Ah, takes me back... this is where my RPG marathon began, back in the forgotten age of 2022. The year where I set out to beat as many RPG's in a chronological order as possible, starting with the first two NES Dragon Quests. Since then, my plans have admittedly changed a bit, because at the rate I'm going, I'm probably going to die before I get to something like FF7 Rebirth. So nowadays, I go a little out of order just to make sure I'm consistently playing the RPG's I really want to play, while still occasionally squeezing in the riskier, obscure titles.
Oddly enough, this series of SNES remakes counted as one of the RPG's I really wanted to play. It's odd, because recalling my experiences with the NES versions, didn't I think these games were average at best, really basic and depthless at worst? In the case of Dragon Quest II, I must've suppressed something traumatic about it, and yet, the thought of jumping back into a remake version sounded pretty appealing.
There is something cozy about these older titles, something akin to a blend of point 'n click adventure and collect-a-thon design mentality. Where every area is something you can mark off the map, as you procure important items to solve little fetch quests, gain access to further areas, and collect important McGuffins across the whole world map in order to unlock the final standoff. I figured that coming back to that was probably what I was looking forward to the most. On top of potential QoL, and a couple lessons learned from the days of NES difficulty, I was hoping to get a better version of Dragon Quest 1 & 2. And that's exactly what this provided.
But bear in mind, I make the distinction of saying it's better, instead of "the best." Because though I had some expectations for the remake, I also kept in mind that we're still in the year 1993, and RPG's weren't at the cutting edge of modern convenience yet. There were some that started thinking forward, but most did not get the memo. As for this? It kinda got it. Half of it. In the very least, I could say for sure that I'd choose playing this over the NES originals any day. But, well... am I being greedy for wanting just a little more out of this?
So in the case of the DQ1 remake, I had a pretty alright time. Length left me a little surprised though, did it always take only 5 hours to beat this game??? Anyway, it seems like the game was subtly rebalanced to be more in your favor. Grinding for money and experience was still a thing, but considering the short length, it wasn't a big deal. Another notable improvement are the extended music tracks. Loops that used to be short, now have more parts and variety to them, like they crammed down an orchestral score into a SNES cartridge. It would help tremendously in alleviating repetition, although they didn't fix the encounter rates, so hearing these songs constantly restart is gonna be a problem in itself.
More importantly, the remakes appear to run on the same engine as SNES DQ5, meaning that all the improvements from that game, are now over here! Auto-targeting's a thing, seeing equipment stats in a shop is a thing, a dedicated talk button is there, how cool! I think it would've been cooler though, if they didn't also bring back every single problem from DQ5. If you're looking for a run button, you're still shit outta luck. Shops remain as chatty and sluggish to purchase things through as ever, I will continue to complain about the limited inventory for as long as they don't fix it, and by JOVE, you gotta love the NPC's that literally block your way for what could be a whole minute of your time because that's just how their RNG works.
Again, in DQ1 none of this is necessarily a huge issue just because of how quick and to the point that game is. DQ2 is a whole other story, that's a 15-hour adventure right there, and every DQ5-related problem only makes it drag more as it goes on.
If they tried rebalancing DQ2, kudos. It really needed it. But I don't think they went as far as they should have, there is still an obnoxious amount of grind in this game. Equipment tends to cost more than my house, and as you head over to the field, you realize that the poultry amount of gold the enemies drop is not gonna get you close to buying that stuff anytime soon.
Now, considering the more open nature of DQ2, I understand that you're meant to be exploring the world in order to naturally procure enough gold to buy the better equipment later. But that's if you're not getting your ass constantly handed to you by how much pain the enemies dish out, losing your gold in the process. Of the three characters you control, only one of them is decently equipped until the endgame. The rest, are surviving by the skin of their teeth at all times, unless you're willing to spend hours of your life on that grind. And even then, an enemy can just say fuck it and instantly kill your entire party if they feel like it. Look, I'm fine with high difficulty in RPG's. But I think it's important to give the player the occasional break from these kinds of moments, to give them that breathing room to relax. But DQ2 being the same DQ2 it's always been, says "no."
