% (Day 241)

Dragon Quest III

Unlike the first two titles of the series, Dragon Quest III sports a fancy job system. Unlike Final Fantasy, your party composition isn't determined at the very beginning of the game. Although you are allowed to choose the name and gender of the protagonist, their class is preset as Hero, a powerful class unobtainable through other methods. Other classes are acquired by recruiting companions from the local tavern. These companions can be recruited at any time but they always start at level 1. What I like about this is the fact that it allows me to experiment with different party compositions without restarting the game.

The available classes do share similarities with the original Final Fantasy game. They are Warrior, Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, Jester, and Dealer. The obvious analogues for these classes are Fighter, Monk/Black Belt, Black Mage, White Mage, and Thief, with no obvious analogues for Jester and Dealer. Jesters, translated as Goof-Offs in the NES original are an oddball class that behaves unpredictably. However, they have the ability to promote into a Sage, a class normally only available for those that have access to a Zen Book at level 20. Dealers remind me of Merchants from The 4 Heroes of Light or Bravely Default in that they allow you to gain more money in battle.

Like Final Fantasy, Warriors can equip a wide variety of expensive weapons and armor. Fighters, which are very similar to Monks, equip very inexpensive gear and fight well unarmed. Mages specialize in offensive magic while Clerics typically use supportive magic. The composition I'm using, however, is Hero/Fighter/Thief/Dealer. I thought it might be interesting to use the Hero as the primary healer since she'll eventually have access to all of the major healing spells. Offensive magic seems unnecessary when physical attacks do so much damage. At least that was the case in Dragon Quest II where the protagonist dealt out far more damage per turn than his two allies.

The Thief has access to some utility skills that can locate towns and treasures, but they also get sky-high Agility. This is interesting because Agility is important to your characters' defensive statistics. As a result my Thief is by far my most durable party member while also occasionally stealing things from monsters after combat. Combined with the Dealer's ability to find extra gold, my income is pretty impressive. So far, the Hero has been more than an adequate healer to deal with any challenges I might face--but this could easily change. 

I'm finding Dragon Quest III more immediately engaging than II. I'm really getting into it already. I'm going to try to stick with this party composition until it really becomes a problem. If that happens, I'll just go grab a Cleric and even a Mage if need be. I do have a bit of a problem with my party members not being at even levels, but I'm sure I could find a workaround to that. I might even kill off the Hero if I need to.

I decided to make my Hero female as a change of pace. It's interesting how some NPCs will react to you.

Why is everyone so surprised?