Esper Dream 2: Arata naru Tatakai

The Good
Welcome to my Esper Dream 2 review. Esper Dream 2 is probably the 4th attempt by Konami to develop the RPG genre for the NES, and the 2nd one for the Esper Dream series.

The first Esper Dream game was released for the Famicom Disk System, and was both an extremely simple and an incredibly grindy games,so I must admit I didn't play it more than a dozen of minutes. It was one of those really early RPGs where you are thrown in the middle of nothing with no clue where to go or what to do. Konami also released another RPG called Madara.

Esper Dream 2 is basically a sequel to Esper Dream but made mostly with the Madara's game engine, providing much better gameplay and graphics than the original Esper Dream game.

You are a boy in a library in a room where the is five bookshelves. Suddenly the bookshelves become possessed and a fairy tells you you should teleport in each of the 5 world and that you will have an important mission in each of them. You are free to visit the world in any order you like and to complete them any time, however the bookshelves 1-5 goes by increasing order of difficulty. Bookshelf 3 is actually the first Esper Dream game, so there is nothing to do there because the work has already been done (yes, even if you didn't come close to ever complete the first game - just like me)

Each of the 4 worlds is different and has different people and enemies in them, and you have a major mission to do in each of them. After the last battle is complete, you can still return to the worlds to buy equipment, items or to stay at the inn, and even to battle some enemies, however there is nothing else to do anymore as the book world is basically "saved". After all the book worlds are saved, a last world opens up and you can beat the last boss.

The gameplay is simple. There is no random battles, instead you can see paws moving on the screen. When you encounter paws the context switches to battle : Here the battle plays a bit like in an action-RPG, you can use your gun against the enemies and avoid them directly. You can use Esper power, which grants you with additional abilities such as throw a tornado, have a barrier that protects you from damage or heal your HP. You gain more Esper powers as you progress through the game.

You also gain other weapons and better armours. Some example cool weapons includes mines that explodes after a delay, or a flame thrower that can freeze enemies as you hit them with it. I liked that they just didn't put many kind of guns, but cared to actually vary the weaponry.

In addition to that, you will often have a second character in your party, each book world has a different sidekick that will help you and fight for you. It is however completely AI controller and you cannot control him or her, also, that character has no HP or MP bar and cannot ever die or anything. It really helps you during battles, no more, no less.

You can escape battles if you can reach an edge of the screen, but in some cases obstacles will block you off, and will prevent you from fleeing the battle. In all case you can flee with the "teleport" Esper Power, which is also used to return from a book world to the library, the only save point of the game. It is thus possible to avoid battles by avoiding paws and to flee from battles if you are into one, however, some paws will be blocking your path, and cannot be avoided to be fighting. There is many of such "minibosses" all over the place, so it is not possible to run your way through the game.

Also, the earlier bosses are really though, so you'd better be well prepared (that is, levelled enough). Nevertheless the game is not grindy at all. You'll soon reach the cap of the maximum level at Level 33, and then there is no reason to fight optional battles anymore, as they won't make you any stronger !

When your HP reaches 0, you return to the library with half of the gold you had. In some cases, if you were saving in order to buy a better weapon or armour, it would be a good idea to reset the game instead and load your previous saves.

I'd say the game difficulty is perfect, even by modern standard it is not too easy, but still do not offer many difficulties. Sometimes there is still challenges, such as finding a strategy to beat a boss or finding where you should go, or surviving for a long time without saving.

The graphics are rather good, although I must admit that for a late game for the system, and considering that Konami is behind the game, some of the graphic's aspect are disappointing. During battles, as for most Konami made NES games, the sprites are extremely flickery, and the game is often subject to frame dropping. It is not as ridiculous as the NES version of Parodius though, so I guess it is all right.

The music is good, without being particularly rememberable. The most notable thing is that the VRC6 extension chip is used, however I feel like Konami didn't make it up to it's fullest. Music sounds better than regular NES/Famicom, but there is no extra harmonisations or anything that couldn't be achieved with the NES/Famicom alone. Some tunes are remixes from the original Esper Dream, which is always nice.

The controls are just fine, really. A problem is that it is easy to skip text with important information by accidentally pressing a button. This can be a serious flaw, thankfully, the fairy or your ally will tell you what to do next in the menu, in case you don't know where to go.

The Bad
The major flaw of this game is that while technically it is an unlinear game with a "stage select" pattern, the difficulty actually goes 1-2-4-5 in such a way that it is impossible to not respect that order. If you try to visit a world too early, you'll get pawned immediately in battle as you'll be under levelled and under equipped. It is obvious the unlinearity was thrown into the game just before its release as an additional unplanned feature, but they forgot to make all the 5 stages on par with eachother in term of enemies' levels and power. This could have been achieved for example by giving you a different EXP/Level meter in each book world, or by giving up EXP and Levels altogether.

The other bad thing is that while it is great to visit 4 differently themed book world, I feel like they could have been more themed, like it was done in Live a Live. Here you have one "ocean" world, one "train" world, one "mechanic" world and one "star" world, it's nice and all, but something like the 4 elements or something like that would have been much better (even if very unoriginal). Most of the stories within the book worlds are as flat, bland and generic as they could possibly get. An evil guy want to destroy the town and you prevent hat to happen.

The saving grace is the fairy which is nice and all, but honestly I really wished there would have been more interesting characters in that game.

The Bottom Line
Esper Dream 2 is a good game, but it's main flaw is that while this game do not particularly suck in any domain, it doesn't shine anywhere either. It is an enjoyable game, but very short, and easily forgettable. Play it if you are into NES/Famicom action RPGs, or into NES/Famicom enhancement sound chips, or a fan of Konami. Otherwise I'd say you're not missing much by passing this game. It is very childish too, not necessary a bad thing, but not to everyone's taste.

In all cases this game is a major improvement over its sequel, Esper Dream for the famicom, and as a Konami RPG it is a precursor to Suikoden even if it shares absolutely nothing with that series.