Dragon Quest (videogame)

"Dragon Warrior... the epic beginning of a new era in video games."

- Blurb, Dragon Warrior NES box art

Dragon Quest, originally titled Dragon Warrior in the United States (USA) and titled Dragon Quest「ドラゴンクエスト」in Japanese, is the first role-playing game (RPG) in the main Dragon Quest series. It was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix for the Famicom in Japan on May 27, 1986 and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System  in the USA on August, 1989 as Dragon Warrior. This version of the game was ported to MSX, MSX 2 & PC-9801 and remake for Super Famicom (SFC) , GameBoy Color (GBC) , cellphones, Nintendo Wii , Nintendo 3DS , PlayStation 4 (PS4) , Android , iOS and Nintendo Switch. On September 11, 2014 it was released worldwide for the first time on Android and iOS following a Japan release of the game on November 28, 2013. The latest release of Dragon Quest came out on September 27, 2019 for Nintendo Switch worldwide. Several anime and manga have been created adapting the plot of Dragon Quest.

Overview
Dragon Quest was created by Yuji Horii, who used the inspiration from western RPG titles like Wizardry, Ultima and Horii's own popular & influential adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case. Horii worked with Akira Toriyama, creator of the popular manga series Dragon Ball, who created the artwork for Dragon Quest and Koichi Sugiyama who composed the music for Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest is the product of Horii wanting to make an RPG that appealed to people who were unfamiliar with the genre. His game put a focus on storytelling and conveying emotions & simplifying user interface from western RPGs and introducing the Japanese videogame market to RPGs. At the time of its release, it was thought that putting an RPG with low enough memory capacity to work on a home console would be impossible. However, Horii was able to reduce the capacity to 512 kilobits to run on the Famicom. The game adopted a command selection user interface that is user-friendly with the Famicom's controller and utilised multiple windows, message display and an interactive turn-based battle system. Dragon Quest allows the freedom to enter a name for the protagonist, the Hero, and messages allow over 100 characters; a new convention for the Famicom. Many game design features were kept simple, such as the Hero being a sole adventurer, having no party members and one-on-one battles. There are few events or conversations between the beginning of the game and the final boss, except for levelling up the Hero and collecting a few essential items.

Dragon Quest was commercially successful in Japan, selling over 2 million copies. It did not see the same success in the USA under the name Dragon Warrior. The importance of Dragon Quest to the genre of Japanese RPGs (JRPG) has been recognised by many western critics and has been credited for establishing the template for future JRPGs. In 2018, 32 years after its release, May 27, the release date of Dragon Quest, was certified as "Dragon Quest Day" by the Japan Anniversary Association.

Setting
This game takes place in the land called Alefgard. There are a total of 6 towns, 5 dungeons, and 2 shrines around Tantegel Castle. The terrain is land-locked from Tantegel to the Cantlin plateau and through Kol in the east, the Galenholm peninsula in the west where the town of Galenholm is located, and the Damdara desert in the south. The southeastern island of Rimuldar is a remote island, but as there are no ships in this game, and the only way to come and go is via caves dug under the sea. And in the centre of the map on an island, there is the Dragonlord's Castle. You can see it on the other side of the river from Tantegel, but to get to it, you have to build the Rainbow Bridge with a Rainbow Drop from the peninsula to the north-west of Rimuldar island. Preview of locations in the game

Plot
Dragon Quest is the story narrative sequel to Dragon Quest III & the prequel to Dragon Quest II within the same timeline. It is part of the Erdrick Trilogy. It is also connected to various other Dragon Quest works.

Backstory
When the kingdom of Alefgard was cloaked in perpetual darkness, the tale began. Erdrick ("Loto" in the Game Boy Color remake) was a valiant warrior who fought an evil monster and brought life back to the world. The Sphere of Light was in Erdrick's hands, and he used it to scare away enemies that threatened the kingdom. For a long time, Alefgard was calm after Erdrick gave King Lorik the Sphere of Light. The Sphere of Light kept Alefgard's winters short and contributed to the region's stability and prosperity. One man, however, turned away from the radiance of the Sphere of Light and took refuge in a mountain cave. The man came across a sleeping dragon who awakened upon his entry into the cave's extensive network of tunnels one day while investigating. He was afraid that the dragon's flaming breath would incinerate him, but instead, the dragon knelt before him and obeyed his orders. The Dragonlord was the name given to this man who was later revealed to be part of the dragon race. The Dragonlord invaded Tantegel Castle and the surrounding town of Breconnary with his fleet of dragons after his spirit was tainted by magic and set the town on fire. The Dragonlord landed upon Tantegel Castle on a huge red dragon and took the Sphere of Light. Monsters started to emerge all over the place, killing everything in their way and most of the ground was turned into toxic marshes, and at least one ruined settlement was never rebuilt and is now in ruins.

Erdrick arrived at Tantegel Castle the next day to meet with King Lorik and offer his assistance in defeating the Dragonlord. He discovered the Dragonlord's location after exploring the world for clues. The Dragonlord resided on an island that could only be reached through a magical bridge that could only be created by using a Rainbow Drop.Erdrick vanished after arriving on the island. Many years later, under the reign of King Lorik XVI, the Dragonlord invaded the kingdom once more and kidnapped Princess Gwaelin. Many heroes attempted and failed to save the princess and retrieve the Ball of Light from the Dragonlord's fortress, known as Charlock. "One day, a descendant of the valiant Erdrick shall come forth to defeat the Dragonlord," predicted the great seer Mahetta. When the descendant appears as the game's hero, many of the inhabitants of Alefgard have forgotten the tale of Erdrick, and those few who do know view it as a myth and do not believe in Mahetta's prophecy and King Lorik begins to lament his kingdom's demise.

