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.
Tag Archives: Cult Game
Dragon Slayer IV: Draslay Family, MSX
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“.
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.
Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr., MSX
Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr. is the third game in the Dragon Slayer series and was developed and published by Nihon Falcom in 1986. This game was designed to be “cute”, and more attractive to younger players (thus the “Jr.” suffix), and is therefore more simplistic than Xanadu, the previous Dragon Slayer game.
Dragon Slayer, Game Boy
A Game Boy port of Falcom‘s maze-based fantasy action game, Dragon Slayer, was developed by Epoch Co., Ltd. and published by Falcom – in Japan only – in 1990. While Dragon Slayer is an ideal match for Nintendo‘s monochrome handheld marvel, this conversion does leave a bit to be desired.
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.
Rainbow Islands, Sega Master System
Rainbow Islands on the Sega Master System was released in 1993 in Europe, Australia and Brazil, and it is a reasonably good port of the classic Taito arcade game.
Flashback, 3DO
The 3DO version of Delphine Software‘s futuristic platform adventure, Flashback, was ported by Tiertex Design Studios and published by US Gold in North America and Europe in 1993. Flashback on the 3DO was also released by Electronic Arts Victor in Japan in 1995.
Rygar, Arcade
Rygar is a side-scrolling fantasy action game first released into arcades by Tecmo in 1986. In the original Japanese version of the game (called “Argos no Senshi“) the protagonist was called “The Legendary Warrior” and the main villain was called Rygar, but Western versions of the game switched that to make the player character be called Rygar instead. Which subsequently stuck.
Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, Game Boy Advance
Released in Japan only, Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart was developed by TOSE Co., Ltd. and published by Enix in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance. It is the third game in the Dragon Quest Monsters series. A fan translation into English was released in 2008, making the game playable to non-Japanese speakers.
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