That one was fun! You can really see the step up from the first game, and what aspects went on to influence the genre. Expanding the party to three characters definitely helped give the game more flavour, even if the writing isn't anything special. I don't expect more from what was originally a NES game, though, so that's fine. The Switch version added some nice quality of life, though we once again lost the amazing spritework from the SNES remakes. Ah well. I still had a good time with this one, it's worth a look if you enjoy retro RPGs and videogame history.

Dragon Quest 2 is a classic JRPG remade for mobile and ported to switch. It is an undoubted classic and the plot and the game play are as good or better than the original. The new graphics probably split opinions, I would have prefered more original style pixel art for nostalgia, this style seems to me a bit off like a clip art show from cheap asset pack, but it's still recognisable dragon quest characters. Other way to think of it, the graphical style is really similar to kemco's shovelware mobile jrpgs. The port is well-made and it's mostly nice to play with few quality of life improvements compared to the original, but few nes era annoyances are still there like having to faff about with the inventories and menus a lot. Since it's decently sold at budget title price and not full price like some other remakes on switch, it's definitely worth the money.

Dragon Quest II was fittingly my second foray into the series after the first. The game did well to improve upon the rather simple base of the first and felt much more fleshed out. However a lot of the same issues remain and I’ll admit a lot is owed to its age and being a pioneer of the genre, but these issues still stuck out to me. The limited inventory, encounters being over abundant, not being able to repel enemies in dungeons, a lot of where to go next being very cryptic and not explained well in the game itself, statuses being completely blind luck if they’ll afflict an enemy without a guide, and so on. Despite these issues, I do enjoy the core gameplay loop of the series and I enjoyed it here, however I am looking forward to continue through the series and seeing these rough edges getting smoothed out.

Honestly I felt this was a massive improvement over the first game. I never played the original NES game or any of the remakes/remasters of it besides this so don't expect any comparisons or thoughts on how this works as a remake/remaster. I'm also still somewhat of a newbie when it comes to this series with my only other experience being playing through the Switch version of the first game, a bit of the DS version of 4, and a bit of a couple spinoffs. So this is going to be a review of how this game is on its own and how it compares to Dragon Quest 1.

As far as improvements from Dragon Quest 1 are concerned, there's A LOT. The biggest changes being having multiple save points, a much larger map, and introducing party members to the series. All 3 of these add up to make Dragon Quest 1 look like a quaint little game, not helpped by the fact that you go to the map from the first game around a quarter of a way through only to see how much it has changed in the 100 years between stories. It was a nice moment that allowed me to see just how much larger this game's world is in comparison. This also adds to how much grander of an adventure this game feels. There's tons more towns to visit that all have some form of significance on your journey either containing sidequests or being useful teleporting spots.

The story of Dragon Quest 2 is almost the same as the first game's story. Only big difference being the princess that's kidnapped is saved early on to become the white mage of the group. However I did enjoy the more environmental storytelling that was tried out. Visiting the castle from the game's opening only to see it completely destroyed with all of the treasure stolen and the only things that remain are lost souls crying out was an amazing moment that really impacted me as a player and helped solidify my drive to defeat the great evil. Also helps that this game does a much better job at telling you where to go next in comparison to the first game along with never feeling like I had to stop and grind for 30 minutes to stand a chance at continuing, something I did frequently in Dragon Quest 1. While there were a small handful of moments where I consulted a guide for help finding something, more often than not a nearby townsperson gave clues on what I was supposed to be doing.

There are still a few small things that hold the game back for me. Items that felt like they'd be very useful on my journey were in very short supply. The only ways to gain back MP is by either resting at an inn or by finding one of the few prayer rings in the world which have limited use that the game never tells you how much more you can use it. There's also only one spot in the game you can get a revival item and can't learn the spell to revive party members till near the end of the game (unless you run around and grind a lot I guess). I also wish you could use Holy Protection/Holy Water in caves and towers since going through some with weak enemies is a massive nuissance. I also never really found a use for the Prince of Cannock due to his stats and spells he learns. His attack is decent, but nowhere near what the main character can hit, and he doesn't learn very good spells since the princess learns the best healing magic and the best offensive spell. The prince really just feels like he's hear to have a third party member and have map traversel magic like Zoom and Safe Passage.

Dragon Quest 2 was an incredibly important RPG for the time it originally released and still a fun enough time for those that like oldschool RPGs. However if you're not one that enjoys simplistic turn based combat or a story that doesn't have much going on, then this isn't really one you'll like. I can't wait to finish up the original trilogy at some point soon.

