Kill the slime, do the time: Dragon Warrior | NES Works 133 

A genuine case of "Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it!"

My dad found Edrick's armor, and that's the first time I remember experiencing jealousy.

I still remember when my mom surprised me in the living room with “Guess what? You randomly got a free game in the mail from Nintendo Power” I was so confused haha

I worked briefly at Nintendo in 2001 and I can attest they still had a decent pile of Dragon Warrior carts and promo material back then. At an internal sale I picked up one of the packets of tips and info they used to send with the game. Not that I needed it, I was one of the kids who fell in love with NES RPGs in 1989/1990 and can still play my way through by memory.

Count me in as one of those weird kids won over by the charms of Dragon Warrior. I was enthralled by the Nintendo Power coverage, and we absolutely got that free copy in the mail when dad renewed the yearly subscription, so I played the hell out of it. It's a simple game in retrospect, but to a little kid that loved video games and loved reading but had bad reflexes, this was quite possibly the best thing EVER. The people that I knew that didn't like Dragon Warrior (and other RPGs of the era) disliked all the reading and preferred games where they pushed a button and saw actions happen, but man, this game set me up for a lifetime of adoring crunchy RPGs of every possible sort. Bless.

WOW! i never knew iwata himself handled the dragon warrior conversion, what a legendary hero

DQ1 still has one of my favorite endgames ever. After you kill the Dragonlord, you *can* just use a spell to hop across the river, back to the castle. Or... you can take a victory lap! All random encounters stop after you win, and every single NPC on the map gets new dialogue congratulating you on being awesome. Sure, the lines repeat a lot, but it feels SO GOOD after hours of grinding.

That little bit of screen shake when you get hit does SO MUCH, especially in later games where you face groups of enemies. You see the screen shaking a lot, those little slimes are curb stomping your hero ass into the ground.

It has been 0 days since Jeremy threw shade at Kung Fu Heroes.

I'm most amazed that somehow the influence of Xevious was still relevant to this in some distant, unexpected fashion.

Probably nostaglia talking -- but this has to be one of my favorite games of all time. It's what "Started it all" for me and my journey with RPGs.

Since I didn't own a PC in the 80s, the free copy I got from my Nintendo Power subscription is what got me and my family interested in RPGs in the first place - we went on to buy the other 3 NES games, Final Fantasy, and a number of other lesser known titles (including Destiny of an Emperor and Ghost Lion, of all things). From that point on through the 90s, we picked up pretty much every SNES and Genesis RPG (some bought, some rented) and then proceeded to play both console and PC RPGs after that, even to today. Nintendo may have just been dumping excess stock, but I still thank them for introducing me to the genre all those years ago.

Dragon Warrior made me a huge RPG nerd. I still remember getting it on Christmas Eve and being completely sucked in to it while my parents had a Christmas party in the other room.

R.I.P. Akira Toriyama.

Gating progress through character growth, rather than plot, is one of the things I didn't realise I missed in RPGs until I played through the first three Dragon Quests (albeit in their modern Switch incarnations) over the pandemic. (I also love the way the second and third games tie back into the original!)

I received my copy as part of the Nintendo Power promotion, and I really liked the simplicity of Dragon Warrior. I want to say it arrived in my life the first year of junior high, which as a real jump in complexity for life to me. It was nice to have Dragon Warrior as a world to explore without ever expanding and changing rules like early adolescent had. I liked Dragon Warrior so much, I picked up the sequel. I heard about DWIII, but by the time it released; I think was about the time I took a break from video games for more 'teenager' stuff as I was expected to at the time.

I remember my best friend borrowing this and I just bounced off it HARD as 10 year old me just didn't get a game where i was picking "fight" in a menu, etc. Later when I played Final Fantasy IV on SNES in middle school, RPGs finally clicked for me, so I went back and played the Dragon Warrior games with fresh eyes and was like "Hey... these games are awesome!"

