Forums > Submission Feedback > honestgamer's Dragon Warrior review

This person must be clueless. This review is the same as saying Pong is the worst game that was ever created. The time the game was released has to be taken into account, and that is where this complete fool falls out of the "Stupid Tree" and hits every branch on the way down only to land into the grass of ignorance. By his account he would also say that his favourite games he played when he first started playing games would also be the crappiest.

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Thanks for your post. My wounds are still smarting from when I fell out of the Stupid Tree. But even as I lie here, bruised and battered in the grass of ignorance, I'd like to state for the record that I actually do like the Dragon Quest series. A lot.

The NES played host to a variety of great RPGs, including the original Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior II (one of my personal favorites, and the first game to make me finally fall in love with the JRPG), and Ultima: Quest of the Avatar. Those games and others like them are good enough that I still return to them to this day. I don't often replay the original Dragon Warrior, though, because it is tedious even compared to the better among its contemporaries. It came before those other games I mentioned, but not by much.

My reviews are intended primarily to let modern gamers know which games from yesteryear have held up and which ones have not fared as well, and to spark conversations with other gamers my age who like to talk about the good old days. My opinion is that Dragon Warrior is best avoided unless you're desperate to see where the series began and you have an unusually high tolerance for clunky gameplay that even the very first sequel in the series quickly left on the figurative trash heap. Based on your comments, you feel differently.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

Well, Your comments certainly shed light on the review and confirmed my suspicions about the perspective. There are not many "Modern" gamers who would appreciate a grass roots game like this, and I don't think that "Pong" has held up any better than the original Dragon Warrior for NES. That being said, Though my 7 year old daughter plays Final Fantasy and prefers it for many reasons, I want her to understand Dragon Warrior 1 and its simplicity before playing 2,3 or 4. There was a lot of fast change in games back then, and many lessons were learned from Dragon Warrior that some could say shaped some of the future RPGs, so it's importance is immense.

As for Final Fantasy, the first time I played it and thought I was far along in the story I decided that I would start over because I didn't want the game to end. I found out the next time around when I played through it that there was much more to come.

Thank you for your response and clarification. Hope those wounds heal quickly;)

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If your daughter is playing through old RPGs and the goal is for her to have a proper understanding of the medium's beginnings and development into the monster it has become today, then it's definitely worth spending some serious time with the first Dragon Quest, despite that game's faults. It's cool that you're encouraging her to get that sort of education. I hope to do the same for my own kids, if I ever get around to having any.

Many players aren't trying to get a proper historical perspective, though, when they give 8-bit and even 16-bit RPGs a shot for the very first time. A lot of them who might try retro stuff are really just hoping to experience the greatest hits of those eras that came before them, at least initially, without wading through the stuff that hasn't aged well. And from that perspective, Dragon Warrior is (in my opinion) best skipped in favor of its sequels, which I prefer to the first Final Fantasy. Maybe when the time comes, your daughter will feel similarly. Maybe she won't. This is all subjective, anyway!

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2