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I like that the battle systems are of I and II but the old english of the original. It so sad they replaced with modern english. I recommend this to anyone who wants to try the original battle systems but if you are you are hear for the old english netter stick with the original. Both Yes and no. Its buggy so play this with the addendum.

I just beat both Dragon Quests I and II recently using the translation patch of RPGONE and this is my experience.

Dragon Quest I:

Being the first in the series it is expected the gameplay is bare bones but still does the job. Since the translation follows the Japanese names it is confusing to check guides that are based on the North American localization for some hints on what items do in the game. Nonetheless, the game is flawless until the dialogue of the King Dragon (Dragonlord in the NA localization) after you beat him and turns into that dragon form is garbled a bit. I hope this gets fixed. I am unsure if it has something to do with the emulator but I hope the translation team is still open to checking some bugs.

Dragon Quest II:

Quite a jump from the first game in terms of innovation. Still following the Japanese names and not the North American localization (which is not a problem and, again, makes it confusing to look at game guides). Unlike the first game this had a number of bugs. The most gamebreaking of them all is when the Prince gets sick at an Inn in Beran however I never experienced the bug (check redtrollinhowser's review to ensure you do not encounter it) which is fortunate for me. There was one bug which put me off and that is when you are in the Sea Cave the graphics of the map especially in the lava sections become distorted. At first moving from one room to another fixed the problem until it eventually didn't forcing you use the Outside spell. Fortunately, I got what I needed from the dungeon and beat the game but I hope this gets fixed, too. Also, I am unsure why the Prince reappears at the town where you first met him even when he is already in your party. I do not know if this is a bug or if it was already in the game even before getting patched. I simply ignored the Prince because it felt that I might trigger a bug.

Overall, the experience playing the translation is fun. The bugs are not going to stop you from beating both games but not knowing these bugs especially for the second game might make you lose precious hours spent.

I hope RPGONE can take a look at these bugs and if possible (well, this is wishful thinking on my part) they create a translation patch using the North American names in game but still retaining the Dragon Quest title.

I personally think despite the errors and glitches, this is the best way to experience the first two Dragon Quests, they look great, sound great, and I think the re-balancing only makes the games better.

Anyway, there's a couple glitches I've noticed playing through both versions, though most of my time was spent in the DQ version:

• Dragon Quest 1 from my experience was basically glitch free, not a lot to talk about here, most of the issues come into play with Dragon Quest 2

• sometimes character pointers are wrong, the ones I notice the most are in the DQ2 patch where the names of your party members are swapped (e.g. Kain shows up as Maria in dialogue, Maria shows up as Kain) from what I can tell this wasn't happening in the DW version

• One minor annoyance in the DQ version that might've been fixed, but despite the dialogue at the end of the game mentioning "Malroth" the boss is named Shidor. This makes sense considering Malroth's Japanese name is Shido, but I thought it was strange how it's named Malroth in the dialogue but Shidor in battle.. Main reason why I'd say pick the Dragon Warrior names version over it (Erdrick is also a lot more iconic to me than Roto, and the names are easier to remember)

• I wanted to put this glitch fix here which is the main reason I wrote this review: The Cannock Softlock. Simply put, when you sleep in the inn in the water city, Beran, Cannock will get sick and you'll have to find a Leaf of the World Tree to revive him. If you do this, you'll get into a softlock where the text never ends and you need to reset. If you saved between sleeping in the inn in Beran and reviving Cannock, you'll be screwed without him.

Now, I saw some reports saying this glitch did not happen, so I did some investigating in both versions. I never ran into this glitch either, and from some other reports, I found out why and would like to put it here so people reading these reviews can see it)

If you'd like to do the event, follow these steps:

First thing, check your current Cannock's name, if it's Kain or Rand (I always get Kain since "Red" is the name of my Hero) no need to continue, you can just proceed with the sidequest as normal.

If not and you have any of the other 6 names, reset your game after saving at a priest.

In the menu, hit continue an adventure, and while hovering over your save. Press Start+Left, hold it, then hit A, this will put up a small name select, this is for the Prince of Cannock's Name.

Change it to any name consisting of 4 or less letters.

Continue the event as normal!

The glitch is triggered by names longer than 4 letters for some strange reason, what makes me intrigued is the fact that in the Japanese version, I think all the default names are 4 characters or less, so this could've been a glitch in the main game that was never found during testing, but I'd have to try the Japanese version myself to find out.

