Dragon Warrior for NES

Dragon Warrior for the NES needs no introduction, but I’m going to include one anyway!

It was originally released in Japan as Dragon Quest, and since then it has been ported to numerous platforms and has inspired sequels and spin-offs.

In Dragon Warrior, you begin your quest in the Castle of Tantagel, and King Lorick demands that since you are the heir of the great warrior Erdrick, it is up to you to vanquish the diabolical Dragon Lord, a mysterious figure who has suddenly appeared and sent his minions to wreak havoc on the island.

Naturally, the first order of business is to go save the princess from a dragon in a cave.

I think everyone who has ever played a video game has at least heard of Dragon Warrior, or the Dragon Quest franchise, and it has become so popular that a movement in the west came to rise—a movement called Dragon Qwest.

Lovers of the franchise have been fortunate enough to play many games from the main series and the spin-offs, but have not received every game from the franchise, and so Dragon Qwest was born to basically beg Square Enix to release the missing games to the west.

You can learn more about Dragon Qwest here.

What’s so great about Dragon Warrior is that it’s the first RPG that most people my age have played, and it quickly became the basis upon which all other RPGs have been built. Before anyone says anything, I am aware that Atari released some Dungeons and Dragons based RPGs, but they were far from actual RPG video games, and more like super basic dungeon crawlers with zero story line whatsoever.

Today, the term JRPG is more prevalent as it refers to games that are predominantly a top down view where the hero, or a group of stalwart companions, go off in search of a series of adventures. Levels are gained, equipment is purchased, spells are learned, and until a gamer has beaten certain bosses, levels, or stages, they can’t progress to the next part of the game.

This distinguishes modern day RPGs as either first person or third person games with an open world and numerous quests, which can be at least attempted in any order, but even those games could not have existed without Dragon Warrior.

The Good

Nostalgia is the key essence of Dragon Warrior. While there are certainly new gamers who have yet to try this little game, most gamers are old enough to have played it during their childhood.

I can still recall being happy for being sick because I got to stay home and play Dragon Warrior while my friends were stuck in school. Countless hours, I stayed up at night over the weekend to venture across verdant plains, bumpy hills, and through pitch-black caverns.

The graphics are not great, but the monsters all look pretty cool. The game play is simple enough for a five year old to enjoy. The music is fun if a little uninspired, and there are a few puzzles to solve. Perhaps they aren’t really puzzles, but it takes a little imagination and creativity to figure out where the sunlight stones are, where the silver harp is, and how to make the magical bridge required to lay siege upon the Dragon Lord’s castle.

The Bad

All in all, there is little story line outside of the manual. Apart from what the king tells you right at the beginning, you get some bits and pieces from the townsfolk, but it all boils down to: you good guy, so you go kill bad guy!

Equipment is not too expensive, but it can take hours to grind away, killing the same baddies over and over again, and if you croak, you lose half your earnings, which totally sucks when you’re low on hit points, out of magic points, and clutching your smoldering torch as you try to work your way out of the dungeons.

On top of all that, it takes forever to level up, which is a major requirement. Gaining levels seems to make a bigger difference than upgrading equipment, and then the bad guys will actually flee from battle, forcing you to fight tougher enemies, which can lay you to waste quite unexpectedly.

The worst part of the game is that you can only save in one place, back at the very beginning—Tantagel castle. In most games, you can save in any town or out on the world map, but nope, you gotta' high tail it all the way back to the beginning just to save!

While this game has its flaws, they are acceptable flaws. It was the first of its kind, and no matter how many times you beat Dragon Warrior, there will come a day when you’ll want to play it again.

Overall, I score it B

Make sure to learn more about the Dragon Qwest movement, and stay tuned for the next retro review. Share this with your friends!