Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/DragonWarrior3.html
Dragon Warrior III (ntscus) (nes) [Any %] [Segmented]
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to 'Darkwing Duck'!
Dragon Warrior III (ntscus) (nes) [Any %] [Segmented]
Verifier Responses
Quote from Everhate:
A/V Quality is good
No Cheating Detected
As covered in the runner comments, there are a number of possibilities for class combinations that could be debated. Ultimately, it comes down to runner's choice and playing to the strengths of the party selected.
While I could debate each choice made into battle, often these are just percentage plays that can only be judged in hindsight, so instead I'll try to just hit the broad strokes.
Overly-long breakdown:
Segment 1:
A few minor mistakes and unfortunate encounter luck, but overall acceptable. The choice to walk to Reeve after getting the Thief's Key rather than buying a wing and visiting it immediately costs a bit of time but allows for more EXP and gold before the cave of enticement. Since the plan is to do monster arena manipulation to earn gold, the extra EXP also snowballs into later segments, so a portion of the time is made up.
Segment 2:
Arena manipulation goes well. The somewhat odd movements are effective in getting a good battle result to reduce the number of iterations needed.
Segment 3:
First occurrence of encounter manipulation in the run goes well, allowing for the trip from Romaly to Kanave to occur with no encounters. Grinding while collecting some extra gold goes reasonably well. For the party selected, this is the most reasonable place to gain experience at this point, short of manipulating encounters all the way to Dhama.
Very good encounter luck on the way to Isis. Decision to fight 4 mummy men without using Expel is odd, and results in a death, but still a good trip. There was also an opportunity to buy an additional wing in Kanave to avoid needing to get one in the pyramid, but that is only a minor issue.
Segment 4:
Good pyramid with all the first-try runs. End up needing to get a Wing here, but the 4x Mummy Man battle goes well enough (Expel would have likely been a better choice for the battle, but it would have meant 1 less Heal worth of MP on the hero, as DW's MP growth to this point has been quite awful)
Trip to Portoga is scary but survived. The path to Baharata and subsequently Dhama goes better than expected, meaning the shopping trip could have been skipped in hindsight, buying an extra wing in Portoga instead, but, again, there's no way to know that at the time the segment is being completed.
Segments 5-11:
Metal slime grinding goes well. Had to take a few extra steps to make some of the encounters happen, but they resolved quickly as a result of good manipulation.
Segment 12:
Tower of Infinite Garudas: Encounter rate is a bit high, but not abnormally so. Opts to make the small detour for the Iron Helmet, which is reasonable, considering the complete lack of defensive gear to this point.
Segment 13:
Thief hideout and Kandar 2 go very well. The crits on Kandar really pushed this simple segment over the top.
Segment 14:
Nice, quick metal babble find and kill.
Segment 15:
Heaaah!! Sage Get. Final Key + a few Return points.
Segment 16:
Metal Babble #2. While not strictly necessary, will likely end up saving time overall given short segment length and Hero's still abysmal max MP.
Segment 17:
1-round Orochi 1. Can't ask for much more than that. Unfortunately Orochi 2 resists Sap, so the fight takes 3 rounds. Still a strong pair of kills. Trip to Mirror of Ra doesn't go terribly well, but it's passable given the Orochi fights. Lamp of Darkness skipped in exchange for 1 quick encounter is a positive.
Decided not to go for the low odds Sap on Boss Troll, and got no crits, which is rather unfortunate. Strong segment carried largely by the Orochi 1 fight.
Segment 18:
Trade quest + orb collection.
Segment 19:
Solid Necrogond, given the number of things that can go terribly wrong, and the Dancing Jewel kill helps quite a bit to make sure the GP required for sword of kings is met.
Segment 20:
Final orbs + bird. It's now known that just boarding the ship allows the new town to begin growing, but there was only 1 encounter on the way, so it's a minor time loss.
Segment 21:
Rather poor encounter luck, but a clutch Baramos fight (which is all but required with this setup)
Segment 22:
Given the length of this segment and number of things that can go wrong, this went quite smoothly.