Either way, luckily this code exists so there's an easy way to avoid this softlock.. If you just want to be safe, if you get any Prince of Cannock name over 4 letters, just do that code and change his name ASAP.

Sadly, almost two decades after this translation was released, there's still an unpatched game-breaking bug many hours into Dragon Quest II. When you give your sick party member the Leaf of World Tree which is needed to heal them, the game gets stuck in a never-ending dialogue loop. It's possible to avoid this situation (don't stay at the Inn in Beran unless you've already beaten the game); but if you're not aware of this bug in the first place, you'll almost certainly get stuck.

It is apparently possible to remedy this situation by 1) creating a save state just before giving the leaf, 2) exit the emulator and rename the save state so it'll be used by an untranslated copy of the game, 3) pass the buggy sequence while playing the Japanese version and then make another save state, 4) rename this to be used by the translation version, then 5) load this save state back into the translated version. Depending on the method you're using to play, this all may be easier said than done.

My "Do Not Recommend" rating applies only to the DQ2 portion of this translation. I had no issues completing Dragon Quest I. Aside from the game breaking bug in DQ2, there were only a couple minor menu glitches that I noticed in that game.

By far, if you're going to play Dragon Quest 1 and 2, this is what you need to play. The game has been completely rebalanced, and the graphics and sound are so much more merciful on your eyes and ears than either the NES or GBC versions.

I can't promise that you're going to have loads of fun. It's actually kind of astonishing how little there is to do in either game. However, you won't be playing very long, and you'll be able to say that you played the grandfather of the modern console RPG.

Now, onto the bugs.

I noticed a few text box glitches in Dragon Quest 1, the mot noticeable being an odd dialogue glitch that happens when fighting the Dracolord. Right after you defeat his first form, he makes some nonsensical remark which appears to be taken from the King's dialogue.

The only problematic bug in Dragon Quest 1 is that once you cap at level 30, you can no longer save the game. Not a big deal if you have save states, but still kind of annoying.

In Dragon Quest 2, I noticed a lot more dialogue bugs, which added random characters to the end of my hero's name when certain NPCs spoke to him. It seemed to happen at random, though.

I did not encounter the leaf of the world tree bug. My copy seemed to go through that event without any issue. However, I was using the DQ-based translation as opposed to the DW-based one, and I was playing on an emulator as opposed to actual hardware, so the bug may still be there.

I'm pleased to report, however, that the bug only occurs if you sleep in one particular town, and the event can be avoided.

If some kind soul wouldn't mind giving this game a lookover, then maybe some of these minor glitches can be cleaned up.

As is, this compilation is completely playable, and I'd still recommend it to anyone.

The updated graphics make for a fun ride in DQ1+2.

However, there is a major bug in DQ2 that prevented me from finishing the game. When the prince becomes ill, the names are first of all inverted in all conversations. For example, a NPC will say "It's a shame that prince Linda fell ill" and the like. Though it's a minor bug, it was a sign of things to come.

Once you cure the prince with the leaf, the text overlaps onto itself and goes in a cycle endlessly. There is no way to get out of this pattern and because of this, I had no choice but to quit playing.

I would therefore recommend playing DQ1 on this ROM, but to not waste your time with DQ2 as you won't be able to get beyond this point.

After giving DW I a complete play through, I was mostly impressed with this translation. I found/recall only two typos. I don't remember the first anymore as it was in a one time occurrence in dialogue. The other is a prefix of "4" to your character name when using the Princess's Love item. Both are forgivable. One problem I found ( possibly an emulation error, but seems more likely related to the patch) is during certain conditions I have not deciphered, upon battle victory, the game will appear to freeze. After much experimentation, I found this is related to the sound. It can be fixed by un-checking CPU sound emulation in Snes9x sound options-your game will then unfreeze. Perhaps under different emulators this does not occur at all, hence why this was missed. Or, maybe there are multiple versions of the game floating around and I patched a different version. Regardless, the translation itself is solid. So, I'd recommend it to anyone looking to replay this classic.

I've not yet completed DW II, but so far it is also solid. The only thing so far is at one point a line return was missed, causing a graphical error in the text during a one-time dialogue line. Unless I edit this review later, it's a safe assumption that the DW II translation is of the same level of excellence.