Once upon a time, there was a little video game company known simply as Enix. You may know them now for being one half of a bigger company known as Square Enix, but back in the day, they were a much smaller game company who were just starting out in the early 80s, with not too many noteworthy titles to their name. Their first two games were Door Door, a cute little Famicom game about cute creatures and… well, doors, and The Portopia Serial Murder Case, another Famicom game that takes a drastic shift from the last game, being an adventure game where you solve, well, a murder case. They seem like interesting titles, but they wouldn’t really be enough to launch the company into the spotlight quite yet. Their next game, though, developed by Chunsoft, would do just that, after the game’s director and designer respectively discovered the RPG known as Wizardry, and they wanted to try their hands out at making their own RPG specifically for Japanese audiences. After a year or so of development, this game would be released to the public, and be known simply as Dragon Quest… or, you know, Dragon Warrior for us Americans, but for the sake of this and future reviews, I am just gonna be calling it Dragon Quest.
While Final Fantasy is the main thing that Square Enix is known for, Dragon Quest is right behind it as their secondary flagship franchise, and it has had quite a large number of entries ever since its introduction in 1986. I myself had played my fair share of Final Fantasy back when I reviewed that original game, but when it comes to Dragon Quest, I had little to no experience with it whatsoever. I remember I used to own a Dragon Quest game for the DS when I was kid, and I remember really liking it, but I also remember there was this black knight who I just could not beat no matter how much I tried in that game, and I eventually just stopped playing that. That’s the extent of my knowledge with the series, and I wanted to see what it was really all about, so I decided to play through the original game to do just that. I ended up really liking it overall, and I think it is a good game. You can definitely tell how old this game is when you play it yourself, and it probably wouldn’t interest modern RPG fans that much, but I can’t help but appreciate what it did for the genre, and it does have its own quirks that I am glad that I experienced.
The story is as basic as it gets, being about a chosen warrior needing to go save the princess of a kingdom from a dragon, and defeating the Dragonlord before he can take over the land, which may be done to death, but again, I can't really blame this game for having that plot, so I ended up liking it enough, the graphics are also very basic, being what you would expect from an NES RPG, but it is a good looking game overall, and the designs of the characters and enemies help make it more charming, the music is great, with there being plenty of iconic tracks that would be become staple for the series, as well as several other good ones, but the music didn't stick with me as much as, say, the music from Final Fantasy, the control is exactly what you would expect from an RPG, so no need to comment any further on that, and the gameplay, while being exactly what you would expect from a JRPG, would go on to establish many tropes that the genre still uses to this day, and it still remains fun after all this time.
The game is your typical turn-based RPG, where you take control of the warrior descended from the hero Erdrick, travel through a world full of towns, caves, and castles, talk to NPCs for useful information, buy items, weapons, and magic to help you out along the way, and get into random encounters, where you will fight a wide variety of monsters that will either be complete pushovers, or will prove to be quite a challenge, and by defeating them, you will gain experience and level up to get stronger. It is your typical JRPG in the most literal sense of the word, but considering as it is the first of its kind, you really can't blame it for that, and after playing it, you can see how much it still holds up to this day despite its simplicity.
While it may not be the first RPG, it did introduce many different elements that would become a staple for the genre that are still being used to this very day, influencing many other games like Final Fantasy, and after playing through this particular game, it all still works really well. It obviously is a lot more primitive and basic when compared to many other games that would come after it, but sometimes, the bare essentials is all you need to make a fun game, and Dragon Quest certainly did that. Before this, I had never played any other game in the genre that used the first-person battle perspective, or even one that only had one sole party member, so it was a little jarring to see, and it took a little getting used to, but I managed to do so very quickly. While it may not be that different from other RPGs, I really liked this style of battling, and it was helped not only by the satisfaction of leveling up and getting stronger, but also the charm of seeing all the enemies, a lot of which would become an iconic part of the series, such as with the slimes. I mean, come on, you can't help but admit that they are pretty adorable. Also, one thing I really liked about the game was how "medieval" all of the dialogue was, with characters constantly using words like thy, dost, thou, and more. Sure, some may see this kind of dialogue as stupid, but I thought it added another level of charm to the game, and made it feel more like I was going on an adventure in a genuine medieval land.
With all that being said, when I said this game is basic, I mean it is EXTREMELY basic. This is quite possibly the most "by-the-numbers" RPG I have ever played, which, again, isn't the game's fault at all, but it is something to keep in mind if you decide to play it for yourself. Throughout pretty much the entire game, it is mainly just you traveling around the world, going into caves and castles, fighting monsters, and collecting items, plot-related or otherwise. There are no real side-quests, no real bosses other than the Dragonlord himself, no big optional goodies to find, none of that. It is all about just you saving the princess, stopping the big bad, and LOTS of grinding, and even then, you don't even need to save the princess to beat the game, as you don't get anything from it, which in turn could make the game even more basic. I will say though, despite how basic it really is at the end of the day, I did still end up having a good time with it, but for anyone else, if you are looking for a little more complexity when it comes to RPGs, then Dragon Quest isn't the game for you.
