Rumors say that somewhere in the land of Zargos lies a hidden passage to the glorious country of Eldorado. Only the bravest adventurer dares to enter the labyrinthine caves scattered across Zargos to uncover the entrance to the miraculous land.
Dungeon is a fantasy role-playing game influenced by early Ultima installments. Character creation involves selecting one of the five available classes (Fighter, Priest, Magic User, Thief and Ninja) and determining their attributes by allocating a few remaining points. Like in Ultima games, the gameplay is divided into top-down word exploration (though on a significantly smaller map) and pseudo-3D first-person dungeon crawling. Combat flows in real time, i.e. enemies would approach or attack without waiting for the player’s input. Battles take place in the overworld or dungeons without entering separate screens. It is necessary to buy food rations to prevent the player character from starving.
Dungeon is often cited as the first Japanese RPG. There are other examples that dispute this. The towns are handled entirely by text interface while dungeon exploration is first person perspective. Enemies move in semi-real-time about the dungeon. Though there are only five floors, the base level is absolutely huge – it seems to extend below the entire area of the island.
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