The original's development team, Cupia, is back on hand for the sequel, which takes place 18 years after the events of the original. The whereabouts of the original's hero, Caim, are unknown to anyone. A new young knight called Nowe serves as the playable main character for this sequel. A young lady called Mana, who played a great role in the original's storyline as a six year-old, returns as the heroine for this game and is also playable.
Nowe has close ties to a dragon of his own, a blue creature called Legna who helped to raise Nowe and protects him like a father. Together, Nowe and Legna will take part in land and air-based battles, just like in the original, albeit with more refined gameplay. The kill-all mechanics and upgradable weapons of the original return with this title, with the promise of faster action.
While on the ground, the game features one big new play mechanic. In the original, you could call out your friends to appear in battle for brief special attacks, with the characters disappearing once your special move meter had depleted. For the sequel, you can change freely between characters, with no limit. You'll want to switch characters in order to best match the enemy at hand.
You'll also find some added play options for when fighting atop your dragon. As with the original, the game has free-roaming high air flight sequences as well as flight sequences that are closer to the ground and allow you to dismount and mount your dragon at will. While close to the ground, the sequel will apparently give you the ability to deal mega damage to specific enemies, something that the original ignored for more expansive attacks.
The original Dragon-On Dragoon did excellent sales in Japan (especially impressive considering the game's development staff consisted of just 17 people). We expect the sequel, when it sees Japanese release in Spring of 2005 to be big for Square Enix.
