Dragon Quest Heroes II Review

Heroically Different:

“Dragon Quest Heroes II” is a fantastic example of how to iterate on good foundations. Back when I reviewed the original in 2015 (review here) I called it a success, stating that its simplistic button mashing often achieved zen-like euphoria. The same is true here, yet thanks to a whole host of additional features and distractions, DQH2 is a far better game than its predeccesor, and something of a genre-benchmark.

Story:

The story starts quaintly enough, with a couple of cousins meeting after training in different countries. You’ll pick from between the predesigned male or female avatar, name them both and complete some simple tutorials that will teach you pretty much everything you need to know, all whilst enjoying some inane banter between the two immensely likeable leads.

Anyway, pretty quickly war breaks out between kingdoms – despite there being a worldwide peace treaty and no reason for bad blood between countries – and you’re forced to fight off your own people whilst defending the city. It’s a really interesting plot point that is sadly glossed over, but I suppose a cutesy hack and slash game isn’t the right place for such a complicated matter anyway. Soon you and a handful of colourful characters are off to bring peace back to the world, and whilst it isn’t going to blow you away, it works well enough to motivate you through the hours of button mashing mania you have ahead of you.

Gameplay:

Anyone who’s familiar with the original Dragon Quest Heroes game, or any Musou title, will know what to expect when it comes to the bread and button of DQH2. Missions consist of mowing down as many enemies as the PS4 can render on screen at once, and you and your party are designed with a host of satisfying, appropriately screen-clearing moves to dispatch them. Kill enough bad guys or complete fairly rudimentary secondary quests (that never detract too much from the star of the show) and a big bad will show up with a giant health bar, signalling the likely end of the level.

As a format this has always worked. It’s simple but it’s fun, and much like its predeccesor DQH2 is a good game to zone out to and have a mindless blast with. But luckily the devs at Omega Force weren’t satisfied with that, and expanded on the formula in meaningful and fun ways. DQH2 feels a little experimental, and almost always for the better, because of this. Instead of a menu full of missions, there’s a semi-open world to explore that acts as a hub of sorts. It’s full of vendors, side-quests, treasure to find, rare monsters to beat and a training ground for you to test new party members out in (or just to grind for a little extra experience). Whilst the world doesn’t do anything JRPGs haven’t done before, it’s an incredibly important feature that helps shave off the rough edges of Musou games. These hack-and-slashathons often feel repetetive, and whilst that’s still an issue here at times, messing around in the world genuinely mixes things up and keeps things fresh.

Musou games have toyed with these elements before, but they’ve never seemed to commit in such a meaningful way as they have with DQH2. Elsewhere you’ve got more foreseeable deviations – level ups and skill trees, gear hunting and number crunching, and even a fairly robust Job system for our two leads.

The Monster Medals are back from the first game, and they’ve been made less finicky and endlessly more useful. When beating foes, they’ll occasionally drop a medal you can pick up. This will instantly be added to your hotbar where a simple tap of the D-pad can have you summoning them to fight alongside you, calling upon their magic or even, in the case of the biggest baddies, turning into them to wreak destruction. This is an absolutely brilliant feature which again changes things up in meaningful ways. All of these new additions make DQH2 less like a standard Musou game and more like a Dragon Quest game first and foremost, simply with a different – and enjoyable – battle system.