Dragon Warrior II Review

Dragon Warrior II or, according to the title screen you can see in the screenshot says, Dragon Warrior Part 2, is the next game in the Dragon Warrior series of games. After the success of the first Dragon Warrior game, a sequel was obviously neccessary, and it shows because the first game got Akira Toriyama into trouble with his wife, due to not getting any work done, but I digress.

Dragon Warrior II is said to be the game that introduced a lot of concepts to the JRPG genre, but honestly, I have to disagree. Everything Dragon Warrior II did was done either by the Wizardry series or Ultima series first, like status ailments such as poison and paralysis. It might have introduced that stuff to a much larger Japanese audience, but that stuff had been seen before then in RPGs.

Unfortunately for all of us, Dragon Warrior II is a bad game. It's similar to the first Dragon Warrior game, yes, but it's nowhere near as fun or as easy, either. I can't believe that the game got even remotely good reviews, that is how bad it is to me. How bad? Well, there are some good things in the game, yes, but the bad overshadows them. The only question is, where to do we start with the bad things?

I'm sure this won't become cliched down the
line! Right?

The opening of the game gives a prologue about the events from the first game, saying that Erdrick's descendent came to Alefgard to kick ass and chew bubblegum and how he was all out of gum thanks to the Dragonlord, he rescued the princess of Tantegel, he slew the Dragonlord, married the princess and ran off to whatever the name of the land that Dragon Warrior II takes place in or on or whatever. Several centuries pass and now the line of Erdrick has three possible descendents who each took after one of the original Dragon Warrior protagonist's abilities. The main character of the game took the original descendent's strength, skill with weapons and armor, and fighting abilities, for example. I'll come back to this later, we're still in plot land, remember? Anyway, one day, as you can see from the screenshot that the King of Moonbrooke and his daughter were talking in the garden of the castle, when suddenly, Hargon attacks! The King and his soldiers fight valiantly, but all for naught. The king is easily killed off and the princess... well, the cutscene doesn't show it but she gets transformed into a dog. Yeah, don't bother killing her, Hargon, it's not like it'll come back to bite you in the rear later, right? Anyway, one of the soldiers manages to survive this obvious massacre and goes off to Midenhall, the location of another of Erdrick's descendents, in this case, YOU. He asks for the King of Midenhall (Lorasia in the Japanese version of the game) to stand against Hargon and defeat him, but the King says that he's too old and that this is a task that must fall to younger hands, and so he sends you off with the leather armor on your back, a copper sword, and 50 gold pieces. Thanks, dad! I mean, it's not like I'm going off to fight with a dangerous maniac who could wipe me out with a snap of his fingers, after all! But wait, Dad thought of that, too! He tells you to find your cousins to help you on your quest, meaning the Princess of Moonbrooke (Pudding in the Japanese version) and another in Cannock (whose prince is named Cookie. How very Toriyama-esque). Anyway, the other two have abilities that your character never will, while you have abilities that they never will.

Enemies attack in groups this time!
Be prepared!!

It's probably a good thing, too. You see that screenshot to the right? Well, enemies attack in groups of more than just one this time around. Hargon wants to see blood. At least the underlings of the Dragonlord (whose grandson you can meet in this game) had a sense of honor, right? I mean, I know it's because of gameplay reasons, but still! Anyway, you still have to fight these enemies to gain a lot of levels and gold pieces to move on, just like in Dragon Warrior I. Only this time, you have to do that for as three times as long, because you have three party members, instead of just the one.

You have three party members, each with
their own strengths and weaknesses.

