Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line, titled Dragon Warrior II when initially localized to North America, is a 1987 role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a part of the Dragon Quest series. Enix's U.S. subsidiary published the American release, Dragon Warrior II, for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. Dragon Quest II is set one hundred years after the events of the first game.
The game's story centers on the prince of Midenhall, who is ordered to stop an evil wizard named Hargon after Hargon destroys Moonbrooke Castle. On his adventure, he is accompanied by his two cousins, the prince of Cannock and the princess of Moonbrooke (and the princess of Cannock in Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake). Dragon Quest II expands on the first game by having a larger party, more areas to explore, multiple heroes and enemies in a battle, and a sailing ship. The game's successor, Dragon Quest III, follows the ancestor of the main characters, the legendary hero Erdrick; and the three games are collectively called "The Erdrick Trilogy".
Planning began a month before the original Dragon Quest was released. One major goal was the development of a more exciting combat system, which was inspired by similar multi-character party systems such as the one found in Wizardry. The artwork that was used as the basis for the characters and monsters was painted by Akira Toriyama and then translated into pixel art. The game was hit with delays due to game balance, which were only fully corrected in the early sections of the game. This, combined with a staff that included students not familiar with the coding and debugging process, pushed back the release by a month. The developers also had many ideas that had to be discarded due to the technical limitations of the Famicom system, though some were later incorporated into subsequent remakes and the game's sequel, Dragon Quest III.
Dragon Quest II was successful in Japan; the original Famicom version shipped over copies. Later, the game was remade for the Super Famicom and the Game Boy Color and combined with the original Dragon Quest game in a release entitled Dragon Quest I & II. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan on June 26, 2014, and worldwide on October 9, 2014, as Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line. The game was praised for improving on almost all aspects of the original, including having better graphics, having a larger world to explore, and more characters to participate in a more dynamic combat system.
Dragon Quest II is known as one of the most difficult Dragon Quest games, especially in its late game, and retained that reputation even in later ports to other platforms that made the game somewhat more forgiving.
Gameplay
Dragon Quest II is a role-playing video game. It allows the player to control more than one character, each of whom has their own characteristics, and it is the first game in the Dragon Quest series to do so.Editors of Nintendo Power: Nintendo Power September/October, 1990; issue 16 (in English). Nintendo of America, Tokuma Shoten Publishing, 67. The game introduced a party system where, instead of beginning the game with an entire party as was common in previous computer RPGs, the player begins the game with only one character and gradually recruits more party members during the course of the game. The player controls his or her characters as they move in the game world. They can search treasure chests, talk and trade with villagers, equip themselves with weapons and armor, and cast spells.
While wandering fields, towers, caves, seas, and dungeons, the player randomly encounters monsters, after which the game shifts to battle mode. The game's battle mode introduces groups of monsters, which is an upgrade from the one-on-one battles of Dragon Quest. In the battle mode, the player gives orders to the characters on how to fight the monsters. Once the player defeats all of the monsters, the characters gain experience points and gold. The experience points raise the characters' experience levels. This improves the characters' attributes, and they may also learn new spells.
To win, the player must fight monsters to improve the characters' experience levels and get gold to buy better weapons and armor. Eventually, the player's characters become strong enough to make it to the next town or dungeon. This repeats until the player reaches the final boss and defeats him. However, the gameplay is not necessarily linear, especially after the player gets the boat. Exploration is a key component of the game. The game offers a few spots to save the game. In most of the towns, talking to a king or minister saves the game. In the American version, which incorporated a battery for saved games rather than the password system of the original, talking to the king also allows for the deletion and moving of saved games.
Dragon Quest II is noted for greatly expanding upon the gameplay of the previous game, Dragon Quest. The game is the first in the series to feature multiple heroes and enemies in a battle, as well as a sailing ship. It also allowed the player to land the ship anywhere, making it possible to explore the entire game world in an open-ended manner. It included other new gameplay features such as weapons which cast spells when used in battles.(1990) Nintendo, Enix America Corporation Licensed Nintendo of America Inc. Dragon Warrior II Map (in English) ENI-D2-US. Compared with its predecessor, Dragon Warrior II offers a wider array of spells and itemsEnix Corporation Unveiled Secrets of Dragon Warrior II map (in English) Enix America Corporation. and a much larger world. The game also expanded the inventory management system of its predecessor by giving each character an individual inventory that holds up to eight items, placing a greater emphasis on conservative item management between the characters. Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line was also the first Dragon Quest game to include a game of chance (played with Lottery Tickets that the player finds), and was also the first Dragon Quest game to use multiple key types and to include travel doors (warp gates).
