PS3

Dragon Quest Heroes II

Role-playing (RPG)Hack and slash/Beat 'em up

Time to beat: about 25 hours

Overview

Dragon Quest Heroes II is a hack and slash game developed by Omega Force and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, and Windows. It was released in Japan in May 2016, and worldwide in April 2017. The game is a sequel to Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below.

Dragon Quest Heroes II mixes the hack-and-slash combat of Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors series of video games with the characters, monsters, universe, and lore from Square Enix's Dragon Quest series. The game is heavier on the RPG elements than most of Omega Force's other titles. World exploration was changed to resemble the typical Dragon Quest experience. Players can move their party to visit towns, wander the world map and initiate battle stages (similar to dungeons). Seamless random monster encounters may break up the pace between locations.

The story takes place in the Seven Realms, multiple kingdoms which surround the capital of Accordia. One thousand years prior to the start of the game, the Seven Realms were locked in a brutal war that was brought to an end by the wisdom of a great king named Unos, and his descendants would continue to maintain this peace to the present day.

Dragon Quest Heroes II was developed by Omega Force, who are better known for their Dynasty Warriors hack and slash series. Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii stated he wanted to have more playable characters in Dragon Quest Heroes II than the first title had. The voice acting was done by the same people as the first title, and two also voiced their respective characters in Dragon Quest VIII.

More than 580,000 copies of the game were sold in Japan. Game Informer praised the graphics and the controls, but noted the game's thin plot and repetitive gameplay. IGN was more complimentary, praising the improved story over the original, and praising changes to the combat system, but not enjoying the addition of further RPG elements to the game. GameSpot loved the open areas being paired with more intense story-driven "war zones", and further enjoyed online multiplayer for letting players encounter very powerful monsters to team up against. Polygon stated that the game was not great at either combat or its RPG elements, citing slow enemies and uninteresting quests.