Game #222: Dragon Slayer (1984)

Dragon Slayer was published by Nihon Falcom in 1984 for the PC-88 and the FM-7. It was later ported in 1985 for the MSX and Sharp XI; in 1986 for the Epoch Super Cassette Vision; and then in 1990 for Game Boy.

I played Dragon Slayer on an MSX emulator, and it took me roughly six hours to beat it. I went through three different characters and then had to reload the game about a half dozen times with what would be my final character.

I find myself very fascinated by the study of how Western RPG titles influenced the Japanese market and vice-versa. Wizardry and Ultima were very popular with hardcore Japanese gamers, so very early attempts at Japanese RPGs were based on these games. I am a die-hard Wizardry fan which might explain my interest in Japanese RPGs. Wizardry would continue to be a huge influence in the Japanese market and enjoyed a longer life and over 32 different Wizardry related titles. You can see the influence in many of the early Japanese RPGs so, of course, I find myself wanting to play and study them.

In 1984 we start to see a broadening of the Japanese RPG market and their names begin to appear in my lists. I’ve already played three games that sprang out of 84’s Japanese market: Hydlide, The Tower of Druaga, and now Dragon Slayer.

You may be confused as to why I might include The Tower of Druaga with other Japanese CRPGs, it is after all an arcade game. CRPGs through the 80s will be defined by how hard they are to complete. The Tower of Druaga is perhaps the purest example of this. There are tales of arcade cabinets that had little diaries where players could share their experiences. Players would write clues to how to find the hidden items on each level and share the secret technique of how to beat Druaga at the end of the game. Up to this point, there was no equivalent to this in Western culture. Here was an experience that was completely unique to arcade culture. There are many RPG elements in The Tower of Druaga as you begin to look “under the hood of the car”. The character becomes stronger as he finds hidden items – many of these items are needed in order to face the big bad at the end. This video game played a huge part in the Japanese gaming culture and even inspired an anime series 25 years after its release. Its influence would have an impact on the Japanese RPG gaming culture. Designers would learn from this phenomenon, and it helped give rise to sprawling role-playing games. Lavish guidebooks providing clues and walk-throughs were immensely popular in the Japanese market and then later even in Western culture. If you’re fascinated by the history of computer role-playing games, don’t be so quick to dismiss The Tower of Druaga as “just an arcade game”.

Dragon Slayer takes place entirely within a dungeon and is technically referred to as dungeon-crawler. Like its title suggests, there is a dragon in there waiting to be slain. The player begins the game as a poor hero just outside of his home. Each time your hero returns to the house he has hit points awarded to him based on the monsters he defeats and gold that he finds.

The beginning of the game is extremely hard. You have no weapon and the weakest creatures you encounter have 1500 hit points. If you attack with your fists, you’re only doing 10 points of damage at a time. So, it is imperative that you find a weapon. I finally found a sword by traveling through the nearest Warp Zone. There are three of these Warp Zones and they transport you to different areas of the dungeon.

Once you have the sword, the game is still very difficult in the beginning. Once you find you’ve reached a point in experience and power where the monsters begin to run from you, exploration then takes center stage.

On the right side of the screen, you see statistics for hit points, strength, experience, magical power, and crown. What you want to amass more than anything is experience. You gain experience by defeating creatures. You can only defeat certain creatures by having a high strength so it is imperative you build your strength up so that you can keep amassing experience. The game is very “grindy”.

In the southern area of the dungeon lies the dragon.

The Dragon sports three heads. Each head breathes fire. You have to cut off each of the three heads in order to defeat the dragon. The only way to survive the breath weapon from each head is to have at least 550,000 experience points. Once you’ve built yourself up enough, you can then face the dragon. I love the “singed look” as a result of the dragon breath. This look visually stays with you throughout the rest of the game. Cute touch.

So how do we boost our strength to boost our experience so that we can slay a plethora of dungeon denizens over and over again?

