhanging ledge.
The side quest for the Sword of Kings is also different now. For starters, you have to find a broken blade in Cantlin. Apparently, Zoma spent years trying to destroy the previous Sword of Kings, and finally succeeded. When you arrive in Kol, both the shopkeeper and his wife speak in the same haiku style as everyone in Jipang, referencing how they fled the Orochi and somehow drifted up here in Alefgard. The man laments the loss of his special swordsmithing tools back home, and the fact that he must now sell only basic items. Finding the Orichalcum is no longer enough, nor is bringing the broken blade from Cantlin. You have to also travel to Jipang, find this guy’s old tools in his old home, and bring them to him as well. Once the swordsmith sees his old Forging Hammer, he’s so shocked that he drops the haiku act completely (lol), and forges you a new Sword of Kings on the spot. Oh, and he starts selling a bunch of other good equipment as well.
From there, I ascended the Tower of Rubiss. It’s always raining during your visit, which is a nice aesthetic touch, and beautifully executed. This tower’s always been so simple. I just plodded along, got the treasure, standard stuff. My Hero was getting a little low on MP by the end, but no biggie, I just had to play the Flute to free Rubiss aaaaaand…
Oops! Another surprise boss fight! And one not listed in the achievements. The game got me good this time. It actually happens to be “Soul of Baramos”, one of Zoma’s chucklefucks you have to fight later in his chamber, along with two sprites borrowed from DQ2. This jerk also Blasto-ed my Hero – either that, or my guy loves slyly ducking out from big fights only to return afterward and take all the credit. Once again, the supporting cast had to pick up his slack.
After doing the correct stuff in the proper order, you get a pretty cutscene where the Rainbow Bridge to Zoma is completed, and you’re off to fight the actual final boss. Zoma seems to have ditched the old title of “Archfiend” in favor of “Lord of the Underworld”. Not sure if that’s a promotion or a lateral transfer. Anyway, the six Stone Guardians in the main hall are now all fought in successive pairs, all in one extended battle. Notably, there isn’t a big screaming arrow directing you to check behind Zoma’s couch, but since the throne room is clearly the way forward, even the most clueless gamer will surely snoop around and find the way forward from there.
Of course, such a novice player is woefully unprepared for one of the most implacable boss fights in early RPG history…
I’m speaking of course of the fight with these floor tiles:
You first see them in the Tower of Rubiss, though you can bypass them for everything except the Auroral Armor. But here, you ain’t got no choice. As I write this, I… think blue is up? As in, when you’re standing on a tile, you press the direction of the blue arrow to go up? I didn’t check to verify if the old trick from the original NES version works, where you hold up the whole time and it winds you back and forth across the room before leading you safely through. I’m an old pro at these floors. I only fell a couple times, both of which I blame exclusively on my keyboard.
You all know what happens after that… or at least you think you do! The cutscene is a bit longer and more elaborate, and King Hydra sends some goons to slow you down. Then stuff happens. You know the drill.
On the bright side, the Sage’s Stone is right where it’s supposed to be, which is what’s really important. At this point, if you’re smart, you peek into Zoma’s chamber just long enough to see a portal identical to the one at Baramos’ Castle, allowing you to leave, heal, save, and return for the final fight. On the other hand, if you’re a dummy like me, you get spooked out and leave without entering Zoma’s chamber, and you never see that portal until your second trip. Hey listen, I was just enjoying this game so much, I wanted to play it longer!
The long corridor to Zoma involves the same routine as before. First, you avenge your old man versus King Hydra. Then you get your rematch with Soul of Baramos. Then you fight the Bones of Baramos.
By the way, if you were playing this game for the first time, then these fights are surprise additions to the in-game boss bestiary, which had no displayed mystery entries after Soul of Baramos. Bones of Baramos presented a unique challenge, in that he has an insane healing factor of 300+ HP each turn (seen above), requiring you to constantly keep ahead of that while recovering from his attacks coming back at you. Granted, this is probably similar to what was going on under the hood in the NES version, which was notorious for its boss healing factor, but the game never shoved it in your face like that.
