RPG Diary

Dragon Quest II

Dragon Quest was a hugely influential but very simple game that is not very enjoyable by modern standards. Its huge success led to a direct sequel in less than a year. Does the sequel hold up better than the original?

Title	Dragon Quest II (US Dragon Warrior II )
Year	1987 (US 1990 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

Dragon Quest II is a huge improvement over Dragon Quest. There are multiple party members and battles can contain multiple enemies as well. This change alone has a huge impact on gameplay. The world map is much larger and there are many dungeons to explore too (but thankfully torches were abandoned). About halfway through the game, exploration really opens up when the party receives the boat. The game becomes non-linear at this point as there are multiple MacGuffins to collect and you are free to do so in (almost) any order.

Like it's predecessor, Dragon Quest II does require a fair bit of grinding to advance safely. Unlike the first game, the variety of places to go and dungeons to explore helps break up the monotony and makes things more interesting. Unfortunately, things come crashing to a halt right before the final dungeon, the Road to Rhone. While the game progressed fairly smoothly until this point, I had to stop and grind for hours here. The dungeon itself is also very cruel: there's pitfall traps, endless loops, and confusing asymmetrical teleporters that effectively prevent backtracking. This final section completely ruined the game for me.

Dragon Quest II has a few balance issues that worsen over the course of the game. Enemies can now appear in groups and larger encounters are very dangerous. Enemies that can inflict sleep, damage the entire party, or — worst of all — inflict instant death can be nearly impossible to deal with. These abilites become very common in the endgame, which contributes to the extreme difficulty spike. Additionally, the magic-oriented party members become increasingly less useful towards the end of the game as spell effects do not scale with levels. By the end of the game, the sole "warrior" type character is the sole reliable source of damage, while the other two characters are just spamming healing spells to keep everyone alive.

There is not much plot in Dragon Quest II, outside of the opening scene (which apparently was not in the original Japanese release). While this is expected for the era, it means there is little payoff for enduring the brutal endgame.

In the end, I am conflicted about this game. I actually really enjoyed the first 10 hours, but the 5 hours of grinding at the end completely ruined it for me. I think I have beaten a remake of this game before, but I don't remember it being so painful — perhaps the remake(s) fixed the balance issues.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I actually enjoyed this game until the final dungeon, but the endgame was so unpleasant, it ruined the whole experience. I had more fun with this than Final Fantasy, but I think the grinding is worse than Final Fantasy II.