Quote Originally Posted by sheath View Post
My comment on Dragon Warrior 2 was that the start of the game forces you to stay one block away from the first castle until you level up, then you can walk two blocks away until you level up. The first game let you grind in a small area around the first castle at least, Dragon Warrior 2 has enemy classes way too powerful at the start just two steps away from the castle. I really haven't played DW 3&4 at all, my comment was mostly about the graphics and layout being so similar.
By "block grinding" I misinferred you meant 1-pace encounters, which they can really seem like in DW3. I don't recall having so much trouble in 2 but then I always try to play RPGs at minimum power, pushing as early as possible. 3 has more sophisticated towns and within them better graphics, 2 has towns very similar to 1's but less appealing I think due to certain palette changes, notably the brick's going from madder to purple.



They're all the same to me, I couldn't tell which was being played without seeing the title screen. Whereas the Sonic games all have very distinct graphics engines from one another above and beyond the gameplay tweaks and new items, the DKC games just look like the same game with emphasis placed on the younger Kongs as the series progressed.
I'd say the DKCs are more distinct than Sonic 3 from S&K. They grow progressively kiddier and 3 has muddy graphics. 2 also has a different tonality with lots of darker areas and a surprising usage of purple, whilst the hedge mazes are unmistakable sheerly as backgrounds or layouts or one's flying holding onto Squawks let alone with all 3 aspects together. But the DKCs are in the same graphical boat as the DWs, there just wasn't any further they could be pushed on the system in their given style, there'd have to be a radical change. Of course in DW's case they could have put combat backgrounds back in, but that's about it short of entirely changing the enemy look or going for a wholly different world feeling--say, a wasteland with bare encampments in place of towns (something they rather did with 7th Saga on SNES). DKC changed the environments and characters (and added mechanics) within reason each game, there wasn't a whole lot else to do short of going crazy with the series's defining characteristics----Donkey Kong 2XXX, Adventures in the Meth Lab? ...