1. Absolutely join the DQ discord! So many resources exist there, including quite a few SFC runners, entire sets of notes, and excel sheets. It's a small community, but extremely supportive.

2. Absolutely watch as many DQ3 runs as possible. SumDeaner, cleartonic, haktical, twitchpoppop have been extremely helpful for me.

3. I highly recommend watching tonic’s DQ3 class youtube videos- it includes theory behind the route.

Differences between sfc and gbc:

Menu when recruiting members is different. Creation order of dealer-warrior-thief-mage yields the correct party order on the second page of recruits (aka, one left or right will result in the party joining in the correct order).

increased encounter rate in pyramid (possible 1 encounter first floor and second floor and quite a few on third floor) - because of this, it is important to have backup strats- i.e. consider entering Isis early for a return point and compensation for no flashy clothes.

goon X4 fight uses the first Kandar goons

Kandar2 - if defense is cast, you must either increase or upper or death will probably occur.

Lamp of Darkness does not reset encounters

funeral cutscene is necessary to enter Samanoa castle at night

Crits get through bikill.

Necrogond basement 3 starts in a different place.

On first check in at new town, speaking to both the old man and merchant at new town advances the new town.

Baramos- NO regen, 1st 8 action cycle is the same as SFC, but after stopspell all spells change to physical attacks making it seven physical attacks between each fire breath. (this makes it considerably easier once stopspell, surround, and a few increases are on.)

Overall, random encounters are slightly different- the most extreme differences are in Alefgard.

Some of the tiptoes need to be adjusted as the layouts have minor differences.