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Piping hot from the NES Works oven, it's a freshly rendered mega-sized episode on a game that totally deserves it. I've pooled all of my resources here: Personal experience, tons of reading and research, conversations with some of the dev staff over the years, magazine material, and lots of archival VHS footage. The result—I hope!!—is a video that explains exactly what Dragon Warrior was, where it came from, how it came to America the way it did, and what it led to. I feel like most of you probably know all of this stuff already, but at the very least my goal was to repackage it all in an interesting way. Oh, and of course to acknowledge some part of the late Akira Toriyama's influence on and importance to video games.

Files

Kill the slime, do the time: Dragon Warrior | NES Works 133

I will write a description later! Deal with it!! Production notes: Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books)! SG-1000 Works: Segaiden Vol. I is available NOW, and Metroidvania: The First Decade is due in 2024. NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 4K with RetroTink 4X and 720p with xRGB Mini Framemeister.

Comments

Dave Dalrymple

With its menu-based interface, Dragon Warrior seemed almost impossibly complex to me when I first saw it. It was more like a computer game than a Nintendo game. Imagine my surprise, years later, when I learned that Dragon Warrior (or Dragon Quest as it was originally known in Japan) was generally regarded as an accessible entry point to RPGs.

GratefulTiger

Dragon Warrior was the first game that really grabbed me. Where I’d spend massive amounts of time grinding to level up, studying the guides, building maps, etc. Even after all that, I’ve never finished the game. It gave me a taste as to what RPG’s were and was a good primer for when Final Fantasy was released.

Kevin Quillen

Dragon Warrior was one of those early games that made the investment in a NES worth it - that a game could be made that took weeks if not months of play to complete.