Prologue
Once upon a time, an evil demon king who had closed Alefgard in darkness was defeated by the legendary hero Erdrick, and the monsters were sealed away by the Sphere of Light. Since then, peace has reigned in Alefgard. Days passed. In the reign of King Lorik XVI, the evil one, the Dragonlord, attacked Alefgard and took the Sphere of Light and Princess Gwaelin from Tantegel. Alefgard was once again turned into a world where monsters roamed, and none of those who challenged the Dragonlord returned alive. In the midst of this, the prophet Mahetta predicted that the Dragonlord would be destroyed by the blood of the hero Erdrick. And just as he predicted, that Hero — the Hero of this story — appeared.

Scenario
There is no clear story from the start to the ending in this game, and you just need to achieve the original goal of defeating the Dragonlord. However, in order to do so, you will need the Rainbow Drop, which will build a bridge to the island where the Dragonlord's Castle is located, where the Dragonlord lives, and in order to obtain it, you will need to collect three items: the Sunstone, the Mark of Erdrick, and the Staff of Rain. The order in which these items are collected is not fixed, and they can be collected in any order.

The degree of freedom of exploration is very high compared with the later Dragon Quest series games. There are no barriers to cross, so you can physically go to all areas except Charlock Island right from the beginning. However, the monsters that appear in the game get stronger as you move further away from Tantegel, so you'll need to repeat the process of leveling up and strengthening your equipment as you gradually move further and further away. In addition, many of the key items require a Magic Key, so the first major goal is to get to Rimuldar, where there is a key shop.

In addition to the ultimate goal of defeating the Dragonlord, the hero also has a mission to save Princess Gwaelin. Instead of the "defeat the final boss and the princess is rescued" or "damsel in distress" trope seen in many games of the time, the hero can save the princess in whenever he wants, and also has the advantage of being able to easily obtain the Mark of Erdrick with the items given by saving her. The Hero is also not obliged to save the princess either and can defeat the Dragonlord without doing so.

There are over 100 characters in this game, which was a big deal at the time of release, and in addition to advice on adventuring and hints on how to solve puzzles, there is also a lot of non-story related dialogue. One of the best examples of this is when you stay at an inn with Princess Gwaelin and the innkeeper tells you, "Thou hast had a good night's sleep I hope". In addition, in the Japanese version, there are guest appearances by staff members of Weekly Shonen Jump's "NES Shinken", and a line that seems to serve as an advertisement for the "Portopia Serial Murder Case".

After defeating the Dragonlord the game ends, but in this title, you do not immediately end the game after the last boss, instead you can freely move around without encountering any enemies until you return to the castle. This game also has a bad ending (effectively game over) that is not seen in any other numbered titles. If you answer "yes" to the Dragonlord's pre-battle question, the text will turn red, the screen will go dark, and you will not be able to control the game at all from then on.

Characters
Preview of characters in the game

Bestiary
A preview of the bestiary in the game











!class="clickablecell" colspan="6" style="text-align:center"|See +35 more monsters View the full bestiary by clicking on the links to the bestiary page
 * }

Features
Dragon Quest is the gameplay predecessor to Dragon Quest II & Dragon Quest III and is part of the Erdrick Trilogy. It is a turn-based role-playing single-player game. The player controls the protagonist, the young male Hero, who has been tasked to defeat the Dragonlord. The player is able to start a new game, continue their current game and change the dialogue speed from the menu after the title screen. In the Japanese version, the player had to utilise a password system in order to save and load their current game progress due to the hardware limitations of the Famicom. Dragon Quest laid the foundations for RPGs for home consoles in Japan. As the first entry in the series and the first full-fledged RPG on a console in Japan, it resulted in a number of unique conventions and rough ideas, many of which were revised in the next game, Dragon Quest II, to make them more convenient and less cumbersome.