As you explore the dungeon you find the following items:

Crosses – if you find a cross and carry it around the monsters will not attack you. I found the crosses very important in the beginning because they allowed me to roam the dungeon and explore so that I could develop a plan in my head of what I wanted to do

Keys – keys are extremely important because you need them in order to unlock chests

Chests – chest contain either power stones, gold coins, bottles, or a grim reaper – more on the grim reaper later

Power Stones – when you return a power stone to your house, it increases your strength. You’ll need to increase your strength to face certain enemies

Bottles – magical power which allows you to cast spells – more on this later

Rings – when you equip a ring you can push wall blocks around as long as there is free space to do so. I found the rings to be somewhat useless because I could just choose to break the wall instead of worrying about carrying a ring. What the rings were integral for? You can push your house around like it is a block – this becomes important in terms of game play as I will soon illustrate.

Gold coins – for each gold coin you return to your home, you get 500 extra hit points.

The problem with each of these items is that you can only carry one at a time – except for the gold coins. There are ghosts that traverse the dungeon which constantly pick things up and then deposit them elsewhere. The ghosts are impervious to your attacks. So, when you’re carrying something back to your home, quite often the ghost might whisk by and steal the item from you. Trust me, it is very aggravating. So hence, if you can move your home around the dungeon, and reduce the distance that it takes to carry items back to your home, it is to your benefit to do so.

There are a number of spells which soon begin to have at your disposal. Each spell expends a magical bottle.

Map – this allows you to get an overhead view of the dungeon. The view does not last long.

Freeze – freezes your opponents in place so you can thump on them

Return – returns you immediately to your home – a useful spell

Fly – allows you to take the form of a bird and fly quickly through the dungeon. This becomes very useful near the near the end of the game – more on that later.

When you unlock a chest sometimes it unleashes a grim reaper which has the appearance of a skeleton. The grim reaper attaches itself to you. While the grim reaper is attached to you, you cannot cast any spells, or physically break any walls. The only way to separate yourself from this menace is to return to your home. Once you return to your home base the grim reaper becomes unattached.

One of the hardest parts of the game are the different enemies and their levels they attain. Scattered all throughout the dungeon are tombstones. The monsters respawn from these tombstones. So, when you kill a particular creature type, a new one respawns from a tombstone to take the place of the old one. The NEW creature is tougher and harder to kill. Once you’ve eradicated that creature type with all its assorted levels, you are introduced to an entirely new creature. If you’re strength isn’t yet adequate enough, when one of these creatures comes in contact with you, it deals damage in the thousands. So quite often, your life balance hangs on a thread.

Sure, one of your biggest goals in the game is to defeat the dragon. But in order to win the game, you need to find four crowns and return each crown to your house. The dragon guards all four crowns. When you defeat the dragon, the four crowns are scattered throughout the dungeon. I found that it was easy to cast the Fly spell and traverse the dungeon looking for the crowns. Here was the wrinkle however, when you defeat the dragon, your home, regardless of where it was located, returns to a new location, surrounded on all sides by tombstones. Monsters constantly emerge from these tombstones. Now, once your experience points cross 650,000, they roll over to zero. Once this happens, you are very susceptible to being instantly killed by ANY of the creatures present in the dungeon. So, after you slay the dragon and begin hunting for the crowns, you have to be very careful to avoid killing too many creatures and yet still make your way to your home now surrounded by tombstones. It proved to be very tricky.

I did eventually find all four crowns and return them to my home.

Once you win the game you receive the message; PHASE 1 CLEAR!

You then begin a Phase 2 where the dungeon layout is a bit different with items in different locations so that the game can have some replay value.

It took me roughly 7 hours to beat this game and I enjoyed my time with it. This game is considered one of the progenitors of the action RPG genre. This is the game that heavily influenced Dave Shapiro’s The Caverns of Freitag.

Next up on the docket is Dungeons, Dragons, and Other Perils.

Until next time…