Dragon Slayer, MSX

Although it may look extremely basic, Dragon Slayer is an important game in the development of Japanese Role-Playing Games. It is a real-time action/exploration game where you control a fighter who must collect gold, orbs, potions, and various other useful items, inside a scrolling maze that is crawling with deadly monsters.

Dragon Slayer was initially released in 1984 for the PC-8801, PC-9801, X1 and FM-7, and the MSX version followed in 1985, being ported and published by Square. It was, in fact, one of the earliest releases from Square.

When you begin the game, the player character starts out with no weapon, and you must find one – as quickly as possible – inside the maze. This is not an easy task, however, and your first few games will no doubt result in quick deaths, because monsters home in on you, and it is easy to find yourself trapped with no way of fighting them. Combat is basic and happens when you simply touch a monster, or the monster is in an adjacent square to you.

A readout of an attacking monster’s Strength, HP and Speed is shown in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. To stand any chance of killing a monster, you need to have higher strength than it, and also have a weapon. Initially, at least, combat is a tedious war of attrition as you trade blows with whatever’s attacking you, and whoever reaches zero health first is defeated. At first, you only have a chance of defeating lower-ranked monsters. If you’re surrounded by anything higher ranked than you, you can basically kiss your ass goodbye.

The key to progress is to find and return power orbs to your house, which is located at your starting position when the game begins. These orbs increase your strength for every one you turn in. You can also drop off money that you find (in the form of ‘$’ coins) to increase and replenish your Hit Points (HP). While you can carry multiple coins, you unfortunately cannot carry more than one power orb at a time, which means a lot of back and forth as you desperately try to level up.

The maze is filled with portals that will warp you to certain places, and often this is helpful for avoiding chasing monsters or reaching new places. There are also house warps that immediately return you home. There are crucifixes in some places, and you can stand on these and be protected from attack. Monsters will also not cross over them, which is a blessed relief. Also note that monsters can walk through portals with impunity, which you cannot. Tombstones are basically monster generators. When you kill a level one monster, a level two monster spawns from a tombstone. That extends all the way up to level 32 monsters, so the game gradually becomes harder as you continue to kill monsters and earn EXP from it.

There’s a strength ring that allows you to push brick walls, and there are magic potions that power your magical abilities. Pressing Return brings up the magic menu; what you can cast depends on how many magic potions you’re carrying.

Dragon Slayer is a frustrating game to play initially, and it will take many restarts before you start to get the hang of it. It’s important to recognise the power orbs from other items (they actually look like small crosses) and to drop them onto your house when carrying one. Do that ten times and your strength will grow to the point where weaker monsters will start running away from you, rather than chase you. Another important thing to learn is to not make mistakes while holding the strength ring. Pushing the wrong walls can cause problems, and – even worse – stepping through a portal with the ring can prevent you returning home with it (because walking into house warp while holding the ring will cause you to push the house rather than step into it). So it’s best to stay in the first area with the ring and to make a few holes in the walls there, before taking it through a portal. And when you’ve done pushing walls, it’s advisable to drop the ring near your house so that you can easily find it again if you need it.

To complete a level there are four crowns that you need to collect, and each is guarded by a dragon, so you need to figure out how to reach them and eventually slay the dragons.

If you’re playing Dragon Slayer in an emulator, use quicksaves to allow you to experiment more, without having to restart from the beginning again and again, but be careful not to save yourself into a corner…

Dragon Slayer was released on disk, cassette and cartridge for the MSX. The cartridge version is different to the cassette version, with reversed phases. There are only two phases (basically, levels) in the game, but they are large and complicated so take time and effort to complete. If you need help, try reading a guide and finding some maps.

For anyone looking to study the evolution of JRPGs, or likes difficult, obscure maze games, Dragon Slayer is a game worth loading up and playing, but it’s unlikely to appeal to anyone else. It’s an early proto RPG that is somewhat Ultima-like, and mostly action-oriented, and while it does have some interesting qualities it’s also unforgiving and clunky. It did begin a long-running series, though, and influenced Square prior to making Final Fantasy, so is considered to be somewhat pioneering and influential. Dragon Slayer hasn’t aged particularly well, although I did start to enjoy it more, after I got the hang of it. If you want to play a more modern and forgiving version of the game, there’s a remake on the Sega Saturn which is part of the Falcom Classics release of 1998.

Dragon Slayer series on The King of Grabs:
Dragon Slayer (MSX), Dragon Slayer (Game Boy), Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (MSX), Faxanadu (NES/Famicom), Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr. (MSX), Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr. (NES/Famicom), Dragon Slayer IV: Draslay Family (MSX), Legacy of the Wizard (NES/Famicom), Sorcerian: Dragon Slayer V (PC), Sorcerian: Dragon Slayer V (MSX), Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (PC Engine), Xanadu Next (PC).