Dragon Warrior
System: NES
Release Date: August 1989
Developer: Chunsoft
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: RPG
The beginning of thirty years of beloved RPG action begins here with Dragon Warrior. Enix’s franchise finally drops on the NES 3 years after Japan, heck, two and three had already released in Japan by this point. But Nintendo finally decided that if Sega was going to give people Phantasy Star, they needed to make sure to release an RPG in the States, as well.
You are the descendant of Erdrick (Loto in future releases), and the King charges you with two goals. First, save his daughter, Princess Gwaelin, who has been kidnapped and taken to a far off cavern. Second, put an end to the evil Dragonlord and regain the Ball of Light. Beginning at level one and with only a few gold pieces in your pocket, you head over to the town of Brecconary and make a decision on your equipment. I went with the bamboo pole and leather armor. Then it was off to the overworld to take part in the meat of this game, grinding for gold and experience.
I put eleven hours and fifteen minutes into this playthrough. Of course, this isn’t my first time playing Dragon Warrior, it was one of my favorites as a child. Back then I had nothing better to do except to grind for hours on end. It’s always rewarding to finish a battle and hear that tone signaling a level up, but boy is the grind exhausting as an adult. Stat gains are influenced by your choice of name, Mack apparently gave a medium bonus to agility and magic points. This made the grind last longer. It wouldn’t be so bad, but there aren’t really any tactics to make it quicker. Just hold down the A Button and hack away at most enemies. Sometimes you need to use magic to succeed, like Stopspell on magic casting enemies or sleep on other susceptible creatures. But there are no buffing spells or stat damaging spells.
Enemies exist in zones across the map and moving into a new area increases their power. If you’re not ready with higher levels and better equipment, you will get walloped. There are a couple spots where you can fight stronger enemies and retreat back to safety when your health gets low. This is my tactic in the early game, as one of these overlap zones are right by Tantegel castle. This helps the early game grind, but not near the end. Once you get all of the most powerful equipment, it still takes 3000 and up to 4000 experience to gain a level. For awhile the average experience gain is 33 per battle, meaning you’re fighting upward of 100 battles to gain a level. Even when you get into the final castle and the average moves closer to 50 experience per battle, you’re still fighting 60 or 80 battles. That’s 20-30 minutes per level.
There are no sub-bosses per se, though three fixed encounters exist as gatekeeping events. In order to find your way to the Dragonlord’s castle Charlock, you have to create a bridge with the Rainbow Drop. In order to put that together, you have to find the Staff of Rain and Stones of Sunlight. Getting those involves other earlier steps, as well. Once you feel like you’re strong enough to take out the Dragonlord, enter his castle and make your way through the labyrinth. He offers you a chance to join him, but that just ends the game and forces you to reset, making you lose whatever experience progress you made since your last save. When you do decide to battle him (I did it at level 20) you face off against his first human form. He’s pretty weak, preferring to knock your health down with casting of Hurtmore, but when he goes down, he transforms into his dragon form. This is one hell of a war, because he takes little damage and hits you hard, especially with his breath attack. You must cast Healmore about every other turn, but as long as you have enough magic going in, you can win!
Graphics: 1.5
The most impressive part of the graphics are Akira Toriyama’s monster illustrations. Everything else is functional.
Sound: 3.0
The title, overworld, battle themes, and level up jingle are icons in NES music. I like how the dungeon theme changes pitch as you change floors. There isn’t a whole lot else, though.
Gameplay: 2.0
This is an early RPG and as such isn’t particularly fleshed out. One character, limited attack and magic options.
Difficulty: 2.0
The difficulty is the grind. When you face enemies that are stronger than you, it just forces you to level up or get better equipment. There isn’t anything inherently hard about the game.
Fun Factor: 2.5
It’s not the most obnoxious grinding, but it’s up there. I enjoyed it enough to keep playing for eleven hours if that tells you about me.
Overall Grade: 2.2
Dragon Warrior earns a C+. Do not take this grade as a knock on Dragon Warrior. It is a fine game, but it didn’t do a whole lot. In 1986 it probably would have scored higher, but it’s 1989 and games are starting to do more than basic game types.