Review: Dragon Fantasy Book II
Dragon Fantasy Book II is a 16-bit style JRPG by the fabulous people over at Muteki Corp. Well, to be fair, I’ve only ever met one person from Muteki Corp., but I assure you that she was quite nice. However, the point here is that they’ve made a greatly enjoyable game that is a veritable love letter to SNES era games like Final Fantasy III (or FFVI if you’re keeping real count) and Chrono Trigger. The graphical style, animation, music, and combat will bring on tidal waves of nostalgia for anyone that cut their gaming teeth on those classic titles. So buckle in for some serious Mode 7 scaling magic, pixelated monsters, and victory music.
Tell us a story
It isn’t necessary to have played the original Dragon Fantasy in order to enjoy this installment. The plot will be explained well enough that you should be able to get the idea of what Ogden, Anders, Woodsy, and Ramona are all up to. The story is well told and I particularly enjoy sections in these style games (as well as this one in particular) where parties are split and characters are forced to go down separate paths for a while.
Dragon Fantasy Book II is highly referential. The more familiar you are with various nerd culture things, the more you’re likely to find amusing in this game. Nods to Star Trek, Doctor Who, other indie games, 80’s movies, and even a certain popular typeset are scattered throughout the game. Which isn’t to say that the humor doesn’t stand up on its own if you’re not particularly familiar with all of these things. To the contrary, the quirky humor is what makes most of the story click.
Side quests!
Here’s where the completionists are going to get completely sidetracked and obsessed with this game. There are a series of Bounty Quests that will keep you busy tracking down lost objects, slaying bothersome monsters, and collecting wayward pets for desperate townsfolk. Why are townsfolk so darn needy? Why can’t I actually resist being handed another quest? Does your alien cat from another game need me to go find its aberrant, tentacle covered squeaky toy of unspeakable horror? No problem!
The other thing that’s seriously been causing me to drag my feet so far is the huge array of monsters. That’s not a complaint, but it is a sticking point because you can capture the monsters you encounter in the game and turn them into companions. So I’m obsessively capturing each new creature type I come across because I’m apparently stricken with some kind of damn Pokemon disease. I swear that’s going to be a real disorder one of these days.
The meaty bits
So you probably want to know how the game actually plays by now. If you ever thought Chrono Trigger actually had the right idea, you’re going to love the bejeezus out of Dragon Fantasy Book II. All enemies are visible on the map and many are avoidable if you so choose. That seems silly to me because you still need to gain levels, but you play how you want. You’re never punished with unending random battles just because you want to make sure you explore an entire map and loot all the delicious treasury bits before leaving. Monsters will respawn in an area if you exit to the overworld map and return. You can return to capture monsters or grind levels to your heart’s content. Combat itself is handled one round at a time. You enter in the commands for all of your party members and then all actions are resolved based on the quickness of you and the enemies. No weird meters and no punishment for taking time to consider your next move.
Besides getting your gear from treasure chests or stores, there’s also a crafting system in the game. You can purchase crafting manuals from stores as you progress through the game and make up items for your characters or upgrade old ones as you go along in the story. It’s particularly useful for upgrading healing items because after a while you just need more potent medical herbs to get the same feeling of satisfaction that you had when you started out.
What more could you want from a retro-style JRPG? Dragon Fantasy Book II is available as a cross platform PS3 and PS Vita game (one purchase gets you both versions) that supports a cross-save function. Play on your PS3 at home and cross-save your game for the PS Vita to take with you on the road and continue your adventure. Don’t forget to liberally sprinkle on the cheevos because I know how much you people ravenously crave cheevos. There’s so much to love about the game that I can’t help but recommend it as a purchase for any fan of the genre. The game had a few annoying bugs at launch which were addressed by yesterday’s patch. The game is much smoother now and I appreciate the commitment of Muteki Corp to making sure that issues are addressed as quickly as possible.
