I thought I’d try and do something different for the games I’ve had in my collection since youth and talk about my personal experiences with them. Dragon Warrior is one of the NES titles I had growing up, and one that I finished prior to taking up this challenge. Rather than replay it and critically review the thing, I’ll just nostalgically ramble about it instead.
In my old age, I’ve become a massive fan of the Dragon Quest franchise. I’ve finished five games in the series as of this writing, and plan on beating every single one of them at my own pace. My first exposure to the series, however, was not so fun filled and flowery thanks to my own youthful indiscretion.
In the wonderous time of the 90’s, I had NO clue what an role playing game was. No one in my age bracket (that being first graders) was talking about them on the playground. So when I booted up Dragon Warrior, with no instruction manual and having to feel my way around the cumbersome menus and ye olde English translation, I did not have a good time. There was no sword to swing or button to jump! Wandering around outside meant certain death because I had no idea how to heal. I also couldn’t figure out how to get the save to work back then, so I never made any progress and always had to start from the beginning. Truthfully, I’m still a little nervous whenever an NES game asks me to hold the Reset button before powering off because of my own childhood foolishness. Again, I’d like to re-iterate that I was six years old, and stupid as hell.
Regardless, I persevered, and tried again and again to make progress in Dragon Warrior. Like most kids, I didn’t have a huge stack of games to play, and wanted to get as much fun out of them as I could. While I never got very far, I did eventually figure out the bare bones basics of how the thing worked, albeit with a deep frown on my tiny face the entire time.
Fast-forward in time a bit. Pokémon is suddenly the biggest and best thing that’s ever happened to me and thousands of other kids my age. I couldn’t contain my excitement when I finally got my grubby little hands on my very own Game Boy.
Playing the Game Boy originals of that franchise had me shook. The juggernaut franchise I adored so much…was, in terms of gameplay, a streamlined version of the Dragon Warrior game from years back I detested so. Everything was the same: the way you walked in and out of buildings, the battle system, how you used items, right down to that little “doof” noise when you bump into a wall. Thanks to DW (and being a little bit older), I instantly understood how to play Pokémon, even without the use of a manual, and that served me well on my journey to catch ’em all. Maybe these games where you did nothing but walk around and read weren’t so bad after all!
In the years following my exposure to Pokémon, I became a hardcore RPG fan. Beaten tons of them since then, and though I’d probably cite that back to how obsessed I was with the Pokémon games, I wouldn’t have been nearly as obsessed if not for Dragon Warrior giving me a crash course on the RPG basics.
Okay, that’s enough about Pokémon in a post that’s supposed to be about Dragon Warrior. I never made a dent in Dragon Warrior as a kid, but I eventually went back and beat it during my adolescence thanks to shoddy mid-2000’s emulators. I genuinely got a kick out of it at the time, in part thanks to the comfy circumstances surrounding the way I played it. Whittling away my precious summer vacation, listening to the radio during grinding sessions, and eating my favourite snacks while traversing the land of Alefgard is something I look back on with a warm fondness.
Despite how archaic certain aspects of it might feel, the tone it sets is brilliant to this day. Dragon Warrior is a lonely experience, but in my opinion, that’s its greatest strength. A lone hero wandering the land on a journey to expel the ultimate evil with nothing but his strength and smarts? Sign me up. The lack of a party makes battles tense, as well – if you set one foot wrong, it’s game over. There’s no cleric to resurrect you, so planning ahead and keeping your wits about you is the only way to stay alive. The sombre soundtrack is quite moody sounding, lending to that solitary feeling all the more. And while I vastly prefer the more modern tongue in cheek comedic localisations the franchise gets these days, I do have a nostalgic fondness for the olde English translation we got in the West.
If you’ve got any love in your heart for 80’s JRPGs, I’d definitely say Dragon Warrior is still worth a look for the curious. If you don’t have a cast iron stomach for grinding, an absolutely wild encounter rate, and highly limited inventory space, however, it might be best to appreciate the granddaddy of all JRPGs from a distance. But Dragon Warrior is on the shorter side of the RPG spectrum, clocking in at about 4~10 hours, which is a fact that balances out those grievances quite nicely, in my opinion.
Though here are more modernised remakes and revamps of the classic game readily available to anyone who has a smartphone, I don’t intend to replay the original Dragon Warrior anytime soon, if ever. It’s not a game I want to revisit with a critical eye, but rather, keep as a fun summer memory from years past. Alefgard will fare just fine without me saving it a second time. Here’s to many more instalments of Dragon Quest in the future.
NESJunk 