While maybe not my favorite Dragon Quest title (DQ8 reserves the honor), this was my introduction to turn-based RPGs as a child and I absolutely adored it, grind/difficulty and all. What an immense impact.. So much of my video game mentality and preferences are probably traceable to here. R.I.P. Akira Toriyama

Man, seeing a full-screen, color image of Lum like that in the mid-80s must have felt like seeing a single frame of animation on Sega CD/Turbo Duo in the early 90s. It seems like something that the youth of today could never fully understand.

24:00 I love that they got artists to redraw the Troiyama art in the 80s I remember as a kid in the late 90s, my friends' parents bought him Dragon Warrior 3 remake on GBC because they thought it had something to do with the DBZ anime he watched and loved, its very funny to me how the DBZ connection became its selling point much later in the coming years as the anime grew here.

Quite a long episode this week. Makes sense considering how important Dragon Quest/Warrior was. Thanks for the video Jeremy.

Thanks for naming the all-star artists who illustrated those Nintendo Power features. They did more to inspire me to play than anything else.

I’m not very good at RPGs, but man Toriyama’s artwork was cool! Always loved the way he draws bigger monsters. They have this unique middle ground between amusingly cartoony and nightmarishly scary.

But Thou Must Go To Eurasia. Anyway, Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest wasn't my favorite RPG, but it was as Horii and gang intended a starter for me to be the RPG-loving gamer I am today. I've been looking forward to this episode for a while, I feel like I owe Toriyama and Iwata both thanks for their efforts on this game that helped make me who I am. Dragon Warrior may be dead but Dragon Quest lives on, and I have enjoyed the journey it hath taken me on. Looking forward to the suffering of the triangle jump next time.

Just wanna say I appreciate the Toasty Frog name drop of the hero in this video.

The simplicity of this game does still make it a very good entry point into the increasingly robust RPG randomizer community. It’s very easy to track what you need to finish the game.

Damn, Jeremy getting in some YMO talk.

I worked for like a month over the summer as a kid at my neighbor’s home business, packing party supplies, just to get enough money to buy this.

i was learning to read while playing this one in 1993 or so. got it cheap at a garage sale and it had a late-game save from the previous owner that i treated with proper reverence for ages. you showed me the hero I could become, thank you "MARK GG". still have the map poster!

Nothing hits me as hard in the nostalgia as the opening notes to Dragon Quest's title theme. Instantly takes me back to renting the game and messing around with someone's file. They called themselves PERFECT and had already saved the Princess, which caused me to giggle when the guard told me they hated me. Then of course my friend got a copy with Nintendo Power, and I worked with him to beat it before borrowing it to play for myself.

I guess I assumed DW was more popular than it was. All of my friends were playing it at the time. I definitely wouldn't have the patience to spend hours grinding for gold now, but I do have fond memories. Thanks for bumping this one up.

Didn't hear you mention it, but "Dragon Quest" trademark was owned by TSR at the time. Hence the name change to Dragon Warrior.

There is no more perfect microcosm of patience for reward like grinding metal slimes for experience

This was a foundational game for me as a young gamer in the eighties. I can remember getting the free cartridge in the mail with all of the booklets in the summer. I poured over the information daily, memorized all of the secrets, and explored every inch of Alefgard. I LOVE this game, and still revisit it today at least once a year. If it weren't for Dragon Warrior, I probably would not be as into video games as I am today. It is art!

One of the coolest things the game did narratively was make saving the princess optional. If you beat the game without doing so, her loss is lamented in the end. Likewise, if you can avoid returning to the castle after saving her, you can defeat the dragon lord with her by your side. It's such a fun little flourish.

Honestly Final Fantasy skipping entries in the US makes more sense when you see how the first Dragon Quest release went here. Between localization taking time, other games releasing that could improve on its ideas and make it look primitive by comparison, and it failing to make as much of an impact as a result, it’s no wonder Square picked and chose their most impressive releases for their respective times. That still didn’t work until VII, but I’d still say it was a smart strategy from the beginning

I love the Japanese "Dragon Quest" and the password system, because unlike other password systems, "Dragon Quest" password was a haiku sentence!! I STILL have my password for my character at max level 30, experience 65,535 and 65,535G(Gold) 😉😉

Hm. So Dragon Quest is the *true* Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Excellent vid!

