Dragon Fantasy Book II Has a Release Date - And There Was Much Rejoicing

Thanks to the announcement of the new Vita Summer Select at the Playstation Blog, we now have a release date and pricing information about the upcoming Dragon Fantasy Book II.  On September 10th, we'll all finally be able to get the sequel to the fabulous Dragon Fantasy Book I that I adored, even though I never got around to reviewing it properly to say as much, for the price of $14.99 or, if you're a Playstation Plus Member (because you should be) then it'll be $11.99.  If I'm not mistaken, the original was under the same sort of discount deal, so this is all sorts of wonderful going on here.  It's only for the launch week, however, so you'll want to grab it ASAP because it's going to be so good, you guys.

To be honest, Dragon Fantasy is basically going through my childhood and making everything wonderful again.  Book I took after Dragon Warrior which was pretty much -the- RPG I played on the NES, and Book II is taking after Chrono Trigger which I talk about a lot and might just be my favorite RPG of all time.  The same 16-bit art style, the same on-map battles (meaning no random encounters), Area of Effect attacks and so on, they're all included in Book II which makes it really tantalizing to -me- at least, but you should definitely be interested in it yourself as well.  Book I proved that it can be a capable, enjoyable RPG, but Book II might just end up being a proper evolution into something great, and that's definitely why I'm looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, my brain is not cooperating with me tonight as I've had a headache for several hours, so I'm not going to be very wordy.  I just wanted to bring up Book II's release date and price and convey that I am quite excited for it.  Because I am.  And I'm going to buy it.  Perhaps even review it.  And the original.  Hopefully.

nothing wrong with shorter posts every now and then, or at least that's what I keep telling myself

Dragon Fantasy Book I is Pretty Neat

With the whole late PS Store Update snafu, it's pretty easy to sort of write off the whole thing with a dismissive hand-wave until next week, but this week offers two very compelling reasons -not- to do that:  Dragon Fantasy Book I and the Soul Sacrifice demo.  Obviously, tonight is for talking about the former (and not just because it was the only one I could download, coming in at a very nice 90 MB) because I purchased it literally right when it was available and managed to play a little bit of it before the toll of today's work forced me to partake in a little napping.  Which I must stress was entirely due to work and not at all indicative of Dragon Fantasy's quality as nothing short of extreme and lasting pain would have kept me awake this afternoon.

Dragon Fantasy Book I is very much a game that reminds me of Dragon Warrior and I'm sure that is intended.  It is also delightful for me especially as, like I mentioned sometime previously, I spent a good chunk of my childhood time with my NES playing Dragon Warrior when I wasn't playing Crystalis.  The actual style and build of the games are similar in more than a few ways, from the window placement to the battle screen that just comes up offering a perspective on the enemy (perhaps multiple enemies later on?, maybe not, I don't think Dragon Warrior did), to the overall look and feel of it.  It's very much an homage, which is nice, and offers that little bit of nostalgia on top of doing its own thing, putting its own spin on the same type of mechanics and style.

Though I already mentioned it in a previous post about Dragon Fantasy, I really should bring up the whole graphics overhaul thing now that I have actually experienced it.  Contrary to what I thought, the 'Classic' graphics and music are tied together where the Redone things are similarly bundled, but that's not a bad thing by any means.  The way you handle it is going into the settings (Setup?) and finding the "Enhanced Mode" toggle.  It's instantaneous, the switch, without requiring a reboot of the game or anything like that.  So, if you were so inclined, you could just stop anywhere and toggle it just to see what it looked like and what it looks like now, which gives you a real understanding of the work that went into it.  But there really isn't anyway to quantify what the change is without actually showing it off, so I'll go ahead and do that.

Classic/Original

Redone/Enhanced

That is literally the same area, same screen and everything since all I did was go into the menu, toggle it, take a screenshot, toggle it back and screenshot it again.  The only difference, of course, being that I waited long enough for the Status reminder window to pop up for the Enhanced version screenshot, but it's a little enough thing and the shots manage to show off everything well enough, I would say.  Some of the changes are subtle like Ogden (our main character for the first Chapter) and the town/village sprite, but they're definitely changed up and smoothed out to fit in with everything else that is most definitely a bit more dramatically different.  I'm playing it through on the Enhanced mode for now, only switching every now and then, but I might actually do a go in Original mode, depending on how long or short the game is and how much time that I have what with Soul Sacrifice hitting next week and the demo being out.  (Which I can hopefully download overnight)

I will say that I also called a definite integration of humor into the game based on the trailer that we got, however.  As you might be able to tell from the first screenshot I posted, the script has a definite level of snark and humor running through it that has been pretty refreshing and enjoyable so far.  They even managed to incorporate a Legend of Zelda reference (Literally the "It's dangerous to go alone!  Take this!") rather seamlessly into part of the opening bit of the first chapter.  On top of that, some of the monsters have a little humor injected into their own battles, such as whenever you fight a Mr. or Mrs. Rock Monster.  Their attack animations read in a way that suggests an interplay between the two, obviously, and is quite entertaining really.  Mrs. Rock Monster is played as the angry, nagging wife to Mr. Rock Monster who is either really unlucky, or is just really not happy in his relationship.  It's a little thing, but it's....honestly not something I've seen before, really, so it's worth a mention.

