With the awesome response and large demand for the first game on those systems, we knew we had to make it happen. We didn’t want to just push a port of what we already had, though – this was our chance to really make this game shine.

Plus, we get to take part in Sony’s awesome Spring Fever promotion! Not only are we releasing the game to JRPG-loving fans out there, Sony is helping to ensure people actually find out about it! What does that mean to you? If you’re a PlayStation Plus member, it means you get 20% off the game during launch week!

Don’t know much about Dragon Fantasy Book I? Start by watching our brief trailer.

So where to begin… Oh, I don’t know, how about redrawing almost every single piece of art in the game! Crazy? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely!

We decided to approach this in the style of a SNES special edition of a previously released NES game. We wanted to take the art we had, and just bring it forward a generation – after reaching what we feel was the best of what “8-bit” could be, we decided to bring this to what we’re calling “8-bit as we remember it” instead of “8-bit as it was” – read on for some side-by-sides of the before and after.

First, we updated the overworld map. The map (and all of the maps) are unchanged –
just better defined, cleaner tiles everywhere.

The interface’s look has been upgraded as well, with clean gradients, while the monsters have more shading and detail.

We added shadowing and detail throughout the maps (see the ambient shading on the floors where they meet the walls) – who says AAA FPS games are the only ones that should feature ambient occlusion!

Finally, so many poor vendors were stuck in their little shops with tiny walls and no roofs, beaten down upon by the hot sun! Well after negotiations with the NPC Vendors’ Union we’ve given them some much-needed shade. Just walk into the shops as always and the walls or roofs fade away.

Once happier with the visuals (in terms of an 8-bit style RPG at least), it was time to revisit other parts of the game and see where else we could make improvements. What was — in our opinion — the most frustrating part of the first game? The inventory UI. No longer do you have to scroll through a page of herbs to find that one lone antidote to cure your poisoned allies. We took the whole main interface we had been working on for Book II and brought it home to the original!

First, let’s look at what we had:

The main interface filled the entire screen, keeping you from seeing much of anything. Four massive buttons filled the view keeping any useful information at least a page away. And you had to move to a separate page of four massive buttons to see the rest of the options.

Items were even worse. Each item in your inventory took up a separate line, and there was no support for stacking items to save space. Trying to find a single item buried in between pages of herbs and antidotes was a pain!

So what do all of these look like now?

Your party is visible at a glance immediately when pulling the screen up. The navigation is now handled with the tabs across the top instead of four huge buttons filling the screen.

The inventory now supports stacking, making it a lot easier to find the item you’re looking for.

Let’s not forget trophies! First, the basics: yes, we’ll have trophies; no, there won’t be a Platinum. What will we have? About a dozen Trophies covering a range of feats, from completing each of the game’s chapters, to finding that one hidden scene in Chapter 2 that we’re pretty sure no one outside our office has ever seen. Ever. Seriously.

We really hope these will give people a reason to enjoy another trip through the game’s chapters, and hint at things people might not have been aware of. More than anything though, we’re listening for what people want most and trying to make this the best version of Dragon Fantasy it can be.

Improving what we have is important, but so is giving players something new! Chapter 2 has always been the chapter we’ve felt needed the most help. To help smooth out the leveling and better guide players, we’ve added a new dungeon to Chapter 2: The Tower of Trials. Inside this five-story tower is a wealth of treasure and gear for Anders and his recruitable allies Punchibald “Punchy” Hammerstone and Casterella “Casty” Von Magicpants.

So this pretty well covers Dragon Fantasy Book I, coming to PlayStation 3 and PS Vita tomorrow. We have an almost completely re-done 8-bit RPG, with all new recordings. We have new content and trophies. And most importantly, we support Cross-Buy (so you buy it once, and get it for both systems) and Cross-Save (so you can share a save game between to two).

Building the first Dragon Fantasy was an amazing experience. And after pouring your heart and soul into a project like that, you can only think “Where do I go from here?”. After we’d really pushed the limits of 8-bit gameplay and graphics with the first game, we knew it was time to bump the game a “generation”. This meant being a lot more ambitious with what we wanted to do, and bigger ambitions require bigger support. So with the support of SCEA’s Pub Fund, we’re thrilled to announce Dragon Fantasy Book II is headed for PS3 and PS Vita next year on PSN!