One of my favorite series of all time, I only played it because we subscribed to Nintendo Power. What a wonderful game. Thank you for your excellent designs Toriyama! This was the reason I fell in love with RPGs

I use the sound effects from this game for notifications on my phone. The first time I got a text in front of my Japanese friend, he said, "Oh, victory. Dragon Quest," with a big smile.

Dragon Quest Builders 1 is a very good re-imagining of Dragon Warrior 1

The first game I ever completed, in 1992. What a grind! To have that kind of patience nowadays.

Got my mom to pick up a used copy after I played this at my cousins house around 1990 Still my favorite jrpg series

A Slime appears. Command?

Dragon Warrior was my introduction to RPGs in 1989! I had no idea what RPGs were and had no idea what kind of game I was about to play. It took me some time to realize this was NOT the Legend of Zelda or any adventure game I'd played, but once the quest started unfolding, I would spend hours playing this everyday!

Thank you for this excellent video, Jeremy. May the Light shine on thee. For me, Dragon Warrior was one of those life-defining influences. It came out as I was starting middle school, and was a big part of the new friendships I made there. Toriyama's art heavily influenced my own. Dragon Warrior cemented my love of RPGs; and along with The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy, greatly inspired my fantasy world building throughout the years. I still have that wonderful Nintendo Power Dragon Warrior Strategy Guide: so well-used that it resembles an ancient manuscript. A relatively simple story and game; yet what a remarkable foundation it laid.

RIP Akira Toriyama, I can't wait to experience his final work in Dragon Quest XII!

It's worth remembering that, even during the RPG boom period of the 16-bit era, JRPGs were still a niche subgenre of gaming. It wasn't until the 32-bit era, and specifically Final Fantasy VII, that RPGs really became the industry-dominating staple that they've been ever since.

Awwwww, that easter egg at the very end was so nostalgic and unexpected, thanks. You truly did have one of the best sites on the ancient, original internet; one that was emblematic of the zeitgeist yet simultaneously very personal and original. I played DQ due to the free copy, and honestly didn't care much for it as a kid, especially considering that I feel like I had already played Final Fantasy 1 and genuinely liked it (release timing is fuzzy in my memory sorry), so DQ1 always felt like a big step down. But as a young teenager, after having become a JRPG fanatic, I did go back and play through it on cartridge, and also emulated and played the other three NES games and two SNES when that was possible in the mid-late 90's. Dragon Quest VI has always been one of my very favorite JRPGs, to the extent that the Silent Hill 2-like praise V receives has always gotten under my skin... a consequence of how strongly affected I am by aesthetics (and, the job system made it a waaaaay more interesting, replayable game). I wish I could agree with you about the DS localizations: of course the more accurate translation is welcome, but reading through all the regional dialects and accents was painful for me. I think it's because it feels like a distracting injection of real-world elements into a fantasy world. When taken to that extreme, at least.

When it was first released I LOVED Dragon Warrior. It didn't matter to me that the actual game itself was quite small and limited with the play time greatly padded through grinding. To me the the grinding was part of what I enjoyed in the game. The incremental nature of it was oddly satisfying and rewarding. For me Dragon Warrior was the primer for decades of JRPGs and grindy incremental type games which I still play to this day!

He said "Xevious" again. EVERYBODY DRINK

As much as the large scale regional narrative holds true, Dragon Warrior was sort of the Velvet Underground of the NES. Those of us who got it *really* got it. As my first exposure to turn-based RPGs, it definitely primed me to get heavily into D&D and other tabletop ones the following year.

I was drawn in by the rare NES 4th installment in the late 90s that I borrowed from a friend. I got so hooked, I bought this for $15 used at our last local K-mart in 98'. There's a special charm to those 8-bit releases.

I find the simplicity of DQ/DW 1 oddly appealing. Granted, on my playthroughs of it (played through the NES version twice and the SNES once) I was playing on an emulator which let me speed up fights if it dragged on too much but there is something nice about not having to worry about party management, having an extremely simple plot meaning less cutscenes to sit through and having a fairly compact world with only a few towns and dungeons. Even the music is very simple in DQ 1, sounding like they hadn't quite figured out how to work the NES' soundchips but it adds to the charm of it all also.