Presentation
In early conventional PC RPGs, the viewport is normally divided into a main map section, a status display section, a command and message display section, etc. Dragon Quest, however, adopts a multi-window system that allows for windows to be opened and closed. When moving around, the entire screen is used to show the map of the player character's surroundings, so that the player can move the character around with the same feeling as in an action game, and only when in specific situations can certain windows be viewed to select battle commands or read messages. The window layout is the same in both the overworld and in combat, with the status window (character nickname, level, HP, MP, gold, experience) in the top left of the screen, the command selection window in the top right, and the message window at the bottom. In the Japanese version, the text displayed in the windows is written in Japanese, mainly using hiragana. The Japanese language is now commonplace in videogames, but at the time many videogames used only alphanumeric characters, or if they did use Japanese they only used katakana and there were very few games that used both hiragana and katakana. Due to the adoption of a multi-window system, map data and battle background images needed to coexist with text data on a small amount of memory, so only a few katakana characters are included (see "20 Most Frequently Used Katakana Characters"). Names of spells, items, characters, monsters and places are set using only these characters. The font used in Dragon Quest is a modified version of the font used in Portopia Serial Murder Case, which was originally based on the one used for PCs of the time. The thickness of the lines between kana and alphanumeric characters has been standardised to make it easier to read. The graphics are brightly coloured, as is typical of Famicom and NES videogames, but the overall depiction is a lot simpler and less three-dimensional than in later Dragon Quest titles. Some graphic design choices include the walls being made up of squares that are arranged like blocks, and the throne being made up of the same parts as the counter-table in the village stores. The character sprites have a 1:1 aspect ratio, and with a few exceptions, each character sprite has two different frames that alternate to animate the movement of their arms and legs, a technique that had been widely used in action games. In this game, the characters move at regular intervals regardless of whether they are stationary or moving, making it easier to identify them. None of the character sprites are shown looking sideways or backwards, as was the case in PC RPGs of the time. This appearance is sometimes referred to as "crab walking" by fans and the staff. Battles take the form of a window in the middle of the screen with an image of the monster in it. On the field map, the background of the window is a landscape view, but in dungeons and ruins the background is black. The sprites of the monsters only use one image, but with different colours and versions to represent the monsters of similar species and more powerful versions of the monster. There are no animations on the battle screen, only flashes of monsters (white for spells, red for damage) and a shaking effect when the character is attacked. These graphic design choices are made to encourage the feel of battle, although it is possible to understand the situation without looking at the graphics at all and just read the message text. Only 8 pieces of background music (BGM) are used in the game, which are all looped and short in length, except for the dungeon BGM which becomes lower in pitch and slower in tempo as the character descends through the dungeon. As for the sound effects (SFX), the Inn resting music was established in Dragon Quest II, but the Victory, Level Up and Curse SFX were all established in Dragon Quest and are still used throughout the Dragon Quest series today.

Gameplay
When you start a new game by selecting "START" on the title screen, you will be asked to enter the nickname of the player character in the Japanese version. But in the English version, you will have the option to select 'Begin a new quest' before selecting one of three save slots & being asked to enter a nickname. The name can be up to four hiragana characters in the Japanese version and up to eight alphanumeric characters in the English version. You can also set the message speed for messages in-game. In the Japanese version, you can set the display speed by using the left and right keys on the title screen but in the English version you have the option to select between 'Fast', 'Normal' and 'Slow' after nicknaming the character. The game begins in Tantegel Castle, and after the king's speech, you be able to use various commands to open treasure chests and doors, descend stairs, and gather information by talking to NPCs on your way to the castle's exit. The player must return to Tantegel Castle & talk to the king in order to save the game which will save to the NES battery in the English version but in the Japanese version it requires remembering a password which consists of 20 hiragana characters and is called the "Resurrection Spell". The next time you start up the game after saving a game, there will be new options on the title screen. In the English version, you can select 'Continue a quest' to continue a saved game, 'Change message speed' to alter message speed, 'Copy a quest' to copy a save slot to another slot and 'Erase a quest' to erase a save slot's memory. In the Japanese version, you can select "CONTINUE" and enter the password to resume the save file. The main character's status are HP (hitpoints), which is his life force, and MP (magic powers), which gauges how many more spells he can use, both of which increase or decrease depending on the progression of battles and the character's actions. The amount of each depends on the character's maximum HP and maximum MP statistics (stats). In addition, there are Strength and Agility stats; Strength which is used to calculate the amount of damage you can deal to enemies based on your strength and equipped weapon, and Agility, which is used to calculate the whether or not the character attacks before the enemies. Experience is gained from defeating enemies in battle. When the experience gained from defeating enemies reaches a certain amount, the character's level rises and they could learn a new spell depending on their new level. The maximum level is 30. Depending on the name chosen for the character, two of the four stats will be penalised, while the other two retain their full base values. You can experiment with names here. There are 10 types of magic spells, which consume MP to use, that can be used by using the cursor to select from a list of spells. In the game, there are also items which can be split up into two categories: equipment (weapons and armour) and items (consumables and key items). Weapons and armour are used to increase attack and defence respectively, and come in three equipment types: weapon, armour and shield. You can only have one of each type of equipment, and when you acquire a new one, the old one will be sold or discarded on the spot. You can use the Status command to check which weapons and armour you are using, but you cannot use them outside of battle.

