A Classic RPG and the Legacy It Has Created!
My experience with and a brief history of the first Dragon Quest game!
Dragon Quest.
Words cannot adequately describe how much I love this series. Okay, a brief confession, I have only played and finished a couple of the games in the franchise, those games being Dragon Quest IV (being my favorite one) and various versions of Dragon Quest I, just about every version there is here in the west anyway. Others, I’ve left in various states of unfinished.
With the passing of the great Akira Toriyama, I have made it a personal mission of mine to play and finish every Dragon Quest game, in the main series anyway. If I were to go through the series in its entirety, including: ports, remakes, side games, monster collectors among many others, well, my journey would take many years, just on this franchise alone. That doesn’t even begin to include the novels And while I will eventually visit some of them in the future on this blog, I’ll go over my experience with the first game in particular.
But first, some history:
I. Is it Dragon Warrior? Or Dragon Quest?
Now, some of you may be more familiar with this cover art:
And it is indeed Dragon Quest I, but there is a funny story behind this. In 1980, a company by the name of Simulation Publications had a TTRPG also called DragonQuest, during a time when D&D and other games were in their infancy. Since Simulation had the trademark on the name at the time, Enix localized the series as Dragon Warrior, publishing the first four entries under the title and then Dragon Warrior VII during the days of the Sony Playstation. While there are no parallels between the two properties, at the time, it was the best solution up until 2002, when SquareEnix would finally take up the trademark and publishing its titles as Dragon Quest from that point on, up to its latest entry in the series:
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince.
Gonna segue for a moment to show something off here, see I managed to find some online resources for the DragonQuest TTRPG here, while I haven’t played with it much, it is something I would love to explore in the future on this Substack.
I mean just look at the cover for the third edition book. This just screams adventure! There is even an association of people that play DragonQuest to this day. So who knows, I may explore this in the future and hopefully tell you more about it, we’ll see.
Back to the task at hand.
Dragon Quest was brought to life by the visions of three men:
Yuji Horii, series creator and director to this day. A man who
Akira Toriyama, known for his work on Dragon Ball, designed the characters as well as the monsters. As many of you know, this man passed away on March 1st of this year.
And Koichi Sugiyama, who composed the music up until his passing at age 90. His last project being being an adaptation of Dragon Quest V titled; Dragon Quest: Your Story.
Speaking of:
II. Story
You play as a nameless descendant of the Legendary Hero: Erdrick, who at one point in the land’s history, stopped the dreaded Dragonlord with a Sphere of Light. Now, the Dragonlord has returned once more, stolen the Sphere of Light, kidnapped Princess Gwaelin and has an army of monsters roaming the land. Your mission, rescue the Princess, slay the Dragonlord and retrieve the Sphere of Light.
(Princess Gwaelin and Erdrick’s Descendant)
And, that’s about the extent of the story.
For an NES title, it was simple, easy to understand and required a LOT of level grinding, at least for this title and its sequel Dragon Quest II. This also translated to its various ports, from the Super Famicom, to the Gameboy Color, Mobile and Nintendo Switch, the difficulties of which varied depending on which version you’ve played.
III. Gameplay
The game operates on a menu system, partially inspired by the western RPGs Wizardry and Ultima.
(Screenshot from the Super Famicom version of Dragon Quest)
You could attack with your equipped weapon, ranging from various swords, clubs, axes and other weapons, cast a small variation of spells that you learned as you gained experience and levels, bravely run away if a fight is too difficult and use items, from herbs to magic weapons which have different effects when used in battle.
The menu system itself evolved from one of Yuji Horii’s early games the Portopia Serial Murder Case, show below:
(Source: MoeChicken’s YouTube Channel)
This was not like Final Fantasy, which you formed a party consisting of four people of differing classes, you travelled alone and also fought battles one-on-one. But unlike Final Fantasy, this game had a unique mechanic where the name you chose determined your character’s long term stat growth. What this means is that it takes the first four letters of that name, it will choose two of those stats which will grow at a faster rate and the rest would grow much slower
Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself with this Name/Stat tool. A handy resource and there are a bunch of them, but this is the one I’ve used for a while, through various ports of the game, which I’ve finished quite a bit. There are still dungeons that I get thrown off because I think the layouts of one or two of them flipped, particularly the last area in the game: Charlock Castle.
III. Conclusion
If slaying dragons and saving princesses is something you’re interested and you also want to play a classic game, I suggest picking up a copy. As I’ve said before, its had various ports, Switch, Mobile, Famicom/NES, Super Famicom/SNES, and even the upcoming 2.5D remake coming in 2025.
Hard to believe that a game that at one point you could only acquire through Nintendo Power Magazine would spawn such a wonderful franchise. And while not as popular here in the West as Final Fantasy, the series does have a following.
Also, if you’re ever interested, I am currently doing a run of the Switch version on my Twitch channel. I am near the end of the game and if Role Playing Games are your thing, stop by and say hello!
More content to come.
Thank all of you for reading and may our paths cross again!