Dragon Quest II is a huge step forward for the series in terms of mechanics and scope. The battle system is much more engaging than its predecessor just from the addition of the party system (both for you and enemies), and the overworld exploration and progression blocking puzzles make the stuff outside of battle a little more interesting as well.

Unfortunately, the overworld and dungeon design compounded with the much longer battles made this an absolute slog to complete. I don't really mind random battles in JRPGs when they're used well. That being said, this game's idea of a tough challenge is either putting a town you have to visit 5 times at the dead center of a continent behind 200 consecutive tiles that have the highest encounter rate in the game or having every hallway in a dungeon loop back on itself so your party gets worn down by encounters and you have to go back to town which is just far enough away from the dungeon to be annoying. These complaints can absolutely be mitigated if you're playing a version of the game that has fast travel and if you follow a walkthrough closely for the entire game, but either way DQ2 is still a far cry from the breezy JRPG comfort food of the first game.