Once you finally make your way down the long hall of green flames, you get to hear Zoma and his usual bluster, although voiced aloud for the first time.
Surprisingly, you do still have to manually use the Sphere of Light from your inventory. It doesn’t just pop out and save the day at the start of the fight. At any rate, doing so nets you the same spiel as before.
Zoma uses a lot of the same tricks as before. Amusingly, when he’s really focused, the giant eyeball on his forehead does the Cookie Monster thing, lmao. These fights felt much longer than before, but since all these animations and voice clips are involved, it could just be my imagination. What was not my imagination, however, was that Zoma went from double-attacks in previous versions to the occasional triple-attack. But on a surface appraisal, that’s the only true spike in difficulty. While some boss fights are affected by the limited durations applied to magic buffs and such, since Zoma frequently negates magic, this fight is the most similar of all the bosses to its previous incarnations. The same tested strategies from before will get you to the finish line.
Once again, as Zoma prepares to meet his maker, he taunts us over the fact that there will always be some asshole who wants to ruin everything, and that we won’t live forever. We soon find ourselves in Nailmark Cave, which for some reason gets sealed up differently than before, and emerge to a world bathed in sunlight. Our Zoom list is shrunk to two pages, as the world of our birth is closed off forever. (I guess dear old mum did lose us both!) As expected, the King gives us the title “Erdrick”, which he says is an ancient term for “dwelling-land”. Sounds important, I guess. (At least they didn’t change it back to “Loto”.) And once again, the hero disappeared moments after the celebration.
The old credits sequence that shows overworld locations is long gone. Instead, you’re treated to a movie-style credits roll, featuring all the different teams who have contributed to this electronic Ship of Theseus over the years, including all the Japanese and English voice actors introduced in this version. And as these names roll by, we’re given glimpses of the fates of various interesting characters we met along the way.
Transphobes, avert your eyes now:
The ending finishes with an advertisement for Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake, coming later this year. Oh, and as a Marvel-style post-credits scene, we do hear some extra dialogue from one vaguely familiar name, but uh… Oh, I wouldn’t want to spoil that for you. 🙂
Here were my final stats, as of defeating Zoma:
None of this was terribly optimized. And if memory serves, some of that play time was padded by me leaving the game running while I took an occasional nap. Either way, much fun was had by all.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
Oh don’t think for a moment that we’re done quite yet! After all the words I wrote about the confounding bonus ending of Dragon Quest 3 on mobile, you knew I was gonna check and see how the omnipotent sky dragon wish game plays out this time.
After beating Zoma, you’re given the choice to save your completed game. Once you fire that file back up again, a tutorial scroll appears directing you to the bonus dungeon accessible from the Castle of the Dragon Queen. (Your stated story objective is still “Defeat Zoma”, even though your bestiary clearly lists one Zoma defeated. Maybe they have a bunch of Zomas running off an assembly line?) Once again, you have to travel through floors copy-pasted from previous dungeons, littered with valuable treasure and populated with high-powered enemy encounters like King Hydra and those orange Baramos looking-guys. There’s still a priest just chilling halfway through, but since they changed how game-saving works, you can actually have this banished priest save your game on the spot.
Eventually, you meet Lord Zenith, who tells you about Xenlon, a.k.a. Divinegon. Thankfully, Cloudsgate Citadel is once again a Return-point, so you don’t have to make that same trek every time. There’s still the bard who offers three riddles, one of which nets you a second Sage’s Stone. But sadly, he no longer follows up with clues about where specifically to look for Mini Medals – I guess you’ll just have to find them all on your own. But on a positive note, there is a new cat who tells you how many stray Arena monsters there are left to find.
