Indie game developers Adam Rippon and Bryan Sawler began working on what would ultimately become last year’s Dragon Fantasy in the mid '90s when they were in high school. The two met in an IRC chatroom, joined forces, and worked on over a dozen iterations of the game, including a Game Boy Color version -- then called Talisman -- that got the pair professional jobs in the industry, which for a while precluded them from actually carrying on with their personal project.

When Rippon’s father Tom Rippon, who served as the basis for one of Talisman’s eight characters, died in 2010, Adam was shaken. In 2011, on his late father’s birthday, Adam went back to working on Talisman, pruning the game to focus on Ogden, the character based on his father. The end result was Dragon Fantasy. Named half jokingly as homage to the games that inspired it, it represented the culmination of over a decade of work.

But that’s last year’s news. After several expansion stories to Dragon Fantasy, Rippon and company are working on an SNES-flavored sequel that looks damn good.

Dragon Fantasy II (PC, iPad [previewed], iPhone)
Developer: Muteki Corporation
Publisher: Muteki Corporation
Release: Fall 2012

Dragon Fantasy sees the coalescence of main characters from the first game’s story. The four are now partied up and facing greater threats still. While I haven’t played the first game (yet), I’m pretty interested in the characters I was shown, particularly Ogden. In his youth (prior to the events of Dragon Fantasy), Ogden was the prototypical teenaged RPG hero who saves the world. And then, nothing. He lived an otherwise uneventful and uninteresting life, balding and getting fat until the kingdom once again fell into the throes of terror. The first game is based on an old, washed-up knight’s attempts to recapture his former glory, which is an interesting premise in and of itself.

The bump up to SNES levels has paid off in what I’ve seen of Dragon Fantasy II, which looks great. One of the homes I wandered into had gorgeous tiger skin rug splayed out on the floor, the image of which has stuck with me, for whatever reason. In terms of narrative, Rippon says heavy inspiration was drawn from Earthbound (or Mother), with respect to presenting a serious story with kooky characters and quirkiness.

The team is also working on a cool 3D overworld, more akin to something like the PS1 Final Fantasy games. This dramatic change also promises to have some cool wrinkles in store, including Skies of Arcadia inspired ship battles -- though these ships will likely be anchored by gravity on the waters.

Of course, the team isn’t simply bumping everything up to SNES standards and doling out more of the same. While the first game’s combat system was a Dragon Quest-styled first-person affair, the combat system is being completely reworked this time around as a blend of real time and turn-based systems.

Enemies patrol environments in real time. Engaging them pits your party against them in the classic turn-based style (no ATB). Your other party members will square up against the enemy or enemies you’ve engaged and you duke it out. However, enemies in the vicinity can also get in on the commotion, creating a balance of trying to end battles efficiently before you get overwhelmed by nosy snoops joining the fray mid battle. Accordingly, you can run from battles, but successfully running merely gets you out of your current engagement; you still have to actively run away from the enemies from which you’re fleeing.

Additionally, there will be cooperative and competitive multiplayer. You can join a friend’s party, either bringing your own iteration of one of the party characters, or using your friend’s. Rippon said they’ve got it working with two players, but they should be able to get full, four-player cooperative parties going. Should you and a friend want to use the same character, Rippon says they’re considering allowing duplicates and simply ignoring the paradoxical clones as far as the story goes.

While cooperative multiplayer in a turn-based RPG seems dull, all player characters can run around independently of each other. In the same way monsters can run in mid battle, you can get into an encounter all on your lonesome while gallivanting around and your friends can, if necessary, run to your aid while it’s going on, which sounds neat to me. Another nice addition is the competitive arena mode, in which you take your story party, as you’ve trained them, and pit them against others. Reminds me of playing Golden Sun’s head-to-head mode and I love Golden Sun, so I’m down.

The first Dragon Fantasy was true to its NES roots in its visual style and Dragon Quest-esque combat. Though there are a lot of retro, pixel-based games floating about, Dragon Fantasy, in terms of color breadth and music, was actually close to accurate to what the NES could actually display -- and it looks brilliant despite this concerted restriction. That is the level of care going into the series, demonstrating the team’s care to do right by the games’ inspirations.

That being said, the team is not intentionally hamstringing itself. Great strides have been made to address some of the complaints levied against old-school RPGs. Two of the streamlined combat additions have me particularly excited. First, your party will give a good old boot stomp to encountered enemies that are laughably below your level, as opposed to wasting your time by putting you into a meaningless battle. While we’ve seen similar mechanics in more recent RPGs, like Persona 3, which has comparatively weak enemies naturally run from you in terror, there are still plenty of RPGs without such a system, so seeing it in implemented in an old-school RPG is rather cool.

Additionally, there is a sort of fast battle system, not too dissimilar to Persona’s rush mode, which sends everyone doing basic attacks while simultaneously speeding up actions and animations. In Dragon Fantasy II, mashing the attack button -- as RPG gamers are (seemingly unwittingly) apt to do in most encounters, anyways -- leads to your party attacking with great gusto, rapidly winding up the less interesting and less strategic battles you just want to power through.

I’m digging what I’ve seen from Dragon Fantasy II and I’m excited to play catch up and check out the first game, which reminded me how good NES titles can look. Interesting characters, a thoughtful aesthetic, great music, and a new spin on classic gameplay are more than enough to pique my interest.

