Game:

Dragon Quest (1986)

Duration: 11:39

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There is very little information regarding this port of the world-famous Dragon Quest game (also known as Dragon Warrior outside of Japan) and due to the file extension and limited info, many speculate that this is an unofficial, modified version of the MSX version of the game, which does seem to make sense. Dragon Warrior was one of the first ever console JRPGs that drew inspiration from some Western RPGS like Wizardry and Ultima. It was originally developed by Chunsoft with music provided by Koichi Sugiyama and boxart and such designed by Akira Toriyama. It helped build and define what console role-playing games are today.

I won't go into much detail here, but it's a very traditional RPG. You visit towns and enter dungeons, speak with characters, buy items, gain levels, fight monsters, and must rescue a princess from the wicked Dragonlord. There are some differences in the Japanese version of this game (mainly in the text, minor graphics changes, and passwords-versus-saves), but it's not important. Based on what I've seen, the game seems slightly better graphically from the MSX game with a greater use of color and has a "Config" menu where you can listen to the game's soundtrack and change the screen, but that's about all I can tell that's different without having actually played the MSX game. The strange thing about the Japanese versions of Dragon Warrior is that your hero is always facing one direction and as such has an additional function added to the Speak command which allows you to specify "which direction" you speak. If you were annoyed by the U.S. NES game's now-archaic design, imagine adding a few more menus on top of it!

This is a video which just shows what the PC-98 version looks and sounds like (it may not even be specifically for PC-98; it could be for PC-88). It ends with me purposely looking for a monster to defeat my character. Enjoy.