Beat the GBC version not too long ago. Started with a Soldier, Pilgrim and Mage. Eventually turned the Pilgrim into a Sage and levelled up a Goof-Off into a Sage and that became my party from Baramos onward.
Found the merchant a little better than the solider. Why? He levels up the swiftest and with his no-mp abilities (in later remakes) you can then swap him over to a fighter for high crit chance or a soldier for just higher hP with the benefits of the merchant from before. So his utility is best used and then swap him to a fighter or solder later. This is why I put him higher on the list I also enjoy the thief's find treasure ability. I thus usually start the game now with a Merchant, Thief (for those spells and better drop chances), and .. either a goof-off (to get a second sage and a bit of a challenge) or a wizard for earl DPR. Then when I;'m around lv.25 everyone.. usually swap all jobs around. Thief and good off usually become sages (if I chose a goof off) or the wizard becomes a sage (if no goof off), the merchant becomes solder (for that agily boost to his class and now reaping those HP numbers) and the thief becomes a fighter (for that tasty crit) The hero is on heal duty till job class change and that's fine, and gets those herbs lots of use let's face it. :)
When you factor in Job CHanges and the mechanics therinn the classes get a little different. My favoe trick was to start with a soldier, a FIghter and A Pilgrim, and then conver the soldier into a fighter. The FIghter into a soldier, and the Pilgrim into a Wizard.. This basically gave you a FIghter with higher strength an HP, A Solider that's a bit faster. And a Virtual Sage.
Not that it should change their spot, but goofs do get better actions as their levels grows. I enjoy bringing one with me for the long haul just to see their antics. Plus, you can get by with 3 and a half party members just fine! ;)
I had one for my first play through and he was the heart of the party. I made him a sage in the dark world and it was like a whole character arc watching him go from a useless level 50 to a useless level 1 sage, to literally saving our asses when he finally caught up in power lol
Omg dude you just helped me remember those challenge cards, so cool!!! When I was a kid I only ever tried 1 goof off in my party and then I learned my lesson ;)
The remakes have so many spell casting items. You can get two sage stones by the end, imo it makes the squishy mages inferior to any class with good armor
Do Let's Players on RU-vid even play games any more? I think maybe people are getting older and Im suspicious all they do is edit videos of games and make it look like they are still playing games now when they're actually not. :)
I actually do usually use a merchant in my starting party, cuz of the benefit of getting extra money after each battle. It makes grinding money for new equipment much easier, early game. By the time I reach Alltrades Abby, I don't really need the extra cash anymore, so I'll just reclass them into something else.
I actually felt like using a merchant with the intent on turning her into a thief and I totally agree! She's given me at least 100 extra coins after all the grinding I did, and this early on every single coin matters.
This will come in handy for when the remake comes out. Never played it before but I want to. And since a remake was announced, I’m going to wait until then.
Oh, man! Not that long ago I was thinking about how some of the classes in Dragon Quest III were just never going to be used. This was both useful AND entertaining, but the icing on the cake was that you used the class pictures from the NES version’s instruction manual. I remember reading that all the time back in 6th Grade. Keep up the good work, chief!
The class system in this game is so good. Looking forward to the remake. I also wish they would do this again, and/or let you have more than 4 characters.
To me, due to the class change system it's never been about which individual class is "best" but rather which classes give what utility upon class change, since I like to change everyone once if not twice. Usually, that's one change at Garuna Tower when getting my first Sage, and a second at Rimuldar to their final classes, since those are the two big power leveling spots and it's not difficult to get class changed characters back up to speed.
I NEED to play this game once again. I LOVE this game as it was the first DQ game I've played. I love using Warriors and such, but my all time fave is the Sage. I always have to have a magic user on my team in any game; including this one.
A long time ago, on Twitch, I tried to beat the entire game with 3 goof-offs and no upgrading to Sages or any other class. I got pretty far, but eventually it became apparent that I'd need absolutely crazy high levels (which would take forever to grind), or to kill off my Goof-Offs and level the Hero up to max level, which seemed against the spirit of the challenge. I never finished that challenge, and it was one of the hardest, most boring I ever attempted.
I really hope that the remake adds a new class or maybe give some classes some abilities. Just think how useful the Goof-off would be with Hustle Dance or the Warrior with Helm Splitter.