O título de Dragon Quest II serve perfeitamente aqui. É literalmente o primeiro jogo expandido, maior, e por isso o II faz muito sentido. Mas por isso, ele tem os mesmos problemas do primeiro e faz muita coisa PIOR. O primeiro pra mim foi bastante cansativo principalmente pelo combate, é bem simples porque ele é um dos pioneiros do JRPG de turno, a sua simplicidade é por ser um dos primeiros jogos do seu gênero. Diferente de DQ1, o segundo tem uma melhora significativa no combate, é uma jornada agora com uma party e cada um com sua individualidade. Um bate, outra solta magia e o último faz os dois mas pior. Os combates agora são com vários monstros, as magias são mais complexas, dando uma dificuldade um pouco maior no jogo. Ênfase no pouco, porque ainda sim não é um jogo difícil se você souber o que tá fazendo.

Agora, o que realmente prejudica DQ2 é que além de expandir o combate, ele tenta expandir tudo que o primeiro faz. E isso na teoria é uma coisa ótima, de verdade. Um mapa maior, mais dungeons, inimigos, mais itens; tudo nesse jogo é mais. O problema de verdade é que nem sempre quantidade é qualidade. O começo dele é bem linear, é sobre achar os membros pra tua party e mesmo que você vá fazer um pouco de backtracking aqui e ali, o mapa não é enorme pra te cansar. Mas depois disso, é muita coisa inútil que o jogo te taca. O mapa se abre MUITO, você vai ter que ir pra lá e pra cá tentando descobrir o que tem que fazer porque os itens de quest tão espalhados pelo mapa da maneira mais filha da puta possível. E além disso, o chefe final desse jogo é estúpido sem o farm, normalmente eu nunca tenho problema com grind, mas aqui no final dele o grind se torna quase que obrigatório, além de outras seções do jogo que eu me vi quase obrigado a ter que grindar.

De maneira alguma eu tenho um desdém por DQ2, eu na verdade admiro tudo que ele faz na teoria, é um jogo originalmente de NES e ser tão mais ambicioso que o primeiro é algo pra se bater palma, mas na prática ele é bem cansativo por não saber dosar o que ele quer fazer. Não cheguei a citar a história do jogo porque tenho o bom senso de entender as limitações da época em questão de quantidade de escrita. Eu tenho um pouco de medo do DQ3, espero que ele saiba ser um jogo maior, e não essa amálgama de ideias mal executadas que esse aqui é.

Dragon Quest II is, to me, quite possibly one of the most important JRPGs ever made, thanks to the many genre and series standards it established. It had multiple recruitable party members, a boat, a huge overworld and multiple music tracks to represent where and how it was being traversed, AND non-linear progression - all of this nearly a full year before Final Fantasy hit store shelves in Japan.

Big problem, though! Going back and playing Dragon quest II is not particularly fun. While Dragon Quest I's obtuseness actually worked in its favour, adding to its exploratory nature and furthering the prospect of "getting lost in an unfamiliar world and having the aimless wandering do the grinding for you until you figure out how to progress" (which admittedly does heavily hinder its replayability), Dragon Quest II's ludonarrative doesn't work quite as well.

When you multiply the game world's size several times without changing that design philosophy, it also becomes a lot more taxing and mentally exhausting to navigate. I played Dragon Quest I without a guide and really liked the feeling of just being totally lost and eventually, finally figuring out how to progress. The world map was just the right size too, so backtracking wasn't too time consuming, and it was easy to remember landmarks and places of interest. Dragon Quest II also had those "eureka" moments, but they were drowned out by the abundance of times I just looked up a guide, reserved myself to my chair, sat back, and asked myself: "how the hell I was supposed to have figured that out?". The dungeons are labyrinthine, the endgame clearly wasn't playtested (something that doesn't actually feel rectified in subsequent ports/remasters) and the game gets easier if you intentionally leave one of your party members dead in some versions. It's a mess - one that I'm unfathombably grateful for given it walked so that Dragon Quest III could run and further establish series and genre conventions, but a mess nonetheless. I love the music (travelling with friends is STILL one of the best overworld themes of all time), and the visuals in the Famicom, Super Famicom and Gameboy Colour releases carry immense charm, but it's an incredibly difficult recommendation unless you can stomach the phone port's frankly terrible visuals in favour of QOL improvements, or play the gbc version with the double exp patch. The SFC fan-translation is buggy and unfinished, and the Famicom version is...well...yeah.

