As the player rides a bicycle one late afternoon, he turns down an alley never before noticed and enters an antique shop.

The first ten levels are a mix of trees, cacti, sunflowers, and Easter Island style statues.

Progress is achieved by completing each floor and warping to the next by moving the character to a differently colored square, found by clearing the level.

Weapons, armor, potions, rings, food, money and enemies are randomly placed on the ground.

Generally speaking, Pots are potions that can heal or poison the player, Books provide either maps or spells that may strengthen the player in some way or negate a harmful effect (such as removing cursed items), Rods cast spells that affect enemies and Rings provide bonuses to stats (or sometimes are cursed, such as the Hunger Ring, which makes the player consume food much more quickly and requires a Bless Book to remove).

The game ends when the player finds and picks up the holy goblet hidden in level 30, or runs out of hit points.

Dragon Crystal is similar to and shares assets with Fatal Labyrinth, which was released around the same time.

The Game Gear version was reviewed in 1991 in Dragon #175 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column.