Dragon Warrior II: Dragon Warrior II General Improvement

The purpose of this hack is to mitigate many of the flaws of Dragon Warrior II in order to create an overall play experience more similar to that of its NES sequels.

Major changes include: gold and experience point winnings in battle are increased, mini-bosses are now more challenging, shops and treasure chests are adjusted, late-game equipment is buffed, new names are used for the Prince of Cannock and Princess of Moonbrooke, and more. However, the script and events are unchanged.

Please see the readme for details. And thank you to everyone who tries this hack!

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| Dragon Warrior II NES |
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| - General Improvement - |
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| Version 2.0 |
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| Release: 03-08-2023 |
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| - By - |
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| Fauntleroy |
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The purpose of this hack is to make the original release of Dragon Warrior II more accessible to modern gamers by reducing grinding, streamlining difficulty, and making rare items easier to find. Specific changes include:

* Gold and experience point winnings are doubled, up to maximum of 255. Metal Babbles still give more than 255 experience, however.

* Gremlin, Saber Lion, Ozwarg, and Mace Master are now boss-only monsters and do not appear in regular battles.

* Mace Master replaced Evil Clown for the boss battles at Midenhall and the Sea Cave.

* Shop inventories were extensively overhauled. All "normal" weapons and armor can now be purchased somewhere. The best equipment is for sale in Wellgarth.

* Treasure chests that contained gold or traps now contain items.

* The Golden Card is the only item that can never be bought or found in a treasure chest. The Dragon's Potion item no longer appears.

* Metal Babbles now drop the Mysterious Hat instead of the Dragon's Potion.

* The misspelled item name "Tresures" was changed to "Treasure."

* The Prince of Midenhall can no longer equip items better suited for his companions.

* The Prince of Cannock can now equip the Sword of Erdrick, Light Sword, Sword of Destruction, Steel Shield, Evil Shield, and Iron Helmet.

* The Princess of Moonbrooke can now equip the Leather Shield and Evil Shield.

* The Princess of Moonbrooke now learns the Revive spell instead of the Stepguard spell.

* Equipment and spells were rebalanced and are now closer (though not identical) to how they appear in the remakes.

* The Prince of Cannock can be named: Bakor, Carmine, Hector, Kiefer, Lorik, Roric, Simon, or Wilbur.

* The Princess of Moonbrooke can be named: Aldonza, Debora, Jessica, Matilda, Olivia, Pamela, Tania, or Vivian.

* Lastly, all text speed options were sped up!

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| Setup Instructions |
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You will need the 30230308dwiigenimp.ips file as well as an unaltered copy of the NES American release ROM.

Dump Name Dragon Warrior II (USA)
Dragon Warrior II [USA]
Dragon Warrior 2 (U)
Dragon_warrior2
DRAGONW2
Filesize 256 KB
CRC32 8C5A784E
MD5 CCDB4563C9004D862DCF3A98C7937C22
SHA-1 191A131E7E27E121D094CC412FED87C708147B2C

After the patch is applied:
CRC32 32EDBD9A
MD5 40C2BE75FC358C174436AA2836EDAED7
SHA-1 420E74597C19648946C69D6B1934BF0FA4D0CD27

Please do not ask me for ROMs; I will not provide them.

I recommend using the Lunar IPS utility to apply the patch to the ROM. As of this writing, you can download Lunar IPS here:
http://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lips/

To apply the patch:
1.) Open Lunar IPS and click the Apply IPS Patch button.
2.) Select the 30230308dwiigenimp.ips file.
3.) Select the ROM to be patched.
4.) You're all set! It's that easy!

As far as which emulator to use, I personally like Nestopia. Nestopia has its own website:
http://nestopia.sourceforge.net/

Database match: Dragon Warrior II (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210216-231042)
File SHA-1: 3E5E86AD3AACEA6EAE95C36E43980BC33418CFB0
File CRC32: 9D4FC10E
ROM SHA-1: 191A131E7E27E121D094CC412FED87C708147B2C
ROM CRC32: 8C5A784E