Backlog Game Reviews 52 : Dragon Quest 2 on the Famicom

 

 

  Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews.

 

       For this review let's take a short look at Dragon Quest 2 on the Famicom. I've already reviewed the Game Boy Color version of this game, if you're interested in that version you can check that review out here. The original Famicom version was released in Japan on January 26^th, 1987. The North American version wouldn't get released until September of 1990, and as far as I know, it never got a European release.

 

 Leaving the first town in the game.

   The game was a huge hit in Japan. Upon release in 1987, it sold 500,000 copies, and at the end of the year, that number rose to 2.4 million copies. It got close to perfect scores from reviewers in Japan and is considered a classic RPG by many Japanese gamers. Dragon Quest 2 was also successful in North America, just not at the same level as the Japanese release. It got high scores from reviewers in North America and was considered to be a good game. How does this game hold up today? Let's take a look and find out.

 

The Story

 

   The story of Dragon Quest II takes place one hundred years after the first Dragon Quest. A monster named Hargon has managed to assemble an army of monsters and is waging war with the Kingdoms of the world. One day Hargon's army attacked the Kingdom of Moonbrooke. Everyone but a lone soldier was killed during the invasion. Using the last of his strength, the soldier traveled to the nearby Kingdom of Midenhall, and before succumbing to his injuries, the soldier told the king about the attack on Moonbrooke. After hearing this news, the King of Midenhall ordered his son to set out on an adventure and defeat Hargon.

 

 The wounded soldier talks to the king.

 

   Dragon Quest 2's story is nothing deep, but it is a nice improvement from the first game. The story is somewhat a continuation of the first game and has a larger cast of characters compared to the last game which just had one playable character. So what we have here is a story that is better than its predecessors but is still pretty basic.

 

The Gameplay

 Unlike Dragon Quest 1 you can encounter large groups of enemies at once.

    Similar to the story, the gameplay has seen some improvements. The most significant change is that now you have party members. This gives the game an extra layer of strategy. The last game had close to no strategy when it came to battles, all you had to do was attack and take a turn to heal when you got low on health. But now you have three characters that each serve their own purpose in the group. The Prince of Midenhall can't use magic so he's the party's main damage dealer, the Prince of Cannock has decent attack strength and can use weak magic, making him a jack of all trades. And the Princess of Moonbrook is the groups mage. She has acess to strong attack and healing magic.

 

 A group of Metal Slimes. A rare encounter, if you manage to beat them before they run away you'll be reward with a large amount of expereince points.

    Overall Dragon Quest 2 is a much better game than the first one. It's not that much different than the last game, but the new party system makes the game more enjoyable. The new party members add more complexity to battles, something the first game didn't have. If you're trying to decide if you should play this version over the Game Boy Color version, then I would say to go with the Game Boy. That version fixes the balancing issues the Famicom has. The end-game monsters aren't as overpowered as they are in the Famicom and the Prince of Cannock is stronger in the Game Boy version making him more useful during the final dungeon. Both versions are good, but the Game Boy Color is the better version.

 

 You get a boat early in the game. Once you do the game becomes open world and it's up to you to figure out what to do next.

 The Presentation

       There's not much to say about the presentation. The graphics are a little better than the first Dragon Quest, but not by much. The music is also good, I would say it's better than the first Dragon Quest's soundtrack. The music in this game is more upbeat and overall more memorable. It's a nice looking and nice sounding game, but nothing to write home about.

 

 The game has a huge difficulty spike towards the end. These monsters can easily wipe out a high leveled party in a single turn.

 Conclusion

   Dragon Quest 2 on the Famicom and NES is a good game. As said before, if you're a Dragon Quest fan or if you're a fan of retro JRPGs then this is a game you should check out sometime. Just keep in mind that there are better versions of this game out there. This game can get cryptic and it's easy to get stuck so you might want to use a guide if you do decide to give this game a try.

 

       That’s all I have to say about Dragon Quest 2 on the Famicom. Thanks for reading! Next time we'll look at a game picked out by the readers, Phantasy Star 3 on the Sega Mega Drive. I hope to see you again here at Backlog Game Reviews.