Plot Dragon Quest II is set one hundred years after Dragon Quest. The story begins with an attack upon Moonbrooke Castle by the wizard, Hargon, who seeks to summon the demon, Malroth, to destroy the world. A wounded soldier escaped the battle and fled to the kingdom of Midenhall, where he informs the king of the attack before he dies. The king then commands his son, who is a descendant of Erdrick (known as Loto in Japanese translations and some later localizations), to defeat Hargon.Editors of Nintendo Power: Nintendo Power September/October, 1990; issue 16 (in English). Nintendo of America, Tokuma Shoten Publishing, 66.
The Prince begins his quest alone, but is later joined by two cousins: the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke (as well as the princess of Cannock in Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake). After finding the Prince of Cannock, who began a similar journey at the same time as the Prince of Midenhall, they restore the Princess of Moonbrooke to her human form, having been transformed into a dog during Hargon's assault on Moonbrooke Castle, which was reduced to ruins. As the heroes quest to find and defeat Hargon, they secure a ship that allows them to travel across oceans to reach new continents, including Alefgard, which is where Dragon Quest took place. There, they meet the grandson of Dragonlord, the villain from the previous game, who gives the party valuable information. He tells them that, by collecting the five crests hidden around the world (which the Hero of Dragon Quest I helped the faeries craft in the HD-2D Remake), the party can create the Charm of Rubiss, allowing them to defeat Hargon and his illusions. After obtaining the Charm of Rubiss, the party travels to Hargon's castle in the ice-covered plateau of Rhone and confronts Hargon in his throne room. Hargon is defeated, but he offers himself to Malroth and the demon emerges to destroy the heroes. Together, the heroes slay Malroth and return to Midenhall, where the Prince is named the new king.
In the HD-2D Remake, after certain events in the postgame, the Will of Darkness emerges and engulfs Malroth before sending the Scions of Erdrick into the void and revealing Malwrath, an enhanced form of Malroth controlled by Calasmos. Together, the heroes, with the aid of Rubiss and Ramia, destroy Malwrath and a new dawn is unleashed upon the world. As he's dying, it is revealed that Hargon was possessed and corrupted by Calasmos in order for him to satisfy the latter's own goals. The ending then proceeds the same. Afterwards, Ramia takes the party to Aliahan, the birthplace of the Hero from Dragon Quest III, where they learn about the origins of their ancestor.
Development
Like other main games in the Dragon Quest series, Yuji Horii wrote the story for Dragon Quest II, Akira Toriyama did the artwork, and Koichi Sugiyama composed the music. Co-creator Koichi Nakamura, Chunsoft's president, directed the game and did half of the programming.
Planning for Dragon Quest II began in April 1986, a month before the release of the original Dragon Quest. With the system and memory map decided, they started development in early July. At the beginning of development, producer Yukinobu Chida asked director and programmer Koichi Nakamura for a definite release date, and he offhandedly set one. Then the development team was divided into two groups, with one designing the story, as well as the monsters, and one doing the programming. The initial deadline was set for early November, but the game ultimately suffered a small delay. The development team had finished programming almost everything by the time of the initial release and believed the game could be released by the end of that year. (Translation is available) In the Japanese magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump, published on November 11, 1986, it was announced that the game would be released in late December.Weekly Shōnen Jump issue 50 in 1986, released on 11 November 1986. However, the developers found that the game was too difficult, so it was delayed for a month to adjust the balance. They had to finish the final version in mid-December, which they did, and then rushed to deliver to Nintendo to make the physical game cartridges. The game was released on January 26, 1987.
The developers believed that Dragon Quests one-vs-one combat system was "tedious" and too simple, and that the leveling system was "boring"; as such, they decided to have Dragon Quest II use a party system with players controlling multiple characters. In another game from the time entitled Wizardry, players can control a party of up to six characters directly; Nakamura saw this, liked the idea, and wanted to do something similar. Due to technical restrictions, they decided to use only three characters; the Famicom video game system supports the display of up to eight sprites side by side, and one game character used two units in a direction, so it was possible for up to three characters to talk with a non-playable character (NPC). Yuji Horii believed many players would play Dragon Quest II without first playing Dragon Quest, and thus had players search for the other party members. During development, the staff discussed the idea of deprecating the "stair" command of the predecessor several times. Nakamura has stated that the Cave of Rhone found in the game is inspired by a classic trick to exit mazes, that of always moving forward while sticking to the right-hand side wall to avoid traps.