The original Dragon Quest was conceived by Yuji Horii and published by Enix in 1986. After a few sequels Dragon Quest went on to become the most popular role playing game series in Japan. It remains one of the best selling franchises even today. Nintendo saw it fit to bring the game over to the US for English speakers, but it underwent a name change switching out ‘quest’ for ‘warrior’ due to certain licensing issues. The game was actually given away with subscriptions to Nintendo Power magazine, and quickly became a popular hit. This was one of the first RPGs I ever played, and it will always hold a special place in my heart because of this. While many consider Dragon Warrior archaic I find that it’s still quite playable and the gameplay holds up pretty well even today.
In this game you play as a young warrior who just happens to be the descendant of a legendary hero named Erdrick who once banished evil from the kingdom of Alefgard. The main character is called upon after a man with the ability to command dragons attacks the castle and kidnaps the princess. It’s up to you to gather Erdrick’s equipment as well as the rainbow drop to form a bridge to reach the island the evil Dragonlord inhabits and defeat him. The story is extremely basic and the game fails to offer any real plot twists. It’s a linear plot that never changes, but it’s enough to hold together the quest and give your actions meaning.
Dragon Warrior is an extremely basic game. No characters join your party (you’re stuck with just one protagonist here) and there’s only a handful of different equipment you can find and buy. Battles occur randomly while wandering across the world map and within dungeons. These are strictly turn based affairs wherein you face off against one monster and input commands via a menu as you exchange blows with the enemy. Thankfully these encounters transpire at a brisk pace with no animations and only text to describe what’s happening in the battle.
With only one character in your convoy, and a limited number of spells (none of which increase your abilities; they either damage or heal) this is one of the few Japanese RPGs that actually requires grinding. You just aren’t given a tremendous number of options here. Generally you’ll find yourself fighting battle after battle so that you can afford the latest equipment, and it does make a huge difference. Each new area that you reach has significantly stronger monsters, and this serves as a big road block. It’s disheartening to access a new area only to discover you need to grind before you’ll stand a chance of surviving.
Some will be annoyed and give up on this game because of the time investment for earning money that this game requires, but even today I don’t have a major problem with it. Because of this the length of the adventure is largely artificial. Dragon Warrior features only a few locations to visit, and the world map in general is quite tiny to be honest. If grinding wasn’t required this game could be completed in only a few hours because of the small world. It’s very low on content, but what’s there is quite well designed. Alefgarde is a very fun world to explore even if its secrets tend to be vague.
Unfortunately this game does a bad job of properly explaining where to go and what to do next. It’s never completely outlined in the story, and you’re often given only vague hints. The game expects you to interact with every single NPC in the town areas which can be a real chore. Unless you’re following an online walkthrough or already know what to do you’ll get stuck. Sometimes the tasks are as obscure as taking a specific number of steps and searching the ground. It can be pretty annoying. Other times you will need to use items in certain places, and it is in these situations that I find the game fails hardest to offer you an explanation.
Dungeons are thankfully straightforward and you should have no problems navigating your way through. This is a nice change of pace from most other 8-bit RPGs. The only drawback to the dungeons is the fact that you need torches in order to see inside many of them. This wastes both resources as well as time. Sure, you can try to make it through without them but this will test your patience. Only the space your character is on is lit, and you’ll miss things like stairs and treasure chests.
Dragon Warrior is a very difficult game. As I mentioned earlier your spells and items are severely limited which doesn’t give you a whole lot of options in combat. Enemies hit hard and often use cheap tactics. The final dungeon in particular is brutal with a significant number of enemies that can, and do, use the Sleep spell. This will leave your character unable to perform any actions for several turns while the enemy whittles down your hit points. It’s cheap and unavoidable. It can be frustrating when you just want to finish the quest.
You can only carry a certain number of items, and your magic points are severely limited. This reduces your healing capabilities a great deal. Most of the time you’ll feel like you’re running out. It adds stress to the experience, but in a good way. You certainly have to plan ahead. To make matters worse this game has a level cap of 30 which prevents you from simply overpowering all of the later enemies. The remakes are significantly easier. The original is best described as a constant struggle. The Sleep spell was a bad idea for a game with one character. You’re left helpless and can only wait for it to end. They really should have put in a piece of armor that protects from it.
The original Japanese version of the first Dragon Quest was one of the most simple looking games on the NES. Thankfully, Nintendo upgraded the graphics a fair bit for the English release. It’s still plain looking with blocky characters and only two frames of animation per character. By 8-bit standards it’s acceptable. The most impressive part of this game visually are the enemy designs. Akira Toriyama drew them up, and they’ve since become iconic. In-game they’re fairly detailed, and I like them quite a bit. The soundtrack fares slightly better than the graphics. The music is extremely memorable and really fits the game’s atmosphere well. I especially like the world map theme as well as the standard battle music. The castle theme is also quite good too. The soundtrack isn’t one of my favorites, but it’s still really well done and fits Dragon Warrior nicely.