I dabbled a bit with Dragon Warrior in 1989 or 1990, but it never grabbed me the way Final Fantasy did. I enjoyed "Dragon Warrior 3" a lot more when I rented it, but I never owned a copy. By 1992, I only had eyes for the Super NES. It wasn't until I played Dragon Quest VIII that I came to appreciate what the series really was.

I was one of the kids who received a free copy of Dragon Warrior from Nintendo Power. A $60 game for free was such a good deal I had my parents cancel my existing subscription and resubscribe so I could get it :) I did finish it eventually, the game was alright. I didn’t get into RPGs in earnest until Final Fantasy IV. Years later, I really liked DQVIII, and DQXI is competing with Final Fantasy VI for my top RPG of all time.

I'm one of those who didn't see the appeal back then. I got a cartridge for very cheap like most people and never played it for 15 years. Then I tried it, my first DQ game, and fell in love. DQ1 is one of my favorites with 3,5 and 8. I love it's minimalism. It's one of the purest games ever made.

My understanding is that Sugiyama was a huge chess need and tech enthusiast, and Enix had made a cutting edge chess program that he fell in love with and wanted to be involved with moving forward

When I was very young, I attempted to play Wizardry and Bard's Tale but it was just too opaque for me to make any headway in those games at such a young age. This game gave me exactly what I needed and wanted at the time, an RPG stripped down to the basics, easily playable, and entertaining.

Thank GOD this game came out before final fantasy in the US

The music from Dragon Warrior for NES triggers instant nostalgia and dread at the same time.

I absolutely loved Dragon Warrior as a kid. It was one of the first games I beat and to this day it holds so much nostalgia. I even have a slime tattoo!

What a perfect video to come along, right as I finished the translated SFC version of the game!

Me: I think it took me like a year to beat this as a kid. I'm not even 100% sure I ever did. I still remember exploring the giant world, getting to whole new territories. Jeremy: Barely a game, tiny world, just a tutorial, idiotically primitive, laughably basic, training wheels attached. Thanks, Jeremy.

Ill never forget the day my childhood best friend called me to come over saying he'd rented this game that seemed kinda cool but that he couldn't figure out because he didn't read English and since he knew I was pretty decent at it by that time (I would have been 10), he wanted me to help him with it. And so I go there and am introduced to the concept of the video game rpg. See, I knew the tapletop RPGs, i'd played The Dark eye a bunch (germany's answer to DnD, and no i'm not German, I'm French Canadian, but the Dark Eye got a French translation that did pretty well in the French speaking world) and was a huge fan of gamebooks (Fighting Fantasy and all that, basically single player tabletop rpgs....) but somehow to this point did not know there existed such a genre in video games. It was a revelation. Of course maybe 2 years later iI'd discover CRPGs (with the Ultima series) and from then on pretty much never touched a jrpg again (well except the first FF) I never counted Zelda as a rpg, for me at the time what made DW a rpg was the turn based combat and the character sheet pretty much. Funny because now i cant stand any rpg with turn based combat...

Genuinely one of my favorite games ever. I make sure to play it through at least once per year - whenever I'm feeling stressed and need a way to relax, or if i just want to play it. What a brilliantly simple game.

Dragon Quest 1 is like video game comfort food. It's not fancy, it's not anything special by modern standards, but it's a great pallete cleanser. Sometimes you just want a simple game with a simple story to detox and have some innocent fun.

These are so good. The research you put into these amazes me every single time.

The free copy was how I got my mom to buy me the NES. Once I had the cartridge, I needed the system to play it on. She didn't realize the subscription would be a gateway to more spending.

Still one of my favourite classic RPGs. I only just replayed it a few months back. Thanks for the great video Jeremy.

You are literally the only retro game RU-vidr that I bother to watch anymore. Keep up the great work.

Your content is always amazing. So much info, trivia, fun opinions, and so on. Your view counts should be astronomically higher. Thanks for all the great, informative, and entertaining videos! Cheers!

