Dragon Warrior II is an early top-down RPG that expands and improves on its predecessor. Unlike the first game, Dragon Warrior II allows the player to join forces with two other characters, a magic-using princess and a wizard-warrior prince. Also including expanded monster battles involving up to 6 creatures and a much larger world, Dragon Warrior II is an important step in the evolution of the Dragon Warrior series.
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The sequel delivers a charming trio of characters and a satisfying shift from linearity to open-world exploration, set to an unforgettable soundtrack. While the quest is thrilling, excessive grinding for levels and rare items can hinder the experience, especially when aiming for 100% completion.
Like many sequels to groundbreaking games, it doesn't have the luxury of leaning on novelty for its plaudits. While the game is competent, it does mostly feel like an upgraded version of the first. The world is bigger, you now have a party of characters that expands upon the combat system and story is longer and more complex.
My biggest issue is that none of this really stands out anymore in a world where Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest now both exist, and the uneven slog towards the end of the game diminishes it as well.
My biggest issue is that none of this really stands out anymore in a world where Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest now both exist, and the uneven slog towards the end of the game diminishes it as well.
A significant boost in quality compared to the first NES/FC game with much less grinding outside the final area, more music and more unique enemy types helps with the repetition of tilesets and makes areas feel more distinct from one another.
The addition of party members and facing more than one enemy at a time drastically alters the combat dynamics compared to the first, which was closer to an RNG sort of puzzle box war of attrition where you needed to either outlast an enemy or get lucky with a sleep or fireball spell to deal with them appropriately as the game progressed, this one has a bit more strategy to it though it's a bit undercut by how many of the spells either become redundant or require that end game grind to use and aren't even that effective against the bosses in that end game dungeon.
The other big problem from the original that wasn't really addressed is the vagueness of many of the NPC hints about what items are required to progress, it's extremely unlikely that a player could stumble upon some of the items you need or intuit the advice they give without checking a guide to double check because it's just far too cryptic to aid you a lot of the time.
The end game dungeon is what really brings the game down from a solid 3.5 or 4 star experience though, it's just such a ridiculous slog even with speedup and I cannot imagine spending the hours necessary to do it legitimately when the enemies just don't give out enough XP to warrant how tough they are to defeat, not helped by the final boss being a massive difficulty spike in an of itself that I was at 1hp for my final party member before he finally died.
For those reasons I'd probably recommend most people just play one of the ports on SFC or GBC as they did rebalance the end game and other points to be less grindy and cryptic, but in its original NES/FC incarnation it's still got a fair amount of charm to it despite its relative simplicity and occasional bouts of head scratching and tedium.
The addition of party members and facing more than one enemy at a time drastically alters the combat dynamics compared to the first, which was closer to an RNG sort of puzzle box war of attrition where you needed to either outlast an enemy or get lucky with a sleep or fireball spell to deal with them appropriately as the game progressed, this one has a bit more strategy to it though it's a bit undercut by how many of the spells either become redundant or require that end game grind to use and aren't even that effective against the bosses in that end game dungeon.
The other big problem from the original that wasn't really addressed is the vagueness of many of the NPC hints about what items are required to progress, it's extremely unlikely that a player could stumble upon some of the items you need or intuit the advice they give without checking a guide to double check because it's just far too cryptic to aid you a lot of the time.
The end game dungeon is what really brings the game down from a solid 3.5 or 4 star experience though, it's just such a ridiculous slog even with speedup and I cannot imagine spending the hours necessary to do it legitimately when the enemies just don't give out enough XP to warrant how tough they are to defeat, not helped by the final boss being a massive difficulty spike in an of itself that I was at 1hp for my final party member before he finally died.
For those reasons I'd probably recommend most people just play one of the ports on SFC or GBC as they did rebalance the end game and other points to be less grindy and cryptic, but in its original NES/FC incarnation it's still got a fair amount of charm to it despite its relative simplicity and occasional bouts of head scratching and tedium.
While a massive step up from the previous game, it's still a very basic RPG. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as everything is sets out to do, it does very well. A teleporter in the starting area to give the idea of how far you'll travel, even early on. An expanded world. Three characters, each with a specific role on the party. A very fun experience despite its simplicity. Be warned it is horrendously unbalanced near the end of the game though.
waaay too hard, this game is very unbalanced and it shows. but hey, you do have multiple party members and some moments are genuenly pretty good. but you can definetly pass on this one, it's not as interesting or groundbreaking as the first one.
More enjoyable than the first overall, comparatively less grinding besides right before the final boss, but I'd take an hour of that (sped up) than a whole game of that like DQ1