Let's [Dragon] Quest! 3!

Greetings, fellow adventurers! Today we're going to be slogging through Dragon Quest III, by Enix back before they became the marketing chimera behind such enduring hits as Just Cause 2 and the wildly successful Cloud Strife Pouting series. Though a fairly obscure entry in a semi-obscure series over here,Dragon Quest III is rather popular in it's homeland. Just how popular you ask? Well, the readers of Famitsu think it's the third best game of all time. Are our friends on the other side of the Pacific right? Not especially, but it is a pretty fantastic game. We'll be playing the Super Famicom port because it is a)Absolutely gorgeous and b)Has plenty of bonus features

So I won't be starting this for a bit, but I do want to give myself a head start. Therefore, I am giving you, the readership of Talking Time, the choice of what classes, genders, and names our intrepid adventuring party will have. I'm going to go ahead and leave out secondary characteristics like personalities and seed distribution unless someone really has a very strong preference. Also, I'll explain those when we come around to that.

So, what do you guys want? Keep in mind that everyone will get to change classes at level 20, so plan ahead if you'd like:

Fighter: Martial arts expert, in the "punch a hole through a dragon" sense, not the "wearing shorts advertising something called Xyience" sense more often seen here. Pretty strong, but very few equipment options, merely average defense and no magic. Would probably benefit from becoming a mage or coming from being a mage


Warrior: Martial powerhouse. Like every other warrior in every other game. This is what you'd call a tank if you were so inclined


Mage: Casts offensive spells, is rather weak. Not entirely necessary for reasons we will get to below, but this is a Let's Play


Cleric: Casts defensive spells, is not as weak as the mage. Marginally more useful in the early game, as 90% of the time raw power is better in a Dragon Quest game


Dealer: A slightly more mediocre warrior with the ability to get better drops after combat. Not the worst choice to make, even if this otherwise excellent translation kind of dropped the ball for the class name.


Jester: AKA The Goof Off, AKA what everyone wants. I can most likely go ahead on including one in my party, because they are pretty entertaining. They are pretty awful stats wise, and tend not to follow orders, but do have a fantastic luck rating. What's more, if you level them up to 20, they turn into:

Sage: Arguably the best class. Learns all spells and has decent equipment, but is kind of a pain in the ass to unlock.

A side note: I am more than happy to bring along a Jester. In fact, I dare you to suggest a Jester. However, I am only taking one, and he or she will be promoted. You've been warned.

And finally:

Thief: The new class added to the remakes, and probably the best. Hits slightly softer than the Warrior/Fighter, but has access to boomerangs and whips. Fantastic agility stat means it can easily take the role of the parties second damage dealer.

The hero is just a hero. Same as most other DQ games, he has great stats and learns a mix of healing, buff/debuff, and lightning magic.

So there we go. Pick out your three favorite class/gender combinations (I'd recommend Thief/Jester/Cleric but since when did you listen to me?) and we'll go from there. I'll post some more stuff in the next few days pertaining to the game's back story and intro.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Update Zero (Limited Metallic Foil Leifeld Variant): 05/04
Meta-Post One: 05/05
Update One: 05/07
Update Two: 05/11

OMAKE!
Disturbing PercyQuest III fanart:Comb Stranger, Metal Man Master, SpoonyBardOL, M. Nicolai

Naturally, I expect to see a Percy in there somewhere. And the Dealer is dressed most like him anyway.

And give him a Garter Belt, so he feels SEXY

I'm pretty stoked that our little community was used as a reference in that blog article.

I really can't think of a more interesting yet balanced crew than Thief/Jester/Cleric, to be honest. Male cleric, with two female companions, because killing dudes with girls is awesome and to hell with sexist idiots who think otherwise.

Also, wow, the Thief art really throws into sharp relief how much better Toriyama's art was before he discovered computers.

A Fighter named Alex, a Dealer named Percy, a Thief named Craig.

The Dealer looks like Percy, but the Goof Off acts like Percy.

Warrior(female named Ingrid)/Goof Off(male named Percy)/Cleric(female named Ruga)

Can we choose the hero's gender?

Yes, and our Hero shall be a Heroine. I want to cripple you, so I vote for Male Mage, Male Merchant, Male Jester. Mostly because the female versions of those are all poorly dressed.

