Reflections on a Dragon Warrior Playthrough

I recently played all the way through the original Dragon Warrior--something I haven't done since I first got the game way back when it was a brand-new release for the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.

At the time there was little to compare it to (it seems that at least in North America the only prior NES role playing game had been Ultima III: Exodus), but even by 8-bit standards (certainly in comparison with the following year's release, Final Fantasy) the gameplay can seem awkward and limiting. Standing on a staircase one actually has to select STAIRS from the menu to ascend or descend it to the next floor. You cannot carry more than one weapon, one suit of armor, one shield, at a time so that when you find Erdrick's Armor you simply lose whatever it was you were wearing before (though the income from the sale of my magic armor--3850 gold--would have been a welcome supplement to my income at the time). There is only one save point, back at Tantagel Castle, and while you can swiftly get there with the wyvern's wings on sale in most item shops, and the Return spell you eventually learn, it is a pain to use them because no spells or vehicles enable quick journeys anywhere else around the world map, making almost every trip a long walk with random battle after random battle--much of it against weaker enemies who basically waste your time because they slow you down while offering virtually nothing in the way of gold or experience, and the rest against tougher ones who make an already tedious walk back to some errand hazardous as well.* This is all the more the case because, given the fewness of specific tasks to perform, the player spends so much of their playing time seeking out random battles for the sake of amassing gold and leveling up.

Naturally returning to the game I had my doubts that I'd stick with it for very long, let alone finish it. However, as my sessions ran longer and proved more frequent than I planned (because I took one more go at the next object, one more round of experience and gold-amassing before I headed back to save my progress), I quickly realized that I would do just that, and soon enough, finished the course.

Thinking about all this I found myself remembering when I looked into the franchise's history some years ago--wondering why despite its relative obscurity in North America it exploded so in Japan. (Dragon Warrior 11 sold 2 million copies in Japan on its first day, the latest success for a series so much a touchstone of the country's gaming culture that the light novel, manga and soon to be anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime can casually reference the game in its title, and the target audience know exactly what they're talking about.)

Easily the best piece on the subject was this one by Christian Nutt at the gaming site Gamasutra. As the author notes the game is highly accessible, and rewards "sticktoitiveness," so that even an inexperienced player can get into it, and as they play, make progress so long as they are prepared to persist in building up their levels, and exercise a modicum of intelligence in making their decisions about how to tackle opponents, when to take up a new task, when to explore a new geographic area (unlike so many games where some minor thing they have to do to continue becomes so difficult that they just give up on the whole thing). Nutt notes, too, the game's emotional resonance--and while the piece largely discusses more sophisticated sequels, rather than the simpler original I played through, making my way from town to town as I follow in the footsteps of Erdrick, I can still see what they mean. One may or may not see a deeper cultural implication in the extent to which these elements made a franchise in one country and seem to have meant little in another, but I can say that they helped to make the experience of replaying it all these years later a pleasant surprise.

* One can use fairy water and the "Repel" spell to avoid those clashes, but only much later in the game, well after it has become an annoyance.