Dragon Quest II

Dragon Quest II from 1987 moved the series forward by sending players into the world with a party of three heroes for the first time instead of one, with a significantly bigger map, seafaring, and a more elaborate quest for powerful artifacts. It also became notorious as one of the hardest and most merciless games on the Famicom of its time - long treks between save points, crushing battles against groups of enemies, and the need to carefully grind experience and money managed to discourage even otherwise patient players.

The 2014 mobile release builds on the same reworked visuals as the mobile version of the first game and, above all, aims to make this notoriously harsh game accessible to new players. Touch controls replace the directional pad, a clearer map and faster, more ergonomic menus make it easier to navigate the sprawling world, and small adjustments to the game's pace along with the ability to save almost anywhere soften the worst spikes of the original difficulty without changing the actual structure of the three-hero journey itself. The removal of the need to travel back to a specific temple just to save is a noticeable relief in particular - in the original it was one of the main sources of frustration, since dying in the middle of a long expedition could wipe out hours of progress. The graphics got the same more colorful, more detailed coat as the remake of the first game, including reworked character and monster portraits, and here too the battle system remains built on selecting commands from a text menu, just operated by tapping a finger instead of a directional pad. It's therefore still the same unforgiving game with the same story, map, and trio of heroes, just packaged in a form that tolerates being played in smaller chunks on a phone between other things.

Why play it: This version is for players who want to experience the legendarily hard Dragon Quest II without some of the frustration the Famicom original offered, and who will appreciate being able to play it comfortably from a phone anytime between other obligations, with saving always at hand. Anyone looking for an authentic, unfiltered experience from 1987 with all its period-appropriate inconveniences and without any easing of difficulty should reach instead for the original Famicom version.