The NES is a console that I've time and time again kinda dismissed as a platform full of archaic design and games that have aged terribly all over the place, and yet, I keep finding myself returning to the system regardless, and it's for stuff like Dragon Warrior that I do this for. I honestly went into this expecting the worst, a cryptic grindfest full of unfocused ideas with too much ambition to properly fit on such primitive hardware, and while the game definitely was a lot of this to some extent, what I got was something pleasantly surprising. Now I won't say this has necessarily aged gracefully by any stretch of the imagination, it was the starting point for JRPGS as a whole after all, so it was all a bit of a learning process, but at the same time, this is such a well realised artistic vision that I can't help but be impressed at the same time with how much I actually enjoyed this and what a strong starting point this style of game had.
I think a huge reason for this is that the game manages to feel both ambitious yet also extremely restrained in what it has going on. There are very few items, certain things feel very streamlined, such as buying equipment instantly having the strongest option equipped and selling the piece it replaced, and having a small selection of spells that are fairly obvious to understand what they do. There feels like there's a fair amount to the game in terms of its scope, but at the same time, almost every aspect of it feels intentionally simplified in such a way to be as digestible as possible, which is appreciated for a lot of reasons. The biggest one to me is that due to this intention to make a game that can be easily understood for the most part, there's way less cryptic nonsense than one would think to the point where a guide is barely necessary, with ample hints and avenues to figuring out how to obtain what you need to beat the game, at least once you start to understand the way the game generally operates and works. Despite this simplicity however, in terms of atmosphere and general vibes, this honestly works really well at creating the sense of adventure set in an inhospitable land.
I respect how the game just starts off, gives you a very quick and basic rundown of your goal "rescue the princess and defeat the dragonlord" and then sets you out on a journey without much direction, having the player just explore the land and figure a lot of things out for themselves. While this easily could have led to a game that you'd be required to take a walkthrough with you every step of the way, Dragon Warrior leads the player pretty nicely for the most part through a combination of vague hints and directions and through expecting the player to thoroughly look into everywhere they can go and figure when it's time to go back into uncharted territory. The game doesn't hold your hand but doesn't make you feel hopelessly lost either, you can go anywhere from the start, the only thing stopping you is the fact that enemies are of varying strengths, so if you get destroyed, chances are you just need to look somewhere else for a bit and come back stronger. The idea of having crossing bridges on the overworld being the indicator for a jump in difficulty is pretty clever as well, both signalling the player of some key information while also not feeling totally out of place.
Despite the limited overworld sprites, there also felt like there was a lot of effort put into making the world feel alive, with each town having its own important parts to them while also feeling aesthetically different from one another. To further add to this is the way the NPCs are cleverly a mix of useless but often funny dialogue to make the towns feel lived in, while also often giving vital pieces of information that are just clear enough for it to feel more like a puzzle to figure out what the game wants from you, rather than another signal to look something up online. One of my favourite examples of this is the way that the final boss takes 1 damage from anything other than the ultimate sword, so to telegraph this in game, you've got one NPC who says "The Dragonlord's scales are as strong as steel" and then another one later who says that this ultimate sword can easily cut through steel. It's stuff like this that I find clever in that it's conveyed in a slightly higher order way than simply telling the player exactly what to do, while also not keeping it entirely hidden and borderline impossible to figure out on your own, and this sort of storytelling and instruction is used throughout the game as well, often requiring you to put a few bits of information together to get the full picture.
I also feel like the artwork in general goes a long way in making this feel appealing, thanks to Akira Toriyama's monster designs being super appealing to look at and giving some very clear and cohesive visual direction to the game that makes you a bit excited every time you're able to see yet another fun enemy. The issues of limited inventory size also feels somewhat mitigated thanks to the way there are barely any actual items, so there'll basically never be a point where you'll have too many and feel like you need to pointlessly micromanage, but also, the way that spells work in this further contributing to needing very few consumables. When the spells you get from levelling up don't directly contribute to dealing a lot of damage or some other vital combat utility, these often will have the same effect as one of the consumables in the game. This essentially means that after certain level ups, you no longer require dedicating a slot to said item, making things a constant process of streamlining your own inventory in a pretty seamless and satisfying way. I also think it's a nice touch how from the very start of the game you get a clear sight of the final destination and ultimate goal of the game, with everything being dedicated to working your way towards it, providing both a sense of cohesion and a strong driving force towards your goal, it being in sight but always out of reach. This is made all the more powerful by the way that they really make you feel like the world's against you, not only having monsters after your throat at all times basically, but even having the townsfolk express little faith in you, saying that they believe that the Dragonlord is far too powerful and other statements in the same vein.
