Dragon Warrior III Solo

So, rather than start out trying to play catch-up, I think I'll just write a little bit about the now.

Just recently, I resumed a years-old game file on Dragon Warrior III. It was the first "challenge quest" I ever started: a solo Hero on Dragon Warrior III. When I started it, I had gotten up to Baharata, just before the second Kandar fight, but I stalled out. A year or so ago, I picked it up again and beat Kandar, but didn't go any further. I've decided it's time for me to finish this attempt off.

Now I'm going to tell a story that probably just shows how strange and weird my approach to some games can sometimes get. It starts off when Dragon Warrior was a brand new game, and I was about nine years old trying to finish it. I got stuck searching for the Stones of Sunlight, which were rumored to be in Tantegel Castle. Nintendo Power didn't cover that game that far, as I recall, and so I was left to my own devices to figure it out. I used the Search command on every single square in that castle, and still hadn't found it. I had a friend over who decided he wanted to look. I told him he wouldn't find them, not after I'd gone through that painstaking effort without any results. It turns out, I was only half right. When he gave up looking, he exited the castle to the right. I looked up just as he did, and I noticed what I hadn't before, that he didn't exit the map until several steps after he left the apparent edge. So even though he didn't find them per se, his effort led to my discovery of the item.

I always remembered that effort of searching for them. It may have been at least part of my inspiration for an odd playthrough I did many years later. When I replayed that game the first time as an adult, I decided I was going to step on every tile in the game.

It's a little quirky, I realize, but I did it nevertheless. And that was the playthrough where I first discovered the game's level cap, which I had never previously reached or looked up. But stepping on every square, I hit it naturally before getting to the end, without any other dedicated grinding.

Inspired by my level cap discovery, I decided to try the same thing in Dragon Warrior II. It was a much more involved effort, but I also hit and discovered that game's level caps for the first time in like manner. I have mused a few times since, that it would almost require a strategy like this to find the Thunder Sword without a guide or a lucky drop from an enemy.

Soon after that, I did that for Dragon Warrior III as well. But I was disappointed, because I finished the game without hitting any level or experience cap. I was in the mid forties for my character levels, which I later learned was less than half of the max level in the game.

But when I started my solo challenge some years after that, I reasoned that with just one character, I might well hit, or at least come much closer to, that level cap with this strategy. So I started my file with that in mind.

Well, as I've noted here before, I've hit the level cap on this game on a different cartridge for the hero and all other job classes. But even though I started this file years ago and circumstances have changed, I find myself unable to convince myself to not finish it in the same way I started it. So I've been bravely trudging along, stepping on every tile in the game.

It makes it take longer, but I've been making steady progress the last two weeks. Last night I got the Sword of Gaia. I've completed everything else in the game possible without doing the Necrogond Cave, which I plan to start tonight. If all goes well, I hope to be able to attempt Baramos's Castle before the weekend is over.