When it comes to its place in the Dragon Quest canon, Dragon Quest II is a rather interesting one. Undeniably, it improves noticably upon the first game: The addition of party members adds at least some depth to the gameplay, you get to travel the overworld via boat in something that I imagine helped inspire five million other games and the story is slightly more advanced. The thing is, the advancement isn't that much, and in the span of only a year Dragon Quest III completely changes the landscape of Dragon Quest and JRPGs. So, how does this awkwardly placed sequel stack up?
Well, the combat is definitely an improvement upon the first game. Not only does the multiple party allow somewhat more strategy and having to deal with more specialized characters (basically a Warrior, a Warrior/Mage and a Mage), but enemies can now appear in numbers more than one means you can get tougher encounters or a bit more variety. A definite improvement, but I do feel this game really doesn't iterate that much. Ultimately, combat is 90% of the time either using basic attacks or using your strongest spells, in part because this game has almost no bosses and almost no buffs, debuffs or status effects. Despite going to a multitude of dungeons, most of them end on nothing special or a "boss battle" that is just against a horde of standard enemies. There's only one buff/debuff spell, both for defense, and status effects are powerful but with few powerful enemies not used often. There's almost no elemental weaknesses or anything like that, some enemies resist Kaboom etc but that's it, so there isn't a lot of decision making when it comes to spells to use. Basically, it is improved but feels half-baked. I did enjoy it, but in the sense that I can kind of dig old school grindy RPGs from time to time, especially as a game during podcasts or the like. Though I honestly basically didn't need to grind in this game.
One thing I was divided on was the inability to target individual monsters in a group, instead it auto-targets. On one hand, given this is an old school NES RPG it makes things go faster which is nice, and the game's auto-targeting was on point to be optimal. On the other hand, I don't really like losing control of my character and I feel part of why it worked was how incredibly simple the combat system is, and sometimes it would kill enemies under Snooze (who I'd rather wait until later since they're asleep) first because they had less HP than enemies not under snooze. I've heard this stays for many Dragon Quest games, so I'll be interested to see how that works out.
This game is infamously difficult and obtuse, but I had little difficulty with that despite very rarely referring to a guide, I can think of only two times I did. One, to make sure the Yggdrassil Leaf's purpose. Secondly, to check the final boss' resistance to status attacks after I got one on him to see if that was supposed to be a thing. Most NPCs in any given town will talk about some specific thing you'll need or a location, so as long as you talk to everyone you'll be mostly fine. Combat is very easy early on and only really ramps up in difficulty late, I game overed once early walking around with like 5 HP like a dumbass but after that only had a few character deaths even until the end game. While the end game is harder, I actually didn't find it that hard. You'll get Kamikazed or Thwacked if you're unlucky, but Kaboom is so strong it rips through enemies. The final boss is the real pain in the ass and is essentially a luck-based boss, but if you go at it enough they'll go down.
I will note I WAS playing on the Switch version (which is based on the IOS version), which from what I can tell made a few changes (relocating a plot significant item for example)...but it is considered to be "very difficult" by most people I saw AND the final boss is if anything harder. But I didn't have much issue. I wonder if this game only having single target healing trips people up? You really need to keep everyone up at near full HP almost all the time against the tough enemies unless you can kill them, because you can't casually heal everyone. It could also just be because Kamikaze/Thwack make things bad if you're unlucky. The bosses in the final dungeon are an absolute joke though, even if one has a tricky gimmick.
There isn't much to the story but it'll pass you by and considering this is one of the first console RPGs, I don't fault it much, if anything having to search for your party and having defined characters is a notable upgrade from a lot of stuff up to Dragon Quest II's point. The finale of the game even has a cool setpiece. The music is...fine. I don't think anything was particularly memorable, the song when sailing is neat I suppose, but it was enjoyable filler music. Graphically, I think the original game's with their NES sprites is actually nice, the simplistic look combined with the textures gives a lot of room for the imagination to run wild, sadly I had the Switch port which feels like it has very generic cell phone replacement sprites with the exception of the enemy monsters which are still Toriyama. Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of Toriyama's character design, so it's kinda mid for me there. That's not to say he's bad, just not to my taste.
I also think "up to Dragon Quest II's point" is a bit of a factor. Setting aside Dragon Quest III blowing the lid off things a mere year later, Final Fantasy 1 would come out the same year with a notably deeper battle system with a wider class variety, while Phantasy Star 1 the same year eschews the class variety but goes a lot harder on the story (and AFAIK gameplay depth). Ultimately, the game feels like an enjoyable half-step from the most primitive early console RPGs to the heavy hitters that will follow within its era. Don't be scared off by its purported difficulty if you're into these old school RPGs as it is a fun if basic time, but it isn't going to turn heads if you're not.
