Dragon Warrior Retrospective

Despite being a PC gamer down to my core, I have some relatively fond memories of the original Dragon Warrior on the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Therefore, I thought I’d share this retrospective of the classic RPG over at Gamerspective that briefly covers its design, mechanics, and strengths/weaknesses. A few paragraphs for those of you who feel the same way:

By the standards of the day Dragon Warrior I was a revolutionary game. It changed the genre of RPGs, shifting the development focus to story building and character advancement. Additionally, many of today’s games follow the formula of battling enemies to increase levels, acquiring new equipment and having multiple plot-lines, including of a romantic nature (Who can forget Gwaelin’s obsession? (Does thou love me?) (No.) (But thou must!) (Does thou love me?) (..) (Yes.)).

The NPCs all talked in Ye Old English and the design had a distinct medieval fantasy flair. Knights. Dragons. Princesses. The usual. I’d already developed an intense love with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table so this fit my bill exactly. The story followed that theme. My character was a young hero looking to follow in the footsteps of his ancestor Erdrick and rescue the princess, recover the Ball of Light and defeat the Dragonlord. Simplistic by today’s standard, but otherwise satisfying.

Battle wasn’t particularly complicated. I had the options of (Fight), (Run), (Spell) and (Item’, all of which are self-explanatory. Battles commenced in first person in a duel (only one monster per battle), with my hero off-screen. I could never forget how each bout started with announcing the enemy’s presence, (A slime draws near!). It was silly but gave me a light-hearted laugh.