PAX13 Preview: Dragon Fantasy Book II is a Love Letter to the SNES Era

There’s a charm and verve to the Dragon Fantasy games that immediately grab your attention once you get your hands on them. Even for newcomers to the series, Muteki Corp’s loving homage to the JRPG genre instantly teleports you back to the days of early Final Fantasy and Dragonquest games, a comparison the team is eager to point out. “Dragon Fantasy Book I is our homage to the Nintendo era, so it is just like Dragonquest 1, 2, and 3 and Final Fantasy I, II and III,” according to Anna Marie Privitere, PR and social media manager for Muteki. “It’s going to be a little more difficult and a little more grind-y than your usual game.” Owners of Dragon Fantasy Book I already understand this; Muteki’s first installment released on iOS and Android in fall 2011, with PC, Mac and Linux releases shortly thereafter, followed by an April 2012 debut of the original 8-bit and enhanced 16-bit version on PlayStation Network as part of Sony’s PubFund initiative.

Dragon Fantasy Book I was only the beginning, and Muteki is getting ready to bring the next three chapters of their saga to PS3s and Vitas with Dragon Fantasy Book II. “Book II actually picks up directly after Book I finishes, but you don’t need to have played Book I to enjoy the story,” explained Privitere. The first Dragon Fantasy game consists of chapters 1, 2, and 3 while Book II plays through “approximately chapters 4, 5, and 7 while Book III is going to finish up the trilogy with 6, 8, and 9.” Billed as a love letter to the Super Nintendo era, Privitere said “if you could sort of squeeze together Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Earthbound, and Lufia II into a cartridge, that would be Dragon Fantasy Book II.” Based on my fifteen minutes with the Vita version of the game at Muteki’s showcase at PAX’s Indie Megabooth, the comparisons are apt and welcomed.

Everything about Dragon Fantasy Book II is just as Privitere’s description alludes. As Ogden, a returning character from Book I and “the most interesting hero you’ve ever met”, you begin your quest thirty years after the first installment, bald (by dragon’s fire), fat, and on a mission to save the world again. Along the way you pick up characters from the first game–Prince Anders, Ramona, and ‘Woodsy’–to fill out your party, in the typical RPG fashion. Dragon Fantasy Book II adds a Pokemon/Ni no Kuni-style element of capturing monsters; earning the series’ first Platinum trophy requires capturing every monster in the game. Enemies won’t respawn until you exit that area on the world map according to the developers, an example of how modern gameplay sensibilities have been added to enhance the traditional JRPG elements that fans appreciate. Book II covers chapters 4, 5, and 7 of the saga, all set on the same map and continent, and even newcomers to the series don’t need to worry about getting lost or missing something important. “You’re not going to miss out having not played Book I and you’re not going to miss out if you [don’t] play Book II heading straight into Book III,” Privitere assured us before diving into the demo. Book II will be around 15 to 20 hours long if you play straight through, a “much more reasonable length” than the SNES RPGs of days past because “we’re not teenagers anymore.”

Sony’s involvement with Muteki and Muteki’s presence at PAX are wonderfully intertwined, and it’s one the developer is quite happy with. “Sony has been phenomenal, they have been incredibly supportive. Any time we need their help they’re always willing to swing by and give us a hand,” Privitere said. To give an example, she revealed that the developer’s Vita dev kit license was set to expire the day we spoke: “one of the PubFund guys came by [our booth] and helped us, and was able to get our Vitas working again!” Privitere wasn’t shy about how grateful the team was for their relationship with the PlayStation family, proclaiming that “Muteki wouldn’t exist the way it does today without Sony’s help.”

Looking to the future and Dragon Fantasy Book III, Muteki is hesitant to say whether you’ll be seeing their next endeavor on Sony’s newest hardware iteration. “Because we’ve just started pre-production, we haven’t really gotten firm on what consoles we’re looking at [for Book III],” Privitere explained when asked about the possibility of seeing the trilogy’s conclusion on the PlayStation 4. “We definitely love Sony fans, and Sony fans love us, so you will see it on Sony consoles of some sort.” Book III will continue the series’ progressive look and feel, described as “that N64 JRPG we all wanted and never got,” referencing the Final Fantasy VI tech demo that many fans had hoped would one day come to be.

Dragon Fantasy Book II comes to PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on September 10 in North America featuring Cross-Buy and Cross-Save. Look for it on the PSN Store next week for $14.99, and 20% off for PlayStation Plus subscribers at $11.99.