Items can be selected and used with the Items command. You can carry up to 6 consumable items at a time on the character and up to 8 consumable items at a time in the inventory. If you use an item afflicted by a curse, you will be cursed and will be unable to enter Tantegel Castle. The only way to lift the curse is to ask an old man in Tantegel Town to remove it. Items can be sold at the tool shop, except for important items. Items cannot be discarded on command and you will only be prompted to discard an item if you lack the inventory space for it when you pick it up. There are two main ways to get items in this game: buy them in a shop or get them from a treasure chest. Treasure chests become obsolete once you use the Take command on them, but can be used again once you exit the area except in the throne room at the start of the game in Tantegel Castle. However, some items cannot be reclaimed. The overworld portions of the game has a top-down view, similar to Ultima, and the main character can be moved in 4 directions: up, down, left and right. The terrain is mapped out in tiles, in line with the Famicom and NES' technical capabilities, and the main character's movement speed is also based on these tiles. You cannot walk on rocks, water, or wall tiles as they are obstacles (you can walk on trees), and you lose HP every time you step on a poisonous swamp tile or barrier tile. Press A to open the command window and select a command to do various things. Also, when you are standing still, the status window will automatically appear unless you have turned around on the spot without moving. In addition to this, you can also use the START button to pause the gameplay. There are eight commands that can be used: There are two types of maps that the player can experience: open areas like the overworld field and enclosed areas such as castles, villages, towns and dungeons. When you leave Tantegel Castle, the starting point of the story, you will be taken to a overworld field map that shows the entire world of Dragon Quest. As you move away from Tantegel, the monsters that appear become stronger as you get farther away from Tantegel and start to cross bridges. In addition, the encounter rate is higher in the forests and mountains than in the grasslands. When you move in mountainous areas, the character will get trapped every other tile. You can enter places of interest such as castles, towns, and dungeons from the field map just by making the character overlap their icons on the field, but you need to use the Stair command to enter shrines such as the Rain Shrine. The only means of transportation is by foot, as no vehicles or mounts appear in the game, but if you use a Chimaera Wing or the Zoom spell, you can return to the front of Tantegel Castle at once. In castles, towns and villages, you can use the Talk command to get hints and information, and to use various facilities such as inns and stores. To use these facilities, you will need money (gold), which you can get from battles, treasure chests and items (you get gold when you sell them). The prices of innkeepers and shopkeepers vary from place to place. These are the different types of facilities: In the dungeons, you can't see anything, so you need to use the a Torch or the spell Radiant (Glow) to widen your vision. The deeper you go into the dungeon, the more powerful the monsters that appear will be, except in Erdrick's Cave where there are no enemies. You can't use Chimaera Wings or Zoom in dungeons, but you can use the spell Evac to escape to the entrance of the dungeon on the field.
 * Talk: Talk to an NPC adjacent to the character.
 * Spell: Cast a spell such a Zoom or Heal. This will not work with combat spells and you will waste MP.
 * Status: Shows the character's HP, MP, Strength and Agility. It will also show equipment.
 * Items: Shows the inventory of items that you currently have.
 * Stairs: Used to ascend and descend stair tiles that the character is standing on.
 * Search: Examine the tile that the character is standing on. If there is an item, you will obtain it.
 * Door: Opens a door that the character is adjacent to with the Magic Key.
 * Take: Opens a treasure chest that the character is stood on and retrieves the contents.
 * Inns: Pay a fee in gold to rest for the evening, fully restoring the character's HP and MP.
 * Weapons & Armour Stores: Used to buy & sell weapons and armour.
 * Item Stores: Used to buy & sell items. You can buy items like Medicinal Herbs, Torches and Dragon Scales. Certain shopkeepers also allow you to purchase unique items like Magic Water and keys.

Versions
Dragon Quest has been made available on 13 different platforms since its original release on the Famicom in 1986.

Table with list all versions of the game

MSX & MSX 2 Versions
Around six months after the release of the Famicom version of Dragon Quest, the game was ported to the MSX 2 on November 21, 1986 and then to the MSX on December 18, 1986. The MSX 2 version was published by Sony. Despite the different platform, the media on this version of the game is the same as the Famicom version. All of the game content is the same as it is on the Famicom, along with the Resurrection Spell password system. But due to the hardware limitations, there are differences in the sounds and graphics.

While the character design and world design remains faithful to the Famicom version, the scrolling mechanic is choppy and tiles are rendered in units of 1 tile which is less than the Famicom version. The fading in & out effects are also removed, making screen changes sudden with no transition. These differences are especially noticeable in the MSX version; scrolling is much slower with displaying terrain and NPCs are even slower than the terrain. There are also noticeable screen flickers in the MSX version. Another difference are how no more than two NPCs can appear on the screen at one time & instead NPCs will alternate and take turns appearing on the screen every frame. The shaking effect when the main character takes damage is removed and instead the elements of the screen turn red. And if the character receives fatal damage, this effect along with the flashing effect will stay for longer. There is a resolution difference between the MSX and Famicom too. The Famicom has a longer vertical display size than the MSX: 224 pixels on the Famicom and 192 lines on the MSX. However, the MSX has a slightly longer horizontal display size and, as a result, the size of the message window was changed along with the position of the items window.

Some of the soundtrack has its pitch changed for the MSX versions and the sound quality overall was lowered. But, like with the Famicom, the sounds are still layered with three separated audio channels.

This version of the game has a hidden command that displays the monsters in order if you hold down a certain key combination at startup. The order in which the monsters are displayed is roughly the same as the order of their strength and appearance, from Slime to Dragonlord, but some of the monster IDs in later titles seem to be in a different order. The background of the game is the black version from the dungeons, so you can't see Dark Skeletons. And, in the MSX version, only Dracky's eyes and mouth are visible because of its body colour being black.

In addition, in the Famicom version, a soldier NPC was moving unnaturally, as if it was stepping on the ground with only one foot, but it has been corrected to move both feet in the MSX version. And the effect of Repel has been changed, and it no longer works on enemies after the middle of the game (except for Metal Slime) even if you raise your character to the highest level.

NES Version
A translated version of the game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the North American region on July 15, 1989. The localisation was done by the late Satoru Iwata, then of HAL Laboratory and later president of Nintendo. Not only was the language changed to English, but the graphics were also revised, with side-to-side and back-to-back character patterns and an overworld map that depicted the coastline. The direction requirement of the TALK command has also been removed. The resurrection spell password system had also been replaced by a battery saving method named Adventure Log. The main character's name can be up to 8 letters long. In the message window, all eight characters are displayed, but in the status window, only the first four characters are displayed due to width limitations. The game did not sell well in North America, and the excess stock was given as a gift to the readers of Nintendo of America's Nintendo Power magazine.

