Honestly, I think the Box Art says it all. This cover art
represents everything I thought totally awesome when I was ten. Look at the heroes' sweet horns! You know those capes are
imbued with properties of magical awesomeness causing them to always
look cool and never get in the way. Let's go fight some monsters in an
exciting and triumphant fashion like it's what we were born to do!
As I previously said: As a sequel, Dragon Warrior 2 delivered . Not only is it a true sequel, continuing the story of the previous game, but it has an expanded world and game mechanics. This is the kind of growth I had always wished for in games and DW2 heavily informed my expectations. The age at which I played Dragon Warrior 2 does a lot to color my memories. The game was so BIG. I remember dedicating hours and hours on weekend rentals getting my first party member, the prince of Middenhal. That obnoxious prince of Middenhal who always seemed close to death. I remember upgrading my weapon to the iron sickle, feeling pretty badass. I also remember having some coaching during this game as my other family members were still participating in video game time.
It's not that I needed the coaching (my pride would not allow it) but it is always nice to have someone along with you for the adventure. I think it qualifies as a Family Fun Time
game, because I remember EMZ helping with and also commenting
on the different creature designs. Gotta love the smiles on the slimes
and on the drakees. There's something funny about that goofy
smile on a creature whose only desire is to kill you.
I
only ever rented Dragon Warrior 2. I didn't beat it then, though I
tried and tried. I loved having a party to build, I loved raising
levels and I loved that each character was different. I could usually
pick up the sorceress by the end of one rental (at Placer TV Video). But
then I'd have to return it, hoping and praying the save file would still
be there next weekend when I aimed to rent it again.
In this way, Dragon Warrior 2 has always been a special title for me. I owned and beat the first game more than once, but the second was elusive and expanded. I never knew what the limits of that game were, and it leaves a nice feeling of possibility.
-D
P.S.
Here's the wikipedia article for some background.
Also, a gamasutra article about the history of dragon quest. For further reading.
As previously mentioned, I will be calling this game and series 'Dragon Warrior' rather than 'dragon quest' to keep with my own experience. It wasn't until many years later that I learned of the name difference, and that the US games began being called dragon quest. For me it was always dragon warrior.
As a sequel, Dragon Warrior 2 was a game that delivered. Nowhere is this more clear than the Overworld map. Allow me to... illustrate (pun intended.) Have a look at this:
In that little box there, is the original map from DW1. Yes, not only did Dragon Warrior 2 introduce Enemy Groupings, a party of three characters to play and a ship to cross the sea, but it also expanded the world map, so greatly that the entire map of the original game is able to fit in one corner of our new, expanded world. Each one of these additional continents is full of towns and dungeons for you to explore. You just can't beat that.
Enix could easily have invented a new world, of comparable size to the original. They could have introduced new features, or simple shuffled around the old ones. Instead they built a much larger world around the location of the original map, the inclusion of which is not only great for the sense of scale, but also a sense of time and history (Dragon Warrior 2 takes place 100 years after the first game).
-D
P.S. There is some loss of detail between the two maps. The continent of Alefgard is actually slightly smaller than in the first game. Hills no longer slow you down as you walk. But these losses are small in comparison to the amount of real estate you gain.
Of all media, my first love was books. Before I'd ever seen an 'Intendo' or played Atari, or, as far as I can tell, even watched TV, my Mom would read to us kids every night before going to sleep. And I don't mean to brag, but she was a fantastic reader. My Mom always loved children's lit, and she read with great enthusiasm. It didn't hurt that she had tastes suited to her particular talents, the two favorites being Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. Highly lyrical writing, my Mom would read these to us over and again in her bubbly, sing-song reading voice, and we grew to love and anticipate reading time. She would hold the books open for us to see, and I would follow my mom's voice and the words on the page, slowly decoding them as I learned to read myself.
The first career I ever wanted was to be a novelist. Long before I knew anything about what it was like to have a job, or support myself, I was sure I wanted to write books. The earliest effort I can still recall was a story about Dragon Warrior II (fanfiction!). I borrowed the plot, setting, names and most of the action from the game, but I filled in the details. I seem to remember I finished the first chapter and it was maybe ten binder pages long. It involved the main characters being sent on their journey by the king, and then going to the weapon and armor shop to buy their gear, then going to the Inn to sleep. Pretty generic, I know, and yet I still remember what the town looked like in my mind, the real-world variation on the 8-bit Dragon Warrior graphics.
The power of the imagination is really amazing to me; even (seemingly) generic, unoriginal thoughts have their own unique qualities. And books have an amazing ability to bring this out in people like me. Even a writer who spends very little time on character description - my mind will simply insert a character of my own making based on... it's own arbitrary decisions, I guess. Nothing can quite do this for like a book. I'm not sure why, but I think it may be the fact that there are no pictures. That through words, only, my imagination builds a world of depth. (I'm really going to begin speculating here, so... consider yourself warned. )
If the internet explosion of fan art is any indication, other people get their own inspired images video games and other media. Not to mention my own example of Dragon Warrior II. However, that example was informed by the act of writing, the imaginary world took shape as I wrote about it. I am tempted to cite the lower-detail, symbolic imagery of DW II and other 8-bit games, not to mention comics and cartoons-- in an effort to claim that the more realistic graphics of movies, tv and modern video games somehow dumb down the imagination and don't challenge it as much. But that's probably bullshit. I mean, there is intuitive sense there, but I have seen plenty of movies and had dreams about them, and seen new worlds of creativity using the imagery contained within.
It's not like I can measure this shit, but I am wildly tempted to place video games and books in a Versus context, instead of co-op, as I did with my DW II writing as a young'un. Am I just aggressive and cantankerous? Or is there something there, and I can't quite figure it out? Whatever the case, I do know that I'm prone to asking rhetorical questions, so that must count for something.
In conclusion, I haven't been playing a lot of games lately, and I feel like what I really need is a good book. I'm thinking Murakami. I also think that books and games are fundamentally similar, and obviously different. I'm mostly interested in how they are similar, and I'd like more of that part, please. Thanks.
-D