Each party member doesn't just have their own strengths and weaknesses, but just like in Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, and the Bard's Tale, Dungeons & Dragons, you know, all the RPGs that inspired Dragon Quest? Well, just like how they had equipment lists for each character class, so too do the characters of Dragon Warrior II! The Hero is the warrior or the fighter of the group, meaning that he has the largest equipment selection of all three heroes and he has the highest HP total of the group, has well as the most strength and defense. This is made up for by the fact that, unless he uses a magic item, he can't use any magic whatsoever. The Princess of Moonbrooke is the spellcaster of the group, and she has almost no strength or defense on her at all, along with a pitiful HP pool, not to mention the smallest selection of equipment of the group. The Prince of Cannock is the one who is closest to the original Dragon Warrior I hero, in that he is well-rounded, preferring not to focus on any single stat. He has an okay selection of equipment to choose from, and he can cast some spells, but his stats and equipment list aren't anywhere near the levels of the Prince of Midenhall, and his spells don't have quite the 'oomph' of the Princess of Moonbrooke. Also, he tends to die the most of all three characters. Even the Princess of Moonbrooke can last longer than he can! Of course, this is mostly due to only having two real stats. Yes, two stats: Strength, and Agility. Strength determines how much damage you can inflict with weapons. Agility determines how quickly you can take your turn and it also factors into half your defense. He's also the only one to learn the Revive spell, which revives a character with 1 HP. 1. HP. Why doesn't it resurrect you for FULL HP!? What possible justification could there possibly be for just being revived with just 1 HP!?

The locations for the game have new sprites for
entry points, such as larger castles for cities and
castles.

The sprites for this game, or at least for entering locations look better than the original Dragon Warrior game, I'll give this game that. Looking at the screenshot to the right, you can tell that the castle sprite leads to a castle, right?


You know, speaking of overworld traveling, this was the first Dragon Warrior game to have two overworld traveling themes. I honestly think that the first overworld theme you hear is better, as it gives off a feeling of being alone on your journey, that your companions aren't with you, that you're on a hopeless quest and that you'll need help. The second overworld theme is more cheerful sounding, like everything will eventually get better. I mean, in this game, it doesn't, but it doesn't make you want to kill yourself. Speaking of the music, if this game didn't do anything else right, it at least got the music right. The music was composed by Koichi Sugiyama, a literal war-crimes-denier, but the music, or at least most of it, for this game is fantastic. If it didn't do anything else right, it at least got the music right!

The overworld is a lot bigger this time, so we're
gonna need a ship.

Speaking of the overworld, Dragon Warrior II takes the world map of Dragon Warrior I, and kicks it up a notch by making it much larger, introducing new continents and a ship travel system that was, again, in Ultima first, and it makes the exploration feel so much more rewarding than the first Dragon Warrior, because now you have more dungeons to explore, more land to travel through, and a bunch more monsters to fight! Also, speaking of the game's dungeons, this one also introduces dark spots to certain areas in dungeons, meaning that if you want to find the way to continue in the dungeon, you'll either have to consult a map or take a wild guess at which path has your destination in it. This... was not the last time it would be used. Sequels, but we'll get to those later. Unfortunately, it feels like you have to visit every dungeon, cave and tower both, in this game, whether you want to or not, unlike the first game.

Hargon is here to punish you!

Overall, I'm not exactly sure what else I can say about this game. Oh yeah, Dragon Warrior II is easily the most skippable of the Dragon Warrior games on the NES, and I'm certain most of you already have, so good job you! Basically, if you want to play Dragon Warrior II, then go with one of the many ports of the game that have come out. Just like Final Fantasy I, Dragon Warrior I and Dragon Warrior II were ported to numerous systems, usually as a bundle, for the SNES, GBC, Cellphones, iOS and Android devices. If you absolutely must play Dragon Warrior II for whatever reason, then go with one of the ports, avoid the NES original like the plague. Several of the problems found in the NES version were fixed starting with the SNES version, while the iOS/Android version is based on that one with a few new things, such as being able to rename the other playable characters, etc. The level cap for Cannock and Moonbrooke were raised to be on par with Midenhall's, new stats were added, Cannock's equipment list got expanded a bit, the music is better, there are now stat-boosting seeds, the list goes on for what was fixed in the remakes/ports.

As is Malroth!

If you absolutely must play Dragon Warrior II (I know I said this earlier but I can't stress it enough) avoid the NES version of the game, go with one of the ports I mentioned. The NES version is slow paced and will drive you insane. It wasn't even playtested after either the Moon Fragment Tower or the Cave of Malroth, but the point is still the same! The game was only given a six-month deadline, and by that time, they didn't have any time left to playtest the game, so the entire Rhone Plateau was never tested during development. The ports fixed that problem, though.


I rate this game 2/10. Avoid!




This review, including all text and screenshots, are © 2019 Jestan Diams. Please don't repost this review anywhere else on the internet or print it in a gaming magazine, without my express written consent.