You still have to fight your way up to Xenlon, through even more fearsome critters. Eventually, you’ll find Xenlon atop a giant platform, doing their best tits-and-ass pose as seen above. They also now received the voice acting treatment, courtesy of James Alexander, not to be confused with the Seinfeld guy – although that would’ve been hilarious. I’m sure James giggled at some of the lines he was expected to read. Note that Xenlon is historically depicted as a “she”, but external sources claim the character is a “he” for this remake. I found no English dialogue indicating this either way, but maybe it’s reflected in Japanese text I can’t read.
Anyway, the usual stuff entails, Xenlon offers to grant you a wish if you can best them in honorable combat, yadda yadda.
Aaaaaaaaaand Xenlon completely and utterly wiped the floor with me haha. Granted, I hadn’t optimized my party with this battle in mind, as I’ve done in playthroughs on previous editions. I just had an eye on dabbling in each of the game’s classes as a review run. But after a few battles where I was barely able to hold on to dear life for an extended time, let alone actually deal meaningful damage in the process, I could see I was a ways off from competing.
So I cheated, lul.
I set the difficulty back to “Dracky Quest”, just for purposes of review of course. It’s amazing how easy it is to defeat a baddie when you strictly can’t die, and thus you don’t even have to worry one whit about healing. (And even under those terms, the best I could manage was a 19-turn win, meaning I had to save-revert to explore all the outcomes.) I would never go kiddie-mode in a for-serious run, but my curiosity about what wishes Xenlon offers was killing me. Will we get the original three options? Maybe even four or gasp possibly even five?
My friends, we got even more than that!
Six wish options!?!? I don’t even know what to do with myself! It’s like a royal banquet. Let’s see… the Ortega revival and “Guns ‘n’ Buns” are back. The old Pachisi track wish is replaced with a new Monster Arena, which once again can be found in the Jipang well. Obviously no more GBA Monster Medals, but in their place is the Rubiss Sword previously awarded for defeating “GranDragn” in the Monster Medal Ice Cave. “Trendiest Hero” just unlocks the ability to change your Hero’s hair color at Alltrades Abbey. I guess the devs had to hide this option behind post-game content so any story cutscenes with your Hero looked standard.
As before, the blank option is a new bonus dungeon. This one actually has an aerial entrance in the skies north of Aliahan, once again making use of this added dimension in this game’s overworld. I reset back to “Dragon Quest” and poked my head in the dungeon, and got ruthlessly eviscerated for it.
Those look to be the same enemies repurposed from the later floors of the GBA Ice Cave, but honestly, I didn’t stick around to find out. Word on the street is, “Grand Dragon” is back as the boss of this bonus temple. In that light, it’s a savvy move that they give you access to the Rubiss Sword before the ultimate battle, so this time you can actually get some meaningful use out of it.
But oh, it gets even better! Xenlon actually offers you a secret seventh wish! First, you have to choose as your wish a standard copy of “Guns ‘n’ Buns”, and listen to Xenlon alternatively chide you for seeking such filth while complimenting you on your taste. Obviously, the intention of what the book represents (a nudey magazine) is still made clear, but some of the related dialogue has changed. In the old mobile version, when you used the book on a character, the game randomly offered some bit of overtly suggestive dialogue, which changed depending on which gender used the book. Now, the use-message is always the same:
The magazine is filled with… all kinds of… interesting material… [Name] just can’t seem to tear [his/her] eyes away!
But here’s where we get to the new part. After asking for that book for one of your wishes, you can fight Xenlon again, to have another wish granted. (The second wish requires you win in 25 turns or fewer, and all subsequent wishes require victory within 15 turns.) And the next time out, if you’ve already received your first edition copy of “Guns ‘n’ Buns”, you can request another copy… oooorrrr you can ask for something called “More Guns ‘n’ Buns”.