Super Famicom Version
On December 18, 1993, about seven and a half years after the original release for the Famicom, it was included in Dragon Quest I・II along with Dragon Quest II and is the first remake in the Dragon Quest series. The layout of each town's NPCs and the dialogue were changed to make it easier to understand, and the gameplay's balance was intervened in such a way that the status and behaviour patterns of the enemies were lowered in aggression, as well as the experience and gold gained being increased from battle, reducing the level of difficulty. The resurrection spell password system has been abolished and the game is now saved in the Adventure Book, as in the NES version. The graphics and sound have been upgraded to match the performance of the SFC, and the interface reflects that of Dragon Quest V. Many of the mechanics that were unique to the Famicom version have been abandoned and adapted to Dragon Quest II and later, but some, such as torches, have been retained. There are no changes to the storyline in the Dragon Quest game, but some of the dialogue reflects the setting of Dragon Quest III, the prequel in the storyline to this game. A list of changes made in this version

Satellaview Version
BS Dragon Quest I was broadcast in February 1996 as content for SFC's satellite broadcasting system Satellaview. A total of four episodes based on the SFC version of DQ1 were distributed.

Game Boy Color version
The game was included in the Game Boy Color two-in-one game Dragon Warrior I・II, released on 27 September 2000 in North America and on 23 September 1999 in Japan under Dragon Quest I・II, in a set with Dragon Warrior II similar to the Super Famicom version. This is the first remake of a main series title to come to portable devices. The game is basically the same as the Super Famicom version, but with some improvements to make it easier to play on handheld devices, such as the pause function. In addition, this version has a new prologue that plays immediately after you enter your name, depicting the scene where Tantegel is attacked by the Dragonlord. The Hero's graphic change by equipping weapons and shields has also been restored.

Cellphone version
The application version was provided for 3G mobile phones, including FOMA handsets. On March 1, 2004, DoCoMo's i-αppli version was launched by the newly merged Square Enix, along with Final Fantasy. DQ1 was pre-installed on the N900i, which was released on 22 February. The EZ-appli version was released on August 19, 2004, and the SoftBank S-appli version on July 3, 2006. In order to play the game, you had to be a registered member of "Dragon Quest Mobile". However, since the service was discontinued on 31 March 2018, it is no longer possible to download or play this version (the same applies to DQ2 and DQ3).

The development of DQ and FF for mobile phones was proposed by Yosuke Saito right after Enix's merger with Square. Initially, Square was reluctant to offer DQ/FF at the price of 300 yen, but NTT DoCoMo made an offer and it became a reality. The handset makers also took the unusual step of increasing the capacity of their handsets in order to be able to run Dragon Quest apps.

The game content is based on the Super Famicom version, but the graphics have been upgraded. However, the frame rate of the spell animation has been reduced, and the specs have been lowered to fit the devices of the time. These same graphics have been carried over to the smartphone version and beyond. The structure of each map itself is the same as in DQ1 for SFC, but the images have been replaced with those of DQ3 for SFC, and the characters have been enlarged to a 2:1 aspect ratio, the same as in DQ6. The movement speed has also become as fast as DQ6. All the monsters have been redrawn, and their sizes are larger than the SFC version. The music and sound effects are based on the Game Boy version, and the font of the text is dependent on the OS of the device.

The maximum level has been changed from 30 to 50, the maximum experience has been changed from 65535 to 99999 and the spell learning level has been changed accordingly. A brief explanation of spells and items is now displayed, similar to DQ7. Even if you have a lot of HP, you should be able to recover it by using spells and tools. A simple help function has been added as a replacement for the instruction manual.

Wii version
The Famicom and Super Famicom versions of Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II were included almost verbatim in Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary NES & Super NES Dragon Quest I, II, and III, which was released on Wii on September 15, 2011.

Smartphone (Android & iOS) version
The first of eight Dragon Quest series titles to be released on smartphones on 28 November 2013 in Japan and on September 11, 2014 worldwide. Developed by Matrix. If you purchase the game from the Dragon Quest Portal (Japan-only) app, you can start the game from the start button of the app. When the portal app was launched, the game was offered for free for a limited time, and could be played immediately after downloading the portal app. However, if you change your device, you will need to purchase the game again for a fee. Since the March 2017 update, the portal app has been able to save a backup to the server when the game is interrupted, as long as you are logged in with your Square Enix account. There has also been a standalone Android/Firestick version available on the Amazon App Store since September 2016. Outside of Japan, there is no portal app and only standalone distribution.

This is the first time that the title logo has been changed since the original version on the Famicom, and it is based on the Wii version of the game. The interface of the smartphone versions of the ported Dragon Quest games, including this game, was considered in various ways, such as single-handed and two-handed play. Like the other Dragon Quest games ported to smartphones, it does not support gamepads.

The gameplay, scenario and graphics are based on the cellphone version, but some of the effects, such as the sun shining through the trees and the haze, have been removed. The buttons and windows are grouped together at the bottom of the screen. The command window and status window are integrated, and commands are entered by tapping on-screen buttons, while the main character moves using the on-screen touch pad. The position and size of the pad can be customized. In addition to the traditional interrupt function that has been available since the Game Boy version, a new auto-save function has been added.

