The new team-up between Square Enix and the makers of Dynasty Warriors offers four-player co-op and the promise of genuine change.

The game almost plays like a proper action role-player now, with open world areas, switchable classes, and increased gameplay variety; Four-player co-op is very welcome, if awkward to use

Highly repetitive in most of the usual Dynasty Warriors ways, including the brain-dead combat and non-existent artificial intelligence; Highly simplistic and cliched mission design

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There are far worse things to do with an afternoon than spending it on Dragon Quest Heroes II . For instance, playing a game that doesn't let you fight with warfans.

feels like a step forward in some ways, but a step back in others. The new additions to combat are nice, but the attempts to bring more RPG elements to the story missions don't always work out for the best – at worst, they wind up transforming an enjoyable action game into a boring slog.

Over the last few years Omega Force has done an excellent job of adjusting its reputation to be more than just "the Dynasty Warriors studio." It has been taking on high-profile franchises like Zelda and Attack on Titan, and delivering novel experiences within its self-established action boundaries.

Dragon Quest Heroes 2 is a Musou game set in Square Enix's enormously popular RPG universe. The one with the blue slimes and the Dragonball hair, not the one with the Calvin Klein models swinging huge swords at each other.

Delicious Musou combat; Tons of characters with unique abilities; Distinct Dragon Quest flavour

Character growth is so boring; Non-combat quests interrupt momentum; Some combat quests felt padded

"Fanservice is the name of the game in Dragon Quest Heroes II." © 2017 Square Enix, Omega Force. All rights reserved.

Beautiful visuals; complementary new gameplay systems; expanded scale; lots of fan-favorite characters; plenty of customization options; great localization

Too much padding; later battles are too long; some difficulty spikes; story is bog-standard; fundamentally not too different from the first Dragon Quest Heroes

The Dragon Quest series is arguably one of the biggest and most popular franchises to ever come out of Japan. There are eleven numbered entries in the series at current count, plus a massive number of spin-off titles, too...

A different take on the hack and slash genre, but let down by sticky controls, dropped inputs and terrible voice acting.

Fans of Dynasty Warriors or the Dragon Quest series will enjoy this second-edition genre mashup. Dragon Quest Heroes 2 strikes a great balance between complexity and action and weaves an entertaining story through and around its fast and furious battles.