Dragon Warrior is a game for the NES, but for the purposes of this review, I played the Game Boy Color port, which has slightly less difficulty and improved graphics, as well as featuring a new translation.
Boy, does this game have a lot of back story. I'll have to boil it down here, because getting all of the important points would probably take a multi-part series, so here are a few down and dirty bullet points.
- Dragon Warrior is a renaming of the iconic Japanese RPG Dragon Quest. It was renamed for copyright reasons thanks to a pen and paper RPG in the U.S. called DragonQuest.
- It's the first of a series that is hugely popular in Japan, and less so in North America, where Final Fantasy reigns supreme.
- Copies of Dragon Warrior were given away for free with a Nintendo Power subscription, which explains why copies of the game are so plentiful, especially compared with other Japanese RPGs of the era.
- Dragon Quest features artwork from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, but the original North American releases of the series removed his involvement from box and manual art, which makes sense as he was a complete unknown in the U.S. and would remain so until the late '90s, when Dragon Ball Z debuted on American TV.
- Dragon Quest is really, really, really important, especially if you love Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger, Shin Megami Tensei, or even American RPG series like Fable. Not only was Dragon Quest the first JRPG on a console, it was really the first RPG of any kind on a console, and laid the groundwork for how you could make an immensely complicated genre exemplified by D&D heavy games like Wizardry, Ultima, and the gold box games on PC simple enough to control and enjoy with a two button controller. This simplicity engaged more casual players, but also cut the barrier to entry price-wise, as personal computers were still hugely expensive back in those days. Legacy wise, this game is hovering around the top tier of video games, along with Space Invaders, Pong, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Grand Theft Auto 3, and all of the other usual suspects.
The plot here is pretty simple, which is great. You're a warrior, descendant of the great warrior Loto, and you need to smash an evil enemy to restore peace to the land. Along the way, you can also save the princess, but you don't have to!
The game is really remarkably well messaged and designed. From the beginning, you get enough information to set upon your journey, but also the tools you need to survive. Someone in the very first town will tell you that every time you cross a bridge, the monsters will continue to grow stronger. Another tells you that you should save up some money to buy better equipment from a nearby town before going too far. And from there, you're free to explore, learning these lessons the hard way. Thge way of failure is not exceedingly hard, though. Death merely means losing half of your money and returning to the king, rather than losing all of your progress before the last save, as in Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy. You can see the enemy's castle literally on the very first screen upon leaving the castle in which you start your journey, and its presence will loom large in your mind as you probe and explore more of the map, trying to find your way to accessing it. The game teases you early with items you'll need to defeat the enemy, with a shrine that tells you about the equipment your ancestral hero had upon defeating the enemy years before. Then villagers will drop little breadcrumbs to you about the directions of these various items. I know some of this is the improved translation and balancing of experience and gold costs, but dang if this game wasn't really well paced and balanced between grinding and exploration, with a generally clear expectation of what to do next. There were a few times I resorted to a guide, but I was generally able to explore on my own, and the moments in which a guide was strictly necessary were few. With enough patience, I think everything could have been figured out on my own, but my basic rule is that if I spend 15 minutes on something and just can't figure it out, and am not enjoying myself, I feel justified in looking something up. Time is valuable, and this game is certainly more respectful of your time than Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star.
The combat is exceedingly simple, but ultimately very fun. The battle animations are ok, and everything is understandable. It's clear what your stats mean and what your commands do. You control a single character who evolves based on a predetermined curve and learns spells at predetermined times, so your "role-playing" opportunities are fewer than I would like. But for an early RPG, it's perfectly fine.
I honestly didn't listen to the music at all. I have heard it's excellent, but I can't vouch for this.
Graphically, the game is perfectly fine for the era. Looking at the NES artwork (my visuals were redone, so I'm just basing this on still photos), it's certainly less impressive than, say, Final Fantasy and light years behind Phantasy Star, but it was also made significantly earlier than that. But the GBC visuals are nice enough that you won't have any qualms. There are too many recolors, as you'll run into pretty my every enemy archetype within the first 45 minutes of play, but again, it's an early example of the genre on a cart with very limited memory, so I'll give it a pass.
The pacing on this game was a complete breath of fresh air. I really struggle with games that ask me to burn 30-50 hours to complete, and I think I finished this one closer to 10. God bless old games.
The game isn't perfect for sure. It's got the barest of bare bones plots. I prefer RPGs with more customization options in character development. It gets pretty heavily grindy by the end, with very low stat growths to twist the knife even deeper. The combat is basically press A to win, while healing from time to time.
But I really enjoyed spending time with this one. I cheated my way through Dragon Warrior on an emulator during college, but really don't count that as an official clear, and remembered precious little about it. I'll definitely be giving Dragon Warrior II a shot at some point, but I think I've done enough handheld RPGing for a few weeks at least. I'll give this game a 9.0/10, and would recommend that every play it for sheer historical significance alone.
Up next on What I'm Playing is a game I've been wanting to try for years, and finally picked up a copy.
-TRO
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