My time with Dragon Fantasy Book I has been brief, but I'm sure you can tell it's already left something of an impression on me, and I'm only more than happy to hop back into it.  It'll be a little rough juggling this and the Soul Sacrifice demo (and Disgaea 3 now that I've opened that door again because Dinah must become level 9999) but it'll be a worthy venture.  I'm curious to see how the multiple chapter/multiple character aspect of it plays out as well, since that's a throwback to another series of RPGs altogether.  If only there was more time in a day.

Dragon Fantasy Book I Hits PS3, Vita Tomorrow

For like, the entire time since the Indie-Themed Spring Fever Sale was announced including Dragon Fantasy Book I, I was under the crazed impression that it was actually Dragon Fantasy Book II, which not only was announced first but also included in all of the big Indie Lists that I used to say "holy shit so many Indies" and has generally been a known quantity as coming out to the PS3 and Vita for a while now.  Obviously being called Book II insinuates that there's a Book I and with no real mention of it coming to the PS3/Vita as well, I more or less wrote Book I off as inconsequential.  Or at least hoped as much because I was going to buy the hell out of Book II no matter what.  Well, the only little thing holding me back from doing just that has officially been assuaged.

Dragon Fantasy Book I, as in the first book of what is possibly a series of games, being that there are at least two of them, is being released tomorrow as part of the already-mentioned Spring Fever Sale.  So when Dragon Fantasy Book II comes out sometime later on this year (calling it now, I'm saying the Summer Sale), we will have all already had the chance to be initiated in what type of game this is, had a chance to experience the world and the mechanics and story already so that the proper continuation of it will be able to do what it is meant to do - continuing on from where Book I leaves off.  Hopefully now that both games will be on the same platforms, there will be some way to tie data from one to the other if they did, in fact, do that in their original forms.  Because that is always really neat when games do that and not enough -really- do it anymore.

So what -is- Dragon Fantasy Book I, you're wondering?  Well, that's a pretty easy question to answer.  Dragon Fantasy Book I is a throwback to the classic RPGs of yore, your Final Fantasies before they got crazy convoluted, your Dragon Warriors before they were called Dragon Quest, these are the games to think of when you consider Dragon Fantasy Book I.  Which....makes sense.  Given that Dragon Fantasy could be seen as an amalgamation of Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy in title alone.  I....hadn't actually noticed that until I started typing those sentences. Strange.  Anyway, the sprite style seems closer to Final Fantasy (basically FF1) and the combat style seems closer to Dragon Warrior 1 than anything which is an interesting combination if nothing else.  And since I played the hell out of Dragon Warrior 1 when I was a kid, I am all about this, suddenly.

I'm not prepared to say that it's a parody game, but the official trailer certainly paints the picture of a game that doesn't necessarily take itself super serious.  So at the very least, expect little bits of humor interspersed here and there, if not necessarily an outright humorous tale as you might expect from something out of Zeboyd Games.  Perhaps not a parallel I -should- be drawing, but, well, it's an easy one to make, really.  Zeboyd might not have revolutionized 'retro-humor' games or whatever, but they're certainly the biggest name of them at the moment, so it's inevitable that some allusions are going to be drawn if you focus on humor and retro-style graphics for your game for at least a little bit longer.  Personally, I don't see it as a bad thing, but I really can't speak for what the game has to offer until I have played it.  And I am going to play it.

Though, speaking on the graphics, there is something rather interesting on that to note.  Originally, Dragon Fantasy Book I sported a complete 8-Bit style 'Retro-throwback' look that I believe Dragon Fantasy Book II ended up updating to more of a 16-bit style.  Well, in porting the game over, the developers decided that it wasn't enough to do a straight-port and then decided to redo every single piece of art in the game to match a sort of almost-16-bit-but-not-quite style that they're calling "8-Bit as we remember it" because, honestly, I'm sure we do remember 8-bit games as looking a -little- better than they actually did.  The cool part about this is that it can be toggled at any time, so if you want to go -super- retro, you can flip it back to the original 'actual' 8-bit look.  Either the music shifts in type along with it (so, sounds more like a classic NES game on 'actual' 8-bit style) or you can shift the music independently of the graphics, but either way it means that the whole look and feel of the game is toggleable.  That is no small feat.

If nothing else, it's clear that there's been a lot of effort put into not only the game itself, but the porting and transitioning of the game to PS3 and Vita.  The improvements and changes I've already mentioned aren't the only ones, as Dragon Fantasy Book I will also include UI improvements already made to DFBII as well as adding an entire new section to the game.  If that's not enough incentive to urge a purchase, then that combined with the Indie Push and the sale price should be enough, hopefully.  If that's not enough, however, well....I dunno.  Maybe the posts I'll make -about- the game will do that.  Possibly.  Because I am going to talk about this game as well as buy and play it.  Which...is a novel concept lately.

basically my point is that I want you to buy this game