Why Dragon Quest II is the most unforgiving of lotteries
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line (1990)
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line (1990)
I see that someone thousands of miles away from me has won the EuroMillions. A hundred million quid, if you don’t mind. That lucky sod. They’ll probably end up being unnecessarily frugal with it too. Or worse than that, they won’t even give up their job.
Can you believe how many people say that they’d keep working if they scooped the big prize? Well, it’s easy to look all noble and hard-working by saying that, but talk is pretty cheap, isn’t it? Especially after you’ve won yourself a nine-figure bank account.
Even if you were a diligent little worker, happy to slave away at your desk for the rest of your young life (and in that case, why would you even play the lotto?), you cannot tell me that you’d hang on to your job just to have “something to do.”
The first little bit of nonsense that comes your way, whether that’s a snotty email or a pilchard colleague or a broken piece of software or a manager with no understanding, you’d be straight out that door. No ifs, no buts. The only thing uncertain is whether or not you decide to defecate on your boss’s desk before you say sayonara to your impoverished colleagues for the very last time.
We sometimes do a group Euromillions punt in work, I suppose you’d have to call it a syndicate although that puts us a bit uncomfortably close to being labelled as a crime organisation. I think the most we’ve ever won by doing this is €16, which would go on to be immediately reinvested, by which I mean immediately wasted.
I decided to be all boring and awkward and drop out of the syndicate altogether, although even saving this extra fiver per week hasn’t been a comfortable experience for me. After all, what if they bag a massive win and I’m the only one not part of it? I know, I know, they could be playing until the heat death of the sun and still not win the big prize. But still, what if they do?
I remember one of the first times I didn’t join in with them was a Friday before a Public Holiday Monday. It turned out that a not-insignificant amount of money, a few hundred thousand, had been won in a “Dublin newsagent”.
I was sweating bullets, constantly refreshing the news, just in case that was the ticket I could have been a part of. The odds of this were millimetric really, but you still get that primal fear. But since my colleagues all showed up for work again on Tuesday, they must not have won anything, unless they were terrific liars.
And as mean-spirited as it is, I was secretly thrilled. I’d have never heard the end of it. I would’ve missed out on about seventy grand – very tasty, perhaps not strong enough to finance gangland drug wars or whatever other hobby I would want to take up. But imagine I had missed out on the top prize?
Although I’d still moan about winning 70 million Euro, only to watch it being split seven ways. A mere ten million will not pay for both my castle and my yacht, you know. So I’d have to win the lottery again, on my own. What’s the odds on two major lottery wins?
Does buying two tickets double my chances of winning? Does buying a million tickets guarantee it? I can’t see why not. You have to spend money to make money, that’s what the richies tell us. You’d be a fool to defy them.
After getting that second lotto win, what do you do? I’ve told you before that I’d immediately buy a European castle. But what then? Could having millions really become passé? Would there be any fun in gambling again? Perhaps I could move towards being a professional gambler, and blow all my winnings just as quickly as I’d won them? A fool and his money is some party, or so they say.
Make no mistake, the lottery is a hell of a compelling ‘draw’, to give you a little lotto pun there. And having the lottery as a new minigame provided just one of the many, much-needed innovations for the first Dragon Quest sequel. The original DQ game wrote the book on JRPGs, while the third DQ game was one of the biggest releases of all time, at least in Japan.
So how would Dragon Quest II, the middle child, fare? Well, in a nutshell, DQ2 is certainly more expansive than the first game, but its still bite-sized nature and improvements make it a far more palatable prospect to play. Forgive the alliteration – from this title onwards, each Dragon Quest game has been subtitled with a wild alliterative title. In this game’s case, it’s Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line.
You’ll still want a guide all the way through this one of course, and save states as standard – you must never let yourself fall victim to enemy hoards, because remember, getting killed in battle means you lose half your gold, which is your most precious resource.
Designer Yuji Horii does this on purpose, as a fervent follower of fanciful flutters (that’s enough alliteration). He’s a big gambler, and he wants to make you think about the gamble of pressing forward into difficult caves and dungeons, at the risk of potentially losing half your money.
So using save-states and rewinds might spoil this fun somewhat. But what kind of a fool wouldn’t rig the gambling odds in their own favour if they could? You can also access a basic lottery game in DQ2 and cheat likewise. This will help you net yourself a vital Gold Card for discounts at shops, cutting your grinding time significantly – finally, a bit of customer appreciation. Don’t think of it as cheating, think of it as evening the odds.
And at least you’ve got other compadres to pick you up if you fall, because you now lead a party of not just one, but three blank slates. Yes, the grind still exists but at least you’re not a lone potato out there. Still, that does also mean you’ll be up against multiple enemies at once in the random encounters here, rather than just one at a time. This is actually a step-up from the first game, if you can believe that.
These days, you can play this game fully remade in HD-2D on modern consoles, along with the first game. It adds a lot to the original experience, including a new party member. Though, in keeping with my status as an ex-syndicate member, I played Dragon Quest II by dodgy means – the Super Famicom fan-translation of the game. This port, naturally, has nice updated music and graphics from the NES original, and it’s a tad easier.
And it matters greatly which Dragon Quest versions you play, let me tell you. Will you go MSX, SNES, SFC, NS, DS, 3DS, PS4, PS5? Trust me, this stuff is like knowing which fork goes with your lobster. Or after you’ve won the lotto, which key goes with your cocaine.
Talk about gambling, towards the end of the game you might as well put your faith in the good old three-legged rocking horse, the Sad Ken of the fold, because your chance of success become infinitesimal. The designers readily admit that they didn’t properly playtest the game’s last couple of dungeons as they simply didn’t have time, and it shows.
The odds are massively against you, and just like the first game you’re gonna want to be save-stating after every battle in case you lose some progress towards the Blaessed Staff of Anorakia or whatever item is on offer. It’s still a bit like DQ1 in that a battle can turn against you on a dime if you shall be that unlucky.
You can grind your characters down to the bone, get them the very best equipment, perfectly execute what threadbare strategy there is, but still lose everything if the computer decides it hates you. And gosh, it decides that often.
There was one instance where an enemy mob ambushed us, and killed both themselves and all three of us before we could move. Now, in video games, I always set the text speed to its Fastest, which in DQ2 means messages will fire at you like an automatic rifle.
Well, split-seconds into this particular battle, I was told that we’d all died and jolly bad luck, old chap, that’ll be half your gold and it’s back to a faraway inn for you. It must have been the quickest battle in RPG history. Quicker even than the instant win battles in EarthBound. Quite simply, I was speechless.
So is a guide advisable, then? Forget advisable, you’d be a fool not to. This is a game so esoteric and obtuse that I might as well be playing it in its original Japanese for all the sense it made to me. I’d have a better chance at reading my cat’s mind. “If you don’t know, then I’m not going to tell you,” that sort of thing.
Certainly the villagers won’t tell you. Vague hints maybe, but never “search this exact, nondescript spot in the corner of a tiny room for an invisible item that is literally the key to you winning the game” – they won’t help you out with that one, no matter what translation you play.
The Dragon Quest series would vastly improve as it went on, and if you’re desperate, or just desperately geeky, you can still get into Dragon Quest II – just about. And certainly the HD-2D remake is the way to go here. But beating this game the old-school way, without the aid of save states, the most handholdy walkthrough you can find and more than a few hours grinding? You’ll have a better chance at winning the lotto.
20 February 2026