Dragon Warrior 3 Full Run == 1:50:56 == Author: Dave Brown (dave_dfwm)

Here is version 2 of “non-glitched” Dragon Warrior 3. This TAS is over 23 minutes faster than the original!! While I was making my first version of this game, a very well-known and respected TAS-er said “Personally, I think anything sub 3hrs would be publish-worthy.” Well, here is the full run of Dragon Warrior 3, completed in less than TWO hours!! If you haven’t watched the previous version of this movie, or if you don’t know much about Dragon Warrior 3, I recommend reading the submission novel that I wrote for version 1 of this game, see here #1476: dave_dfwm's NES Dragon Warrior III in 2:14:07.67. Not all of this text applies directly to version 2, but many questions can still be answered there.

Information

  • Genre: RPG
  • Goal: Fastest Time
  • Uses death as a shortcut
  • Manipulates luck
  • Emulator: FCEU 0.98.15
  • ROM: Dragon Warrior 3 (U).nes


New discoveries

  • Party Formation can affect the RNG for battles. I shorten the first Orochi fight by switching formation, and shorten the second fight by switching back.

Timesavers

Here are the main reasons why this TAS is over 23 minutes faster than the original.
  • Not measurable
    • Choosing “slow” battle message speed instead of fast. This saved time each turn in every fight. Thanks to adelikat for mentioning this to me after my first movie.
    • Party Choice – I used the default party here which of course gave me a soldier instead of two pilgrims. While his RNG manipulation ability is limited, he made all the fights shorter, especially at lower levels due to his ability to inflict much higher damage than the pilgrim. I was worried that he would have a “useless” first round in boss fights, but it turned out not to be the case. He can parry, fight, use an herb (see the Baramos fight) or use a seed to manipulate the rest of the fight. The soldier is the main reason why the fights are shorter, along with the “slow” message speed.
  • Huge
    • Less time leveling up throughout the game, specifically for Boss Troll, combined with a different leveling strategy
    • Not getting the Wizard’s Ring and other treasures in Isis at night
    • Dying twice in the pyramid (not getting flashy clothes and falling from top)
  • Big
    • Going solo until after the golden claw (saves revival time). I knew this would be faster while I was doing my first run, but I didn’t know if I would be able to make it through the *pyramid twice using only herbs and trying to run from battles.
    • No extra treasure (except strength seed) picked up in Samanao Cave
    • Less purchases at beginning of game in Reeve
    • Not picking up any treasure and spending much less time in the tower west of Kol
  • Small
    • Gamble arena fight is shorter
    • Shorter Orochi Fight (both fights only 2 rounds)
    • No extra treasure picked up in phantom ship
    • Shorter Boss Troll Fight
    • Shorter Bomb Crag Fight
    • Shorter Kandar 2 Fight
    • No extra fight in Navel of Earth
    • Much shorter Ortega vs. King Hydra fight
  • Minor
    • Saved ~100 frames in Vase of Drought Room
    • Small route changes throughout
      • --using inn at Baharata before Kandar instead of Dhama
      • --Sailing to the shoals from Dhama and picking up Jipang along the way – saved time when I needed to fight Orochi.
      • --Getting Sword of Gaia from Lancel instead of Noaniels – I think it’s about 2 tiles closer
      • --Not visiting Noaniels
      • --Using inn at Assaram instead of Baharata before Metal Sliming
      • --Not using the Inn before Baramos, along with better usage and planning of when to use wings, return spells, and the Inn.
    • Not registering a second pilgrim
    • Visiting the pirate house from Tedanki instead of Aliahan
    • Using a 1-letter name instead of a 5 character name. This saved small bits of time throughout the game. In fact, it saved 4 frames most times the hero’s name is mentioned.
    • Not performing unnecessary stops. I equip items and transfer items only when I had to stop for another reason, such as talk to a person or open a treasure chest.

A few time losses (as relative comparisons to version 1):

  • Using the Leaf of World Tree on my party after the Wizard’s massive level up
  • Fighting an extra fight and picking up the Demon Axe in Baramos’ Castle
  • Longer Granite Titan battles
  • Buying herbs in Tantegel before Charlock Castle

Most Entertaining moments

  • Bomb crag fight – the poison needle works 4 rounds in a row.
  • First Metal Babble fight – Harley thereby gains 53,600 experience points. Harley goes up to the next level!
  • The two Orochi fights. – both extremely fast, and the first one ends with a tremendous hit from my pilgrim. How humiliating for the Orochi. Orochi’s cousin, the King Hydra, also gets humiliated in two rounds of quick action.
  • Baramos fight – ends with a tremendous hit from the soldier. Once again, Baramos is sleeped, sapped, stopspelled, and surrounded. Unfortunately, my pilgrim dies for the cause. It is faster for my pilgrim to die than have him parry-fight twice to save his life. He is revived automatically anyway after the fight. Perhaps he died since he is still wearing the leather armor at this point.
  • Weapon and armor purchases in Samanao – Since my soldier is dumb (low intelligence) he decides to beat his head into a few walls while waiting for a favorable gambling arena fight. Also, pay attention to how much gold is remaining after I make the purchases. The gambling barely gives me enough gold. In fact, if the other healer would have won the fight, I wouldn’t have had enough gold, even if I had also sold the leather armor and bronze shield that the pilgrim was carrying.
  • An odd party formation and a very anticlimactic ending as Zoma gets ‘herbed’ to death. This time, my hero dies for the cause (but is later automatically revived when day breaks). I had two medical herbs in this fight do over 240 damage each!

