Tag Archives: spells

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, Game Boy Color

Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 is the second game in the Dragon Quest spin-off series, which is a monster-collecting, training, breeding and combat style game in the tradition of Pokémon. It was developed by TOSE Co., Ltd. and was published exclusively for the Game Boy Color by Enix (Eidos in North America and Europe) in 2001.

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Dragon Warrior Monsters, Game Boy Color

Dragon Warrior Monsters (aka Dragon Quest Monsters in Japan) is a spin-off from the famous Dragon Quest series, and this is the first game in the DWM series. It was developed by TOSE Co., Ltd. and published exclusively for the Game Boy Color by Enix (Eidos in North America and Europe), in 1998.

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Treasure Hunter G, Super Nintendo

Developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Squaresoft in 1996, Treasure Hunter G is a tactical Japanese Role-Playing Game that features exploration, turn-based combat and a fantasy-based storyline that mixes magic and technology. It was released in Japan only, but a fan translation makes it playable in English.

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Swords and Serpents, NES/Famicom

Developed by Interplay Productions and published by Acclaim Entertainment in 1990, Swords and Serpents is a first-person, party-based RPG with tile-based movement for up to four players. You can either build a party of four characters yourself, in single-player mode, or up to four different players can control one party member each in multiplayer mode*.

*= An adapter, like the ‘NES Satellite‘, or another four-player expansion peripheral, is required if you’re going to play with that many players (but, let’s face it, very few will, although it’s nice – and fairly unique – to have the option to do that).

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