Segment 23:
A strong finish. The final boss gauntlet was very uncooperative, but random encounters weren't overly cruel (virtually any random after titans can end an attempt). Managed to barely push to a successful attempt in the end.
Run as a whole: While improvable (mostly due to things learned from this run), this is still a good example of a solid dw3 speedrun and is a substantial improvement over the previous run. Easy 'Accept'.
Will leave exact timing to someone better at timing things. I blame Everhate for this clear and present omission.
No Cheating Detected
As covered in the runner comments, there are a number of possibilities for class combinations that could be debated. Ultimately, it comes down to runner's choice and playing to the strengths of the party selected.
While I could debate each choice made into battle, often these are just percentage plays that can only be judged in hindsight, so instead I'll try to just hit the broad strokes.
Overly-long breakdown:
Segment 1:
A few minor mistakes and unfortunate encounter luck, but overall acceptable. The choice to walk to Reeve after getting the Thief's Key rather than buying a wing and visiting it immediately costs a bit of time but allows for more EXP and gold before the cave of enticement. Since the plan is to do monster arena manipulation to earn gold, the extra EXP also snowballs into later segments, so a portion of the time is made up.
Segment 2:
Arena manipulation goes well. The somewhat odd movements are effective in getting a good battle result to reduce the number of iterations needed.
Segment 3:
First occurrence of encounter manipulation in the run goes well, allowing for the trip from Romaly to Kanave to occur with no encounters. Grinding while collecting some extra gold goes reasonably well. For the party selected, this is the most reasonable place to gain experience at this point, short of manipulating encounters all the way to Dhama.
Very good encounter luck on the way to Isis. Decision to fight 4 mummy men without using Expel is odd, and results in a death, but still a good trip. There was also an opportunity to buy an additional wing in Kanave to avoid needing to get one in the pyramid, but that is only a minor issue.
Segment 4:
Good pyramid with all the first-try runs. End up needing to get a Wing here, but the 4x Mummy Man battle goes well enough (Expel would have likely been a better choice for the battle, but it would have meant 1 less Heal worth of MP on the hero, as DW's MP growth to this point has been quite awful)
Trip to Portoga is scary but survived. The path to Baharata and subsequently Dhama goes better than expected, meaning the shopping trip could have been skipped in hindsight, buying an extra wing in Portoga instead, but, again, there's no way to know that at the time the segment is being completed.
Segments 5-11:
Metal slime grinding goes well. Had to take a few extra steps to make some of the encounters happen, but they resolved quickly as a result of good manipulation.
Segment 12:
Tower of Infinite Garudas: Encounter rate is a bit high, but not abnormally so. Opts to make the small detour for the Iron Helmet, which is reasonable, considering the complete lack of defensive gear to this point.
Segment 13:
Thief hideout and Kandar 2 go very well. The crits on Kandar really pushed this simple segment over the top.
Segment 14:
Nice, quick metal babble find and kill.
Segment 15:
Heaaah!! Sage Get. Final Key + a few Return points.
Segment 16:
Metal Babble #2. While not strictly necessary, will likely end up saving time overall given short segment length and Hero's still abysmal max MP.
Segment 17:
1-round Orochi 1. Can't ask for much more than that. Unfortunately Orochi 2 resists Sap, so the fight takes 3 rounds. Still a strong pair of kills. Trip to Mirror of Ra doesn't go terribly well, but it's passable given the Orochi fights. Lamp of Darkness skipped in exchange for 1 quick encounter is a positive.
Decided not to go for the low odds Sap on Boss Troll, and got no crits, which is rather unfortunate. Strong segment carried largely by the Orochi 1 fight.
Segment 18:
Trade quest + orb collection.
Segment 19:
Solid Necrogond, given the number of things that can go terribly wrong, and the Dancing Jewel kill helps quite a bit to make sure the GP required for sword of kings is met.
Segment 20:
Final orbs + bird. It's now known that just boarding the ship allows the new town to begin growing, but there was only 1 encounter on the way, so it's a minor time loss.