Exactly then again Warrior/Fighter really needs their DQ6 or 7 skills for the HD/2D remake especially Warrior for the critical hit or miss skill to kill the metal slimes if they don't run away before it hits. As for Hustle Dance I'd rather have the HD/2D remake add the Luminary/Dancer class to use it since Goof Off/Jester at high lvs is pretty much useless in this game making Hustle Dance worthless if you can't control them.
Honestly, just making Resilience boost Defense instead of Agility would already do numbers. Warriors are bad because their defense is entirely dependant on new armours, while Thieves are surprisingly bulky. Having Wisdom affect Magic Damage like in 8 would also be a huge boon to make Wizard better (until you get a Sage at least).
Yeaaah I used to play with two Sages but a second sage is hardly necessary lol. Now I like to start with Male Hero and a classic style party. With a Male or Female Thief, a Cleric/Priest opposite gender of what I pick for my Thief, and Female Mage party. Thief changes to Martial Artist, Cleric/Priest changes to Warrior, and the Mage becomes my one Sage. Mainly relying on my Hero and Sage for most of the spell casting aside from my Warrior-Cleric doing some support here and there.
How were you introduced to the series? I was a HUGE dbz fan in my early school years and i would've KILLED to know that the animator for dbz helped make the chars for DQ. it would've saved me so much effort and money from having to get my PlayStation modded and purchase imports of the 3 dbz games on psx... Considering that dq is an RPG it would've been even more satisfying as a kid since that was my preferred game style... I just simply never knew and apparently neither did friends or family members
Do the Blue Beaks, Belisha Beakons on Android, also drop the Book of Sotori like on the NES version? On Android, The Book of Sotori is called Words of Wisdom. Just wondering if I can obtain an extra Book of Sotori/Words of Wisdom in the Android remake?? Also, the Android/IOS remake has the Mini Medal side quest but not the Monster Medal nor the Pachisi Tracks, unfortunately. Current run I turned my Lvl 21 Thief into a Sage. Keeping my Priest so she can learn the highest Lvl Heal spells, also keeping my Martial Artist (Fighter) to max levels. Gold Claw's curse only happens while actually in the Pyramid of Isis. Once out of the Pyramid, the curse goes away. Martial Artists are awesome in the remakes
I only ever played the original NES version. My feelings are nearly identical to David's about DQ3's class hierarchy. When I played it as a kid I loved the soldier for it's awesome stat growth and equipment availability. I knew about the Fighter's critical hit rate, but it only seemed like it really mattered when you were grinding exp against metal slimes/babbles since the tanky nature of the soldier was so much more desirable for 95% of the game's situations. My ideal party was; Hero, Soldier, Pilgrim, Wizard (who I turned to Sage at Dharma). Are you guys excited for the Dragon Quest remakes in the Octopath style?
Just got my Warrior change into Gadabout as of now. Will try my luck with this class. For the rest of my units: Priest > Martial Artist Mage > Merchant maybe? Hero > Thief if possible
I start with a pilgrim, wizard, thief team. The thief becomes a sage asap (level 20), while the pilgrim & wizard wait until all the best spells are acquired before changing to fighter & soldier classes
When you play this, and do the job changes, how do you avoid getting gimped bad stats per level up? what should you do to try to manipulate getting better stats on level up, especially after the class changes? And does it mess up your stats to be switching jobs around a lot before the main job is a really high level?
NOT now but once the remake Nov 14th this year gets a release it will be time for ANOTHER video the only reason I NEVER use Fighter/Warrior IS because of a Lack of their DQ6 and 7 skills that WILL change for the Remake of it.
Just started a new run with a Merchant, who is fine in the early part of game b/c of decent early equipment selection, with the plan of turning them into a Sage. Why Merchant->Sage over Warrior->Sage? The Merchant levels faster so they'll be ready for the class change sooner and in the remakes, they earn MP, so the Sage will start with greater MP than if they had started off as a Warrior. (I'll also be cross classing Priest and Mage into Thief and Fighter as well, not sure which into which.) I did once try the 3 goof-off challenge, but I turned all of them into Sages and the game was a breeze from there.