The background music is the same as the Battle Road series, and many of the sound effects are taken from the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII. The font of the character is OS-dependent like the cellphone version. When selecting a spell or item, tap once to display the explanation and tap again to select it. When the game was first released, the movement was in 1/2 square units, just like the Super Famicom version. However, the slippery smartphone screen surface, which doesn't have the button feel of a controller or cellphone, made it difficult to move around, and many pointed out that this made the game uncomfortable to play. The game was later upgraded on 13 February 2014 (Ver. 1.0.4) to move in single square units. Also, since the September 2014 version update (Ver. 2.0.0), both DQ1 and DQ2 have been changed so that you can move characters by dragging anywhere on the screen similar to the stylus control in Dragon Quest IX.

Other differences from the previous remake are as follows

PS4, 3DS and Switch version
With the release of Dragon Quest XI, three games in the Erdrick series were distributed on the same two platforms as the game, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS, with DQ1 being available exclusively for download on both platforms from 10 August 2017, at the same time as DQ2. Developed by B-Tribe. The distribution is only available in Japanese. Until 28 January 2018, six months after the release of DQ11, players could download "Dragon Quest (free version)" as a bonus by entering the resurrection spell shown in the video in the true ending of DQ11. There is no difference in game content between the standard version and the 3DS version, but the 3DS version did not have access to the Miiverse community that was available at the time of release.

On 27 September 2019, the Erdrick Trilogy, including this title, was released worldwide on Nintendo Switch at the same time as DQ11S. The Japanese version is only available as a download, but the international version is also available as a physical packaged version containing the Erdrick trilogy on a single game card with a package illustration of the three Japanese franchise titles arranged vertically. All versions are ports of the smartphone version, with the interface optimised for each console. The PS4 and Switch versions use the same font as DQ11, while the 3DS version uses the same font used on the console's menu screen. The 3DS version uses only the top screen for the game and the bottom screen for the world map.

The number of colours and resolution of the character and monster sprites has increased since the original version, but the map graphics have not changed since the original version. The PS4 version also supports the trophy function. As for the changes in the game, the selling price of the Magic Key has been changed to 16G and the selling price of Magic Water has been changed to 12G, and Alchemy is no longer possible.

Nintendo Classic Mini: Famicom version
On July 7, 2018, Nintendo released the "Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer Weekly Shonen Jump 50th Anniversary Version" as a special edition of the "Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer" (a.k.a. Mini Famicom), which was well received by old videogame fans and many others. It contains mainly Famicom games from serialised Weekly Shonen Jump series, but also includes the Famicom version of Dragon Quest, due to the Dragon Quest series' close association with the magazine. The hardware allows you to save up to four "interruption points" for each game by pressing the reset button, so you can continue without using the resurrection spell although the resurrection spell can be used.

Development
In the early 1980s, Yuji Horii, who later became the creator of Dragon Quest, was a writer for the PC games section of Weekly Shonen Jump, and won a prize with Koichi Nakamura and others in the Enix Hobby Program Contest. He then visited the Apple show in the US, where he learned about PC RPGs. After returning to Japan, Horii immediately became addicted to RPGs such as "Wizardry" on his Apple II compatible PC, and introduced events with RPG elements in the adventure game he was developing at the time, The Karuizawa Kidnapping Guide. This was the first RPG Horii had ever created. In an effort to make RPGs a hit in Japan, he and Nakamura teamed up to bring RPGs to the Famicom & NES just as the Famicom & NES boom was taking off. In an interview for Dragon Quest Perfect Collection 1993, Nakamura explains why he decided to make an RPG; he said: "Adventure games are more like picture-story games, and I thought a top-view RPG style would be easier to understand the world and situation, and easier to write the story." At the time, however, action and shooting games were the mainstream genres of Famicom & NES software, and RPGs themselves were little known to anyone other than enthusiasts. For this reason, Horii decided to release an adventure game as a stepping stone, in order to get people used to the act of "reading the characters on the screen and making a decision", rather than immediately releasing an RPG with a lot of text and information. In this port, the interface was changed from the keyboard input of the PC version to the command selection type suitable for the Famicom & NES controller, and it became the foundation for the command system of Dragon Quest. Then, in November 1985, as the Famicom & NES were becoming more and more famous due to the success of Super Mario Bros, the development of Dragon Quest began. The staff was a small group of only four or five people. Producer Yukinobu Chida was inspired by the hit song "We Are the World" and declared that he wanted to make Dragon Quest the best game in the world. The idea was to create an RPG that was a combination of Ultima and Wizardry, with the former's field screens and the latter's battle system as reference. It also incorporates a storyline, something that has never been seen in a PC RPG before. Kazuhiko Torishima, a former editor of Jump, helped with the production of the game, and in order to attract the target audience's attention, he got Akira Toriyama, the author of the hit game "Dr. Slump", who was at the time serializing "Dragon Ball", to do the illustrations. His first encounter with musician Koichi Sugiyama was through a questionnaire postcard. The original plan was to use one 32kB (256kbit) ROM for the Dragon Quest cartridge, which is half the capacity of the final cartridge, but as more and more elaborate elements were included, the cartridge ended up using two 256kbit ROMs to make 512kbit. The prototype version of the game was tested and the results were used to refine the game and make it more accessible to Famicom users, especially children. This version of the game started off on the overworld field map between the castle and the town, and test players would wander around the field map without knowing how to proceed, or go into a town without talking to NPCs or shopping, and then get hit by a monster and the game would be over. The development staff then suggested puttin the hero in Tantegel Castle in the throne room. The game was designed so that the player would have to learn the meaning of the adventure, and would be able to complete the tutorial on upon opening a door. The amount of experience required to reach level 2 was lowered, and there was a "game over" feature that was abolished to make it easier to level up. The maximum HP at level 1 was only 9, but this has been raised to around 15 (depending on the character's name). If the original prototype specifications had been kept, Dragon Quest would not have become a popular game, and the subsequent history of gaming in Japan & in RPGs as a whole would have been very different. However, Yuji Horii was still concerned about the success of the earlier The Legend of Zelda, and wondered whether Dragon Quest, with no visible enemies in the overworld and only numbers for life (HP) instead of hearts, would be popular. On 11 February 1986, the first news of Dragon Quest appeared in the 11th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, revealing the title, screenshots, a view of the world and the designs of some of the enemy characters. They were also shown in the April issue of Family Computer Magazine a month before Dragon Quest was released.

