Dragon Quest Heroes II (PS4)
Mar. 8th, 2019 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe seven kingdoms have been at peace for a thousand years…but not for much longer! With a prophecy hanging overhead, two cousins and a host of interdimensional visitors must wage war to restore order.
I put this into my rotation much sooner than I might have otherwise at ARR’s behest. Instead of two knights, this time the heroes are a warrior-trainee and their cousin, though their movesets are basically the same as Luceus and Aurora’s (though swapped—the boy has ice and the girl has fire initially). While you’re always including your hero in your party, this time you can change their vocation, and with it their weapon choices and skill-set. Each vocation levels separately, but you can unlock stat boosts that affect all the vocations, so mastering all of them will make your primary one stronger.
Instead of using the alchemy pot to make accessories, you get the accessories from chests and enemy drop and use verdortrash at the alchemy pot to upgrade them. The monster suppression and trophy rewards remain, though they’ve been split into separate counters and the monster suppression has much more reasonable numbers for rare monsters. Speaking of vendortrash, you now can find in on the ground in regenerating glowing spots; drops from enemies automatically get collected; and there’s a “swap shop” to trade things you have in overabundance for things you need.
There are “overworld” areas (Wild Zones) that are separate from the individual battle War Zones. They include the glowing spots, are the location of many quests, have “Wanted” monsters, have people that need rescuing from monsters, have “formidable” bonus bosses, and have hidden paths that you can unlock as characters join your party. You can still Zoom straight to plot battles, but this change alone makes the game feel more like an action-rpg and less like a stage-based beat-em-up. There are fewer sidequests than the first game (and I miss the thank-you letters from them), but they do try to get more creative than “kill X monsters” or “find X items”. Oh, and there’s more emphasis on the online multiplayer (which I ignored), including inviting online players to assist you with story missions.
The overall game length is similar, but it seems like there’s a much longer path to 100% completion—you’d need to grind mini medals to get all the equipment, find (and beat) Wanted version of the strongest postgame monsters, and earn ungodly amounts of gold. I got about two-thirds of the trophies in the first game, but only about half in this in a few more hours.
I appreciated that there were more characters who had healing spells readily available. I leaned very heavily on Jessica in the first game because Hustle Dance was unique. Torneko and Meena have basically the same power here; and Kiryl and the Priest vocation can also get healing powers. That added survivability is what got me through the last few boss battles (which are a sizeable difficulty jump from the ones before).
Overall: Very similar to the first game, with a bit more variety and a little more freedom to roam. The plot is comparable and the play control is functionally identical. Solid as sequels go.
I put this into my rotation much sooner than I might have otherwise at ARR’s behest. Instead of two knights, this time the heroes are a warrior-trainee and their cousin, though their movesets are basically the same as Luceus and Aurora’s (though swapped—the boy has ice and the girl has fire initially). While you’re always including your hero in your party, this time you can change their vocation, and with it their weapon choices and skill-set. Each vocation levels separately, but you can unlock stat boosts that affect all the vocations, so mastering all of them will make your primary one stronger.
Instead of using the alchemy pot to make accessories, you get the accessories from chests and enemy drop and use verdortrash at the alchemy pot to upgrade them. The monster suppression and trophy rewards remain, though they’ve been split into separate counters and the monster suppression has much more reasonable numbers for rare monsters. Speaking of vendortrash, you now can find in on the ground in regenerating glowing spots; drops from enemies automatically get collected; and there’s a “swap shop” to trade things you have in overabundance for things you need.
There are “overworld” areas (Wild Zones) that are separate from the individual battle War Zones. They include the glowing spots, are the location of many quests, have “Wanted” monsters, have people that need rescuing from monsters, have “formidable” bonus bosses, and have hidden paths that you can unlock as characters join your party. You can still Zoom straight to plot battles, but this change alone makes the game feel more like an action-rpg and less like a stage-based beat-em-up. There are fewer sidequests than the first game (and I miss the thank-you letters from them), but they do try to get more creative than “kill X monsters” or “find X items”. Oh, and there’s more emphasis on the online multiplayer (which I ignored), including inviting online players to assist you with story missions.
The overall game length is similar, but it seems like there’s a much longer path to 100% completion—you’d need to grind mini medals to get all the equipment, find (and beat) Wanted version of the strongest postgame monsters, and earn ungodly amounts of gold. I got about two-thirds of the trophies in the first game, but only about half in this in a few more hours.
I appreciated that there were more characters who had healing spells readily available. I leaned very heavily on Jessica in the first game because Hustle Dance was unique. Torneko and Meena have basically the same power here; and Kiryl and the Priest vocation can also get healing powers. That added survivability is what got me through the last few boss battles (which are a sizeable difficulty jump from the ones before).
Overall: Very similar to the first game, with a bit more variety and a little more freedom to roam. The plot is comparable and the play control is functionally identical. Solid as sequels go.