Whereas the regular book just changes a character’s personality – something that’s useful, but also achievable through other readily available means – this upgraded edition does something far more valuable. It’s basically an infinite Book of Satori, meaning you can change anyone you want to a Sage, without having to acquire any other books or burn through any inventory. I mean, you still have to be level 20 to class change, but with this book in your bag, Sage is a basic class-change option like any other. Let’s just say, I was already dreaming up what my ultimate master party would look like (a full 26 characters deep, of course), when I discovered I’d no longer have to set up any Sages as Gadabouts first. Not sure why the devs insist on fashioning these highly useful items as pornography, though. (Oh, right. “Cultural silliness”.)
And there’s still yet more bonus content to explore. That dead end in the Lanson cave actually contains a precious metal you can use to buff up your father’s old helmet. There’s also some kind of “Helping Hands” feature, where you can loan high-powered characters from one save file to another. I dunno, I never used it, but it seems to be there.
I did play around with some considerations for a future “perfect” file. For starters, you’d have to decide which are the 30 most important NPC quotes to add to your recall feature. I also noticed that my bestiary entry for the Dying Fires boss lists the number defeated as 16. This is because it keeps spawning copies of itself until the battle is finished. And you only ever get one shot at it. Does that mean, for a “perfect” file, you’d have to grind that one fight until you’ve maxed out the number of Dying Fires killed? What even is the max number? 9999? I also had six listed kills for boss companion Kylla. Two of those were from the Ripper of the Rift fight, with the other four from opening the fourteen guarded treasures in the Pyramid. I have no idea if those encounters can be manipulated to push that number higher.
I explored the Soul of Baramos boss fight, to see if you could kill either him or one of his Ashdemon henchmen and then escape, to accumulate extra boss kills that way. But the Zoom spell is no longer available during combat, and it doesn’t allow you to use a Chimaera Wing mid-battle either – something about “There’s not much point in using that right now.” And obviously you’re not allowed to straight-up flee. I even played around with the Hocus Pocus (“Chance”) spell, to see if it would exit the battle with any boss kills notched; while it did reshuffle my party order more times than I could count, that didn’t do the trick either. Even worse, I tried taking a party wipe after clearing the Ashdemons, hoping they would at least be added to the total following a church-revival. But even that didn’t work! I guess the game only calculates your enemy kills after successful completion of the battle? It seems the boss fights really are one-and-done for those purposes.
Ah, but there were a couple remaining questions I had yet to satisfy. You see, one of the surprises I got when playing the old GBA remake was to randomly discover that, after defeating Zoma and making a post-game save, you can actually drop off your Hero at the tavern.
If you try this during the normal course of the game, they give you some glib answer like “What do you mean? You can’t leave yourself behind!” After all, your Hero is your only real character, the one destined to become Erdrick. But even though the post-game setting still retains the foreboding threat of Zoma, suddenly you can ditch the savior of legend behind at the bar while he’s on stage doing terrible Bryan Adams karaoke. This feature was both very cool, and very confusing. I was glad you can earn the right to fully customize your four-character party, but at the same time, what becomes of the myth? Will the game even let you fight Zoma without the Hero? Does the door to the first world still close if Erdrick isn’t with you? How does that set up for the later events of Dragon Quest 1?
I knew what happened on GBA, but I was curious if they handled it the same here. First, I retrieved my Warrior-turned-Merchant from the New Town, and grinded him to level 20, then changed him back to a Warrior. (Sure, I could’ve started a fresh Warrior, but I felt like I should give my discarded default character some use.) Getting him up to Zoma-fightin’ levels wasn’t too hard, given all the late game abilities I’d learned. The Warrior class would prove useful in the Zoma fight, but also, this finally gave me an opportunity to give his abilities a spin. Warrior eventually learns an ability called “Metal Slash”, which is supposed to be effective against Metal enemies, but only ever seems to do 1 or 2 points of damage. The real boost came from my Martial Artist, whose ability Critical Claim guarantees a critical hit.
I say that again: Critical Claim guarantees a critical hit. Which means, yes, at the cost of a bunch of MP, you can one-shot Metal Babbles on command. Yeehaw!!!!