As I mentioned in my review for the first Dragon Quest, I bought the mobile versions of the original Dragon Quest trilogy on a whim years ago. Last year I decided to finally finish the first game, and now I've chosen to finish its sequel this year. Dragon Quest II is a sequel that is surprisingly a vast improvement to its predecessor.

In terms of gameplay, its exactly the same as the first game, but considering that Dragon Quest is a series known for following tradition that is no surprise. This time however, you're not alone. You get two party members to assist you on your journey, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke. Having these party members is pretty much a necessity as the character you play as doesn't have magic this time and the latter parts of the game, especially the final boss would be much harder without them. The other noteble addition is the ability to sail across the land on your ship which has been included in every other game in the series onward. These additions come a long way in making the game feel fresh and interesting in comparison to the first game.

Dragon Quest II is a massive step forward, but there were some things I didn't like about it. My first issue is something that bothered me with the original as well, and that issue would be the random encounter rate. While I can understand why they were a thing in the RPGs of old, it gets really annoying getting spammed with encounters every two steps I make, especially when I'm lost or trying to traverse a new area. My other issue is that the game can be pretty cryptic at times when it comes to finding all the things you need to progress. I looked up guides significantly more this time than I did for DQ1 mostly just to find out where to go or where to find a certain item.

As for grinding in this game? Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. Enemies drop reasonable amount of exp to where if you do need to grind, you won't need to for long. It's probably just an improvement they added in later versions they made, but considering that grinding seems to be a gripe that most people seem to have, I expected worse.

Dragon Quest II is in my opinion an underappreciated game that laid a lot of the groundwork for the rest of the series. It felt much more like an adventure in comparison to its predecessor. Considering how the original trilogy is on basically everything these days, I'd suggest either emulating or dropping a couple bucks on either the Switch or mobile versions. It may not be as good as the entries afterwards, but with the amount of improvements it makes its definitely worth a playthrough.

Next up on my Dragon Quest kick was the second game! Popo had warned me that this one had some really god damn mean bits, and damn wasn't he kidding x3. This game has some really serious design issues, but it really is more up to the growing pains of the genre it was helping pioneer, so I really can't blame the game too much.

I'm just SO glad I was playing the Japanese 3DS remake, because it has the DS remakes' art style but the balancing of the GBC port, so it gets rid of a lot of the miserable grinding of the Famicom original as well as making a lot of the formerly empty or crap loot chests have better loot. I had read the game takes like 20 hours for this version, but it took me only like 14, so right about double what the first game took me, and that's being a little over leveled. (My characters were levels 40, 38, and 33 at the end of the game).

The story is an evolution in depth over the original as well as the world building. A LOT more towns and dungeons really make DQ2 feel like a more real world than the comparatively small scope of the first game. Some of the towns are a bit too far apart and/or guarded by monsters whose level curve is a bit harsh, but it's nothing totally game breaking. It certainly makes it apparent when to grind, that's for damn sure x3

This game has some really serious design issues that come about from pioneering new systems while not addressing problems from the original. There are no magic stats, just as in the original. As a result, spells never scale with levels either offensively or defensively. This means that the only way to guard against enemy spells is just raising your HP which will take a crazy level of grinding. And all the grinding in the world won't save you from instant death spells like Sacrifice which I only had happened twice but did a full-party wipe every time it happened.

The other big freaking problem is the dungeons, which are just so mean and maze-like. Some of them, particularly near the end of the game, are just so damn full of annoying enemies that put you to sleep or can 1 or 2-shot half the party in just one turn. This is all on TOP of having bullcrap like pitfalls to previous floors, stairways that lead you backwards, and Lost Woods-style puzzles that constantly lead you back to the start of an area. Some of the dungeons could literally take you hours to get through without a guide map, which is why I used them liberally in the second half of the game. That's probably why my game timer was only about 14 hours instead of 20.

Verdict: Not Recommended. It's a piece of history, that's to be sure, bit it's also really obvious why this is considered the worst Dragon Quest game. It's got a lot of good ideas, but the execution is just so flawed that it's really difficult to recommend as a game unless you're just hellbent on playing all of the DQ games. There are a ton of far better DQ games out there to play, so just go play those and save yourself the frustration x3

- Dungeon Design is awful & bogged down by encounters.
- items that you were gonna be used multiple times were only used twice, windbreaker???
- increase in mob count, but majority of AoEs are just okay in terms off damage

- /+ Clues are less cryptic than DQ1 but anything related to the keys very missable.