Segment 21:
Rather poor encounter luck, but a clutch Baramos fight (which is all but required with this setup)
Segment 22:
Given the length of this segment and number of things that can go wrong, this went quite smoothly.
Segment 23:
A strong finish. The final boss gauntlet was very uncooperative, but random encounters weren't overly cruel (virtually any random after titans can end an attempt). Managed to barely push to a successful attempt in the end.
Run as a whole: While improvable (mostly due to things learned from this run), this is still a good example of a solid dw3 speedrun and is a substantial improvement over the previous run. Easy 'Accept'.
Will leave exact timing to someone better at timing things. I blame Everhate for this clear and present omission.
Quote from ScouSin:
Audio and video look good, and no cheating observed.
Dragon Warrior III is a tough game to speed run just because of the RNG. There are excellent choices made in this run, and most importantly, there were reasonable choices made with what was worthwhile RNG.
Everything from the class choice to the timing on how much to level up was expertly done, which lead to some truly interesting boss encounters. It is difficult to claim a run has the best route in a game as open-ended as this one, but I don't currently see many significant improvements here.
Definitely an accept, but I don't quite know what the timing should be here.
Dragon Warrior III is a tough game to speed run just because of the RNG. There are excellent choices made in this run, and most importantly, there were reasonable choices made with what was worthwhile RNG.
Everything from the class choice to the timing on how much to level up was expertly done, which lead to some truly interesting boss encounters. It is difficult to claim a run has the best route in a game as open-ended as this one, but I don't currently see many significant improvements here.
Definitely an accept, but I don't quite know what the timing should be here.
Quote from theseawolf1:
Audio/video seem solid and NES quality.
Item amounts and locations check out! Legitimate!
Clip 1: Blue Hero DW the First, pride of Ortega, lad of Aliahan, and apparent frequent guest of the tavern!
A’s really hanging on for dear life from about halfway up the tower onward. Nice luck on not having an enemy roll low. Formation changes to preserve his life take a minimal amount of time, but it’s the only defense he had to offer without healing.
Fights go smoothly, Healers are annoying but worth the trouble early on, good fights in the Portal Cave too, all the poison was limited to one Babble encounter so good luck there too.
Clip 2: Money gathering from the Arena is well done, great work for some big money manipulation.
Clip 3: Resetted attempt. Manipulated moves and grinding to both arrive safely at Kanave and improve the party.
Clip 4: Two resets that need to be edited out of the video file. Fights go mostly smooth; the Wing chest battle in the Pyramid really goes for the gold though. Heroes fly all over, get bossed around by a gourmand and avoid huge mountain-smashing monkeys (impressively no less) to get to Dharma.
Clip 5: Metal Slime. Done and done.
Clip 6: Metal Manipulation is incredibly good. Fishing to get that many crits in a fight must have taken weeks if not months.
Clip 7: Welcome to QuestBurger Dharma, what’s your order? Two Metal Slimes to go? You got it buddy. You want Nevs with that? Well too bad, here they are.
Clip 8: Was the text speed thing in the beginning a manipulation? DW’s addiction to Metal objects is now cemented.
Clip 9: Metal Mashers…metal marines…metal ores…metal heads…
Clip 10: Metal cocktails….metal gumbo…steamed metal …metal francaise…
Clip 11: Metal jambalaya…metal with dill…metal-topped pizza…metal au gratin…
Clip 12: Metal…resetted attempt? DOH! Back to the action, direct action and combat leading to the a bit of armor to bolster DW’s braincase. Sky Dragons and Garudas pose interesting threats (3-45 breath attacks and the Expel spell, respectively) they are worth some grinding action though and also the Temple has…you guessed it! METAL SLIMES! A few more of those guys go down en route to the Book of Satori.
Clip 13: Kandar’s gonna get it! A super powered hero team tears through his hideout and rips him and his lackeys apart with more critical hits than a full playthrough of Earthbound. (Kandar saw this in a dream, and thus recognizes his doom). Pepper obtained, the king gives you the SS Sneezy, and all is right with the world.
Clip 14: Ooooooooooh, what would you with a drunken fighter earl-y in the mornin? You’d hunt Metal Babbles, that’s what!
