NES DragonWarrior 2, aka DragonQuest 2

 Rating: 9 😸😸😸😸😸😸😸😸😸

Ages: 5+, requires some reading, simplified combat, epic storyline, a few mild innuendos (watch out for the bunny ear bikini women!)

So, when I bought DragonWarrior 1, I also picked up DragonWarrior 2 and 3. Then played through all three.

DragonWarrior 2 is a much larger game than DragonWarrior 1. They took the success of the first one and made it bigger and better. The story is much deeper and more complex. They added in two other characters to join your hero on his quest. That was one of my major beefs with the game, though. In adding more characters and more story, they made it more confusing. It took me too long to figure out I had to go several different places looking for the lazy prince to get him to join my party before I could progress farther. The open-world had a few more hard barriers to progressing, one of which was recruiting the prince and princess to my party which was hard when I couldn't find them and couldn't remember who gave me the hints about it. This is where Google and walkthroughs can help, but I also like figuring it out for myself. Until I get too frustrated. So it got dinged one star for being just a bit too obtuse about things.

It plays very similarly to DragonWarrior 1 - simple controls, turn-based, and all the rest. There is more strategy involved in how you line up your party and what attacks and equipment you use. The game requires more brains than coordination, which I appreciate.

The story is satisfying. This time you are saving a larger world, a century after you saved Alefgard from the evil DragonLord. Now you are facing off against a bigger, meaner, bad guy. And it will take more quests, more battles, more buffing before you have the strength needed to save everyone and bring back life and light to the world.

I have the cartridge for this one for my NES. The original version requires a LOT of grinding. The upgrade is a huge improvement allowing the player to focus more on the story and less on marching around in circles near the towns so when the monsters almost kill you, you can run fast into town and heal up before heading out to grind more.

One of the best improvements was the ability to name the Prince and Princess. The game does have a random list of a few names it assigns them, but I like to type in my own names. So my hero is always named squid (yes, I don't capitalize it because that requires more typing with the joystick which is a pain in the butt and my least favorite part of the game), and I named the prince Fred and the princess Arbodee.

So pick up a sequel that is everything bigger and better than the original.