Bonus for being able to get an actual Puff-Puff.
Well, the combat is definitely an improvement upon the first game. Not only does the multiple party allow somewhat more strategy and having to deal with more specialized characters (basically a Warrior, a Warrior/Mage and a Mage), but enemies can now appear in numbers more than one means you can get tougher encounters or a bit more variety. A definite improvement, but I do feel this game really doesn't iterate that much. Ultimately, combat is 90% of the time either using basic attacks or using your strongest spells, in part because this game has almost no bosses and almost no buffs, debuffs or status effects. Despite going to a multitude of dungeons, most of them end on nothing special or a "boss battle" that is just against a horde of standard enemies. There's only one buff/debuff spell, both for defense, and status effects are powerful but with few powerful enemies not used often. There's almost no elemental weaknesses or anything like that, some enemies resist Kaboom etc but that's it, so there isn't a lot of decision making when it comes to spells to use. Basically, it is improved but feels half-baked. I did enjoy it, but in the sense that I can kind of dig old school grindy RPGs from time to time, especially as a game during podcasts or the like. Though I honestly basically didn't need to grind in this game.
One thing I was divided on was the inability to target individual monsters in a group, instead it auto-targets. On one hand, given this is an old school NES RPG it makes things go faster which is nice, and the game's auto-targeting was on point to be optimal. On the other hand, I don't really like losing control of my character and I feel part of why it worked was how incredibly simple the combat system is, and sometimes it would kill enemies under Snooze (who I'd rather wait until later since they're asleep) first because they had less HP than enemies not under snooze. I've heard this stays for many Dragon Quest games, so I'll be interested to see how that works out.
This game is infamously difficult and obtuse, but I had little difficulty with that despite very rarely referring to a guide, I can think of only two times I did. One, to make sure the Yggdrassil Leaf's purpose. Secondly, to check the final boss' resistance to status attacks after I got one on him to see if that was supposed to be a thing. Most NPCs in any given town will talk about some specific thing you'll need or a location, so as long as you talk to everyone you'll be mostly fine. Combat is very easy early on and only really ramps up in difficulty late, I game overed once early walking around with like 5 HP like a dumbass but after that only had a few character deaths even until the end game. While the end game is harder, I actually didn't find it that hard. You'll get Kamikazed or Thwacked if you're unlucky, but Kaboom is so strong it rips through enemies. The final boss is the real pain in the ass and is essentially a luck-based boss, but if you go at it enough they'll go down.
I will note I WAS playing on the Switch version (which is based on the IOS version), which from what I can tell made a few changes (relocating a plot significant item for example)...but it is considered to be "very difficult" by most people I saw AND the final boss is if anything harder. But I didn't have much issue. I wonder if this game only having single target healing trips people up? You really need to keep everyone up at near full HP almost all the time against the tough enemies unless you can kill them, because you can't casually heal everyone. It could also just be because Kamikaze/Thwack make things bad if you're unlucky. The bosses in the final dungeon are an absolute joke though, even if one has a tricky gimmick.
There isn't much to the story but it'll pass you by and considering this is one of the first console RPGs, I don't fault it much, if anything having to search for your party and having defined characters is a notable upgrade from a lot of stuff up to Dragon Quest II's point. The finale of the game even has a cool setpiece. The music is...fine. I don't think anything was particularly memorable, the song when sailing is neat I suppose, but it was enjoyable filler music. Graphically, I think the original game's with their NES sprites is actually nice, the simplistic look combined with the textures gives a lot of room for the imagination to run wild, sadly I had the Switch port which feels like it has very generic cell phone replacement sprites with the exception of the enemy monsters which are still Toriyama. Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of Toriyama's character design, so it's kinda mid for me there. That's not to say he's bad, just not to my taste.
I also think "up to Dragon Quest II's point" is a bit of a factor. Setting aside Dragon Quest III blowing the lid off things a mere year later, Final Fantasy 1 would come out the same year with a notably deeper battle system with a wider class variety, while Phantasy Star 1 the same year eschews the class variety but goes a lot harder on the story (and AFAIK gameplay depth). Ultimately, the game feels like an enjoyable half-step from the most primitive early console RPGs to the heavy hitters that will follow within its era. Don't be scared off by its purported difficulty if you're into these old school RPGs as it is a fun if basic time, but it isn't going to turn heads if you're not.
Bonus for being able to get an actual Puff-Puff.