Clip 15: C realizes his hands can do more than be balled into fists of death and achieves enlightenment. With his newfound knowledge, he eats strange herbs, robs a castle, kills countless marine animals, alters the geography of the world and fights three neon apes. If this isn’t a warning about illegal drug use, I don’t know what is.
Clip 16: Metal Babble Gumbo…Metal Babble Francaise…Metal Babble Jambalaya…
Clip 17: Orb hunting begins!!!! The experience gained with the masterfully manipulated monster mashings makes the methodical mission of gathering the orbs rather simple. With the world news headlines over this span of slaughter:
- Team of beefy warriors charge through portal to kill beloved savior/maiden-eating dragon!
- King slain in the night by crazed Orb junkies, claim majesty was monster!
Clip 18: It continues!
- Pirates pilfered by Orb Hooligans, claim infraction of Pirate Code worst since Sparrow!
- Lecherous pervert uses Staff to transform and prey on elves! Claims he works with the blessing of wayward warriors!
- Flying Dutchman raided by bold thieves! Keepsake of beloved oarsman pilfered!
- Orb Hunters rob corpse of ancient hero, might use item in geo-terrorist plot!
- Shoals suddenly stop sorrowful moaning! Can love bloom on the battlefield after all?
Clip 19: The walk to Baramos’ Castle is truly a dangerous trek, the monsters specialize in mass damage attacks, status effects and multiple actions. The party’s overall lack of defense can easily spell doom with the right roll of the RNG, as well as Marauder paralyzing breath attacks that can wipe you out. The Thunder Sword and Swordsedge Armor helps even the odds a bit.
And more!
- Orb-fueled eruption creates lava bridge to Necrogond, opens way for Dark Lord to invade world!
- Orb stolen at swordpoint, final guardian before Baramos extorted by would-be heroes!
Clip 20: Again, the overall might of the party crushes all encounters, and events transpire to quickly gather the rest of the orbs and spawn the Phoenix.
- Girlfriend of Aliahan’s fallen prodigy arrested for abuse of townsfolk, left in the slammer by Orb-stealing fiancée!
- Orb robbed from the world’s core! Dreaded Statues of Condemnation no effect on spawn of Ortega!
- Tedanki visited by Orb Thieves, town obliterated! Skeletons tell the tale!
Clip 21: Resetted attempt attached to file. Baramos’ Castle is similar to the Cave, with hard-hitting enemies who don’t play fair. Baramos himself hits like a truck, but follows a preset course of action. The switching of the Meterorite Armband is a big deal to usually ensure first action heals. Baramos also offers no reward, so having fatalities only hurts your damage output. This fight goes to the final swing.
- Baramos killed by asinine Aliahanians, Arch Fiend emerges to consume world whole!
Clip 22: Access to the underworld and the Orb of Light are critical things granted by the Phoenix and speaking to the Dragon Queen. The overworld of Alefgard is brutal, instant death and powerhouses abound! Gathering key items and Rubiss’ Tower are conquered in this segment.
- Mother of Dragons attempts to speak to Orb Marauders, passes on afterwards!
- Brazen warriors dive headfirst into planet’s ass, immediately steal a boat upon landing!
- Tatangel castle robbed of light source by thieves, thy King’s depression hath increased by 38 points!
- Fairy Flute missing from Kol! Suddenly rich weapon merchant insists he has nothing to do with it!
- Artifacts converged into single drop of power! Sage tries to snort it, but rebuffed by companions!
Clip 23: One last Metal Babble fight pays dividends, then its onto Zoma. Its pretty much not worth it to fight in Zoma’s Castle unless running is a risk of eating multiple attacks. The Granite Titan gauntlet goes well, RIP Ortega, some treasures (S a g e S S t o n E) and then the finale. Bikill access and Sap are critical to increase damage output. KingHydra is annoying, Baramos Bomus is a tank with big spells, and Baramos Gonus simply hits like a truck made of depleted uranium on fire in a race to kill each other.
