Dragon Warrior Review

The forefather to all JRPGs to date! Just looking at the title screen alone brings back all sorts of memories to me, not all of them fond memories, to be sure, but memories nonetheless...

Dragon Warrior being the first JRPG means that every JRPG out there, not just those that would come later, but every other JRPG made to date tries to mimic its success in some way or other. Basically, Dragon Warrior was created because Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan and nowadays even outside of Japan, yet I still call them Dragon Warrior because it simply sounds better and cooler) series creator Yuji Horii felt that there weren't enough JRPGs on the system. So, to fix this, he came to the solution of creating his own by basing Dragon Warrior on two different game systems. The battle system for Dragon Warrior comes from the Wizardry franchise, which was made IN AMERICA, NOT JAPAN!! The Japanese LOVE Wizardry, as do I, a fact I can't emphasize enough, and the traveling through an overworld and not just a dungeon comes from the Ultima franchise. Horii, like most other Japanese folk, was hooked on Wizardry, but he apparently liked Ultima more. I'm honestly not sure, I just know that the Japanese loved both, but they loved Wizardry more. What I do know is, is that Horii's concept worked.

Choose a name and a text speed to begin.

Well, the first thing you usually wind up doing in any RPG is entering the name of your character, and Dragon Warrior is no different. After entering your character name and the speed at which messages are displayed, you then get thrust into the throne room of the King of Tantegel Castle, who tells you some of what's going on, or rather what your ancestor, the legendary hero Erdrick did, years ago. What he doesn't tell you is that his daughter has been kidnapped, shock of all shocks. But for once, the antagonist doesn't keep the princess nearby him like, say, Bowser from Super Mario Bros. does, oh no, the Dragonlord, your nemesis in this game, apparently learned from Bowser's mistake and hid this princess away good and proper.

I'm all ears!

The King, for whatever reason, has also locked his throne room's door, meaning that you'll need a key to unlock it. Fair enough, he has one sitting right behind his daughter's throne. Unfortunately, using the Magic Key uses it up and it disappears, but at least the Throne Room isn't locked anymore, meaning that if the Dragonlord wanted to, he could break in again, steal other females from the castle, go out and roast the cows of the village for food, and then go back to Tantegel Castle for seconds. Anyway, the king has told you that you need to prepare for your journey, and in addition to the Magic Key that unlocked his Throne Room door, he also has given you a torch and 120 gold pieces to get you started on the right foot. Now, the manual for the game stated you could either buy the Bamboo Pole and the Leather Armor to start you off proper, or you could buy the Club and the Clothes. What I've learned is the best way to start off, since the translation/localization team apparently couldn't count for jack, is to buy the Bamboo Pole, the Clothes, and the Small Shield. That way you're already decked out for combat.

Fighting with a Wolf!

Speaking of combat, all battles in this game are in First-Person mode. You will not be seeing your character fighting at all, but at least it allows you to strengthen your imagination, right? If your brain can't fill in the blanks with this sort of battle system, then you should read the Harry Potter books to help strengthen your imagination. Anyway, you'll be grinding quite a lot in Dragon Warrior. I mean, like, a real lot. Seriously, in Dragon Warrior, you spend at least 90% of the time grinding, and the other 10% of the time is when you'll actually be trying to make progress through the game's story.



Speaking of the game's story, or rather what little story there actually is, (remember, it's the world's first JRPG, so it didn't really have to try in the story department) isn't that great. Basically, the whole story is this: the Dragonlord broke into Tantegel Castle, stole the Ball of Light and kidnapped Princess Gwaelin, and now it's your job to rescue her. That's it. That's Dragon Warrior's whole plot.

The music of the game, though really relaxing, doesn't fair much better. There's only about seven tracks in the game, and only one of them is remixed, and that is the dungeon music. The lower you go in dungeons, the more ominous sounding the music will become.

Erdrick has left you some encouraging words.

There is one part of the game that I'm glad never returned, and that's the darkness in the game's dungeons. You see, in Dragon Warrior and Dragon Warrior alone, whenever you enter a cave or some other underground dungeon, it is dark and you can only see your hero and the tile he's on. That's it. You have to either use a torch, or cast the Radiant spell in order to light the place up enough to see where you're going, but Torches use up valuable inventory space and the Radiant spell uses up too much MP, and for this game's final boss fight, you have to have the MP to survive what is basically a battle of endurance.

Could this have been a trap!?

Overall, just like with the NES version of Final Fantasy I, I can't in good conscience recommend playing Dragon Warrior's NES version, unless you have patience and/or an affinity for these older
games. Thankfully, it was also ported to several systems, just like Final Fantasy 1. These include the SNES, GBC, Cellphones, iOS devices and Android devices. Get one of those instead, and only get the NES version as a collector's item.



This review, including all text and screenshots, are © 2019 Jestan Diams. All rights reserved. Please don't repost this anywhere on the internet or print it in a magazine article without my express written consent.