In the end, the same Hero-absent sequence happens as in the previous remakes. You can fight and defeat Zoma, and your squad of four nobodies still return to the king of Tantagel, who wonders where the Hero ran off to.
A bolt of lightning later, and bickety-bam, your “Hero” appears, once again ready to take all the credit for shit he never did. (Hmmm…. Wait a second, this “Hero” of ours is starting to sound a bit familiar…)
Ah, but there was yet one more check for me to do.
Can you defeat Zoma without ever using the Sphere of Light?
If you don’t use the Sphere, the battle continues on with Zoma in blue form. (Note the original NES went the opposite, with strong Zoma in his standard orange and weakened Zoma in blue. This was reversed starting with the Super Famicom, so that the Zoma you see through most of a standard battle is his regular appearance.) Eventually, a dialogue appears after three or four turns prompting you to use the Sphere. This dialogue appears even if the Sphere is tucked away in your spare inventory bag. If you want a no-Sphere kill, you have to watch out for that dialogue and not just hit confirm through it, like I did on my first attempt. But after that, the game assumes you know what you’re doing, and doesn’t ask you again. Oh, and for what it’s worth, use of the Sphere is what triggers the really cool music, so you’ll have to play the whole fight with the nominally less cool introductory Zoma music, which feels weird after a while. Important considerations.
Blue Zoma is definitely stronger, and it will be a more difficult fight. Also, he now has Bones of Baramos’ healing factor of about 300 HP each turn. On the other hand, for whatever reason Blue Zoma doesn’t do any triple-attacks, so you’ll only have to worry about the standard two moves a turn.
But it is doable! Look, I even have more than 1 HP, which is my sign that I didn’t cheese him in “Dracky Quest” mode. Couldn’t beat Xenlon to save my life, but at least I can slay the Lord of the Underworld at will.
FOR THE FANS
The occasional bit of flavorful weirdness aside, this was a tremendously fun game! It was a true love letter to all us old-timers who grew up with this classic masterpiece, and I hope an enjoyable entry for newcomers as well. Even with all this meticulous observation and documentation, there’s still so much I have to explore. I’ve only played it through the once so far, but that won’t last. In fact, I’ve been itching to play it again for these past two months, but I’ve had all nine save files filled up just in case I needed last-minute screenshots for this write-up, lol.
Oh, did I mention nine save slots? Yeah, that’s a nice new feature. What I want to try is parties exclusive to each class – So a party of three Thieves, another of three Warriors, another of three Mages, etc. I should try and leave the Hero dead, or else these files would likely all play similarly. Granted, I’m not sure how viable any of those parties will be in the late-game. Three Thieves can probably beat Baramos by stealing enough Yggdrasil Leaves, but unreliable healing will be a big problem for many of them. Still, it would be fun to try. Do that for Thieves, Merchants, Warriors, Martial Artists, Mages, Priests, Monster Wranglers, all of them on “Draconian Quest”, and… I guess that leaves two slots for my main “perfect” party and a backup save of same.
While I enjoy getting into the nitty-gritty of mechanical execution, I don’t always catch all the intricacies of flavorful worldbuilding that aren’t immediately obvious. If you’re interested in more material along those lines, I recommend a small YouTube channel by one “Mr. Gentleman”. I first came across his channel many years ago, when he did an hour-long review of Dragon Quest 3 as part of a larger “History of RPGs” series. And lo and behold, he recently returned to make new content focused on the HD-2D Remake, including dissecting the symbology used in the new town and dungeon layouts. If this game interests you enough to read all my bullshit, you should definitely give him a watch as well.
Thank you all for reading! I don’t play a lot of “new” games, but I absolutely love me some remakes like this. Looking forward to the DQ1&2 Remake later this year. Until then, I can finally get back to doing actual work on… Wait… What was that?… What?… While I was working on this, they released a remaster of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2? …sigh… Okay, I promise both you and myself I will get some actual work done at some point, lol.