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I really looked down my nose at Dragon Warrior when it came out. I was into Ultima: Exodus on the NES, and it was complicated and non-linear with multiple party members and battles where you needed to position your characters. Dragon Warrior seemed to have none of that, and I thought that "linear" was a dirty word so I passed it over without ever playing it. Similarly with Final Fantasy, although I think I got to the Marsh Cave in that one.
I'd been curious for a while to go back and play this bit of JRPG history, although I was really put off by all the reviews that complained about the grinding. I thought about playing one of the remakes that reduces the grinding, but I really had a bee in my bonnet about playing the original that I had eschewed all those years ago.
Playing it now, I loved it! Specifically I think because I went in mostly blind. My copy came with maps that were included with the original game, but I avoided looking at them while I was playing and I think it made the game a lot more fun.
I loved the simplicity and the joy of gaining levels and getting access to more of the world. I loved the mystery of following the clues for where to buy keys, then going back and see what was behind all those doors. I loved the -- yes -- non-linearity of not being sure where to go next, and deciding whether to go and rescue the princess or explore the area beyond the furthest town I could reach.
Eventually the "story" ran out and I wasn't sure where to go anymore (after getting the 2 items they said were needed at the temple but not being able to proceed yet) and had to look up what to do next. And I didn't know where the final sword was so I looked it up rather than scouring the world. But going in blind helped keep up the veneer and prevent it from just being a game about numbers going up.
There's definitely some frustrating mazes with dead-ends and deliberately misleading areas, but you have to grind anyway so I just tried to laugh it off and took the exp I got while chasing down all those dead-ends.
If you've ever been curious to play it, and don't mind a bit of grinding, then definitely give it a go!
EDIT: And for those who haven't seen them, there's a handy tool that tells you the effects on your stats of picking different names: https://guides.gamercorner.net/dw/name-stats/
And also a battle simulator, where you can pick a weapon/armour loadout and strategy and it tells you the % chance of winning against each enemy: https://www.woodus.com/den/games/web/dwsim/battle.htm
submitted by /u/euan-forrester
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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/comments/1 ... ior_and_i/