Some Bonus Chrontendo

Hey everyone! Things have been moving a bit slowly on the Chrontendo ranch since the release of Episode 28. Spring is here, and you know what that means: yard work! Yes, the sun is out and the grass and weeds are growing again. Oh, Lord, how those weeds are growing. It sometimes feels my life is a never ending struggle between me and the less respectable members of the vegetable kingdom.













Oddly, something else that's been occupying my time has been... Dragon Quest III! The Super Famicom version, that is. Ever since DQ Translations' patch came out last year, I've been quite curious, having heard that the SFC game was the definitive version of DQ III. I fooled around a little with the translated version while preparing the video for Chrontendo Ep. 28, but recently I've picked it back up again, and have found that I really like it. Much more so than the Famicom original. Since I cheated up the wazoo while playing the old DQ III in order to produce the video in a timely fashion, I sort of feel that I never really experienced the game. I've been able to move through the 16 bit version in a much more normal fashion.













The SFC game is very faithful to the original; it simply speeds the game up a bit, improves the menus and inventory management, and adds a some bonus content, new weapons, sidequests, etc. It also seems less "grindy" than the original. If nothing else, the fact that your characters now can move considerably faster through towns and dungeons makes the pace feel much less glacial. And there are now items hidden all throughout the towns and NPC's houses, making non-dungeon exploration quite a bit more rewarding.













And there are, of course, the graphics. A little bit of eye candy makes the old school style gameplay go down much easier. Everything now just looks gorgeous -- the battle scenes feature animated enemies and wonderfully rendered backgrounds. The game is essentially just the Game Boy Color Dragon Warrior III with about 5000% more visual appeal. Playing this version, almost every reservation I had about the Famicom DQ III has now been swept away.













But that wasn't really what I wanted to post about. Rather, I wanted to make a quick announcement that I'll be posting some bonus content soon. It's nothing too exciting; it's not a new episode per se. Instead, it's a just a little project I've been working on for a while and have suddenly found the time to finish up. Check back in a few days.