+ Boat Travel is cool & a the ablity to visit old areas from the first game.
+ 2 new party members and more skills

Dragon Quest 2 deve ter no mínimo o triplo do tamanho do primeiro jogo em termos de mapa e coisas para se fazer. Tem também o triplo da burocracia, muitas coisinhas chatas típicas de JRPG antigo, mas dá pra tolerar graças às melhorias de qualidade de vida do remake. O original é infame por ter uma curva de dificuldade desonesta perto do final do jogo, e dá pra perceber. Mesmo no remake, o trecho final do jogo é de rasgar o cu. Recomendo jogar usando guias, o que - adivinhe - é quase tão enlouquecedor quanto o jogo em si, já que houve diversas traduções diferentes para os diferentes lançamentos, então provavelmente você vai se deparar com vários nomes para o mesmo item ou inimigo e ficar confuso igual eu fiquei.

This game is a huge improvement on the original (DQ1, not the original DQ2 on NES). The game had more music, and in my opinion, better music. Also had a lot of new monsters with cool designs, gave you a party of characters instead of just the hero, and had a lot more content this time around. The story overall leaves something to be desired still, but instead of being about 50/50 on gameplay and grinding like DQ1, it's closer to 80/20, which feels a lot better. The map was very big compared to DQ, with lots of towns and dungeons. Still lacking in bosses overall though (I think most were just in the final dungeon). Encounter rate is a bit high, but it's easily mitigated with quick save and actually makes grinding a bit easier when you have to. Overall, still an NES JRPG, but a pretty enjoyable experience all the same.

I'm not quite sure I understand where the hate this game gets...Dragon Quest 2 feels like a really good game. In my head the only thing I found it to be able to compare to is, DQ1 is Legend of Zelda and DQ2 is Link's Awakening..not because DQ2 is lesser, but it's something like the same game with enough changes to make it better, but still feels extremely similar. If I haven't thrown you off at this point, let's go over my thoughts.

For starters, I'm playing the DQ/DQ2/DQ3 Collection cart and if this game is anything to go by, it seems all three games are remade using the same artstyle and graphics. Alot of the sprites look the same as well the assets in the world, so I enjoyed it the same as the previous game. I will say that enjoyed the new enemy sprites and the background, but I miss the charm the bigger enemy sprites of the first game had along with the weird anime action background on the battle screen.

The game's story is a bit of a mix for me, but mostly good. the concept of this game really isn't too far removed from the first game, except I do like the small pieces of info about each one of your party members that you learn about as well as your main hero, but I believe this comes with an issue that I'll discuss further down, just know that I do like this story a bit more than the first game, for the most part.

The music is definitely better this time around. I could actually hear bits of the 8-bit sound the game was going for, so a lot of areas had pretty decent music that sounded more than just background noise. Also shout out to the awesome sound effects for spells and attacks.

Alrighty, the gameplay...this is why I was kinda vague in spots about everything above. While pretty much most of the first games mechanics are in tact...the biggest difference the gameplay is having three characters! While the first game it was just the hero and one-on-one battling with a monster, DQ2 does like any other RPG and you have a party of 3 and can find yourself fighting up to about 5 monsters so there's most tactics that have to be used instead of just powering through that one enemy like the first game. Although there's also another mechanic that when I saw it, I instantly thought of Soul Hackers, where you end up fighting a group of one enemy type, but they count as a group instead of individual enemies, so when they are attacked, it's not an individual health pool instead it's a group sliced into parts of a pool. It's hard to describe, but when you do a battle it's easy to understand. Now that you have three characters, each one has a different role and have different gear they can use and different skill sets, while it's not the class/job system I mentioned in the last review, it's at least something in the right direction.

So now let's go to the issues I have with the game which are very few.

- The dialogue still has that same "olde English" writing to it with it's NPCs and characters...I dunno if this is a series wide thing, but it does sour any lore I'm supposed to get with interactions.

- There's a connection with the stories main boss that's nearly absent. They are nearly a non entity to the story, unlike the first game where you are reminded every so often of the boss and the goal, for this game it's like mostly the save points that remind you, otherwise, you'd be excused for forgetting them.

- This is an odd one, but I feel the game needs a bit of a balance between shops and gold. For as important as gear is, the cost of equipment is absurdly high and the grind for it could make you over level yourself just trying to buy gear, which you'll still need anyways.

Whew, for the second outing in the series, I really liked this game. I still don't understand the hate and I really don't get why people say it's overly difficult, I found it decently challenging and a fun adventure. I do kinda wish the games had a bigger over all narrative, but maybe I'll start seeing it as the series goes forward, after all it took Final Fantasy 3 games to start having a stronger narrative so we'll see.