He emphasized storytelling and emotional involvement, and simplified the interface, to translate the mostly Western PC game genre of RPG to the Japanese console market.

Manga artist and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama produced the artwork and Koichi Sugiyama composed the music.

[8] The game begins in King Lorik's chamber in Tantegel Castle, where the hero receives information about the Dragonlord, whom he must defeat, and the stolen Balls of Light, which he must retrieve.

[9][10] To safely progress to the next areas in the game, the player needs to accumulate experience points and gold by defeating enemies outside of towns – in the overworld and in dungeons.

The English version has menu commands to talk to people, check their status, search beneath their feet, use items, take treasure chests, open doors, and use stairs.

The brave warrior Erdrick ("Loto" in the Japanese versions and Game Boy Color remake) defeated an evil creature and restored light to the land.

"[4] However, when the descendant arrives as the game's hero, many of the people of Alefgard have forgotten the story of Erdrick, and those few who do remember consider it a myth and do not believe in Mahetta's prophecy.

[24] The hero eventually rescues Princess Gwaelin, but realizes that in order to restore light to Alefgard, he must defeat the Dragonlord at Charlock Castle.

After the hero collects a series of relics, he creates a bridge to reach Charlock and fights his way through the castle before finally confronting the Dragonlord.

[24][28] Once the hero defeats the Dragonlord he reclaims the Ball of Light, eradicating all monsters in Alefgard, and triumphantly returns to Tantegel Castle where King Lorik offers his kingdom as a reward.

[34] Horii redesigned the interface for the port to accommodate the console's limited controls,[36] and added a dungeon-crawling area which the detective explores.

[8] He created an open world which is not blocked physically in any way except by monsters that can easily kill unprepared players; Gamasutra described this as one of the earliest examples of nonlinear gameplay.

[44] He said it took him five minutes to compose the original opening theme, and noted the difficulty in adding a personal touch to the short jingles, but that his past experience with creating music for television commercials helped.

With this, the game's title was changed to Dragon Warrior to avoid infringing on the trademark on wargame publisher Simulations Publications's pen-and-paper RPG DragonQuest.

[2] Akira Toriyama's artwork in the instruction booklets was changed to reflect a more traditional tone of popular American based RPGs such as the Ultima series.

[57] The March–April 1990 issue of Nintendo Power has a map of the game world, with a poster of Super Contra on the other side, and a Dragon Warrior text adventure.

[1] Dragon Warrior has inspired related media in the form of a manga series, which has been adapted to anime, and a symphonic video game soundtrack.

[97] Several years after the Japanese release, the first English version of Dragon Warrior was initially seen as a commercial failure,[59] but the Nintendo Power subscription giveaway was eventually a success and allowed Enix to bring the next three games to North America.

Seemingly primitive by modern standards, Dragon Warrior features one-on-one combat, a limited item and equipment array, ten spells, five towns, and five dungeons.

[2][3][7][33] While noting its importance to the development of the RPG genre, Allgame reviewer Kyle Knight stated that "taken on its own merits, it's just not an enjoyable game to play.

"[116] 1UP.com explained that the series was not immensely popular at first in North America because American console gamers were not used to the idea of RPGs, and that it would take a decade for the genre to be "flashy enough to distract from all of those words they made you read".

"[117] IGN writer Mark Nix compared the game's seemingly archaic plot to more modern RPGs, saying, "Noble blood means nothing when the society is capitalist, aristocratic, or militaristic.

He noted the game's historical importance, saying, "[Playing Dragon Warrior is] a tough road to walk, but reaching its end will instill a new appreciation of what today's RPGs are all about.

[119] Nintendo Power said the game's historical significance is its greatest aspect, and noted that "playing Dragon Warrior these days can be a bit of a chore".

[91][122] GameSpot gave it a 9.6 out of 10, citing the great improvements to sound quality and the appeal of playing both games in succession,[123] and GameRankings reports an 82% overall score.

[124][125] Comparing it to its NES counterpart, RPGamer's Derek Cavin awarded it 3 out of 5, saying that the game is above average in all aspects, and particularly praised the visual elements.

[34] Though bearing elements of previous RPGs, Dragon Quest set a comprehensively new template from gameplay to narrative, as the foundation for nearly every subsequent RPG.

[45][117][131][132][133] According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the success of Dragon Quest changed the nature of video game development by making scenario writers far more important.

[110][131][132] In the Nintendo Power's November 2010 issue, in celebration of the NES's 25th anniversary in North America, Horii recalled the making of Dragon Warrior.

The story is set after the "bad ending" of the first game, where the Hero accepts the Dragonlord's offer to join him and rule half of the world.