Dragon Slayer

A version for PC-6001mkII was in development but was never released. A remake of Dragon Slayer is included in the Falcom Classics collection for the Sega Saturn. Slayer began the Dragon Slayer series, a banner which encompasses a number of popular Falcom titles, such as Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, Sorcerian, and Legacy of the Wizard. It also includes Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes, which would later spawn over a dozen entries across multiple subseries.

• Title — Dragon Slayer • Developer — Nihon Falcom • Publisher — Nihon FalcomSquare (MSX)Epoch (SCV/GB) • Designer — Yoshio Kiya • Series — Dragon Slayer • Platforms — PC-8801, FM-7, PC-9801, X1, MSX, Super Cassette Vision, Game Boy, Sega Saturn • Released — PC-8801September 10, 1984 PC-9801, FM-7October 18, 1984 X1December 12, 1984MSXJuly 15, 1985Super Cassette Vision'Game BoyAugust 12, 1990Saturn Falcom ClassicsNovember 6, 1997 • Genre — Action role-playing • Modes — Single-player

Dragon Slayer is an early example of the action role-playing game genre, which it laid the foundations for. Building on the prototypical action role-playing elements of Panorama Toh (1983), created by Yoshio Kiya and Nihon Falcom, as well as Namco's The Tower of Druaga (1984), Dragon Slayer is often considered the first Japanese action role-playing game. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes, Dragon Slayer was a dungeon crawl role-playing game that was entirely real-time with action-oriented combat, combining arcade style action mechanics with traditional role-playing mechanics. Dragon Slayer featured an in-game map to help with the dungeon-crawling, required item management due to the inventory being limited to one item at a time, and featured item-based puzzles similar to The Legend of Zelda. Dragon Slayers overhead action-RPG formula was used in many later games. Along with its competitor, Hydlide, Dragon Slayer laid the foundations for the action RPG genre, including franchises such as Ys and The Legend of Zelda.