I like the Toasty Frog easter egg in the players name you chose. I still have one of your old physical 'zines from the early 2000's somewhere in my closet ;-)

Man I haven't heard that castle theme in a while... Its weird how some senses like sound or smell can unlock memories you've all but forgotten. I loved this game and I had already plated Ultima on PC. Something about playing a video game on the TV was always appealing to me as a kid. It was also a great game.

I just found this channel. The care and effort put into this is phenomenal. I like how you put this into context of other games from the era. Including things like the Japanese commercials is just icing on an already delicious cake. I’m now subscribed and will be checking out your other videos.

Several years ago I helped an elderly friend sell his NES and games on eBay. Among his collection were all four Dragon Warriors CIB. They went for a decent chunk at the time, but it was a fraction of what they'd sell for now.

A lot of the things that make Dragon Quest 1 a bit unpleasant to play today are things that can be and have been changed in rereleases. I played the whole series for the first time a few years ago in whatever legitimate form was the most convenient, which meant playing the mobile versions of 1-6 (those versions of 1-3 got ported to Switch) and with context sensitive controls and saving anywhere and probably a bit of rebalancing (I'm not sure on that last part) I actually had a pretty nice, relaxing time playing Dragon Quest 1. It's a lot less unfriendly than a lot of games of that era, that's for sure.

24:18 I still have this. I still have this in quite good condition. I still have this easily accessible. I still have this easily accessible right on my bookshelf. I moved 4 times since 2004, and each time, I made sure that this, the FF1 one for NES, and way more modern, my Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2 strategy guides were at worst, a drawer or 2 looking for it away. The reason for the stupid detailed comment is because I haven't played Dragon Warrior in AT LEAST 30 years, prob closer to 35. I actually don't think I eben played it again after I finally beat it as a kid when it came out for NES. It frustrated me so much and took me so long--- and I'm a guy who's always LIKED level grinding lol.... And it still pissed me off nearly as much as I enjoyed the game, to not only cause me to never play the game a 2nd time, but to never even saw physically in person, a DW2 cartridge, to seek out and consider getting DW2, 3, and more....and worst of all, as a SNES addicttttttt lol, I didn't even know they made 16 bit sequels for this game I sooooo loved, and "only" soo hated 😂 😉 Factor in my final fantasy love and uber-fandom, and while as I got older I considered trying some of the sequels, it neber compelled me enough to go back and try. I probably played 4 or 5 full FF1 playthroughs before I was a teenager, vs the 1 full DW playthrough, MAYBE a feeble 2nd attempt thay I'm not remembering But I think now, soon to be 46 on quite fitting for me, good ol Star Wars Day, I am going to use the abundance of free time I have since "retiring" from going out to the many, MANY a bar or club here in NYC, to attempt an 8bit sequel, and/or a SNES sequel or 2... It's prob better than my 80th NBA2K, downloaded 1993-1994 fully accurate roster, fantasy draft dynasty.... which includes about 4 dozen "what if my Knicks made THIS trade, or signed THAT guy, during the 94 Finals loss season?," run, which I'm still on 2k23,,didn't even bother jumping bravely into 18 months ago and grabbing the new 2k24, which is already less than 6 months away from being "obsolete" 😂 As u can probably tell, I'm not such a big gamer anymore

I was one of the lucky kids who got the "free" release of the game with a Nintendo Power subscription. Having only gotten used games at fleamarkets from time to time up until then, it was a big deal, especially since the RPG genre was something that interested me since playing DnD games on Intellivision (also bought from a fleamarket) & the original Rogue on DOS PC. I was overjoyed to see the amount of materials that came with it and immersed in that world for a long time, making it just a little bit further each day. From there I tried other RPGs like Ultima on NES and then eventually Final Fantasy, which is still my favorite NES RPG. Glad Nintendo made such a big push with DW, as it started me off young on my lifelong fondness for console RPGs.

I was introduced to this before I ever played D&D. Played the F out of this masterpiece and then went on to play D&D all the time for several years. Still do from time to time.

This was the first game for me that had that effect where you'd hear the music and sounds from the game out loud instead of in your head, when trying to sleep, after I can't even imagine how many hours of playing.

