Dragon Quest 1 Explorer's Handbook + Nintendo Power Strategy Guide Supplementary Scans

 

Today I've got a few dozen scans from the Dragon Warrior Explorer's Handbook (a fairly thick guide that came with the NES game) and the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (a prettier but less in-depth guide that was included with an issue of Nintendo Power).

Look at how good people had it back then. Maps, spell lists, guides, all packed-in with the game. All of these things significantly enhanced something like DQ1 and turned it from a basic RPG to a whole world to explore that you'd be thinking about all day at school, waiting to get back to it.

Nowadays we're lucky if we get a slip of paper inside of a game. If people grouse about how good the entertainment industry used to be compared to now, they aren't just old grousers. They're right.

Here's the pack-in Explorer's Handbook. Much like the equipment on the cover, you wanted to be equipped with this before starting up the NES game. Bear in mind that Dragon Warrior was a first-of-its-kind sort of experience for a huge amount of people in the West. Outside of PCs and things like Wizardry, this kind of game had no traction yet.

This is pretty comprehensive and step-by-step, which was a good move. Being the first real console RPG in the West, there were a lot of idiosyncrasies to get used to here.

It also helps that they have the recommended level for an area right there at the top of any given section. The screenshots/maps are nice and big, and give you a bird's eye view of things.

Never really noticed how few weapons there are in the original game. This is pretty much it right here aside from Erdrick's Sword, and the Bamboo Pole might as well not even count. Copper Sword is what you want out of the gate. Club can be a stepping-stone to it (which they recommend) but it's also pretty skippable.

Similar deal with the armor, there aren't that many of them (and even fewer of the shields, which we have literally 3 of over the entire game)

Interesting illustrations here, and Erdrick's Armor has been pretty consistent in art through the ages. Erdrick's Sword, however, changes from illustration to illustration. Here it looks like a big two-hander, while in the upcoming strategy guide it looks more like a regular one-handed sword.

Losing half your gold, in a game so reliant on equipment for growth, is such a punitive measure that you're better off just resetting the game.

...which to their credit, they explain on the next page! Being cautious about venturing too far afield while carrying a large amount of currency is actually a pretty intense game mechanic, and would later find its way into things like Dark Souls. Spend, don't hoard.

In retrospect I never gave enough credit to the basic Hurt spell. Aside from longer dungeon crawls, it can be a good substitute for having a stronger weapon, allowing you to focus on armor upgrades first early-on instead of weapons.

I like Rimuldar and the surrounding lands, probably my favorite place to grind in this game. Particularly due to the wolf-man enemies you run into there. Got some great enemy sprites on the page here.

The Green Dragon is much weaker in the NES version than the new version, and can be dropped at level 12 without too much fuss.

Cantlin is their attempt at making a bigger city, and the graphics didn't really accommodate that much. Had to use a LOT of imagination in these places.

Note how they don't show the final battle, or give away that it has a second form (though they do mention that he's got a surprise for you). Their strategies are good here, use Herbs for healing in the last dungeon to save MP for the final fight, then stick to only attacking and using Healmore.

And now, EXPOSITION:

What's surprising is that they talk in detail about Dragon Warrior 2 at the end. By the time this game was out in the West, I believe Japan was already done with the first three games.

Pretty much all the essentials are covered in your spell lineup for this first game. It's nice and simple. No need for page after page of redundant moves like, say, DQVI. Only "essentials" really missing from this game are things like Buff and Sap that buff/debuff defense. That could have added to it a bit.

The NP strategy guide is bigger, but not as thick, as the pack-in handbook. This one has more illustrations and is likely designed more to increase interest in the game than to help you get through it.

The illustration on the left has a very "1980's video game ad" font.

This guide has clearly taken a bit of a beating over the years, and it's on the fragile side at this point in time. Have to handle it very carefully.

This artwork makes the hero look like a party animal. Guessing the woman is the one who follows you around in Tantegel.

More subdued artwork for this. Erdrick's Sword looks very different.

Egad! A mistake! Broad Sword is 1500 G, not 150. For the most part there was a surprising lack of errors in both of these guides, though. Especially considering how rife some of Nintendo Power's RPG coverage would be with errors. There are parts of their Final Fantasy VI coverage where almost everything they say is incorrect, and they once told players to "cast Sleep to put Zoma to sleep while focusing on taking down his 3 goons" which were King Hydra, Baramos Gomus, and Baramos Gomus.

Now this is a spell list, much more colorful than the other one.

Wish the monsters section were a couple more pages and they went beyond the most basic monster types, because it's pretty cool how they have them lined up with stats. No mention of the unusual traits of the Metal Slime though.

With the whole element of traveling further into an open world as you get stronger, this is pretty much Elden Ring v0.01. Activating more grace points as you venture further and further afield. ...well, this game didn't have those, it was back to Tantegel with you!

I've mentioned how iconic the monster artwork is in these games. Imagine if someone else made, say, the Slimes and they lacked all of their unique personality. You'd get...something like this. These monster illustrations are generic to the point of lacking appeal.

We were THIS CLOSE to the DQ series not having half the fans it has, if they'd gone with a generic slime design. I'm not even kidding. If this was the first monster you see, the series could have eventually ended up lost in the sea of other RPGs with generic enemies.

Realizing now that the dungeons in this game all pretty much look identical in terms of color palettes and tiles. Again, had to use a ton of imagination to get from here to actually exploring a castle or a crypt.

The best artwork is artwork that is identifiable within the game world. This looks like he's surveying Charlock Castle from across the water. ...from where, though? The ruins he's sitting in don't look like anything around Tantegel.

Maybe he's actually in Charlock, looking back reflectively/longingly at Tantegel?

Well, that was a fun blast from the past.

So between these two guides, which would I go with if one were to buy a retro guide to supplement their DQ1 experience? Well, neither quite frankly because the latest version of the game is so far-removed in content that these no longer really apply. However, if someone wants a retro blast from the past... I'd actually go with the Nintendo Power preview that I scanned for the last post. July/August 1989 (Volume 7) is the issue. Can't really go wrong collecting Nintendo Powers anyway.