Dragon Knight II

Dragon Knight II (ドラゴンナイトII) is a fantasy-themed eroge role-playing video game in the Dragon Knight franchise that was originally developed and published by ELF Corporation in 1990-1991 only in Japan as the first sequel to the original Dragon Knight game from 1989. The game is an erotic dungeon crawler in which a young warrior Takeru fights to lift a witch's curse that has turned girls into monsters.

Dragon Knight II
PC Engine cover art
Developer(s)ELF Corporation
TamTam (PC Engine)
Publisher(s)ELF Corporation
NEC Avenue (PC Engine)
Director(s)Fumiko Suzuki
Producer(s)Sachio Ishihara
Toshio Tabeta
Designer(s)Masato Hiruta
Takami Sugimoto
Programmer(s)Atsushi Kanao
Takefumi Kawakami
Hideki Iwatsuki
Artist(s)Hiromitsu Suga
Atsuki Mizusawa
Kouichi Mikado
Composer(s)Torou Hara
Tomoyuki Hamada
Shinji Yoshikawa
SeriesDragon Knight
Platform(s)MSX2, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-9801, Sharp X68000, PC Engine Super CD-ROM²
ReleasePC-98
December 20, 1990
X68000
February 28, 1991[1]
MSX2
March 1991[2]
PC Engine
August 7, 1992[2]
Genre(s)Dungeon crawler, eroge
Mode(s)Single-player 

Following the commercial and critical success of Dragon Knight II, ELF followed up with Dragon Knight III / Knights of Xentar in 1991. A censored remake of Dragon Knight II was published by NEC Avenue in 1992.

Gameplay
Combat gameplay on the PC-98

Dragon Knight II is available only in Japanese. Its gameplay system has not changed much since the first Dragon Knight game, as it is still a standard dungeon crawler with first-person view perspective and 2D graphics. The player spends most of the time navigating dungeon-like mazes and fighting enemies. As progress is made, the mazes will become more complicated, but as in the first game there is an aid for the player in the form of a mini-map with grid coordinates. The player can also visit shops and converse with non-hostile NPCs.

The game starts with just one player character, Takeru, but two other characters join up later on. The game's battle system has also undergone minor changes. It still features turn-based battles that are mostly randomly generated, but the fights are better balanced than in the first game. The player can attack, defend, and use spells and items to deal with various types of female enemies (berserker, banshee, catgirl, centaur, elf, harpy, ninja, mummy, werewolf, and so on), who are being fought only one at a time. These enemies are actually girls who have been transformed into monsters, and whenever the player character fights off one of them, the subdued enemy loses her clothing. Later, when the enemies revert to their normal self, in their gratitude they offer themselves to have sex with the protagonist in a cutscene (censored in the console versions). There is also only one boss to beat at the end.[3][4]

Plot

Characters
  • Takeru Yamato (ヤマト・タケル), the protagonist of most media in the Dragon Knight franchise, is womanizing young swordsman who arrives in Phoenix following his victory over the evil Dragon Knights and after Baan made him deliver mysterious scriptures there. At the end of the game, the mystery of his birth and his destiny are revealed. Voiced by Akira Kamiya.
  • Baan (バーン) is traveling burly merchant of great physical strength, who first sends Takeru to Phoenix and later joins him on his quest. He seems to be harboring a secret for why he has been avoiding Phoenix and later falls in love with Sophia. Voiced by Banjo Ginga.
  • Sophia (ソフィア) is lovely white magic-user who arrives to Phonenix and offers to aid Takeru mid-game. She is capable of casting healing and teleportation spells, but can not engage in physical combat. Voiced by Sumi Shimamoto.
  • Mesaanya (メサーニャ), the game's antagonist, is sexy evil witch who hates all men because of the war 300 years ago and has taken the girls of Phoenix. Voiced by Yumi Nakatani and Risa Hatayama. She also returns as a boss in a special quest "Dragon Rush" in 2017's Dragon Knight V.[5]
  • Elder (チョウロウ) is the old chief of Phoenix, who has been looking for a way to get rid of Mesaanya's threat. Voiced by Kōji Yada.
  • Kate (ケイト) is Phoenix Elder's beautiful granddaughter taken hostage by Mesaanya, who uses Kate to taunt the heroes by increasingly molesting her. Kate fancies Takeru even as she is already engaged. Voiced by Aya Hisakawa. In Dragon Knight V, Kate can join the party as a player character after defeating Mesanya.[6]

