Dragon Quest Heroes II makes one hell of a first impression. Within minutes of booting up the sequel, I was greeted with an open plain to explore. One that was filled with groups of slime and other familiar foes from Enix’s legendary role-playing franchise. This sense of open space and grandeur is an impressive departure from the original, which didn’t have any sort of connected world, but rather had the player using an airship to go to specific locales. This felt more like the Dragon Quest that I knew, and the seeds of an interesting continent to explore was quickly implanted into my brain.
This shakeup felt as if Dynasty Warriors developer Omega Force had responded to the criticism of the original in a major way. After a few additional minutes of exploring, I had stumbled across a nearby town. Called Accordia, the town was filled with kids running about and shops looking to sell me all sorts of weaponry. Since it was located smack dab in the middle of the world, there were also a series of branching paths that led to each of the seven areas that make it up. I was instantly giddy with excitement, and it felt as if this was the key ingredient that the original lacked. Beyond the new focus on exploration, a lot of Dragon Quest Heroes II will be familiar to anyone who has played a musou title in the past. There’s a lot of mashing on the square and triangle buttons to deliver epic combos (don’t be shocked to see the hit counter go into the mult...