| Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line | |
|---|---|
 Box art of the original North American NES release, titled Dragon Warrior II | |
| Developer(s) | Chunsoft |
| Publisher(s) | Enix |
| Director(s) | Koichi Nakamura |
| Producer(s) | Yukinobu Chida |
| Designer(s) | Yuji Horii |
| Programmer(s) | Koichi Nakamura |
| Artist(s) | Akira Toriyama |
| Writer(s) | Yuji Horii |
| Composer(s) | Koichi Sugiyama |
| Series | Dragon Quest |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | January 26, 1987
|
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line,[a] titled Dragon Warrior II when initially localized to North America, is a role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a part of the Dragon Quest series. Enix's U.S. subsidiary published the American release, Dragon Warrior II, for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. Dragon Quest II is set one hundred years after the events of the first game.
The game's story centers on the prince of Midenhall, who is ordered to stop an evil wizard named Hargon after Hargon destroys Moonbrooke Castle. On his adventure, he is accompanied by his two cousins, the prince of Cannock and the princess of Moonbrooke. Dragon Quest II expands on the first game by having a larger party, more areas to explore, multiple heroes and enemies in a battle, and a sailing ship. The game's successor, Dragon Quest III, follows the ancestor of the main characters, the legendary hero Erdrick; and the three games are collectively called "Erdrick Saga Trilogy".
Planning began a month before the original Dragon Quest was released. One major goal was the development of a more exciting combat system, which was inspired by similar multi-character party systems such as the one found in Wizardry. The artwork that was used as the basis for the characters and monsters was painted by Akira Toriyama and then translated into pixel art. The game was hit with delays due to game balance, which were only fully corrected in the early sections of the game. This, combined with a staff that included students not familiar with the coding and debugging process, pushed back the release by a month. The developers also had many ideas that had to be discarded due to the technical limitations of the Famicom system, though some were later incorporated into subsequent remakes and the game's sequel, Dragon Quest III.
Dragon Quest II was successful in Japan; the original Famicom version shipped over 2.4 million copies. Later, the game was remade for the Super Famicom and the Game Boy Color and combined with the original Dragon Quest game in a release entitled Dragon Quest I & II. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan on June 26, 2014, and worldwide on October 9, 2014, as Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line. The game was praised for improving on almost all aspects of the original, including having better graphics, having a larger world to explore, and more characters to participate in a more dynamic combat system.
Dragon Quest II is known as one of the most difficult Dragon Quest games, especially in its late game, and retained that reputation even in later ports to other platforms that made the game somewhat more forgiving.
- ^ "NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
- ^ "All Famicom games sorted from the latest release to the earliest". Famitsu. Archived from the original on October 15, 2023. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
- ^ "Dragon Warrior I & II". IGN. August 30, 2000. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
- ^ "Enix Ships Classic RPG Duo". Game Boy Station. September 22, 1999. Archived from the original on February 12, 2002. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
- ^ "ドラゴンクエストI・II" (in Japanese). Square Enix. Retrieved 2013-06-22.
- ^ Demi Williams (June 18, 2024). "Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake launches this year for PC and console, Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake announced for 2025". TechRadar.
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