A group of Japanese speedrunners have found that the key to getting faster times in the classic RPG of all time Dragon Quest III is to literally control the temperature of their Famicom systems with hot plates and ice packs.
Dragon Quest III, like many role-playing games, is long. Regular play can take tens of hours and even the fastest races usually lasted an hour before a major bug was found in August 2020. Following a series of steps that include saving the game and quickly switching the Famicom power switch while holding down the reset button, the game will restart in an erroneous state which, if used correctly, will maximize party statistics.
Since the discovery of the glitch, Dragon Quest III speedrunners used it to complete the game longer than ever. Japanese player Hitshee posted a time of 22:48 in November before pushing his time to 22:22 earlier this month. His secret? Raising the temperature of Famicom, usually in the range of 50 ° C (or 122 ° F), but sometimes up to 80 ° C (or 176 ° F), to improve its chances of making the error work properly.
According to a recent report by Denfa Minico Gamer, players discovered that initiation Dragon Quest III errors can be manipulated by several external factors, including the Famicom model they use and the console temperature, which can make internal memory more volatile. Where speedrunners like it Hitshee and Pirohiko use heat-generating devices such as hot plates, for example, another player named baku_zero used ice packs to cool his Famicom.
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Over the weekend, Hitshee, Pirohiko, baku_zero and a fourth player named lime participated in a Dragon Quest III race during a speedrunning event. They all used the start / stop error and, as far as I know, at least Hitshee and Pirohiko used hot plates, the latter setting a new world record of 22:07. It is unclear whether the Famicom temperature was crucial in accomplishing this, but I’m not about to argue with extensive experimentation some of these players put in strategy.
“Do not worry” Hitshee wrote on Twitter in response to worried commentators. “I play with a security check. I’ve never broken an NES console and it’s not as dangerous as you might think. If the unit breaks, I’ll hurry to fix it. Even if you don’t think it’s worth it, it’s an important research and presentation for us. ”