This was my introduction to RPGs. My friend a few houses over got it with Nintendo Power. We took turns grinding, so it wasn't too bad that way. We loved it. Every time my friend got the next entry it was like an event. We were quite saddened no games came out here for Super Nintendo. And you're not wrong about this one being cheap back in the day. I got my my copy for free from someone who was going to throw it out because it wasn't worth the hassle to try and sell it on ebay.

This is of my favorite releases when it came out, and still in my top 10 nes games of all time. I poured over the guide and books and articles they put out. Nintendo’s marketing campaign hit me hook, line, and sinker lol. I still go back and play this through every couple years. It started me on a long path of RPGs.

Now here we go

I think of the Dragon Quest series as a view of western sword and sorcery mythology through an eastern lens. Dragon Warrior is made with such love and reverence that it largely transcends the system limits, and there is so much to admire in the elegant design and simple storytelling. To me as a youth, the world felt vibrant and mysterious; this is probably the first game I remember actually having this sense of what it would be like to be an itinerant adventurer far from home, going from quest to quest, living by wits and steel.

Got mine free from Nintendo Power and beat it as a kid. Good memories!

My free copy of Dragon Warrior turned me into a lifetime RPG fan.

I've been familiar with this game ever since I was a child in the late '80s/early '90s, but I came to this game with The Legend of Zelda under my belt. Suffice it to say, I had no idea what I was doing, and I was not yet used to reading in my video games. But even after all of that, and coming from someone who used to hate RPGs, but eventually grew to love them as they got older, I will always have nostalgia for this game. It was what motivated me to try, and eventually buy Dragon Quest 11 for my Nintendo switch.

Amazing video Jeremy. You did a great game justice.

One thing I particularly love about this game, as well the first two sequels, which is sorely missing in most of the rest of the genre, is how it doesn't really hold your hand or explicitly guides you through anything! There's literally nothing stopping you from going just about anywhere in the world map, aside from the island where the Dragonlord is located, outside of the strength of the monsters you encounter along the way, and absolutely nothing is handed to you on a silver-platter because the plot demanded it, you have to actually figure things out on your own by talking to everyone and taking notes! I mean, what kind of game hides crucial items *Necessary* for completion on totally inconspicuous tiles in the middle of the overworld map, with no indication that they're there outside of NPC hints and an item that tells you more-or-less where you are? I tell you what kind, a game that respects the player's intelligence! And it achieves that while still being not only palatable, but enjoyable, BECAUSE of its simplicity! All that said, yeah, the NES original is a bit rough to go back to, I still beat it anyway because I love this game to bits, but IMO the ideal way to play this game is either on SNES or GBC, I'm particularly partial to the GBC version myself, it feels very appropriate on the system.

Been waiting for this for a long time

Dragon Quest II is why the Japanese take on the Orc is a pig-like beastman. While there is one older depiction of the orc, from the AD&D1E monster manual, that shows orcs with snouts and is likely the reference art given to Akira Toriyama for the project. That appearance had not caught on even within other D&D books, and most orcs were more ape-like or copies of the trolls from the 1970s hobbit animated movie. Even the art of the orc was changed to be more piglike in Wizardry's Famicom port which came out nearly a whole year after Dragon Quest II.

Had many memories playing this with my dad(who’s only played 2 games in his life). Thinking about it, I had no idea why we got the cartridge in the first place. Must have been from the NP subscription. Thanks for solving that!

It's interesting how video game music wasn't considered "legitimate" in the US, but always has been in Japan. We're finally catching on here now, too!

I vaguely remember getting a copy of this game for free and IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME

The Repel illustration in NP has been burned into my mind for the past...35ish years. The slimes looking like "bluh, this guy again."

I got my copy of Dragon Warrior from the nintendo power giveaway and i still have it!

Great video as always Jeremy! Thank you

This was the game that made me a die hard RPG gamer ( up until the PS3 era where I gradually started losing interest in modern gaming). The one town that was entirely destroyed with everyone dead kind of hit me a bit as a kid

I miss the old crt filter during the talking head segments. Regardless, you consistently produce endlessly entertaining videos of extremely high quality. Idk how you do it, man, but it is much appreciated.