Reception
Before the release of Dragon Quest, Yuji Horii himself wrote a feature on the game in Weekly Shonen Jump, but when it first appeared in Family Computer Magazine (Famimag), it was only on page 2 out of 5, the same as other Famicom games. In the first issue of Famimag, a screenshot of the ground floor of Tantegel Castle was met with comments from the editor such as "There's a lot of enemy soldiers hiding behind the walls! (referring to an ordinary female NPC)", "There's a princess in the bushes", and so on, suggesting that even the editor didn't understand RPGs. However, after its release, it was ranked second only to Super Mario Bros. 2 in Famiga's famous department store sales ranking for the first two weeks after its release. It also ranked second in the sales ranking of Famitsu Tsushin (Famicom News), which was first published around this time. From the first issue, Famitsu published three consecutive articles in the style of a play diary, and from the second issue, all of the maps of the towns and dungeons were published twice. On the other hand, Marusho Famicom initially published only how to proceed with the game and a mapping sheet as they claimed "RPGs don't need a strategy book", and published the map a month and a half after its release. Five months later, the magazine published a list of passwords for the "Resurrection Spell Creation Program", which runs on the "Family Basic" and is played with a keyboard connected to the Famicom. Although Famiga did not have many strategy articles in their magazine, Tokuma Shoten, the publisher of the magazine, published "Dragon Quest Complete Strategy Book" as its own strategy book. PART13 of "Family Computer Illustrated Book (17 volumes)" of "TV Land Wanpaku" series published also published information on Dragon Quest. At the time, the media was less concerned about story & gameplay spoilers, and it was not uncommon for the game's final boss and ending to appear in published work. Famitsu published an article in its second issue, which revealed the location of the Rain Shrine on a map. After receiving a warning from Enix, Famitus published an apology in the fourth issue. The popularity of Dragon Quest spread in Japan and it became a hit. In the end, 1.5 million copies were shipped for the Famicom. It won the "Best Hit Game of 1986" award voted by readers of Famitsu (published in the third issue of 1987), beating out the second place winner by a wide margin. In October 1986, it was publicly announced that a sequel, Dragon Quest II, would be made, and that Dragon Quest would become a series. In Famimag, the initial news of Dragon Quest II was only four lines of text, but readers were nevertheless very interested and it was the most anticipated title in a postcard survey. From then on, all videogame magazines started to cover the Dragon Quest series even before a new title was released, leading to the social phenomenon that followed. In subsequent commemorative reader polling projects for Weekly Famitsu, DQ1 was ranked 30th (7th in the series) in the "Best Game for the Heart" (2006) to celebrate the 900th issue of Famitsu, and 12th (3rd in the series) in the "Game to Pass on to the Future" (2008) to celebrate the 1000th issue of Famitsu. The English release of Dragon Quest, Dragon Warrior for the NES, released 3 years after the Japan release. In comparison to its performance in Japan, it was a commercial failure in the US. It had received average reviews from magazines like Nintendo Power and made its debut at number 7 on the magazine's bimonthly Top 30 NES games publication. Its highest ranking was number 5 in the Top 30, before eventually dropping out forever. Despite its commercial failure, Dragon Warrior was included as a giveaway in Nintendo Power's subscription program and allowed for the next three Dragon Warrior games to be published.

Reviews
Dragon Quest was well-received in Japan. In the 1986 Famiga Game Awards, it received a score of 25.02 out of 30, and ranked first in the four categories of "Music", "Operability", "Enthusiasm", and "Originality". The following year, Dragon Quest II received the highest score of all time at 28.02, but only in the "Operability" category did this Dragon Quest receive a score of 4.64 out of 5, remaining higher than Dragon Quest II's 4.59 and becoming the highest rated title in the franchise. However, it was dragged down by the "Character" category, which scored 2.73 points, and the Grand Prix was won by Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" (26.12 points overall, and the only category in which it ranked first was "Value for Money").