Overall, despite being pretty basic and having more grinding then I would've liked, I still found myself having a pretty good time with the original Dragon Quest, and I still think it holds up almost 40 years later. I would definitely recommend it for big fans of the series, as well as RPG fanatics in general, but for others, it isn't gonna be something you absolutely need to play. Now that I have played through this game finally, I am looking forward to checking out the rest of the titles in the series. The best part about this too is that, as far as I know, they didn't flub it up with a second entry like Final Fantasy did! That's great news!
Game #376
While Final Fantasy is the main thing that Square Enix is known for, Dragon Quest is right behind it as their secondary flagship franchise, and it has had quite a large number of entries ever since its introduction in 1986. I myself had played my fair share of Final Fantasy back when I reviewed that original game, but when it comes to Dragon Quest, I had little to no experience with it whatsoever. I remember I used to own a Dragon Quest game for the DS when I was kid, and I remember really liking it, but I also remember there was this black knight who I just could not beat no matter how much I tried in that game, and I eventually just stopped playing that. That’s the extent of my knowledge with the series, and I wanted to see what it was really all about, so I decided to play through the original game to do just that. I ended up really liking it overall, and I think it is a good game. You can definitely tell how old this game is when you play it yourself, and it probably wouldn’t interest modern RPG fans that much, but I can’t help but appreciate what it did for the genre, and it does have its own quirks that I am glad that I experienced.
The story is as basic as it gets, being about a chosen warrior needing to go save the princess of a kingdom from a dragon, and defeating the Dragonlord before he can take over the land, which may be done to death, but again, I can't really blame this game for having that plot, so I ended up liking it enough, the graphics are also very basic, being what you would expect from an NES RPG, but it is a good looking game overall, and the designs of the characters and enemies help make it more charming, the music is great, with there being plenty of iconic tracks that would be become staple for the series, as well as several other good ones, but the music didn't stick with me as much as, say, the music from Final Fantasy, the control is exactly what you would expect from an RPG, so no need to comment any further on that, and the gameplay, while being exactly what you would expect from a JRPG, would go on to establish many tropes that the genre still uses to this day, and it still remains fun after all this time.
The game is your typical turn-based RPG, where you take control of the warrior descended from the hero Erdrick, travel through a world full of towns, caves, and castles, talk to NPCs for useful information, buy items, weapons, and magic to help you out along the way, and get into random encounters, where you will fight a wide variety of monsters that will either be complete pushovers, or will prove to be quite a challenge, and by defeating them, you will gain experience and level up to get stronger. It is your typical JRPG in the most literal sense of the word, but considering as it is the first of its kind, you really can't blame it for that, and after playing it, you can see how much it still holds up to this day despite its simplicity.
While it may not be the first RPG, it did introduce many different elements that would become a staple for the genre that are still being used to this very day, influencing many other games like Final Fantasy, and after playing through this particular game, it all still works really well. It obviously is a lot more primitive and basic when compared to many other games that would come after it, but sometimes, the bare essentials is all you need to make a fun game, and Dragon Quest certainly did that. Before this, I had never played any other game in the genre that used the first-person battle perspective, or even one that only had one sole party member, so it was a little jarring to see, and it took a little getting used to, but I managed to do so very quickly. While it may not be that different from other RPGs, I really liked this style of battling, and it was helped not only by the satisfaction of leveling up and getting stronger, but also the charm of seeing all the enemies, a lot of which would become an iconic part of the series, such as with the slimes. I mean, come on, you can't help but admit that they are pretty adorable. Also, one thing I really liked about the game was how "medieval" all of the dialogue was, with characters constantly using words like thy, dost, thou, and more. Sure, some may see this kind of dialogue as stupid, but I thought it added another level of charm to the game, and made it feel more like I was going on an adventure in a genuine medieval land.
With all that being said, when I said this game is basic, I mean it is EXTREMELY basic. This is quite possibly the most "by-the-numbers" RPG I have ever played, which, again, isn't the game's fault at all, but it is something to keep in mind if you decide to play it for yourself. Throughout pretty much the entire game, it is mainly just you traveling around the world, going into caves and castles, fighting monsters, and collecting items, plot-related or otherwise. There are no real side-quests, no real bosses other than the Dragonlord himself, no big optional goodies to find, none of that. It is all about just you saving the princess, stopping the big bad, and LOTS of grinding, and even then, you don't even need to save the princess to beat the game, as you don't get anything from it, which in turn could make the game even more basic. I will say though, despite how basic it really is at the end of the day, I did still end up having a good time with it, but for anyone else, if you are looking for a little more complexity when it comes to RPGs, then Dragon Quest isn't the game for you.
Overall, despite being pretty basic and having more grinding then I would've liked, I still found myself having a pretty good time with the original Dragon Quest, and I still think it holds up almost 40 years later. I would definitely recommend it for big fans of the series, as well as RPG fanatics in general, but for others, it isn't gonna be something you absolutely need to play. Now that I have played through this game finally, I am looking forward to checking out the rest of the titles in the series. The best part about this too is that, as far as I know, they didn't flub it up with a second entry like Final Fantasy did! That's great news!
Game #376