Also, they brought the conveniences of DQ5 over, but NOT the fast travel spell? Like, you have the spell that brings you to the last save point, but what about the one where you can select any town you've previously visited? DQ2 is in such desperate need of this, what with all the back and forth backtracking and the long, elaborate paths you need to take to slooowly get back to the town you want, all the while enemies are raining down on you. Run button's one thing, but I think this was the most glaring omission from this remake, it's kinda crazy it's just not here.
Another problem pertains to the fan translation. It says it fixed all the bugs from an older English translation, but no it didn't. The reviews on romhacking.net that made note of this weren't just outdated, they are accurate to the day of me writing this. You've got basic typos that take you out of the experience, and potential softlocks and visual glitches that replace your entire dungeon with garbage data. And that's just what I ran into. It seems that DQ2 is the less stable of the two, since I didn't get anything like that while playing DQ1. And it definitely makes it a little harder to recommend, since you would have to basically be ready to constantly make save states, in the case that the game might or might not break soon.
So... in total, I think I can at least recommend this package as a good way to play DQ1, y'know, if you just wanna see where did it all begin. You're not gonna get any interesting story or depth out of it, but set your expectations accordingly to "one of the first RPG series in history", and it won't be the worst use of your time when considered historically like that.
But when it comes to DQ2, my verdict is about the same as it was for the NES. Just don't bother, it's not worth it. The game may not be as hair-pullingly brutal as it used to be, but its tedious grinding and balancing was not fixed. Of course, that's assuming that the tediousness is something TO fix, and not just an inherent element of what DQ2 is. And the bugginess of the fan translation does not help its case either. At that point, surely there's gotta be a safer way to play this game, right...? Y-You're not gonna make me play... the ph-phone ports, are you...?!
This was a servicable way to return to these games. And it'll be a servicable way to experience them for your first time too. But it's still not quite there yet, it hasn't quite eliminated all the old-ass NES quirks of this franchise, and it still requires that sort of patience to really want to get through them. This is still something I would only recommend to people truly dedicated to getting into this franchise, like myself. Wake me up when the boat reaches the other side of the map.
Oddly enough, this series of SNES remakes counted as one of the RPG's I really wanted to play. It's odd, because recalling my experiences with the NES versions, didn't I think these games were average at best, really basic and depthless at worst? In the case of Dragon Quest II, I must've suppressed something traumatic about it, and yet, the thought of jumping back into a remake version sounded pretty appealing.
There is something cozy about these older titles, something akin to a blend of point 'n click adventure and collect-a-thon design mentality. Where every area is something you can mark off the map, as you procure important items to solve little fetch quests, gain access to further areas, and collect important McGuffins across the whole world map in order to unlock the final standoff. I figured that coming back to that was probably what I was looking forward to the most. On top of potential QoL, and a couple lessons learned from the days of NES difficulty, I was hoping to get a better version of Dragon Quest 1 & 2. And that's exactly what this provided.
But bear in mind, I make the distinction of saying it's better, instead of "the best." Because though I had some expectations for the remake, I also kept in mind that we're still in the year 1993, and RPG's weren't at the cutting edge of modern convenience yet. There were some that started thinking forward, but most did not get the memo. As for this? It kinda got it. Half of it. In the very least, I could say for sure that I'd choose playing this over the NES originals any day. But, well... am I being greedy for wanting just a little more out of this?
So in the case of the DQ1 remake, I had a pretty alright time. Length left me a little surprised though, did it always take only 5 hours to beat this game??? Anyway, it seems like the game was subtly rebalanced to be more in your favor. Grinding for money and experience was still a thing, but considering the short length, it wasn't a big deal. Another notable improvement are the extended music tracks. Loops that used to be short, now have more parts and variety to them, like they crammed down an orchestral score into a SNES cartridge. It would help tremendously in alleviating repetition, although they didn't fix the encounter rates, so hearing these songs constantly restart is gonna be a problem in itself.