If you’re also interested, you can check out the first game or visit Adam at PAX Prime and get a firsthand look at Dragon Fantasy II for yourself.

Legacy Comments (will be imported soon)

long john

I'm diggin it

Keres

Those graphics still look like an NES game rather than a SNES game (the color palette limitations especially).

Still, looks like a cool game and I'm always open to new RPGs.

Sir Tobbii

@Keres
That's because it's the first one, the sequel have no screens yet.

Abnegation

I think this is why I hate the retro game style that modern developers use. None of them know how to recreate the original style accurately. They always either mishmash as many games as they can, or use it as an excuse to have bad graphics.

The designs of the 90's were beautiful and cohesive. I hope they've improved their style for this one.

PhilKenSebben

Oh what's that in my pants? It's making them tent-like. Hrmmmm....

bsawler

Hey all! The afore-mentioned Bryan Sawler here...
The screenshots above ARE from the first game...so I decided (along with Adam sending more shots over to dtoid) that I'd toss a few here:

tekbunny

@bsawler

Thanks for the boner.

tim333

I bought the PC version of the first game, but the last chapter of it was seriously bugged (equipment didn't work) and I never received a response to my email to muteki about it. Even though I loved chapter 1 (and to a lesser extent the other chapters), I don't think I'd buy one of these again.

bsawler

@tim333 - I thought we had responded to everyone who had emailed us...I apologize if we never got back to you! We actually have an update coming out that fixes the equipment bug in chapter 3 (it's out now for iOS, PC/Mac in the next few days).

Sir Tobbii

@bsawler
Beautiful.

shaxam1029

Loved the first one, but it was really hard! The game was really funny and tons of fun to play though!
While the first one I felt was an homage to 8-bit RPGs the second one looks like it'll be more 16-bit, great news considering some of my favorite RPG's of all time are on the SNES and Genesis!
Looking great @bsawler! Keep up the good work!

revolverdropsalot

what is the deal with all these games being Mobile phone releases primarily?(yes I know this is for pc also)
Are all developers forgetting about the amazing handheld devices like the 3DS and Vita? this is the kind of game that would work well with an actual portable game console, as opposed to a 5 hour or less battery life touch screen phone

bsawler

@revolverdropsalot

While I'm totally not actually making any official statements... let's just say that just because the first game was a mobile release primarily, that doesn't mean this will be :)

Occams electric toothbrush

@bsawler Damn. Thats neat looking.

revolverdropsalot

@bsawler I wasn't aware you were making this game, I really like the look of it. Its refreshing to see a new old school RPG these days, I would totally be willing to shell out the cash if you ever decide on porting these to conventional gaming consoles or portables.

Adam Rippon

I loves me my buttons - I really want to get DF2 onto a nice portable system with real buttons :) That's basically my dream :)

Ragnar Dragonfyre

@bsawler

Is... is that a Chrono Trigger styled combat engine?

moo99

do they have to make it look like final fantasy iv? i loved final fantasy iv but it looks like shit

RPGFan2k

that still looks nes

but another goo jrpg i wont complain

RPGFan2k

oh nm I see the screen shots in the comments

thats snes jrpg style

Wowpst

Has there been any talk about a Steam release for these games? Cthulhu Saves the World got an extraordinary amount of traffic after they came out on Steam, so something like Dragon Fantasy would fit in nicely, too.

Majesticgoat

Why not any Android love? ;-;

bsawler

@Wowpst

There's been a lot of us talking at Steam...sadly there's been a definitive lack of them talking back in any way that gets our game out there :(

Adam Rippon

@Majesticgoat - We're working on it! We've got our engine running on Android, but not the game just yet. What device do you have? I'll make sure that when we do port it that it runs on yours!

Unless it's like a Huawei or something weird that I can't get my hands on - then you're on your own ;)

FZKilla

Glad you guys all like the new art style! We are working hard to honor the classics!

Abnegation

I rescind my previous comment now that the new screens are up.

Adam Rippon

@Abnegation - Very happy to please :) Those tiles in the new screens ought to be fairly authentically retro, 'cause I actually drew a lot of them over ten years ago for the GBA version we were building ;)

Dhaos

Sign me up

RPGFan2k

jrpgs rule

Theplayer131

@Adam Rippon

Make it work on the Wildfire S, and I'll be happy to give you all of my monies.

Every single of them.

Quuids

I love the original dragon fantasy. I saw parts of the second game at PAX east and it looks awesome. If you read this article go buy the original I think it is maybe $2. It is worth every penny. Not that the destructoid community needs to hear this but I wish more people paid attention to games like these. My hope would be to see it on the Vita but Sony would never allow great, inexpensive games on it.. Oh well, can't wait for dragon fantasy 2.

Dalia Pregillano

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weaponlordzero

Is it me or did the author forget to provide a link to get the first game? I'm interested in playing it!

weaponlordzero

Here is the link for the original game:

http://mutekicorp.com/games/dragon-fantasy/

Enjoy!

jarjarbinks

Hey Steven: Why mention Persona 3 when it's so obvious that the "boot-stomping" of easy enemies is borrowed from Earthbound (AKA Mother), like many other elements of this awesome game?

Did I say "borrowed"? I meant "adapted". *cough*