If you're playing the switch version, and you have the computer set to auto-play, it actually really sucks to have a sage. If you have a cleric and your party is hurt, they'll heal you. If you have a wizard, they will always be doing damage. If you have two sages... good luck. They'll forget to heal when you need it, they'll heal when you don't. You might be saying "then put them on manual mode." Few things. First, it's kind of nice to only worry about the hero. Second, it makes you feel like you're part of a team. They gain their own personality when you let them act on their own. It can be fun to have them win (or lose) a game for you because... "darnit, Victoria, stop casting insta-death! It's accuracy is horrible!" Third, they cheat for you. They literally decide what they're going to do on their action. What do I mean? Traditionally, you decide what your entire team is doing without really knowing who's going to go before who. When the computer controls a character, it doesn't decide what that character is doing until it is actually their turn to act. This means that heals and revives happen exactly when they need to, and single target spells are used over mass target spells if there's only one enemy left... ... ... except when you have a party of sages. For some reason, sages step all over each other. And they never heal.
Last year I finally played DQ3 for the first time and it immediately became one of my favorite RPGs ever. I’m also playing Final Fantasy III pixel remaster right now, I’m beginning to grasp just how much of a cheap knockoff this is, even though FFIII is also a great game! The problem for FF is that DQ3 is an all time masterpiece and Square definitely stole a lot of ideas. Don’t even compare the story telling between these two games.
@orelas167 1 second ago I'm afraid I must agree on both Thief and Hero. Wizard used to be the fastest hit-all in the game--Sage+Wizard FTW. Hero's Lightning and Healusall are awesome get out of jail free cards and sub-par final boss tricks, but that's it until their MP costs lower in later games. Uh, but soloing only works in the remakes, unless you like grinding to Lightning for Kandar 2?
Don't under value "Dig". It finds whatever monsters drop. So, if you "Dig" in an area with Metal Babbles, you will find shoes of happiness. This works for any monster drops. Even Sage books.
Dig IMHO is crap I never had it give out bthe GOOD items those Happiness shoes are CRAP 1 EXP per step is worthless when the ENEMIES you KILL for them give out 10,00 exp per enemy the Sage books on anything but the NES game NO monsters EVER drops them.
7:00 "What about Bacardi casters?" Man, Dragon Quest, and RPGs in general, really need a drunkard job/class. Not a character of any class that likes their alcohol, but a class based around drinking. Spit fire (like Sylvando), great resilience, reckless, maybe slow and low aim for ranged weapons, poor defense but high physical power.
Lol I think you mis heard him. But also I wanna say didn’t D&D have supplementary material with a Drunken Master class at one point that’s in some ways like that?? Lol
I would have put thief at number 3,cause they can use assassin dagger/poison needles and the falchion late in the game,making them good metal slayers as well,but other then that I agree.
Recently completed DQ & DQ2 on mobile from Google Playstore, and only just purchased DQ3. Thanks for the comprehensive list. I beat DW3 on the NES but still can't wait to play the remake.
in the NES version i was shocked that 3 fighters was not only a viable party but that it was completely broken! easiest playthrough ever! they consistently went first and murdered everything critical hits for the win
lmfao wrong the merchants call abilities makes it possible to endlessly grind without leaving till you need to save making it a top class they also learn decent magic
when i look back at how i use to play and probably still would i really underutilized the wizard and all its potential. i would "save my magic" for some unknown event i might need it, and sometimes it killed me lol
This game also has a special place in my heart. Not only is it an amazing game in its own right, it's also the first game I managed to invent my own Game Genie code for. Back in those days the Game Genie was a cheat device for mostly action games, stuff like "take no damage" and "infinite lives", but it also worked on any game provided someone could come up with codes for it. Galoob really took their time doing so, so in the meantime during a rental weekend I fired up my GG and tried hammering out some codes for the game. It was all random guesswork - for example I started coming up with combinations of letters based on what happened to be around me - but sometimes that can yield results. I tried using the word "Papers" because there happened to be some in front of me on my desk. Somehow that got changed to "Papess" (I think maybe because the GG didn't use the letter R, I don't recall) and was astonished that the code worked. What happened was that upon entering the code and starting the game, you could go into a sort of phantom inventory of your characters and take any item out of it to give to yourself. The items were semi-random but included everything. I remember taking Pepper, Seeds of Life, even the Sword of Kings, right there in the first few minutes of the game, and "giving" them to my main character. It was so fun and exciting and made me love DW3 that much more. I wonder if the "Soldier / Pilgrim / Wizard" combo was especially popular, that's what I usually went with back then as well.