While I've had a lot of positive things to say about this, Dragon Warrior is also far from a perfect game either, in fact, in some ways it's borderline painful to play. A lot of these issues come down to enemies as well, as despite how awesome they look, there's also a lot of frustration associated with them. The one that is most irritating is the way that while these spike in difficulty might result in a world that somewhat immerses you in the fact that it feels overrun by evil, it also means grinding, and quite a bit of it. I'd hazard a guess that most of the time spent playing this game was dedicated to grinding, and while this at first wasn't anything too bad, there being a certain relaxing quality to hacking away at things for a bit while playing some music in the background, it definitely hits a point where things begin feeling very tedious. This is exacerbated by a terrible EXP curve that sees the player hitting a point near the end of the game where they'll be needing around 3000 EXP per level where the average enemy at that point yields around 50, which I'm sure is pretty easy to see, it's kinda ridiculous and a real test of patience and kills some pacing especially near the end. Further adding to my grievances with the monsters is the encounter rate being painfully inconsistent. There'll often be these stretches of time where you'll barely encounter anything and then all of a sudden, it feels like every other step results in another encounter. I'd argue that this inconsistency is not just annoying, but the worst way this could go, as despite how frustrating it would be to constantly have these random encounters, it would at least make grinding far quicker, and if the opposite happened, where the encounter rate was low, exploring would feel more enjoyable even if grinding became a more tedious process. This middle ground simply feels like it has the annoyances of both sides of the spectrum without much of the benefit.
There's also a point in the middle of the game where I feel like the pacing gets thrown very far out, with this largely intuitive progression being completely destroyed, where it feels like you're expected to traverse into lands far outside your power to get information, leading to a situation where you're either grinding against weak enemies for a while or having to pray that you can get through that part of the overworld while successfully running away from everything. This once again makes the latter part of the game feel a bit off despite still carrying a lot of previously mentioned positive qualities as well. The menu system here is also kinda weird with how you need to talk to people or even walk up stairs by going into the menu and hitting a certain option, but this honestly just took a bit of time to get used to before feeling natural, so it isn't too bad. In the end there are enough drawbacks to this game that I can't really wholeheartedly recommend it or say that I outright loved it either, but I really respect this and think that it's way cooler than it had any right to be. By essentially having the absolute core mechanics and systems of a JRPG and very little else, this actually feels like it suits the limited nature of the NES and feels very streamlined and cohesive in the end. An amazing example of less being more, with the things this game leaves out ultimately contributing to a more fulfilling experience, even if there are still some serious flaws with the experience as a whole.
I think a huge reason for this is that the game manages to feel both ambitious yet also extremely restrained in what it has going on. There are very few items, certain things feel very streamlined, such as buying equipment instantly having the strongest option equipped and selling the piece it replaced, and having a small selection of spells that are fairly obvious to understand what they do. There feels like there's a fair amount to the game in terms of its scope, but at the same time, almost every aspect of it feels intentionally simplified in such a way to be as digestible as possible, which is appreciated for a lot of reasons. The biggest one to me is that due to this intention to make a game that can be easily understood for the most part, there's way less cryptic nonsense than one would think to the point where a guide is barely necessary, with ample hints and avenues to figuring out how to obtain what you need to beat the game, at least once you start to understand the way the game generally operates and works. Despite this simplicity however, in terms of atmosphere and general vibes, this honestly works really well at creating the sense of adventure set in an inhospitable land.
I respect how the game just starts off, gives you a very quick and basic rundown of your goal "rescue the princess and defeat the dragonlord" and then sets you out on a journey without much direction, having the player just explore the land and figure a lot of things out for themselves. While this easily could have led to a game that you'd be required to take a walkthrough with you every step of the way, Dragon Warrior leads the player pretty nicely for the most part through a combination of vague hints and directions and through expecting the player to thoroughly look into everywhere they can go and figure when it's time to go back into uncharted territory. The game doesn't hold your hand but doesn't make you feel hopelessly lost either, you can go anywhere from the start, the only thing stopping you is the fact that enemies are of varying strengths, so if you get destroyed, chances are you just need to look somewhere else for a bit and come back stronger. The idea of having crossing bridges on the overworld being the indicator for a jump in difficulty is pretty clever as well, both signalling the player of some key information while also not feeling totally out of place.
