Originally released in Japan as “Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family“, the version I’m showing here is the fan-translated MSX2 version of the fourth game in the Dragon Slayer series. The game was developed and published by Falcom in 1987, and the fan translation was released by “MSX Translations” in 2010 under the title of “Dragon Slayer IV: Draslay Family“.
Tag Archives: 1987
Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr., NES/Famicom
The Nintendo Famicom version of Romancia – aka Dragon Slayer Jr. – was developed by Compile and published by Tokyo Shoseki, in Japan only, in 1987. A fan translation makes the game playable in English (and Spanish), which is good because this version of the game is considerably better than the MSX version.
Faxanadu, NES/Famicom
Faxanadu is an action/platform game, developed by Hudson Soft and first published for the Nintendo Famicom in 1987. It is a spin-off from the Falcom Dragon Slayer series and its name is a combination of the words “Famicom” and “Xanadu“, so could even be considered a remake of the second Dragon Slayer game.
Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II, MSX
Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (aka just “Xanadu“) is the 1987 sequel to 1984’s Dragon Slayer. It was developed and published by Falcom in Japan only, but the game is entirely in English so is playable by non-Japanese speakers/readers.
Xanadu is an action RPG that looks and plays similarly to Falcom‘s own Ys series, with side-scrolling town and dungeon sections and overhead, real-time combat taking place on a separate screen. Xanadu was a much bigger hit than its predecessor and was released in MSX and MSX2 versions.
Pirates!, Commodore 64
First released for the Commodore 64 by Microprose in 1987, Pirates! is a single-player, open world strategy/action game in which you play an adventurer, sailing the high seas, fighting, plundering, trading, and trying to survive the rigours of life as a seafaring captain during a brutal period of history.
Yellow Submarine, MSX
It’s not often you get a game that’s based on a Beatles song, and Yellow Submarine for the MSX is one such rare example. Published by Takeru in 1987 Yellow Submarine is of course not an official license and was slipped out to the Japanese MSX market – on cartridge – in the hope that no one at Apple Records would notice. If they did, it appears that nothing was done about it.
Combat School, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum conversion of Konami‘s arcade game, Combat School, was developed and published by Ocean Software in 1987.
Re-Bounder, Commodore 64
Re-Bounder is the 1987 sequel to the brilliant ball-bouncing game, Bounder. It was once again developed and published by Gremlin Graphics and this time features both horizontally and vertically-scrolling gameplay, whereas the previous game scrolled only vertically.
Ghosts ‘N Goblins, PC
The 1987 PC MS-DOS version of Ghosts ‘N Goblins, I’m sorry to say, is a bit of a travesty. It looks terrible, and also plays like a lame duck. In fact, unless you can get the game set up properly in DOSBox (which took me some time to do), then it’s pretty much unplayable*.
Flying Shark, Arcade
Developed by Toaplan and first released into arcades in 1987, Flying Shark (aka Sky Shark in North America) is a challenging vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter with a military theme. You fly a biplane over jungle and sea and must blast your way through five increasingly more difficult levels.
The King of Grabs 