 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |NES
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |SNES
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |GBC
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |Android
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |iOS
 * style="border:#62B5E5 1px solid;background:#8CD8FF" |Switch
 * Metacritic
 * 73/100
 * 73/100
 * 63/100
 * Famitsu
 * 35/40
 * 30/40
 * GameSpot
 * 8.0/10.0
 * IGN
 * 9.6/10.0
 * Nintendo Power
 * 3/5
 * 8/10
 * RPGamer
 * 4/5
 * Touch Arcade
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * 8.0/10.0
 * IGN
 * 9.6/10.0
 * Nintendo Power
 * 3/5
 * 8/10
 * RPGamer
 * 4/5
 * Touch Arcade
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * Nintendo Power
 * 3/5
 * 8/10
 * RPGamer
 * 4/5
 * Touch Arcade
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * RPGamer
 * 4/5
 * Touch Arcade
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * Touch Arcade
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * 3.5/5
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * 3.5/5
 * }
 * }
 * }

Sales
Dragon Quest on the Famicom & NES sold over 3 million units in total; 1.5 million in Japan and 1.5 million in the US. It made an estimated $346 million in revenue before inflation. It sold, as a part of the Dragon Quest I・II game for SNES and GBC, a further 1.92 million units in Japan; 1.2 million on SNES and 720,000 on GBC. In 2011, it sold a further 387,114 units in Japan as part of the Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary: Dragon Quest I・II・III Wii game. It has also sold over 100,000 units on Android.


 * Dragon Quest (1986)
 * EFC
 * 1.5 million
 * rowspan="2"|3 million
 * rowspan="2"|US$346 million
 * Dragon Warrior (1989)
 * NES
 * 1.5 million
 * Dragon Quest I・II (1993)
 * SFC SNES  GBC
 * 1.2 million SFC  0.72 million GBC
 * 1.92 million
 * US$190 million
 * Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary: Dragon Quest I・II・III (2011)
 * Wii
 * 387,114 Wii
 * 0.387 million
 * }
 * Wii
 * 387,114 Wii
 * 0.387 million
 * }
 * }

Legacy
Dragon Quest has established itself as a notable turning point in videogame history worldwide, and especially in Japan. A lot of the concepts used in Dragon Quest were by no means new, rather it built upon those concepts and stitched them together to create a template that would define many other RPGs to come. It made the role of a scenario writer a much more significant role and changed the nature of videogames, according to Shigeru Miyamoto. Lots of the techniques used to compensate for the Famicom's hardware limitations are still used in contemporary videogames. Dragon Quest also introduced story tropes such as the damnsel-in-distress trope to video games & new plot twists specifically on the "save the princess" trope and "saving the world" trope. It also introduced an element of romance that would later become present in other video games. The top-down 2D style of Dragon Quest was replicated in most RPGs until the inception of 3D games. Despite the overall impression that Final Fantasy is the more important RPG due to its popularity in North America, it was Dragon Quest that laid down the foundations upon which other RPGs, like Final Fantasy, were based.

Related

 * Dragon Quest III affects the story surrounding Dragon Quest I and influenced the addition of features in remakes.
 * Emblem of Roto, a manga series, affects the story surrounding Dragon Quest I.
 * Dragon Quest Builders is a game based on Dragon Quest I and the story follows on from the bad ending of DQ1
 * Kenshin Dragon Quest is an RPG plug-and-play game set in the world of DQ1.
 * DQ I: The Dragonlord's Super Secret Squad, 「DQⅠ秘伝 竜王バリバリ隊」in Japanese, is a manga was published in the December 12, 1990 issue of the weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The story is about the Dragonlord.
 * Dragon Quest of the Stars has had a story event involving Dragon Quest I that briefly follows the story of the game. This involves:
 * Various equipment, cosmetics & items being added that is representative of or has appeared in Dragon Quest I
 * Monsters from the game making appearances
 * Characters from the game making appearances
 * Dragon Quest Tact has had a event involving Dragon Quest I. This involves:
 * Both forms of Dragonlord being available as monsters you can own
 * Dragon Quest II is the sequel to Dragon Quest I's story.
 * Dragon Quest IX has the Dragonlord appear as a cameo boss.
 * Dragon Quest X has several Dragon Quest I cameos, including Princess Gwaelin and the Dragonlord.
 * Dragon Quest XI (3DS and Definitive Edition versions) includes DQ1 as part of the story and includes various DQ1 locations in Tickington

Music
The soundtrack for Dragon Quest was composed by Koichi Sugiyama. It contains the following tracks:
 * 01. Overture March 「序曲」
 * 02. Château Ladutorm 「ラダムート城」
 * 03. People 「街の人々」
 * 04. Unknown World 「広野を行く」
 * 05. Fight 「戦闘」
 * 06. Dungeon 「洞窟」
 * 07. King Dragon 「竜王」
 * 08. Finale 「フィナーレ」

Preview of related music albums See more albums here

Fan Art
Curated artwork by fans of Dragon Quest. You can find more fan artwork on pixiv under the following tags:
 * #DQ1
 * #ドラクエ1
 * ドラゴンクエスト1

Please be sure to support these artists.

Curation of related fan artwork See more fan artwork on pixiv ''Disclaimer: none of this artwork has been uploaded to this wiki. These are curated with the aim to support artists. Please do not repost this fan artwork without permission.''

Trivia

 * In the US, the game was titled Dragon Warrior to avoid infringing on the trademark of the pen and paper game DragonQuest, a separate game that is not associated with Dragon Quest nor Square Enix
 * In the Japanese version, the player had to utilise a password system in order to save and load their current game progress due to the hardware limitations of the famicom
 * It is the only main series Dragon Quest title to not have a subtitle
 * It is the only main series Dragon Quest title to not be numbered
 * As of 2018, May 27 is officially known as "Dragon Quest Day" in Japan

Merchandise
Preview of related merchandise See more related merchandise here