Other characters and their voice actors include the Taverner (Totani Koji), the Weaponsmith (Yukitoshi Hori), the Old Witch (Hiroyuki Sato), the Apothecary Witch (Isamu Tanonaka), Rem (Lisa Hatayama), Mei (Noriko Namiki), Messiah (Natsuko Yamada), Merumo (Mayumi Horikawa), Cherry (Akiko Sato), Orchid (Azusa Nakao), Mami (Kaori Ohara), Hamy (Minako Takenouchi), Rika (Tomomi Uesaka), Monami (Masami Suzuki), Mischa (Mihoko Fujiwara), Tanya (Yasuko Kajimura), Nadia (Yuki Kato), Bunny (Junko Shimakata), Mimi (Yoko Asada), Paula (Naomi Matamura), Betty (Yumiko Sakita), Marie (Mayumi Seto), Lina (Mayumi Shigeno), Eve (Megumi Kanba), Nina (Naoko Nakamura), and Lara (Yasuko Hirayama). The game was narrated by Kaneto Shiozawa.[7]

Story

The vagabond youth hero of the first Dragon Knight, Takeru Yamato, wanders into a small town of Phoenix and finds it terrorized and devoid of young men. Phoenix had been once ruled by a group of powerful wicked witches until they were destroyed by the all-male Dragon Knights. Three years before the events of the game, a woman known as Mesaanya had arrived in Phoenix. At first she has appeared very friendly and gained the villagers' trust as a healer, but then she revealed her true colors as she took over the Witch Tower and forbade the love between men and women. Next morning after Takeru's arrival, he sees the town changed, as Mesaanya steals the set of seven evil-sealing holy scriptures that Takeru delivered before it can be used against her, possesses a young maiden named Kate, and also kidnaps 28 other village girls and turns them into minions to guard the Witch Tower. Reluctantly, Takeru decides to enter the tower and collect the scriptures to break the curse.

The ultimate goal of Takeru is to defeat the witch, who is supposed to wait at the top of the tower, but he also needs to rescue the girls one by one. During the course of the game, Takeru is joined by a burly merchant named Baan, who has originally sent him to Phoenix, and a mysterious spell-casting priestess named Sophia. He also meets and rescues Kate's fiancé, a young man from a neighboring town who went first to rescue Kate without any combat experience and disappeared. Eventually, all the bewitched girls are saved and it is time to find Mesaanya, since the witch's throne room is empty and Kate herself is also not found. Looking for them, Takeru learns that the witches have been conquered with the help of the special-metal Falcon Sword and the Genji Armor capable of resisting magic. Searching of these artifacts, the party descends into a hidden dungeon in the town graveyard where Baan reveals it was his ancestor who has once fought the witches and killed their queen, Mesaanya's ancestor. In a twist ending, Sophia's true identity is revealed having been really a disguised Mesaanya all along. Her magic blast gravely wounds Baan and then she is shocked when Takeru, who is revealed to be a son of god and the legendary armor set that only a god could use wraps itself around him. After the decisive duel Mesaanya is slain, Kate is finally freed from her spell, and peace is restored to the village. With his quest completed, Takeru then spends a night with Kate, who is about to marry, before leaving for his further adventures.[8][9]

Release

The game was originally released in 1990-1991 for the MSX2, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-9801 and X68000 computer systems. An enhanced PC Engine port that removed sexually explicit content but added voice acting and new graphics was developed by TamTam and released by NEC Avenue in 1992 among controversies[10] as the first erotic game officially published for a video game console. Two soundtracks were released in Japan by NEC Avenue: Dragon Knight II Fantastic Remix! (ドラゴンナイト II ファンタスティック・リミックス!) in October 1991[11][12] and Dragon Knight II PC Engine World (ドラゴンナイト II ～ＰＣエンジンワールド) in 1992, distributed by Nippon Columbia.[13][14]