More importantly, the remakes appear to run on the same engine as SNES DQ5, meaning that all the improvements from that game, are now over here! Auto-targeting's a thing, seeing equipment stats in a shop is a thing, a dedicated talk button is there, how cool! I think it would've been cooler though, if they didn't also bring back every single problem from DQ5. If you're looking for a run button, you're still shit outta luck. Shops remain as chatty and sluggish to purchase things through as ever, I will continue to complain about the limited inventory for as long as they don't fix it, and by JOVE, you gotta love the NPC's that literally block your way for what could be a whole minute of your time because that's just how their RNG works.
Again, in DQ1 none of this is necessarily a huge issue just because of how quick and to the point that game is. DQ2 is a whole other story, that's a 15-hour adventure right there, and every DQ5-related problem only makes it drag more as it goes on.
If they tried rebalancing DQ2, kudos. It really needed it. But I don't think they went as far as they should have, there is still an obnoxious amount of grind in this game. Equipment tends to cost more than my house, and as you head over to the field, you realize that the poultry amount of gold the enemies drop is not gonna get you close to buying that stuff anytime soon.
Now, considering the more open nature of DQ2, I understand that you're meant to be exploring the world in order to naturally procure enough gold to buy the better equipment later. But that's if you're not getting your ass constantly handed to you by how much pain the enemies dish out, losing your gold in the process. Of the three characters you control, only one of them is decently equipped until the endgame. The rest, are surviving by the skin of their teeth at all times, unless you're willing to spend hours of your life on that grind. And even then, an enemy can just say fuck it and instantly kill your entire party if they feel like it. Look, I'm fine with high difficulty in RPG's. But I think it's important to give the player the occasional break from these kinds of moments, to give them that breathing room to relax. But DQ2 being the same DQ2 it's always been, says "no."
Also, they brought the conveniences of DQ5 over, but NOT the fast travel spell? Like, you have the spell that brings you to the last save point, but what about the one where you can select any town you've previously visited? DQ2 is in such desperate need of this, what with all the back and forth backtracking and the long, elaborate paths you need to take to slooowly get back to the town you want, all the while enemies are raining down on you. Run button's one thing, but I think this was the most glaring omission from this remake, it's kinda crazy it's just not here.
Another problem pertains to the fan translation. It says it fixed all the bugs from an older English translation, but no it didn't. The reviews on romhacking.net that made note of this weren't just outdated, they are accurate to the day of me writing this. You've got basic typos that take you out of the experience, and potential softlocks and visual glitches that replace your entire dungeon with garbage data. And that's just what I ran into. It seems that DQ2 is the less stable of the two, since I didn't get anything like that while playing DQ1. And it definitely makes it a little harder to recommend, since you would have to basically be ready to constantly make save states, in the case that the game might or might not break soon.
So... in total, I think I can at least recommend this package as a good way to play DQ1, y'know, if you just wanna see where did it all begin. You're not gonna get any interesting story or depth out of it, but set your expectations accordingly to "one of the first RPG series in history", and it won't be the worst use of your time when considered historically like that.
But when it comes to DQ2, my verdict is about the same as it was for the NES. Just don't bother, it's not worth it. The game may not be as hair-pullingly brutal as it used to be, but its tedious grinding and balancing was not fixed. Of course, that's assuming that the tediousness is something TO fix, and not just an inherent element of what DQ2 is. And the bugginess of the fan translation does not help its case either. At that point, surely there's gotta be a safer way to play this game, right...? Y-You're not gonna make me play... the ph-phone ports, are you...?!
This was a servicable way to return to these games. And it'll be a servicable way to experience them for your first time too. But it's still not quite there yet, it hasn't quite eliminated all the old-ass NES quirks of this franchise, and it still requires that sort of patience to really want to get through them. This is still something I would only recommend to people truly dedicated to getting into this franchise, like myself. Wake me up when the boat reaches the other side of the map.