Part 14: Another Era: GBC Version Part 1
What's this? It seems... oddly familiar.
Ah yes, Dragon Warrior II! ...but wait, it looks different.
...only four spaces? This definitely isn't the same game. What's going on here!?
Welcome to the ddegenha approved comparison run of the Game Boy Colour version of Dragon Warrior II. It was released along with Dragon Warrior I on the same cartridge in September 2000, which is about ten years later from the North American release of the original Dragon Warrior II.
What do I mean by comparison run, though? Well, the Game Boy Colour version does things differently: it features an updated engine, brand new translation, better graphics, and nicer sounding music. Unlike ddegenha's posts, mine will only be an insight into major differences between the versions.
I'll be running through this as Andy. As we can see here, this version only allows you to input four characters for your name instead of eight. (The name you pick here still determines what your party members' names will be.)
Another difference is that instead of some scrolling text over a black screen, we get an actual animated prologue! Though, it says basically the same thing. After that the standard opening scene involving Moonbrook (which was Moonbrooke in the NES version) being taken over.
The swamps aren't around Moonbrook at least, though I suspect that had something to do with NES limitations.
One of the big things you'll probably notice right off the bat is that the game is in normal English, rather than Ye Olde English with the thous and thines and such.
Oh yeah and Midenhall was renamed Lorasia for some reason.
Erdrick is also now Loto (which is the romanization of Roto, his Japanese name).
These warps have changed slightly.
...mostly from making everything flash pretty colours to swirling the screen around a bit.
Unimportant NPCs simply have the name "*". Arf!
The trees are dense in this version. Why they weren't on the NES is beyond me.
The Game Boy Colour's screen had a resolution of 160x144 (scaled up x2 in these screenshots), and seeing how the game is made up of 16x16 tiles, you're... not centered on the screen. It's not too noticeable but hey it's a thing.
The world map's pretty much the same though aside from the swamp thing I mentioned earlier.
One of the major differences between this version and the NES version is that they cut out most of the menu navigation to search for things, talk to NPCs, or in the first game's case, use stairs (ugh).
Another difference is that, unlike the NES version, the menus remain the same colour despite your current health and whether or not a party member is dead.
The importance of this screenshot is that you have a new stat, GRD (Guard). TECHNICALLY it exists in the NES version, but is just rolled into your general defense stat. Here, it has its own stat, though still factors into your overall defense (GRD + current armour = DEF).
Run has been renamed to Flee in the battle menus, and Parry has been renamed to Def(end).
When the player attacks an enemy, a little slashing animation is present. It's the same for most weapons, save a few special ones.
...and that's it for now. There are still many more though that I'll be fleshing out eventually!