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videogames.com Presents
The First Console RPG
What was the first console RPG? Accounts vary, but most fingers point to Enix's Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior in the US) as the culprit. More on that game - and it's history - in a bit. Some see the Atari 2600's Adventure as a proto-action RPG; you collected items and ran through mazes while avoiding opponents. The medieval "setting" (hey, it was atmospheric in its day) and "quest" nature of the gameplay make for a compelling argument. Joe Fielder, however, has a different story to tell:
The knight, with sword, explores the dungeon. No, really. |
By my reckoning, Dragon Stomper (also known as Excalibur) is the first RPG for the console systems. It used the Starpath Supercharger add-on (which added RAM and a small OS to the Atari 2600 and allowed you to load games off cassette tapes so they could be multipart) to boost it beyond other VCS games. It had gold, random monster encounters, and a huge old dragon to smack down at the end. I remember it actually being a decent-sized challenge to beat back then (maybe at least compared with Adventure).
Click here for more shots |
A devoted gamer could make a decent case for either of these Atari titles founding the RPG genre; nevertheless, there's no denying that Dragon Quest was the primary catalyst for the Japanese console RPG industry. And Japan is where the vast majority of console RPGs come from, to this day. Influenced by the popular PC RPGs of the day (most notably Ultima), both Excalibur and Dragon Quest "stripped down" the statistics while keeping features that can be found even in today's most technologically advanced titles. An RPG just wouldn't be complete, in many gamers' eyes, without a medieval setting, hit points, random enemy encounters, and endless supplies of gold.
Thy quest begins. |
The rise of the Japanese RPG as a dominant gaming genre and Nintendo's NES as the dominant console platform were closely intertwined. Let's take a look at some of the titles....
Now show me NES RPGs
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