Other notes

  • Unfortunately, I do not pick up a Thor’s Sword or Magic Bikini in this run.
  • The RNG was acting like a spoiled brat when I wanted to level up my wizard for the Boss Troll fight. The “ironizing” myself through an agonizingly long marine slime fight really was the quickest way to get a babble to appear. There was another babble I could get to appear MUCH quicker, but he unavoidably ran away at the beginning of the fight.
  • Since the hero of the DW1 and DW2 TAS videos is named “!”, I decided to name my merchant “!”. Perhaps there was a mix-up in the lineage, and the heroes of the later games are actually descendants from the greedy merchant...
  • In my last video, I used the SpeedUp spell in many boss fights as a luck manipulator. I don’t use it at all in this new TAS. This is another reason why the fights are shorter, since this spell ‘hits’ all 4 characters.
  • Yes, the undo count probably seems a little low. After making version 1, I became very good at knowing the first frame available for button pressing in most situations, such as buying items, using spells, and battle commands. In many places, I was able to just slow down the emulator to 3% speed and press the button on the fastest frame on the first record instead of figuring out what the fastest frame was, then doing a re-record.
  • After completing this run, I am beginning to wonder if the Meteorite Armband is necessary. If the game could be TASed without it, that would create another “huge” timesaver, taking at least 2 minutes off the game time.
  • I still believe this game is popular enough to warrant two runs if someone decides to do a “glitched” version. (Well, at least I think it’s more popular than some games with two movies, such as Rescue Rangers, M.C. Kids, and Gimmick…) Also, if someone decides to do the glitched version, you may want to think very carefully about where and how you want to level up. Manipulating metal babbles on the Samanao shrine island can be extremely difficult and time-consuming (in real time and in game time).

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Oh! I also replaced the ROM name.
  • You indicated Dragon Warrior 3 (U).nes
  • I updated it to Dragon Warrior III (U).nes

adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvement to the currently published run.

DeHackEd: AVI in progress.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1618: dave_dfwm's NES Dragon Warrior III in 1:50:36.18
adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
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Haha, very nice :) 23 minutes is a bigger margin that I would have thought. I can't wait to watch this.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 83
Location: Montreal, Canada
This is a phenomenal improvement to the previous run. The fact that you go a considerable distance before even forming a party, as well as things like giving the Wizard a 10-level lead through the first Metal Babble fight made this a very entertaining watch. Yes vote all the way.
adelikat
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Wow, very nice movie. Huge improvement and very polished looking. There were several suprising moments in the run, like some of your choices, the poor pwning of ortega :( and that medical herbs could do 252 damage on zoma :O Anyway, very big yes vote. The "life hands to lemons" saying is appropriate here. You managed to take an unmanipulatable RNG and manipulate the crap out of it. Much more so than I would have thought possible. At this point, most of the imrovement possibilities are minor and "risky" since they are smaller than the potential loss of some crappy RNG later.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 3/15/2007
Posts: 131
I have almost no knowledge about dragon warrior 3, or for that matter any of the dragon warrior games besides dragon warrior monsters. I've never played them, but I did watch your older TAS of this game, and while I had very little understanding of what was going on before, and perhaps even less now, I still very much enjoy watching you tear through monsters without prejudice. Highlight for me was watching your magician (or wizard or..man I must sound stupid. The magic guy) get something like 50,000 experience points. Anyway, yes vote for massive time improvement and considerable entertainment improvement (imo) over your previous run. I recommend:
Dwedit
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Anyone want to try the glitched run?
Player (245)
Joined: 7/30/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Alefgard, USA
Thanks for the support so far, everyone. I actually kind of like the "random" screen shot #14 chosen by the NES robot.
Anyone want to try the glitched run?
Probably not me, at least not for a long time. However, I would be willing to offer advice/tips if needed for someone if they were interested. For example, menu manipulation is faster if you alternate directions (down right down) instead of going the same direction twice in a row (down down right). You can use this to save frames for equipping and spell chanting, but it doesn't work when entering your name at the beginning. I would like to see a separate non-obsoleting (see my reason for this in the submission text) run just to see how much time it could really save. I know the whole mirror of ra, boss troll, staff of change, phantom ship, sword of gaia, silver orb sequence would be the biggest time saver, along with skipping the tower of kol (sacred amulet). I feel that the biggest concern here would be leveling. You only need enough defense and HP to survive Zoma's first round attack, but Baramos and the Granite Titans could be problematic at super low levels. Also, while the run would be faster, I feel that there may be a huge loss in entertainment. Anyway, thanks again for watching. If someone decides to try a glitch run, keep us informed!
Joined: 11/16/2006
Posts: 66
I enjoy the run quite a bit and you improved very well so yes vote from me. I look forward to the next version too.
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What is the glitch you are talking about?
Player (245)
Joined: 7/30/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Alefgard, USA
Phil, The glitch involves using an item (the dream ruby) to 'magically transform' crappy items into very useful items. For example, you can take a Wing of Wyvern and turn it into the Final Key. The glitch could obviously make the run much shorter, but it would be repetitive (the glitch process takes about 1:30 per item glitched) and would skip some entertaining parts of the movie. Dwedit posted a movie on Youtube on how to use the glitch. http://youtube.com/watch?v=38bEtt6Bxv8 As I've stated before, I would like to see a non-obsoleting glitch run.
Dwedit
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Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
In the original thread, user Catastrophe manged to change 4 items simultaneously.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [931] NES Dragon Warrior III by dave_dfwm in 1:50:25.27