Originally, we had planned to follow the original three chapters of 8-bit style with another three chapters in a more 16-bit style. We planned to do a slow and steady progression, chapter by chapter adding more and more features. But as soon as we started work on the new chapters we quickly found ourselves aiming squarely at the end of that generation immediately. We didn’t want to start out simple again as we had already done that. We wanted to make the best RPG possible. So, we decided instead that we’d combine the three stories into one massive sequel, and add a few scenes here and there to glue things together. It made the story flow more naturally, sure, but more importantly to the player, it let us load this sucker up with hot 16-bit-era eye candy from the get-go!

The first “next-gen” (for the early 90s) feature we threw in was a throwback to what was then known as “Mode7”. For the blast-processing set out there, Mode 7 was a special video mode that let the very 2D hardware make (for the time) eye-popping “3D” effects. We’ve always had an affinity for that look, so it had to be part of Book II. We’re using it for all the traveling scenes in the game,and we’ll be using it for some pretty intense battle scenes later in the game.
After thoroughly stepping up the visuals, it was time to give the audio some love. The 16-bit era of video games are known for some truly amazing music, and we wanted to express that in our sequel as well. And so, our audio director, Morgan Tucker (a.k.a. Crashfaster, and the head of 8-bit SF and Monobomb Records got some very his samples assembled and leaped at the task.

In the original DF game, we used a very static, very traditional battle system that took was very reminiscent of the best 8-bit era RPG battle systems. I thought it turned out very nicely, and it certainly did the trick for the theme we were going for. We even showed an early version of Book II at PAX East. But with all the other new features in the game, the old school battle system just felt out of place. So we built an all-new system from the ground up. Battles now take place in the same world that the player walks around in, and monsters can be seen lurking around every corner. When battles begin, it’s just a matter of a status screen and a menu bar sliding onto screen. The game retains the quirky text descriptions that the first game was known for, but now they’re accompanied by fully animated attacks and highly effect-driven magic spells.

Finally, we added multiplayer support. Up to four players can play together, each acting as one of the four party members in the first player’s party. Each player is free to explore the surrounding areas on their own, and can even engage in separate battles on their own as well. And of course, if they choose to help each other out, any player can just walk right up to another battle in progress and join in on the next round! This works not only in the regular game mode, but we’re planning a coliseum mode where players can form a mixed party of their own party members and those of their friends to fight battles for glorious prizes and honor.

Oh, yeah, we should probably mention the story, eh? I mean, that’s generally the big thing when discussing RPGs, right? As the story begins, the Imperial Armada is closing in on our heroes. It’s not quite clear to them yet why the empire is pursuing them, but they’ll learn soon enough. As they head further and further into the southlands, our heroes will be split up into three teams (representing the original three chapters we’d planned to do episodically), with each discovering important secrets about the war between the Kingdom of Tundaria and the Empire of Sandheim. We’ll see what’s happened in Westeria in our heroes absence! And finally, we’ll learn a little bit about where the Dark Lord came from, how the Woodsman got to be so knowledgeable about things, and just what that purple talisman is all about.

Dragon Fantasy 2 is such a huge, huge departure from the first game stylistically that it’s easy to think that the two games aren’t actually related. But if you spend a little time with both, a lot of the throwaway gags in the first game will turn out to be very serious omens of the things to come in the second. A lot of that is because when Bryan and I first started on this series, we had intended all of this to be one, gigantic game. But we started on the game when we were both 14 years old. And it turns out that making a huge, huge RPG to rival the best contemporary RPGs of the time was a wee bit much for a couple teenagers! After 17 years, we’ve learned to tackle things one step at a time, and Dragon Fantasy Book II is our latest and greatest step towards the completion of our epic story!

Got questions about Dragon Fantasy 2 (or Dragon Fantasy 1?) Want to know what the ultimate fate of Jerald is? Wondering how the biological functions of the Rock Monsters work? Curious where to order Rock Monster plushies? Let us know in the comments!