Edit: Nevermind, our party has already been determined by the will of Japanese fanartists.

4 goof off plz

Toriyama you sly bastard!

(Requesting a female dealer named Marle. She can be for <spoiler>.)

Man, I loved DW- er, DQ3 on the GBC. That was such a fun game! I think I had a Warrior (fighter? not sure, and the warrior felt like a poor man's Hero anyway)/Mage/Cleric to start, but I got tired of that and started shifting them around by making new guys (which was how I got around the need for a dealer by one point in the game). I say we start with a Male Cleric/Female Jester/Female Thief team, but mix and match once we can travel a bit. And then...

ALL WARRIORS. IN BIKINIS

Kidding! Warriors suck. THEY SHOULD BE JESTERS.

Can we do that for one chapter at least, when it won't completely screw you?

My favorite part? When I decided to start training a couple of thieves (Jesse and James of course) to train them up for some reason or another. I got tons of INT seeds from that, and since they had high level weapons they grew pretty quickly !

Goof-Off named Percy.

It is... correct.

He probably didn't draw those, to be honest. Doesn't he have a small army of imitators to draw like him for minor projects?

Female Cleric!

Female Jester!

And...whatever gender you want as Thief. Both designs look kind of errgggh.

Well the female thief is Storm from the X-men.

I'm pretty sure most mainstream manga authors who put out work in a timely fashion do. Old volumes of Naruto (shut up!) even used to have a sections between chapters where they'd introduce the assistants so you could see their actual, personal drawing style. (I don't know if these are in the English translations or not.)

Anyway, I want Merchant/Dealer (Female, Marle), Thief (male, because the female thief scares me), and Goof Off (male, because the female Goof Off scares me).

I wish DQ women didn't always have to dress like that.

As long as you have a jester and someone named Percy I'm happy with whatever

I like Kishi's idea. We need to go with three hentai versions of the female warrior and... I guess a hentai version of the female hero. Then white knights and misogynists alike can be happy.

Thief/Jester/Cleric but all ladies, cause our Hero's pimp hand is strong.

Pssh, that's not even remotely the original Toriyama girl-

Female thief, female jester and ????

Three Fighters is the best party. They will critical hit everything to death. I guess you can make one of them a Sage, if you want to, but why would you want to?

I forget if Fighters can equip any of the female-only gear, but make them all wimmins just to be sure.

And while you're at it, make the Hero female as well, so that the hero of Dragon Quest I has to wear girl armor.

i love this game, so whatever you choose is cool to me. go with what parish said, cause that sounds fun.

So, will you be taking votes on the intro quiz responses to determine the lead character's personality, too?

And I'd propose my usual: thief, jester, cleric. A little dicey at first, but quickly becomes a powerhouse team that beats most enemy parties in 1 to 3 rounds. Genders (and names) don't matter that much unless you plan to stick with the same party the entire game, in which case I'd recommend females so they can become Sexy at some point. Yes, Sexy is a personality type in DQ3.

Hey, an apparently awesome DQ game I've never played. Neat!

I know nothing and would like to see as much as possible. It sounds like you need a jester, so I'll go along with that.

I always like thieves in RPGs, and this one sounds especially awesome, so I'd like to see a lot of that, too

I can get behind this logic. The hard-hitting girl in DQ4 is one of my favorite in the series, so let's make her predecessor.


(I want a DQ 1-2-3 remake for DS)

As president of the Princess Alena Fan Club, I'm behind this 100%. Which makes my vote:

Male Jester (Percy)
Female Fighter (Alena)

The third guy can pretty much be whatever. I'd be perfectly okay with a Mage named Ika, though.

Neither was that.

Jester, Cleric, Martial Artist.

JEST, CLER, MAT.

All female.

(... Or you can just name one "Percy.")

The funny thing is, the dealer is wearing a costume Bulma wore one time in Dragon Ball. I mean like verbatim, save for the gloves.



Edit:



Augh, jeeze. The updated art for Chrono Trigger shows Toriyama knows his way around Photoshop so I hope the above example was colored by someone else. Because JEEEEZE.

Bulma also wears a blue vest and white undergarment?! *gasp shock awe* sorry, that's not that similar. Look at the belt thickness, especially, as well as those wrist bands vs gloves. Sooner or later, drawing so many characters, he'll do something similar.