Dragon Quest 2 – User Articles

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Like the first Dragon Quest, the sequel is a clear step on the way to the typical Japanese role-playing games, and is therefore primarily historically interesting.

With the one released in mid-1986 for Famicom aka NES DragonQuest (in the user article) Chunsoft and Enix brought the role-playing games into the Japanese mainstream – and even before the enormous success was foreseeable, a successor was already being planned. In addition, the gameplay was carefully developed: Thanks to more memory, group fights were now also possible. Unfortunately, the development time was underestimated, the game could only be postponed from the end of the year to the beginning of 1987, and there was not enough time for balancing. When it finally came to America in 1990 (initially as “Dragon Warrior” 2 due to a naming conflict), some technical improvements were made, but only later implementations for newer platforms were actually balanced. It took over a quarter of a century for Dragon Quest 2 – Luminaries of the Legendary Line finally appeared in Europe, for Android and iOS. This report is mainly based on the 2019 Nintendo Switch version.

The story takes place 100 years after the first part. Descendants of the hero Erdrick now rule over several lands when an evil wizard named Hargon begins to destroy the world. So some young royals that we get to name again need to get out there and figure out how to face him.

cousin world trip

Like the original, the sequel is also a transition title between classic western role-playing games and later typical JRPGs. Although there is only one hero at the beginning looking for comrades, there is still no plot worth mentioning. Instead, from the start we have our main objective and a largely open world that we explore to find out how to get to the villain and defeat him. Apart from that, the game feels like a generic Japanese role-playing game, since many aspects have been directly copied from other developers. We explore the landscapes from above, look for treasures and have to compete against random monsters (or flee if necessary) on an irregular basis over and over again.

All caves are now well lit.

As already indicated, this time we start with only one hero, but his first task is to track down two relatives and then form a trio. Our first character is a pure fighter, the third is physically weak but good at magic, and the second is somewhere in between. In return, of course, we now meet several opponents at once. If these are grouped in the battle screen, we can stupidly only attack a complete group – the computer then determines which of the individual opponents is actually hit. According to my observations, not just by chance, but after a simple tactic, which does not necessarily correspond to the one we intended.

As usual, won battles are rewarded with money and combat experience, which gradually makes us stronger. As you level up, two of the three heroes will irregularly learn different spells, which they can use to injure or weaken opponents, heal themselves and their comrades, or travel back to a city as long as the energy lasts. There we relax, get information and buy better and better equipment and items for various purposes. Each of the three heroes has their own quite limited inventory and cannot use items in battle that someone else has in their possession, later Japanese titles have been more generous in this respect. However, some of the items are made redundant by magic, and we can also store some in banks. There are still locked doors in cities (without much logic), but this time with different keys, which have to be found once in the course of the adventure. For the first time we get a ship after a while and can then travel the world relatively freely.

Grinding, now balanced again

The scope of the game is relatively small by RPG standards, but slightly larger than its predecessor (Enix previously claimed the world is more than four times as big, which is far from true). I already wrote above that DQ2 was originally quite unbalanced, i.e. difficult when it came onto the market, but that no longer applies to newer game versions. Unfortunately, we still have to randomly run around and grind to earn enough experience and money for gear to keep up with the opponents, but this should at least be faster than the NES original.

You can save properly in most cities, and there are also auto and quicksave functions in this version. If all heroes fall, they go straight back to the king, but relieved of half their cash.

The classic turn-based random battles.

As I said, numerous smaller improvements have been made over the years and versions, not only in terms of balance, but also, for example, easier travel by magic (although a network of teleporters exists and has therefore become redundant). It will again be in pseudo-medieval English á la Thor spoken, but as far as I know in a much better new translation. However, the revised graphics are schizophrenic: the characters now use a drawing style that takes advantage of today’s screen resolutions, but the environments are pixel graphics, which if I’m not mistaken from the Super NES version of DragonQuest 3 was acquired. It doesn’t go together at all, but well, you get used to it. The windows also use the higher resolution, but are still not very informative: We still have to go to the status menu to see our current maximum energy and not just the current one. The music is of course newly recorded and now sounds orchestral, but some sound effects still seem to be on NES level.

My conclusion

Dragon Quest 2 is a bit more complex than the original, but in hindsight it still feels generic and relatively inconsequential, so many aspects have been copied from later games. The scope has also grown a bit, but still not very high by RPG standards: We still have to spend time grinding – albeit not as much in the Switch version as in the NES original – and constantly endure random battles . Again, DQ2 was original among 80’s console titles and can be reasonably fun – at least if you’re interested in seeing how typical JRPG game mechanics have evolved over time. And those who shy away from the harassment of the past will find a good compromise with this revised version as a cheap download (also physically available in Asia).

For a small fee we relax. (Whyever the ruling family doesn’t have enough rooms of their own.)