Legacy of the Wizard, NES/Famicom

Legacy of the Wizard is the North American localisation of Dragon Slayer IV, released for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Brøderbund in 1989. It’s a fantasy-based platform/action game featuring a family of four heroes – and their pet – on a mission to retrieve a mystical sword and slay a dragon, inside a sprawling dungeon.

When the game starts, you’re shown the family gathered around a table at home and can choose which one you want to take out by using a pointing hand cursor. There’s Xemn, the warrior dad; Maia, the wizard mother; Royas, the ranger son; Lyll, the elf daughter, and Pochi the monster pet. Next to them are grandma and grandpa, who you cannot take out, but instead they provide password-based loading and saving services.

Each member of the family have their own special abilities, which give them an advantage in certain situations. Xemn, for example, can push moveable blocks, and Lyll can jump higher and further than everyone else. Pochi the pet, however, is the best character to begin with because he doesn’t take damage when in contact with monsters inside the dungeon. So he’s the one you should take out first, in order to familiarise yourself with the dungeon layout and the basic gameplay.

After choosing a family member, you’re then shown an inventory screen that acts as a loadout area. You can walk up to an item and press fire to add it to your character’s inventory, and can hold up to three items at a time. It’s worth noting that each person can only carry certain items – those that you cannot use are greyed-out. Initially, though, you won’t have any items, so you must go out and find some in the dungeon, or collect enough gold to buy some. Usually you’ll find these items for free inside treasure chests, and each chest requires a key to open. These keys are dropped by defeated monsters.

Each character has a life meter, and a magic meter, which are shown as bars at the top of the screen. The blue notches in each bar represent a single item, and the red notches represent multiples of ten. Killing monsters requires the use of magic energy to fire out either fireballs, or throw melee weapons – depending on who you’re controlling. If you run out of magic, you’ll no longer be able to attack, so it’s important to keep this filled-up. If you run out of life energy – you guessed it: you’ll die. So this too is important to not let run out. You can refill both by either returning home; by staying at an inn (at a small cost), or by collecting potions dropped by defeated monsters.

There are also two more meters that are shared by the family, showing carried keys and gold. Keys are needed to open chests and locked doors, and gold is required to buy items from shops or stay at inns.

Legacy of the Wizard‘s gameplay is predominantly platform-based jumping; maze-based puzzles; short-range shooting, and lots of back and forth between your house. The dungeon itself is very large and is divided into five different sections – four of which are designed for a specific character to explore, because they require special abilities to solve. You’ll know when you’ve entered a new area because the in-game music changes.

As is the case in pretty much all Dragon Slayer games, in order to get the sword, you first need to find four crowns that are hidden inside the dungeon. Only when you have all four crowns will you then be able to collect the legendary Dragon Slayer. Also: only the son, Royas, can actually wield the Dragon Slayer, so he’s the one who has to face the dragon.

Legacy of the Wizard is an exceptionally well-designed game, with great graphics and music, and finely-tuned gameplay, but it is a very difficult game to complete. It’s an easy game to play, but if you’re going to beat it, you’re almost certainly going to have to use maps and a walkthrough. And spend a significant amount of time playing the game. That said, it’s a game still worth playing today, so if you do fancy a serious challenge you could do a lot worse than playing Legacy of the Wizard.

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).