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Dragon Warrior - NES
A Slime Draws Near
by Sarah
Name: Dragon Warrior
Platform: NES
Year Released: 1989
When people talk about long-running RPG series, Final Fantasy is usually the first one that most gamers mention. Yes, it’s true that the Final Fantasy series has made its mark over the last twenty years, but it may have never been the game it was if not for Dragon Warrior. Later becoming known as Dragon Quest in the U.S., Dragon Warrior was the first in what would become a long line of traditional Japanese role-playing games, predating the first Final Fantasy by a year in both Japan and the U.S. Even though this is certainly a classic from the 8-bit era, I was able to get a copy for $4 at VGXPO last November thanks to a clueless seller. Though the game is over two decades old, I didn’t expect to have any trouble getting into it. However, it was a little bit more primitive than I thought it would be.
Dragon Warrior follows the story of a young warrior, to be named by the player (I named him Billiams). There is not a lot of plot to follow early in the game; all you know is that you’re descended from another legendary warrior, a princess has been kidnapped, and you need to save her. Speaking with locals in the kingdom and in various towns across the map will help the story progress, but it is fairly typical. The map and towns appear in a top down, Legend of Zelda-like style, while battles shift to a first-person view of the foe, with the option to fight, use a spell or item, or run away. Again, this is all standard 8-bit RPG fare, but in 1986 (when the game was first released in Japan), this title was a landmark for role-playing games.
It’s not that I didn’t expect Dragon Warrior to be an old-school RPG, I just wasn’t quite aware what “old school” meant to that franchise. I’ve played through the first Final Fantasy multiple times, both on the NES and Game Boy Advance, and I never had a problem making my way through the game, despite the dated graphics and simplistic plot. I think the hardest thing to get used to with Dragon Warrior was the pop-up menu that preceded any action. The menu dictates opening chests and doors, using stairs, talking, or just about any other action needed outside of battle. However, these are commands that I expect to happen automatically. If I’m near a chest, I want to hit a button to open it, not hit a button to choose a command to open it. The use of the menu draws out every action and makes simple things, like talking to people and exploring, more tedious.
My initial reaction when playing Dragon Warrior is that it is easy to see how influential this game was to the future of console RPGs. Considering that Dragon Quest is to Enix what Final Fantasy is to Square, this game now seems like a prophecy that the two biggest JRPG publishers would eventually merge. It’s clear that Final Fantasy was influenced by this game, although I think FF managed to improve on the formula when the first game came out a year later. Unfortunately, Dragon Warrior wasn’t able to keep me engaged like other NES games still do. Like many RPGs, especially older ones, the gameplay is stretched out by a fair amount of grinding. Wandering around the world map in order to find random battles and gain experience and gold is a necessary component of Dragon Warrior. Pair up this sometimes-tedious element with a lackluster story, and we have a game that, while important, doesn’t hold up as well as other RPGs of the same era.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand what a monumental series Dragon Quest is, and I found later installments in the franchise to be rather enjoyable. It has come a long way since the NES, and with several spinoffs and Dragon Quest IX forthcoming, it shows no signs of stopping. However, a few of the gameplay aspects of Dragon Warrior are a little too primitive for some gamers to swallow. It’s definitely worth playing through for hardcore RPG fans, and more than worth the $4 I paid for it. I just wish the experience had been a bit more epic. Perhaps twenty years makes a bigger difference than I thought.
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Comments
Loved this game as a kid, although Dragon Warrior III was a much better NES release. I was psyched to find out they did an entire DW ripoff for Retro Game Collection. It's pretty much why I picked up the game.