Dragon Slayer (series)

This article is about the series. For the first game, see Dragon Slayer (video game).

Dragon Slayer
Genre(s)Role-playing
Action role-playing
Action-adventure
Metroidvania
Open world
Real-time strategy
Developer(s)Nihon Falcom
Hudson Soft (Faxanadu)
Publisher(s)Nihon Falcom
Square (MSX)
Hudson Soft (Famicom)
Nintendo (NES)
Sierra On-Line (MS-DOS)
Creator(s)Yoshio Kiya
Composer(s)Falcom Sound Team JDK
Yuzo Koshiro
Toshiya Takahashi
Mieko Ishikawa
Jun Chikuma
Platform(s)NEC PC-88, NEC PC-98, MSX, MSX2, FM-7, Sharp X1, Sharp X68000, Nintendo Entertainment System, TurboGrafx-16, MS-DOS, Super Cassette Vision, Game Boy, Mega Drive, Satellaview, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Microsoft Windows, Dreamcast, Nokia N-Gage, Virtual Console
First releaseDragon Slayer
1984
Latest releaseThe Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II — Crimson Sin
September 29, 2022
Spin-offsXanadu series
The Legend of Heroes series

Dragon Slayer (ドラゴンスレイヤー, Doragon Sureiyā) is a series of role-playing video games by Nihon Falcom. The first Dragon Slayer game is an early action role-playing game, released in 1984 for the NEC PC-8801 and ported by Square for the MSX.[1] Designed by Yoshio Kiya,[2] the game gave rise to a series of sequels, most of them created by Falcom, with the exception of Faxanadu by Hudson Soft. The Dragon Slayer series is historically significant, both as a founder of the Japanese role-playing game industry,[3] and as the progenitor of the action role-playing game genre.[4][5]

The series encompasses several different genres, which include action role-playing, action-adventure, platform-adventure, open world, turn-based role-playing, and real-time strategy. Many of the early titles in this series were PC games released for the PC-88, PC-98, MSX, MSX2, and other early Japanese PC platforms, while some were later ported to video game consoles. The series also features video game music soundtracks composed by chiptune musician Yuzo Koshiro and the Falcom Sound Team JDK.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dragon-Slayer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ John Szczepaniak. "Retro Japanese Computers: Gaming's Final Frontier Retro Japanese Computers". Hardcore Gaming 101. p. 3. Retrieved March 29, 2011. Reprinted from Retro Gamer, 2009
  3. ^ Szczepaniak, John (July 7, 2011). "Falcom: Legacy of Ys". GamesTM (111): 152–159 [153]. Archived from the original on December 9, 2012. Retrieved September 7, 2011. (cf. Szczepaniak, John (July 8, 2011). "History of Ys interviews". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved September 6, 2011.)
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference 4Gamer-Retro was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference GameSetWatch was invoked but never defined (see the help page).