Reception
Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
PC Engine Fan90% (PC Engine)[15]
Famitsu24/40

Just like its predecessor, Dragon Knight II was a commercial success. The game placed third on MSX Magazines "MSX Soft Top 30" best-selling chart in May 1991,[16] and even one year later has remained there at 28th place.[17] The PC Engine version was fifth on PC Engine Fan chart in August 1992.[18] The magazine's review gave it a highly positive score of 90%.[15] Famitsu gave it a score 24/40.[19]

Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) reported that Dragon Knight II "became a sleeper hit with Japanese role-playing fans. What made it popular is the fact that it was noticeably different from other RPGs because the game opted for lots of women instead of beasts, with some slight characteristics of monsters," predicting that "with more action and more scantily clad women to attack," its sequel "should really entice the Japanese market!"[20] EGM also included the game's "tons of interesting people to meet" in their 1993 ranking of "Top Ten Hottest Video Game Babes" at second place.[20] PC Engine Fan listed Mesaanya, Sophia and Kate among the sexiest female characters in the PC Engine games.[21]

Sequel

Takeru (renamed Desmond in the West) returns as the hero of the 1991 sequel Dragon Knight III. It is titled Knights of Xentar in highly rewritten Western-localized versions. Phoenix, where Takeru is a celebrity and the former Witch Tower which is renamed as the Tower of Takeru in honor, is revisited in the sequel. The fully recovered Baan rejoins him there to fight the demons and Kate is romantically met again. Takeru uses the Falcon Sword and the Genji Armor again, and Baan marries Marie, one of the girls from Dragon Knight II.

References
  1. "Dragon Knight II Release Information for Sharp X68000". GameFAQs.com. 1991-02-28. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  2. "Dragon Knight II Release Information for MSX". GameFAQs.com. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  3. "Dragon Knight 2. Прохождение Dragon Knight 2. Секреты Dragon Knight 2. — Square Faction". Squarefaction.ru. 2015-02-24. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  4. "PCエンジンCD-ROM2「ドラゴンナイトII」の感想・レビュー・批評｜ゲーム好きTVgamerさんのブログ。". Ameblo.jp. 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  5. "【ドラゴンナイト5】限定SSR「コニー」を入手できるイベント「コニーのどたばた大冒険」開催 - オンゲトネ＜無料オンラインゲーム情報＞". ongetone.com.
  6. "Dragon Knight5公式 on Twitter".
  7. "ドラゴンナイトII (美少女ゲーム移植リスト)". Galgame.himegimi.jp. 1990-11-30. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  8. "retro game report 'DRAGON KNIGHT II']". F-long.com. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  9. Dragon Knight III user manual. ELF Corporation. 1992..
  10. "エルフソフト陥落の歴史". Repadars.org. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  11. MSX Magazine 10/91, page 61. (in Japanese)
  12. MSX Magazine 11/91, page 62. (in Japanese)
  13. "NACL-1043 | Dragon Knight II Fantastic Remix!". VGMdb. Retrieved 2013-12-17.
  14. "NACL-1078 | Dragon Knight II PC Engine World". VGMdb. Retrieved 2013-12-17.
  15. PC Engine Fan 8/92, page 68. (in Japanese)
  16. "MSX Soft Top 30". MSX Magazine. ASCII Corporation. May 1991. p. 6.(in Japanese)
  17. MSX Magazine 5/92, page 7. (in Japanese)
  18. PC Engine Fan 8/92, page 63. (in Japanese)
  19. "テレビゲーム攻略道　レビュー:レビュー攻略　ドラゴンナイト２　NECアベニュー　PCエンジン　PCE版 - livedoor Blog（ブログ）". gamekoryaku.livedoor.biz. Retrieved 2018-10-21.
  20. "Dragon Knight II Review, Top Ten Hottest Video Game Babes". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 43. EGM Media. February 1993. p. 64, 40.
  21. Super PC Engine Fan 1 page 69. (in Japanese)
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