A group of Japanese speedrunners have found the key to faster times is in the all-time RPG classic 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. Playing the game regularly can take tens of hours, and even the fastest speed runs usually lasted over an hour before a major bug was found in August 2020. Following a series of steps including saving the game and quickly toggling the Famicom’s power switch while holding the reset button will restart the game in a glitched state which, if misused correctly, the statistics of the party.
Since the discovery of the fault, Dragon Quest III speedrunners have used it to finish the long game faster than ever. Japanese player Hitshee set a time of 10:48 PM in November before pushing his time back to 10:22 PM earlier this month. His secret? Raising his Famicom’s temperature, usually in the 50 ° C (or 122 ° F) range but sometimes as high as 80 ° C (or 176 ° F), to increase his chances of the fault working properly.
According to a recent report by Denfa Minico Gamer, players have discovered that initiating the Dragon Quest III glitch can be manipulated by several external factors, including which Famicom model they are using and the temperature of the console, which can make internal memory more volatile. What speedrunners love Hitshee and Pirohiko use heat generating devices like hobs, 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 took part in one Dragon Quest III race during a speed running event. They all used the on / off bug and, as far as I can tell, at least used Hitshee and Pirohiko hobs, the latter setting a new world record of 10:07 PM. It is unclear whether the Famicom’s temperature was critical to achieving this featbut I’m not over to argue with the extensive experiments some of these players have put in the strategy.
“Do not worry” Hitshee wrote on Twitter in response to concerned commenters. ‘I’m playing with a security check. I’ve never broken a NES console and it’s not as dangerous as you might think. If the device breaks, I’ll fix it quickly. Even if you don’t think it’s worth it, it’s important research and presentation to us. ”