When I first played this game I was surprised at how much the game had evolved from its predecessor after only a year. I was even more surprised when the game got me to care about my party with such simple gameplay elements. I was having a lot of fun. Similar to DQ1 i mostly coasted without a guide just by talking to NPCs and exploring. HOWEVER, once you finally get to the Cave to Rendarak this game goes to absolute shit.

The dungeons become maliciously unfair, messing with the player with tons of trial and error traps that reset your progress in the dungeon. Late game enemies fire off multi-hit massive damage moves like Kaboom and Fiery Breath meaning you constantly have to go back to rest and regain MP since your only recovery item for MP is limited and breaks after random uses. and finally, oh my god, the encounter rate exacerbates all of these problems tenfold. If all of that wasn't bad enough, the game actively fucks with you to even get to the dungeon. idk if this was a translation error or not, but on IOS and Switch, the NPC that tells you how to get to Rendarak tells you the WRONG DIRECTION.

I gave up and got a guide just to get it over with. The final boss fight is fun, but it would have been more fun if i could have fought him with full health/mp. So i just save scummed to save time.

its a fine game, but i doubt ill replay it anytime soon.