Title: Dragon Slayer: Eiyuu Densetsu (Translation "Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes")
Release Date: 02/24/1992
Developer: Falcom
Publisher: Epoch
This game is the second reason, aside from Romancing Saga, that I wanted to revisit some of my earlier posts. This is another JRPG that had limited localization (I did find a way to play it finally), and took a long time for me to slog through. At last, though, it has been done. Without further ado, here is Dragon Slayer: Eiyuu Densetsu.
NOTE: There is not a reproduction translation currently at this time, but this was also released, in English, on the Turbografx-CD. I played through that version, which has the benefit of updated music and voiced anime cutscenes.
Background
At first, I thought that this game was just a little known JRPG that had no connection to any other game past or present, but upon further research I found that this is actually a part of Falcom's "Legend of Heroes" series. You might have heard of some of the more modern representations of this series, such as Legend of Heroes: Trails to the Sky and Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. This series is actually connected to an older series called the Dragon Slayer series; so in a way, this is a queer duck that is the end of one series AND the start of another (well almost the end because there is a Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes II).
The first version of this game was released in 1989 over the NEC-PC 8801, and it wasn't until 1992 that and English version of this game was released. This feels like an older RPG, but bear in mind this is after titles like Dragon Quest III and the Japanese Final Fantasy II. This is still a very early time for this genre, but games were starting to take risks and experiment (this does remind me that we will be doing the first Dragon Quest game for this blog sooner rather than later).
The story of the game is rather basic (in fact the term "basic" could be applied to a lot in this game): you play as Prince Logan, the next in line to the throne of your kingdom, and waiting out your succession in a small abbey. You are a happy young lad, gleefully squashing Green Slimes with a stick until monsters attack your secluded home. It turns out to be the work of a local lord, Lord Drax, who killed your father several years ago, and had sent the monsters to finish the job. Having survived, he intends to hold you captive and force your mother to marry him, making him the king of the land. You escape, and help lead a resistance to overthrow silly old Drax. Of course, there is a more to this story (I mean you have to slay the titular Dragon, Naja), so it isn't quite so simple, though it takes FOREVER to finally slay Drax, who is quite the quite the tool.
Gameplay
This game is as basic an RPG as it gets. Let's start with battles: similar to early Dragon Quest or the later Arcana, you don't see your characters in a battle, but instead they are represented by their name and important stats. These are in boxes to the right. Enemy sprites are represented against a black background, and they aren't animated except for a two frame attack animation. The title of the current chapter, of which there are six total, is always at the top of the screen. One nice touch is that the enemy HP is always visible, which makes planning your attacks at the forefront of this game, as there is little to no guesswork in how much damage your attacks will shave off your foe. You attack in the simple RPG fashion: attack with your normal weapon, or use a bevy of spells which can be bought at stores. Spells are a necessity to get through some harder challenges, especially ones that boost your stats rather than just deal straight damage. You of course have your HP and your MP, and you gain experience by killing enemies. When you level up it tells you exactly what stats are boosted. Finally, if you wipe during a battle, you get the option of either resetting that battle, or returning to your previous town. It is a nice change of pace from other RPGs and makes this game much less punishing.
In other ways, this is RPG business as usual too: you explore a simple open world map, fight battles along the way that aren't technically random (the enemy sprites always appear on screen, but they tend to blink into existence right in front of you as you walk into them), and work your way to the towns where the people will give you hints about your next objective. Curiously enough, grinding is explicitly demanded in this game. For example, to enter the area to fight the first boss, a slave camp known as "The Pits," the priest of the first town will tell you that you need to be "tough" to challenge the boss off the pits. In his words "you need to be at least a level 8." If you try to go to the Pits without grinding up to level 8 (you will most likely be at level four when you talk to the priest), the guards will just laugh at you and send you on your way; no fight, just a "go home kid," Then, when you make it into the Pits, a slave tells you, "oh you might have fought your way in here, but you shouldn't even think of challenging the boss until you are level 11!" The game keeps enforcing this leveling curve, and then expects you to put in about an hour of grinding in order to keep up with its pace of play. This...sucks to be honest.
The game is a "mid numbers" RPG, with your characters ending up with about 4000 HP by the end of the game, and the final boss having about 8000 HP. Nothing like Final Fantasy but still not as miniscule as something like Paper Mario.
Thankfully, this game is relatively short for an RPG...in fact if you took out all the mandatory grinding this game would easily fall under ten hours. With the grinding, though, you have just shy of a 20 hour RPG on your hands.
The voice acting is hilariously bad. There was obviously no directors, and the voice acting had to be done by the localizers themselves based on the performances. Professionals these were not. If you do play on the Super Famicom, do remember that there is no voice acting, and the music takes a pretty severe hit. The graphics, though, aside from the anime cutscenes of course, are relatively the same, so no significant downgrade there. The enemy sprites, as well, are nothing to really get excited about.
Other than that...there just isn't that much of interest to say. The story is predictable, the gameplay is very repetitive, and there just isn't much to report on.
Music
The music is actually quite excellent, and is easily the best part of this really boring game. Check it out!
Art
There is actually some to be found! I am including some box art from the various versions and some Japanese ads.
Look I know this type of RPG is some person's bread and butter, especially since there is an English localization that is available, but this was a really big slog for me. Considering I am playing this in a year where quarantine has given us little to do, I still didn't want to sit and play this game for very long. Blame it on the clear padding and grinding. Now there is a glitch that will completely over level your party by cloning your amount of gold for those who want the "experience" over the time sink...but that isn't my type of time sink. Woo! Finally can continue on this blog full speed ahead. My goal is to wrap up the "redux" by the end of the holidays, and move forward into the bright yonder in the new year.
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