Dragon Quest III: Heavenly Flight
What is it?
Dragon Quest III: Heavenly Flight (DQ3HF) is a key item randomizer for Dragon Quest III for the SFC. This mod takes all the key items in the game for progression and shuffles them among existing locations in the game. The mod also randomizes the collectibles (chests, search areas and events) and shops. A few gameplay speed-up options such as EXP boost are present, and some systems have been tweaked for randomization such as the Small Medal system.
Both the Japanese and English fan translation patch versions of the game are compatible!
Join the Discord server here.
How to play
How it works
The game will start out normally, with the intro sequence and Hero at waking up in Aliahan. Then, the player will be looking for various key items, listed below, to allow them to progress through the game. Inherently Dragon Quest III is an open game, with few barriers on progression, especially when given access to the ship.
The player is expected to do the following to complete the game:
- Defeat Kandar 2 in Kandar's Cave to access the Black Pepper and the Ship
- Gather 6 Orbs and defeat Baramos, accessing the Dark World
- Gather the Sacred Talisman, Rain Staff and Stones of Sunlight to get the Rainbow Drop from the Shrine of Honor
- Defeat Zoma
Key Items
The following table represents all key items. The BLACK PEPPER and RAINBOW DROP are not randomized as of this version, as they are considered to lock the important story-based checks the player should complete for the purposes of game consistency. Key Items will never be placed in the Merchant Town, Pachisi tracks and a few other locations. Refer to this list of check locations where the valid column is set to "valid" for valid checks where Key Items can be placed.
| Key Item | Usage |
|---|---|
| Thief Key | Unlocks red doors |
| Magic Ball | Access one way through Cave of Temptation from Reeve to Romaly |
| Magic Key | Unlocks grey and red doors |
| King Letter | Access one way through Norud's Cave from Ashalam to Baharata |
| Dream Ruby | Access to Elf Queen's reward in Elf Village |
| Wake Up Powder | Allows revival of Noaniels |
| Thirsty Pitcher | Access to Final Key Shrine |
| Final Key | Unlocks all doors |
| Sailor Bone | Access to Ghost Ship |
| Lovely Memories | Access to Shrine Prison |
| Ra Mirror | Access to Boss Troll fight & reward |
| Gaia Sword | Access to Necrogond Cave & Necrogond Shrine |
| Red Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Green Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Purple Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Yellow Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Blue Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Silver Orb | Required for Ramia access |
| Fairy Flute | Access to Rubiss' reward in Rubiss Tower |
| Rain Staff | Access to Rainbow Drop from Shrine of Honor |
| Sacred Talisman | Access to Rainbow Drop from Shrine of Honor |
| Sun Stone | Access to Rainbow Drop from Shrine of Honor |
| Light Orb | For defeating Zoma |
Randomization & design
This randomizer uses a tiering system for rewards. Every area is codified with a numerical tier that represents each check's depth into the game. This allows logical progression of earlier checks being modest and later areas giving better rewards. Randomly the game will assign higher value collectibles at lower tier locations (e.g., a Thor Sword somewhere in Aliahan) for fun & seed brevity.
Shops give the player access to increasingly priced and valuable goods as they progress through the game.
Key Items are intended to open up the world. Every area in the game has been codified for how the world connects and which key items are used to do so. An interesting note about key item logic is that the 3 keys (Thief, Magic and Final) are all increasing in power (meaning Final Key unlocks Thief/Magic doors), but logic system only checks for them individually. In other words, a Final Key can temporarily break logic for Thief & Magic Key checks, and Magic Key can do so for Thief Key checks.
What's not randomized
Nothing about the way the player's characters handles battles is changed. The Hero learns Hero spells, a Mage class character is a Mage, etc.
As of this version, no changes to monsters are made.
Gold chests are always Gold chests. Cannibox and Mimic chests are also unrandomized.
The item shop in Aliahan is purposefully not randomized and the Sioux & Lancel item shops will always have Invisible Herbs. These are to provide player with tools they might need to complete the game. Finally, the Kol (Maira) item shop will have a King Sword if the Orichalcum is sold there.
Other changes
The Small Medal system was changed. Instead of 110 Small Medals being placed in the game and the game having rewards from 5 up to 100 Medals, the system now gives 1 reward for every 1 Medal found. The randomizer places a variable amount of Small Medals upon generation, default 15. This is to allow for all of those previously occupied Small Medal locations to now have other collectibles. This also gives much more power to finding a Small Medal during a randomizer seed. Importantly, Key Items can be placed in the Small Medal rewards list, but they are duplicate in that they will still appear logically elsewhere. Key Items placed here are usually among the higher rewards.
There is a default 4x Experience multiplier applied.
The class change system at Dharma no long checks for level- meaning the player can freely change classes on non-Hero characters whenever they'd like.