Designer(s) Yoshio Kiya Initial release date 10 September 1984 Series Dragon Slayer | Mode(s) Single player Developer Nihon Falcom Genre Action role-playing game | |
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Release date(s) PC-8801
JP: September 10, 1984
PC-9801 & FM-7
JP: October 18, 1984
X1
JP: December 12, 1984
MSX
JP: July 15, 1985
Super Cassette Vision
JP: 1986
Game Boy
JP: August 12, 1990
Sega Saturn
Falcom Classics
JP: November 6, 1997 Platforms MSX, PC-8800 Series, Game Boy, PC-9800 series, X1 Publishers Nihon Falcom, Epoch Co., Square Similar Dragon Slayer games, Nihon Falcom games, Action role-playing games | ||
Dragon Slayer (ドラゴンスレイヤー, Doragon Sureiyā) is an action role-playing game, developed by Nihon Falcom and designed by Yoshio Kiya. It was originally released in 1984 for the PC-8801, PC-9801, Sharp X1 and FM-7, and became a major success in Japan. It was followed by an MSX port published by Square in 1985 (making it one of the first titles to be published by Square), a Super Cassette Vision by Epoch in 1986 and a Game Boy port by the same company in 1990 under the name Dragon Slayer I (ドラゴンスレイヤーI, Doragon Sureiyā Wan). A remake of Dragon Slayer was also included in the Falcom Classics collection for the Sega Saturn.
Dragon Slayer began the Dragon Slayer series, a banner which encompasses a number of popular Falcom titles, such as Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, Sorcerian, and Legacy of the Wizard.
Gameplay
Dragon Slayer is regarded as an early example of the action RPG genre, which it laid the foundations for. Building on the prototypical action RPG elements of Panorama Toh (1983), created by Yoshio Kiya and Nihon Falcom, as well as Namco's The Tower of Druaga (1984), Dragon Slayer is often considered the first true action RPG. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes, Dragon Slayer was a dungeon crawl RPG that was entirely real-time with action-oriented combat, combining arcade style action mechanics with traditional RPG mechanics.
Dragon Slayer featured an in-game map to help with the dungeon-crawling, required item management due to the inventory being limited to one item at a time, and featured item-based puzzles similar to The Legend of Zelda. Dragon Slayer's overhead action-RPG formula was used in many later games. Along with its competitor, Hydlide, Dragon Slayer laid the foundations for the action RPG genre, including franchises such as Ys and The Legend of Zelda.