Fighter, hero, 2 sages was usually my end game party. The fighter can be swapped with a soldier. My sages were usually an ex wizard and a goof off that I leveled AFTER reaching the shrine. NES playthrus.
@@Gamerdude535 After the first short while the hero can cover healing. I don't remember but I might used a pilgrim until I reached the shrine then switched him out for a goofoff.
I hope The Hero gets a somewhat expanded spell list for the Hd Remake. There’s no reason they shouldn’t get some buffs, the rest of the Frizz spells, Kasizzle, and maybe Bang. Maybe Woosh type spells considering Ortega learned those and give the Sword of Kings some other effect for its use function. Anyway my favorite combination now adays is Male Hero, Either Male or Female Thief, later becoming a Martial Artist Cleric/Priest opposite gender of whatever I pick for my Thief. Later changes to Warrior. Have also considered A Thief to Warrior and Cleric/Priest to Martial Artist combo. And Female Mage later becoming a Sage.
I have always loved Dragon Warrior III! It is the quintessential DQ in my book! And it was my first game where I could truly play around with a Job system! I love making a roster full of dual-classers: like a spell-blasting 'Mage-Soldier', a healing 'Mystic Monk', or even a Jack of all trades Merchant who previously dabbled in both schools of magic!
One of the best things about this game was that it had so many job classes, and you could recruit or drop members at will. I love being able to take or leave who I want. FF3 and FFV let you swap job classes at will, which is cool, but I think that is just too much flexibility. How is it reasonable that a fighter can start practicing black wizardry, then summoning, and then every single possible job class? It doesn't make sense. I loved the experience of picking a class and being locked into it (like FF1), but also being able to swap out and train up a character if you want to try something different.
That over-flexibility is a big part of why I didn't like FF6 and FF7. It severs the connection between the story and the gameplay. Instead of using characters effectively, you're using rocks effectively while you watch a soap opera.
Hey Dave, I think u should change your avatar. Instead of Sabin, from ff6. How about Zack from ff7 or auron from ffx.Balthier he’s the man. I CANT WAIT 4 the super Mario rpg remake.👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
I finally started playing the Switch version of this game for the first time yesterday, intending to just set up my party then stop but I ended up level grinding everybody up to 8 because I was saving up for all the best equipment. After careful consideration I decided to go with a warrior, a pilgrim and a merchant. My intention is to turn the warrior into a fighter, the pilgrim into a sage and the merchant into a thief. So far I have had no problems, the merchant has pretty decent stats in this version and when I learn all the skills possible I will not hesitate to upgrade to a thief. Honestly, she has given me at least 100 extra gold coins so far and this early on every single coin helps especially when the best weapon currently available is 320 coins.
Nice list. I do think the soldier is in the top 4 though simply because I wouldn't want to be without one. They absorb damage the best, deal the greatest damage, and can wear some of the best equipment. I didn't think about the fact that the support spells were moved to the Pilgrim in the remakes. I agree the weapons that damage groups of enemies kind of makes the wizard unnecessary. Interesting!
Really good video, David! My only experience with DQIII was buying it from a retro game shop that briefly appeared within walking distance of my house during high school, and returning it for a worse game, that I returned... No wonder they didn't stay in business! After DQI, I was always more of an FF girl, so it is cool to see what I missed and what I need to go back to.
My go to party is ALWAYS Hero, Fighter, Thief and Merchant Merchant becomes a sage around mid game and during postgame, Thief becomes the sage and the old sage becomes a warrior. It's a job combo and progression that never ever fails
You are required to use the code merchant? The ninja is worse than then the merchant, wizard and soldier combined. You do realize don’t you that the thrift was actually there from the start ?
Hello! Yes, the merchant is required for the yellow orb. There is no ninja job class and the thief wasn't there from the start, he was added in the SNES remake.
@Vegesther yeah game can easily be beaten. All you have to do is get everyone above lvl 28 and leave your wizard behind to get the merchant before going to Romaly or Portoga and go straight west
I've already beaten Dragon Warrior 3 on the NES but the Android remake looks SOOOO MUCH better than the original. Plus, no Mini Medals on the NES version. I only wish that I could've experienced the Monster Medal & Pachisi Tracks side quests. They should've put it in the Android/IOS remake
In the GBC version, there actually is a huge difference between the female and male fighters. Female fighters can equip better equipments than males, and because of that, they can rank hits better than male fighters. The GBC version is the definitive version of you want to play it before the Switch Octopath style. The SNES translation version isn’t bad either. They play a lot like Alena from DQIV, and she was so OP in the NES version of DQIV that I banned myself from using her in that game to make the battles tougher. She was great in the DS version, but not as OP.
