Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is the second entry in the Erdrick trilogy of the Dragon Quest series. The gameplay of Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is a major improvement over the original Dragon Quest (which has also been re-released), but it's still a lackluster game compared to other RPGs from the same era.
The story of Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line follows the Prince of Midenhall, who is a descendant of the hero from the original Dragon Quest. The Prince is spurred to action when the nearby kingdom of Moonbrooke is put to the torch by monsters in the service of a cultist known as Hargon. It's up to the Prince to form a party of adventurers with his two cousins (the Prince of Cannock and the exiled Princess of Moonbrooke) and stop Hargon's crusade.
The More The Merrier
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line improves upon the original game in a number of ways. The player is given control over a party of adventurers, rather than a single hero, which means that they can now engage groups of monsters. The three different party members have distinct abilities that they improve over the course of the game, and there are now three inventory sets that can be used to carry items. The spell selection has been improved and there are more options in combat. The world map is a lot bigger and the player is given more choices about how to proceed with the story. Chimera Wings and the Zoom spell can be used to warp to different locations and there are more places where the player can save their game.
Mo' Members, Mo' Problems
This isn't to say that Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line doesn't share some of the problems of the Nintendo Switch port of Dragon Quest, as the graphics are still terrible. The character sprites still resemble RPG Maker models, the artwork of the monsters appears to have been traced from Akira Toriyama's original designs, while the overworld is bland. The soundtrack is phenomenal in Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line and it almost feels out of place in a game that looks this shoddy. The dialogue still uses the overly verbose attempts at recreating Shakespearian English and it feels like a hollow attempt to insert some character into an otherwise bland story.
The battle system in Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is a step up from the original, but it has a new problem in the form of one of the most brutal random encounter rates ever seen in a JRPG. The player will be lucky if they can walk more than five steps without entering a battle, and the small variety of monsters in each area means that the creatures in the game will soon become very familiar. The dungeons in Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line are also quite large and uninspired in their designs, which means that they often boil down to constant random battles. On the plus side, the darkness mechanic from the first game is now gone, which means that the player can at least see the entire layout of each map at all times. The fact that the game lacks an auto-heal command (a common feature in later Dragon Quest games) means that they will often spend a lot of time staring at the same menu in-between battles.
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line would have benefitted greatly from a reduced random encounter rate and enemies that gave more experience points and gold when they died, but that would allow the player to breeze through the game. Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is a short game, clocking in at around six to seven hours, and a good deal of that runtime is spent fighting random encounters.
Can't Have The Trilogy Collection Without #2
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is a marked improvement over the original game, as it increases the scope of the gameplay in almost every way. The grind of the random encounter rate and the lackluster dungeon design means that it's not a must-have game by any means, but it's a more worthwhile purchase than its predecessor. The fact that Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line costs $6.50 at launch means that it's easier to recommend than Dragon Quest, so long as the customer is aware that it's a warts and all adaptation of an 8-bit JRPG that lacks many of the quality of life features present in modern games.
2.5 Out Of 5 Stars
A review code for Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line was provided to TheGamer for this review. Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line is available now for Nintendo Switch.