Despite the limited overworld sprites, there also felt like there was a lot of effort put into making the world feel alive, with each town having its own important parts to them while also feeling aesthetically different from one another. To further add to this is the way the NPCs are cleverly a mix of useless but often funny dialogue to make the towns feel lived in, while also often giving vital pieces of information that are just clear enough for it to feel more like a puzzle to figure out what the game wants from you, rather than another signal to look something up online. One of my favourite examples of this is the way that the final boss takes 1 damage from anything other than the ultimate sword, so to telegraph this in game, you've got one NPC who says "The Dragonlord's scales are as strong as steel" and then another one later who says that this ultimate sword can easily cut through steel. It's stuff like this that I find clever in that it's conveyed in a slightly higher order way than simply telling the player exactly what to do, while also not keeping it entirely hidden and borderline impossible to figure out on your own, and this sort of storytelling and instruction is used throughout the game as well, often requiring you to put a few bits of information together to get the full picture.
I also feel like the artwork in general goes a long way in making this feel appealing, thanks to Akira Toriyama's monster designs being super appealing to look at and giving some very clear and cohesive visual direction to the game that makes you a bit excited every time you're able to see yet another fun enemy. The issues of limited inventory size also feels somewhat mitigated thanks to the way there are barely any actual items, so there'll basically never be a point where you'll have too many and feel like you need to pointlessly micromanage, but also, the way that spells work in this further contributing to needing very few consumables. When the spells you get from levelling up don't directly contribute to dealing a lot of damage or some other vital combat utility, these often will have the same effect as one of the consumables in the game. This essentially means that after certain level ups, you no longer require dedicating a slot to said item, making things a constant process of streamlining your own inventory in a pretty seamless and satisfying way. I also think it's a nice touch how from the very start of the game you get a clear sight of the final destination and ultimate goal of the game, with everything being dedicated to working your way towards it, providing both a sense of cohesion and a strong driving force towards your goal, it being in sight but always out of reach. This is made all the more powerful by the way that they really make you feel like the world's against you, not only having monsters after your throat at all times basically, but even having the townsfolk express little faith in you, saying that they believe that the Dragonlord is far too powerful and other statements in the same vein.
While I've had a lot of positive things to say about this, Dragon Warrior is also far from a perfect game either, in fact, in some ways it's borderline painful to play. A lot of these issues come down to enemies as well, as despite how awesome they look, there's also a lot of frustration associated with them. The one that is most irritating is the way that while these spike in difficulty might result in a world that somewhat immerses you in the fact that it feels overrun by evil, it also means grinding, and quite a bit of it. I'd hazard a guess that most of the time spent playing this game was dedicated to grinding, and while this at first wasn't anything too bad, there being a certain relaxing quality to hacking away at things for a bit while playing some music in the background, it definitely hits a point where things begin feeling very tedious. This is exacerbated by a terrible EXP curve that sees the player hitting a point near the end of the game where they'll be needing around 3000 EXP per level where the average enemy at that point yields around 50, which I'm sure is pretty easy to see, it's kinda ridiculous and a real test of patience and kills some pacing especially near the end. Further adding to my grievances with the monsters is the encounter rate being painfully inconsistent. There'll often be these stretches of time where you'll barely encounter anything and then all of a sudden, it feels like every other step results in another encounter. I'd argue that this inconsistency is not just annoying, but the worst way this could go, as despite how frustrating it would be to constantly have these random encounters, it would at least make grinding far quicker, and if the opposite happened, where the encounter rate was low, exploring would feel more enjoyable even if grinding became a more tedious process. This middle ground simply feels like it has the annoyances of both sides of the spectrum without much of the benefit.
There's also a point in the middle of the game where I feel like the pacing gets thrown very far out, with this largely intuitive progression being completely destroyed, where it feels like you're expected to traverse into lands far outside your power to get information, leading to a situation where you're either grinding against weak enemies for a while or having to pray that you can get through that part of the overworld while successfully running away from everything. This once again makes the latter part of the game feel a bit off despite still carrying a lot of previously mentioned positive qualities as well. The menu system here is also kinda weird with how you need to talk to people or even walk up stairs by going into the menu and hitting a certain option, but this honestly just took a bit of time to get used to before feeling natural, so it isn't too bad. In the end there are enough drawbacks to this game that I can't really wholeheartedly recommend it or say that I outright loved it either, but I really respect this and think that it's way cooler than it had any right to be. By essentially having the absolute core mechanics and systems of a JRPG and very little else, this actually feels like it suits the limited nature of the NES and feels very streamlined and cohesive in the end. An amazing example of less being more, with the things this game leaves out ultimately contributing to a more fulfilling experience, even if there are still some serious flaws with the experience as a whole.