Enix's U.S. subsidiary published the American release, Dragon Warrior II, for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990.

Dragon Quest II expands on the first game by having a larger party, more areas to explore, multiple heroes and enemies in a battle, and a sailing ship.

This, combined with a staff that included students not familiar with the coding and debugging process, pushed back the release by a month.

The developers also had many ideas that had to be discarded due to the technical limitations of the Famicom system, though some were later incorporated into subsequent remakes and the game's sequel, Dragon Quest III.

Dragon Quest II was successful in Japan; the original Famicom version shipped over 2.4 million copies.

A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan on June 26, 2014, and worldwide on October 9, 2014, as Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line.

The game was praised for improving on almost all aspects of the original, including having better graphics, having a larger world to explore, and more characters to participate in a more dynamic combat system.

They can search treasure chests, talk and trade with villagers, equip themselves with weapons and armor, and cast spells.

While wandering fields, towers, caves, seas, and dungeons, the player randomly encounters monsters, after which the game shifts to battle mode.

To win, the player must fight monsters to improve the characters' experience levels and get gold to buy better weapons and armor.

[13] Compared with its predecessor, Dragon Warrior II offers a wider array of spells and items[14] and a much larger world.

[12] The story begins with an attack upon Moonbrooke Castle by the wizard, Hargon, who seeks to summon the demon, Malroth, to destroy the world.

[20] He tells them that, by collecting the five crests hidden around the world, the party can create the Charm of Rubiss, allowing them to defeat Hargon and his illusions.

[22] At the beginning of development, producer Yukinobu Chida asked director and programmer Koichi Nakamura for a definite release date, and he offhandedly set one.

[24] In the Japanese magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump, published on November 11, 1986, it was announced that the game would be released in late December.

[26] They had to finish the final version in mid-December,[24] which they did, and then rushed to deliver to Nintendo to make the physical game cartridges.

[22] In another game from the time entitled Wizardry, players can control a party of up to six characters directly; Nakamura saw this, liked the idea, and wanted to do something similar.

[23] Nakamura has stated that the Cave of Rhone found in the game is inspired by a classic trick to exit mazes, that of always moving forward while sticking to the right-hand side wall to avoid traps.

Yuji Horii allowed Toriyama to paint full drawings rather than directly create the pixel art that would be shown in the game.

[29] Yuji Horii stated that for his process, like other manga and film creators, he quickly outlines the story's plot in his mind.

Nakamura had written a program that simulated every single combat that he used to adjust the game's setting for character leveling and the strength of enemies players would encounter.

[34] The game cartridge's ROM capacity is 1 Mbit,[35] but only about 10 bytes of free space remains in final products.

[11] In the Japanese original, the game starts right with the injured soldier from Moonbrooke entering Midenhall castle, seeking help from its king.

It covers ten orchestra version soundtracks with a twenty-five minute "original sound story"; this suite was performed by the Tokyo Strings Ensemble.

[64] The remakes size was four times bigger than the original Dragon Quest port,[65] and since phone capacity was limited, the game was divided into two parts.

[71] This Dragon Quest II was based on the previous cell phone version while optimized for smartphones and was released on June 26, 2014, in Japan.

[72] An English version was released on October 9, 2014, under the title Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line.

[94] The Super Famicom and Game Boy Color remakes together shipped in excess of 1.92 million copies worldwide.

[100][101] Japanese reviews highlighted the Famicom version's difficulty, stemming from issues such as the many traps in the Cave of Rhone, and the final boss's ability to cast a "Healall" spell, and this has led to some critics calling the game "the most difficult Dragon Quest".

[84] The Game Boy Color remake got a 30/40 from Famitsu,[85] and the U.S. version, Dragon Warrior I & II, received fairly high marks, including an 8.0 out of 10 from IGN,[62] a 9.6 out of 10 from GameSpot,[12] and 8 out of 10 from Nintendo Power.