Zoma himself is a real jerk, who can kill off a party member per round with the right RNG. He also likes to dismiss buffs and debuffs, which are critical to DW’s survival. Zoma is not on a set pattern like Baramos, and can simply decide to do 180 points of breath damage to the party if he wants to, or simply attack one person twice for about 400 damage. Not a nice fellow. It boils down to a desperate slug fest where both sides try to keep up. The Sage’s Stone is basically there to allow survival, as Zoma can ruin even a full strength party with top equipment on a whim.
- Ortega slain by monster while son watches! What a bastard!
- Kingdom saved by massive earthquake burying Arch Fiend! False heroes try to claim glory!
- Erdrick leaves to dodge his son’s care! “But thou must!” the princess pleads!
- Castle Charlock for sale! Great rates, excellent security and boss looking throne room!
Item amounts and locations check out! Legitimate!
Clip 1: Blue Hero DW the First, pride of Ortega, lad of Aliahan, and apparent frequent guest of the tavern!
A’s really hanging on for dear life from about halfway up the tower onward. Nice luck on not having an enemy roll low. Formation changes to preserve his life take a minimal amount of time, but it’s the only defense he had to offer without healing.
Fights go smoothly, Healers are annoying but worth the trouble early on, good fights in the Portal Cave too, all the poison was limited to one Babble encounter so good luck there too.
Clip 2: Money gathering from the Arena is well done, great work for some big money manipulation.
Clip 3: Resetted attempt. Manipulated moves and grinding to both arrive safely at Kanave and improve the party.
Clip 4: Two resets that need to be edited out of the video file. Fights go mostly smooth; the Wing chest battle in the Pyramid really goes for the gold though. Heroes fly all over, get bossed around by a gourmand and avoid huge mountain-smashing monkeys (impressively no less) to get to Dharma.
Clip 5: Metal Slime. Done and done.
Clip 6: Metal Manipulation is incredibly good. Fishing to get that many crits in a fight must have taken weeks if not months.
Clip 7: Welcome to QuestBurger Dharma, what’s your order? Two Metal Slimes to go? You got it buddy. You want Nevs with that? Well too bad, here they are.
Clip 8: Was the text speed thing in the beginning a manipulation? DW’s addiction to Metal objects is now cemented.
Clip 9: Metal Mashers…metal marines…metal ores…metal heads…
Clip 10: Metal cocktails….metal gumbo…steamed metal …metal francaise…
Clip 11: Metal jambalaya…metal with dill…metal-topped pizza…metal au gratin…
Clip 12: Metal…resetted attempt? DOH! Back to the action, direct action and combat leading to the a bit of armor to bolster DW’s braincase. Sky Dragons and Garudas pose interesting threats (3-45 breath attacks and the Expel spell, respectively) they are worth some grinding action though and also the Temple has…you guessed it! METAL SLIMES! A few more of those guys go down en route to the Book of Satori.
Clip 13: Kandar’s gonna get it! A super powered hero team tears through his hideout and rips him and his lackeys apart with more critical hits than a full playthrough of Earthbound. (Kandar saw this in a dream, and thus recognizes his doom). Pepper obtained, the king gives you the SS Sneezy, and all is right with the world.
Clip 14: Ooooooooooh, what would you with a drunken fighter earl-y in the mornin? You’d hunt Metal Babbles, that’s what!
Clip 15: C realizes his hands can do more than be balled into fists of death and achieves enlightenment. With his newfound knowledge, he eats strange herbs, robs a castle, kills countless marine animals, alters the geography of the world and fights three neon apes. If this isn’t a warning about illegal drug use, I don’t know what is.
Clip 16: Metal Babble Gumbo…Metal Babble Francaise…Metal Babble Jambalaya…
Clip 17: Orb hunting begins!!!! The experience gained with the masterfully manipulated monster mashings makes the methodical mission of gathering the orbs rather simple. With the world news headlines over this span of slaughter:
- Team of beefy warriors charge through portal to kill beloved savior/maiden-eating dragon!
- King slain in the night by crazed Orb junkies, claim majesty was monster!