I like to start with a hero and 3 thieves. The thief with the highest speed becomes a cleric then a fighter. The one with the most MP becomes a sage, and the one with the best attack becomes a cleric and then warrior so all my party members can do healing and all my party members can do both magical and nonmagical damage. Then I just grind til I have a super OP party. Makes my hero look weak.
Like the video. I haven't quite gotten there before, but from what i understand, in the post-game added in the GBC, it's often fighter-heavy comps. I'm not sure exactly why.
I'd personally have rated fighter higher. Absolute beast of a class, absolutely on par with hero and sage. I otherwise pretty much agree with you though! My go to party for a low level completion run is Hero, Fighter, Goof-Off -> Sage, Pilgrim -> Sage. Early game is a bit slower, though not too hard with this setup; and by mid game encounters become a joke.
I find that Wizards still have a place in the newer versions. The thieves with their boomerangs and whip are nice, until you face an entire pack of high defense opponents such as those crab-type enemies. Sorry, but 1 dmg to an entire enemy party doesn't really cut it... What really holds Wizards back is their fragility. All too often, I find my Wizards becoming Mimic chow. Before you get access to World Tree leaves and revive spells. that can be a real pain in the @$$.
What I think is fascinating about this game is how much the class mechanics were clearly inspired by early western dungeon crawlers like Wizardry. If you know what you're looking for it's kind of shocking actually (but in a great way -- DRPGs are my favorite subgenre).
I usually include one or two thieves in my party, not only due to their amazing speed, but also an ability to steal items such as seeds. Change classes from a Thief to a Soldier/Warrior, and you got a formidable fighting machine.
I knew the sage would be number 1. I took my sweet time with this game in part so that I could re-class into a sage from thief->merchant->goof-off (w/ whistle for grinding).
I play the SNES version on a cartridge and played a Merchant last time. Dig may suck most of the time, but I did find 2 cat suits WAY early in the game, which made the pyramid much easier!
It finds whatever monsters drop. So, if you "Dig" in an area with Metal Babbles, you will find shoes of happiness. This works for any monster drops. Even Sage books.
@@willh1655 I had absolutely no idea! I play this game once a year, so I will definitely remember this for next time and have a blast with it. Thanks for the advice on a 34 year old game, 2 years later! This is what the internet was meant for lol
I would take 2 thieves and a merchant get them to where they knew the "spells" that they're able to learn, switch them to 2 merchants and a thief, learn the spells, then switch to 3 goof-offs, learn their 1 spell and switch to all sages
man i remember as a kid my first time doing the golden claw quest in the pyramid, what a nightmare that was haha. the fighter will always be my favourite class
Regarding the fighter, one advantagement not mentioned is I believe base defense was like 1/2 your agility so the fighter would wind up with better defense than the soldier even with the soldier's better equips. I believe that was the case at least in terms of the NES version.
We would rent this game from the video store every once in a while. I remember there was a saved game on the cartridge that was pretty far along with 2 soldiers in the party.
Goof off have the whistle skill that attracts monsters which help grinding level. Its very useful when you are grinding where metal slimes around. And he does have although random, 1 shot metal monster skill.
You should do a video of best classes to switch from the original class. I know that the temple not just change the party's classes but also allow the stats,ablities, and or magic spells to be kept to the changed class person. Like for example the fighter is high algity (in terms of melee class) but he or she could keep the stats of high algity over time after they changed into warrior. This makes the newly changed warrior have high agility. The catch that any changed class party member starts at level one and that it is preferable to make the original party member to have a high level before changing classes epically wizards and clerics.
Just beat the game for the first time played the snes version with a party of hero, monk, mage and cleric turned sage one of my favorite rpgs now on to dq4
I’ve actually added a goof off later in the game to get 2 sages. If you’re willing to do old school level grinding, it can be very handy to have 2 sages.
What's the best group set up for the Switch version? Beat this on the NES as a kid and want to re experience it all these years later and I'd like to break it.
Ironically, of the four original NES titles, I played 1, 2, 4 and then finally 3 when I found a copy later on. I absolutely loved this game and love all the many callbacks to it over the years in subsequent titles.
