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.

I played the original Blossom Tales back near its launch and I enjoyed it for what it was, but it was very much a very basic and short take on a standard 2D Zelda game. Going into the sequel I expected more of the same, and to a degree that’s what I did get, the controls were still the same and simple and the art design remained largely unchanged, but to my surprise the game was a lot more fleshed out and had some neat and original ideas. The game was definitely a lot longer than the original and more fleshed out, which I enjoyed, though there was some level of tedium to it with so much of the world being locked behind specific items, which I actually enjoy, but with no way to mark these areas on the map, I ended up reexploring areas constantly to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Aside from that, I had a good bit of fun and can say confidently that Blossom Tales 2 is probably the best and more fully fleshed out non-Zelda 2D Zelda game I’ve played. I hope to see them go even further with a third game someday.

This game does an okay job of scratching that 2D Zelda itch, however it doesn’t measure up to even the weakest Zelda. It’s incredibly short, only taking a couple of hours and even then it could have been shorter if just the gameplay wasn’t so slow. Nothing about this game really stood out to me as unique, in fact there were quite a few instances where I thought “Oh this was just ripped straight out of the Oracle games.” It also wasn’t particularly challenging, combat wise or even puzzle wise, not requiring much thinking. That said, it was good enough for a quick little $5 game that was programmed by one person who seems to be a fan of Zelda.

P.S. It’s also a little buggy including where I had a few instances of having to reset the game and losing some progress because I got stuck in a block or something.

…also the ability to skip the entire first phase of the final boss just by opening the menu. Lol