Clip 18: It continues!
- Pirates pilfered by Orb Hooligans, claim infraction of Pirate Code worst since Sparrow!
- Lecherous pervert uses Staff to transform and prey on elves! Claims he works with the blessing of wayward warriors!
- Flying Dutchman raided by bold thieves! Keepsake of beloved oarsman pilfered!
- Orb Hunters rob corpse of ancient hero, might use item in geo-terrorist plot!
- Shoals suddenly stop sorrowful moaning! Can love bloom on the battlefield after all?
Clip 19: The walk to Baramos’ Castle is truly a dangerous trek, the monsters specialize in mass damage attacks, status effects and multiple actions. The party’s overall lack of defense can easily spell doom with the right roll of the RNG, as well as Marauder paralyzing breath attacks that can wipe you out. The Thunder Sword and Swordsedge Armor helps even the odds a bit.
And more!
- Orb-fueled eruption creates lava bridge to Necrogond, opens way for Dark Lord to invade world!
- Orb stolen at swordpoint, final guardian before Baramos extorted by would-be heroes!
Clip 20: Again, the overall might of the party crushes all encounters, and events transpire to quickly gather the rest of the orbs and spawn the Phoenix.
- Girlfriend of Aliahan’s fallen prodigy arrested for abuse of townsfolk, left in the slammer by Orb-stealing fiancée!
- Orb robbed from the world’s core! Dreaded Statues of Condemnation no effect on spawn of Ortega!
- Tedanki visited by Orb Thieves, town obliterated! Skeletons tell the tale!
Clip 21: Resetted attempt attached to file. Baramos’ Castle is similar to the Cave, with hard-hitting enemies who don’t play fair. Baramos himself hits like a truck, but follows a preset course of action. The switching of the Meterorite Armband is a big deal to usually ensure first action heals. Baramos also offers no reward, so having fatalities only hurts your damage output. This fight goes to the final swing.
- Baramos killed by asinine Aliahanians, Arch Fiend emerges to consume world whole!
Clip 22: Access to the underworld and the Orb of Light are critical things granted by the Phoenix and speaking to the Dragon Queen. The overworld of Alefgard is brutal, instant death and powerhouses abound! Gathering key items and Rubiss’ Tower are conquered in this segment.
- Mother of Dragons attempts to speak to Orb Marauders, passes on afterwards!
- Brazen warriors dive headfirst into planet’s ass, immediately steal a boat upon landing!
- Tatangel castle robbed of light source by thieves, thy King’s depression hath increased by 38 points!
- Fairy Flute missing from Kol! Suddenly rich weapon merchant insists he has nothing to do with it!
- Artifacts converged into single drop of power! Sage tries to snort it, but rebuffed by companions!
Clip 23: One last Metal Babble fight pays dividends, then its onto Zoma. Its pretty much not worth it to fight in Zoma’s Castle unless running is a risk of eating multiple attacks. The Granite Titan gauntlet goes well, RIP Ortega, some treasures (S a g e S S t o n E) and then the finale. Bikill access and Sap are critical to increase damage output. KingHydra is annoying, Baramos Bomus is a tank with big spells, and Baramos Gonus simply hits like a truck made of depleted uranium on fire in a race to kill each other.
Zoma himself is a real jerk, who can kill off a party member per round with the right RNG. He also likes to dismiss buffs and debuffs, which are critical to DW’s survival. Zoma is not on a set pattern like Baramos, and can simply decide to do 180 points of breath damage to the party if he wants to, or simply attack one person twice for about 400 damage. Not a nice fellow. It boils down to a desperate slug fest where both sides try to keep up. The Sage’s Stone is basically there to allow survival, as Zoma can ruin even a full strength party with top equipment on a whim.
- Ortega slain by monster while son watches! What a bastard!
- Kingdom saved by massive earthquake burying Arch Fiend! False heroes try to claim glory!
- Erdrick leaves to dodge his son’s care! “But thou must!” the princess pleads!
- Castle Charlock for sale! Great rates, excellent security and boss looking throne room!
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to 'Darkwing Duck'!
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