Dragon Warrior — The Princess Has Been Kidnapped By Dragons. Are You A Bad Enough Dude To Rescue The Princess?

Take a look at the back cover of a new video game (well, try to stay away from the back of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time if you’re Canadian), and tell me what you see.  Graphics that took years to create?  A promise of a thrilling soundtrack or one hundred hours of play?  Don’t forget the open-ended story that continues after the final boss is defeated, or the never-ending quest to capture hundreds of monsters.

This is what RPG gaming has become.  I will now show you what RPG gaming used to be.

A Review Draws Near.  Command?

Dragon Warrior (known as Dragon Quest in Japan; perhaps I will talk about that more in the future) starts out with a quest, as most games do.  But since Dragon Warrior was one of the first in the RPG genre, it didn’t feel the need to elaborate on the quest.  You just had to rescue the princess and then kill the Dragonlord for whatever he did to the kingdom (presumably, kidnap the princess).  You are [Hero], the first in a long line of re-nameable RPG heroes who do good because it’s their birthright.  You find yourself locked in the king’s throne room because he wants you to help him and he won’t take no for an answer.  This is a trait that seems to run in the family.  As far as he’s concerned, you would starve to death before he lets you out.  How very thoughtful and considerate of him.  Anyway, once you agree to save his daughter, he gives you permission to go seek and find the key he’s hidden in the room.  Once freed, you get to go and fulfill your promise to save the princess, and possibly eradicate a dragon or two along the way.

That’s it, that’s the entire story.  Talking to citizens of the many cities in the world will not reveal anything more to you, other than a few details about the world itself, so you might as well not speak to anyone else in the game.  Yet you’ll want to.  Alefgard is a small continent, and it’s mostly open to you to explore.  There is a small area that is closed to you from the beginning, but you can go pretty much everywhere else.  Which will suck for you, the hero, since you’ll have to be careful: cross a bridge, and all bets are off.  Monsters are segregated to certain areas of the world map like in most RPGs, but this one restricts them further: the bridges are the barriers keeping monsters out of other areas.  It works quite well, especially if this is your first Dragon Quest game.  You can get used to the system of level grinding before entering each new area, and possibly dare to venture into the new area while slightly under-powered, just to see how well you do.

The fortunate thing about the battle system of Dragon Warrior is that battles are quick.  You barely select the Attack button before the result of your action is displayed in the scrolling battle log, and the enemy’s reaction is shown just as instantly.  I think it’s a lot faster a battle system than any that the Final Fantasy series has ever featured.  Not even Final Fantasy X-2 is this quick.  It may come from the fact that your party consists of just yourself, so your actions deliver instant results.

Spells are also easy.  You’re given just enough of them, and at just the right moments, to get through the game.  They aren’t anything elaborate or extra.  Just a couple offensive spells, some defensive, and some that are neither.  Sleep spells remain useful until late in the game, unlike in Final Fantasy where, by the time you receive a status spell, it’s already useless.  And there’s even a spell to help overcome a rather odd design choice the staff made.  No matter how realistic it is to include one in the game, very few other games feature pitch black caves that the player literally can’t see within, and for good reason.

By now I have fallen in love with the overworld theme from this game, and it’s gotten to the point where, if I’m playing another Dragon Quest game and they throw it in as a reference to the first game, I grin for the rest of the day.  The rest of the tunes grow on you as well.  These days, game companies use more rock-inspired music, or ambient, or hip-hop… music that isn’t really hummable.  When you only had 8-bit sound to work with, you came up with distinct tunes or you came up with nothing at all.

Your mileage may vary, though.  If you find the music grates on you after a while, just put WinAmp on.  There’s just three or four tunes that repeat for the majority of the game, and once you’ve listened to the game for an hour, you’ll have listened to the entire game up to the final dungeon.  Also, if grinding bothers you, you’re playing the wrong game.  This game could’ve been three hours long if not for the grinding, and some people might not like that.

But Thou Must!

My only real problem with the game was with the princess.  After rescuing her from the dungeon, she developed an infatuation for the hero like how a patient falls for her doctor.  After I arrived in her dungeon to spirit her back home, she wished for me to hold her and carry her back to the king.  So, being the dashing hero that I am, I did.  Little did I know what was awaiting me at the end of the game.  Right when I was about to leave, apparently so that I can find new lands (although what was wrong with my old home, I do not know) she requested to go with me.  No, that’s too gentle a word.  She demanded that I take her with me, even if I said I didn’t want to.  Every single damn time I said I didn’t.  It was an endless loop until I agreed that yes, I’ll take her, now would she please shut up!  I also couldn’t refuse her love, earlier in the game.  If she hadn’t read too much into my actions during the game, then she might not have decided to elope with a total stranger.  But I guess it’s the typical male fantasy to have a princess fall for you after you rescue her, even if it’s only because you’re the first guy other than her father who was ever kind to her.  (No, actually, I think the typical male fantasy is to have the princess suddenly strip off her clothes and say “I’m yours, take me now” right there in the dungeon.  Especially if she’s drop dead gorgeous and top heavy, with at least an F cup on her so that when gravity remembers to work, she’d fall forward.)  But me, I just want to say to her, “Fine, yes, I love you, bitch.  Now close your damn yapper so I can properly say good-bye to the king and his citizens.  I only rescued you because he locked me in the throne room and wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to it.  And don’t expect me to share your bed tonight, I already have someone waiting at home for me who is a lot better looking than you and who has a modest, reasonable chest.  You want to know what true love is?  Ask her.”

Sorry, I just don’t like the princess.  I almost wish I had looked in the wrong dungeon when I was searching for her.  “Sorry, CW, but the princess is in another dungeon.”  “Whew, that’s the first good news I’ve heard all day.  Well, King, I tried, but your daughter wasn’t there.  I think the dragon must’ve vaporized her or something.

The game does get high marks from me, despite the inclusion of a Paris Hilton princess as a character, and although the game isn’t for everyone, I would certainly recommend it to anyone with the patience and dedication to play through the very first game in one of the greatest RPG series ever to be created.

To be continued…