When the grind was bad

So you've done it, you've played Dragon Warrior 1, you've beaten it. It took you a little while, but the grinding* paid off. Heck, it was even enjoyable. Now you're thinking, 'oh man, there's a sequel?"

*Grinding Definition: Doing a repeated series of events until you can molly wop the next boss into oblivion

For the gameboy color Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 were a same-cartridge deal so in 1998 (or whenever you bought it) you didn't even have to wait to play the next version, you could just start it right up.

You might not notice it for the first few hours, but by hour 8,000 (a slight exaggeration) you realize that this game is a grindfest with no end in sight. Sure it's got some of the same things that made the first popular, but the developers decided somewhere along the way that they didn't really want players completing this game.

But I did, years later on an emulator. Let's talk about it:

Music:

Okay, so same guy as the first. Legend in the industry Koichi Sugiyama. It's very hard to complain about the soundtrack in this game. But I'm going to anyway. The overworld theme is great, the dungeon themes are great, the encounter music is awesome. There's a decent variety of music for the first 3/4 of this game. But then it suffers due to the length of play. I do love the compositions, but once you've heard it for the millionth time you start to wish that there were different late game pieces that were different. This is not a fault of Mr. Sugiyama I believe, but of the game biting off a little more than it can chew

Music 3.5/5

Animation:

Akira Toriyama is a saving grace for this game. I will say that some of the sprites was disappointing to see just a change of color but again I think that has less to do with the overall animation and simply lazy development. Each sprite does have amazing detail for the time, and there are dozens of extra landscapes. With 312 total monsters that beats out a certain other famous monster franchise on it's second season, so I won't fault the animation for recoloring other sprites.

Graphically on the gameboy color it is identical to the first one due to it being not only for the same system, but literally the same cartridge. If we were talking about the NES versions of the game, then yes there are slight differences between the two versions, but in this case it's still very good animation for the time.

Animation 4/5

Plot:

I'll be honest here. I don't hate the plot, it's really not that bad. With two extra characters to bolster your party it gets very interesting as you try to balance what that looks like in your party. In the first few parts of the game the story is enough to keep you on that grind.

It does get a little repetitive late game, but it's hard to find a AAA game now that doesn't. The storyboard could use tweaking, but there are no serious plot holes that need fixing, if anything it just seems a little scattered at times.

Plot: 3/5

Gameplay:

This. This is where we get critical. So you pick up two extra characters in this game, so it should take a third of the time right? RIGHT?! You would think that, but let's start off by saying that it takes forever and a day to recruit them in the first place.

Once you do finally recruit them, it's not like they are the level of the main hero. Nope, you've gotta start grinding for them too. But the encounters become easier right? Wrong again bucko. The encounters beef up after you pick up each respective character. Which might not be such a bad deal if they were a similar level, as is though, I'd be shocked if you didn't end up carting* them around half the time.

*Carting definition: When a character dies, but instead of not appearing in the lineup they are a coffin that follows you, presumably on a cart.

The basic principle is the same as the first. Walk the over world, fight random encounters (more on this in a sec), get gold from the defeated monsters, buy new equipment. Repeat. The problem with this game is that holy mother of slimes it takes forever to get the required amount of gold for anything. And now you have three mouths to feed when it comes to equipment, herbs and everything.

The devs came up with a solution though. A million. Random. Encounters. Have you ever wanted to get assaulted by monsters every four or five steps? Then have I got the game for you. Yeesh. It gets worse in the water too. Water levels am I right?

But hey, there's gotta be a fast travel option right? lol. Sorry man. Well the map's a manageable size right? Lol. Well they certainly wouldn't have you search for a ship in like 10,000 squares of open sea to get you to find an ESSENTIAL item right? lol. Well, it's not like the quests are so repetitive that they have you going to many of the same locations over and over again trying to find it right? lol. Well it's not like there's not an over world map to find out exactly where you are right? lol. Well it's not like- just stop man.

What is the same as Dragon warrior 1 as well, direction pad controls the over world direction and toggles options in fights. The A and B button help you interact with things, and select options in fights. It's the one of the two parts of the gameplay that is decent. The second that makes this game anywhere worth playable is the fact that with all three characters they have a delicate balance of what they're good and bad at. Figuring that out and stacking your party with the items they need and which spells to produce when and where can be fun.

Gameplay 1/5

Overall 2.5/5 - I rounded down, because of what happens when you need an Yggdrasil leaf (a very frustrating part of the game trust me)

Disclaimer: Worth a playthrough if you're trying to complete the entire series, chronologically it comes after two, which is after three, it's a trilogy so worth it for story. If you don't care about needing to play it in it's original form, I highly suggest an emulator (which of course you bought the game and so ported it for yourself only to use) and bumbing the speed up to like 2x or 3x. Makes it more bearable.