Dragon Buster

Dragon Buster is a bit of an obscure classic. Much like another similarly themed Namco title from the era, Tower of Druaga, it’s remembered fondly by retro geeks everywhere in Japan, due to being one of the first arcade games to feature some light RPG elements. 

While Tower of Druaga is an immensely obtuse dungeon adventure, Dragon Buster is, at least, more immediately accessible. It’s a sidescrolling action-adventure where you navigate a hero through a series of caves, collecting items and killing bad guys. At the end of each series of levels, you kill (bust?) a dragon, and then move on. This might not sound like a lot, but it was impressive for an arcade game circa 1984, and introduced plenty of mechanics that have become essential to the genre, including map screens, double jumping, and dashing.

Arcade games in 1984 generally didn’t have stories worth much of anything, outside of any intro screens or whatever was written on the cabinet. Dragon Buster is much the same way. All you know is that you’re Clovis, a chivalrous knight who must rescue Princess Celia from a dragon, or maybe a bunch of dragons, because there are numerous found throughout the game. Every few stages, you’ll find Celia after defeating a dragon, but then she’ll be swept away again, and your quest resumes. After defeating the dragon several times, Celia will finally be safe, and you’ll get a proper ending.

Dragon Buster is one of the first games of its kind to utilize a world map to choose levels. When you first start the game, there’s only a single path to take, but then they branch off, allowing you to take different routes in the end of the map. While you usually only get two choices, it’s lot more impressive than the linear paths in most other games at the arcade.

Each map is divided into several levels. There are five different level themes: Cave, Tower, Graveyard, Mountain and Ruins. Although each level is unique, each type has a different style of layout and contains different kinds of enemies. Caves, for instance, are usually pretty straightforward, while Graveyards are more maze-like. When you pick a stage, you’re thrown into a labyrinth filled with bloodthirsty enemies, and need to hack through the maze to find your enemy. In the beginning, your only method of attack is a dumpy sword that’s about as impressive as two liter bottle of soda. Clovis swings his sword in an overhead motion, which is somewhat awkward, because it has almost no range. As a result, it’s hard to hit enemies without taking some damage your self. Furthermore, Clovis flips in the air after getting hit, allowing him to be juggled helplessly by further enemy attacks. Dragon Buster is one of the first games to use a life gauge, so at least you can sustain multiple hits, but you only have a single life per credit.

There are a couple of other maneuvers too. You can also perform a downward thrust with your sword (similar to The Legend of Zelda II), which is handy for certain enemies. Dragon Buster also marks the first appearance of the double jump, which later became a staple in the Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Castlevania franchises. Unfortunately, there’s no jump button – you need to hold Up on the joystick instead. Even jumping forward tends to be difficult, because most of the time, the game doesn’t register that you’re pushing in a direction while you jump. You can also run by double tapping in a direction.

Every few hallways, you’ll come across a dark room. Upon entering, the walls will drop down and the music will change, signifying an encounter with a miniboss. There are usually at least three in a stage, and drop useful powerup items. Of course, these fiends aren’t very easy to defeat, because they have a much larger range than you do. There are only a handful of different bosses that are repeated over and over, however, so once you formulate a strategy, you can take them down easier.

The powerups that you get are random, and they can help out quite a bit. You have your typical health refills, health expansions, and single use magic spells. Magic comes in two varieties: a single shot fireball and an extremely powerful triple shot fireball that engulfs the screen with flames, killing everything on it. You can also get equipment, such as a shield that boosts defense, and a sword upgrade that increases attack power. You’ll also find two other items, a scepter and a crown, which will change Celia’s actions when you save her. If you have the scepter, Celia will give you a kiss. If you have the crown, she’ll change outfits, from a miniskirt to a bikini. If you have both, she’ll turn into a bunny girl. The catch is, you can’t wield the sword upgrade if you’re carrying the scepter, and can’t use the shield if you have the crown. This requires you to give up offensive or defensive power (or both) to get the best ending.

At the end of a map, you’ll fight a dragon. The dragons can be extremely annoying due to the massive amount of damage they can deal, as well as their long range. The easiest way to kill them is with the magic spells you get from the minibosses – especially the triple fireball – but if you don’t have any, you’ll have a helluva time defeating them.

In terms of audio, Dragon Buster has more music than a lot of arcade games at the time, but the soundtrack itself is very lackluster and monotonous. The music feels a bit too chipper, considering the dragon slaying theme. The miniboss music makes you really want to pull out your hair, considering it loops every three seconds, while the dragon fight music feels too upbeat.

Dragon slaying isn’t normally associated with bright pastel colors, but apparently Namco thought that it would be suiting. Maybe it was a limitation of the hardware, as Dragon Buster runs on a modified version of the Pac-Land hardware, but you know there’s something odd going on when you’re being attacked by a brightly colored skeleton in a pink vest.

Perhaps the key reason that Dragon Buster is ignored in the West is because it was never ported to any home system outside of Japan. As a result, its innovations were not taken in the context of the time, and the game seems extremely dated now. But back in its home country, it saw ports on the NEC PC-8801, Sharp MSX2, and Nintendo Famicom. Its first official US console release was part of the Namco Museum Volume 2 for the PSOne, but it also shows up the Namco Battle Collection for the PSP, and Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for the Xbox 360. These are all straight ports/emulations of the arcade version. There’s also a Japanese Plug-in-Play game that includes a port of the arcade game and an extra mode called “Dragon Buster 100”, which is basically a boss rush.

The Famicom version, released in 1987, is a great port of the game. They made improvements in the controls by mapping the jump button to A instead of Up, which is a blessing. However, it’s still rather difficult to control, and double jumping is a pain. The graphics have been changed a bit too – while Clovis looks a bit less dorky, the tiles and backgrounds look worse. The music, however, is a tiny bit better, for all that’s worth. The action is also confined to the top two-thirds of the screen, with the bottom acting as a status bar.

There are several other improvements too. In addition to a couple new enemies, like spiders and thieves, there are also substantially more secondary weapons. These include canes, which shoot lightning bolts; lamps, which causes columns of fire to erupt from the ground; and amulets, which turn all enemies on the screen to stone. You can save up and use any of these items any time you want by pausing the game. Items are actually used by pressing Down and A. There’s also a couple of other handy items, like a compass, which points you towards the exit, and a diary, which allows you to continue. The maps are also larger, and occasionally have obstacles in their path, which can be cleared with the correct items. For example, keys will open doors, and axes will chop down trees, Finding these items can potentially allow you to bypass certain levels. You no longer obtain health expansion items, but instead, your score has turned into an experience gauge, and reaching certain points will cause you to level up, granting more hit points.

The MSX2 version is available as a floppy disk or cartridge, and is very similar to the Famicom version, except it has art of a dragon at the title screen, and a longer ending. The screen also cannot scroll, so each room is displayed one at a time. The NEC PC-8801 was done by Enix, which has a unique intro that shows the biography of Clovis and Celia, and is the only version to mention who the characters are in game. Otherwise, this port is extremely terrible, featuring unresponsive controls and slowdown. Arcade perfect ports were also released later in Japan for the X68000 and Windows PC home computers. The arcade version of Dragon Buster also shows up on the Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for the Xbox 360.

The Japanese Plug-in-Play system is fairly obscure and is titled “Dragon Buster 100”. It’s a much harder game, but thankfully, you can cycle through your magic, which means you can save your powerful fire magic for later. Namco took out the map and opted for linearity instead. It has horizontal levels that contain only four enemies, with a dragon at the end of the level. After clearing twenty levels and killing 100 foes, you find Celia in a bunny girl costume, telling you how great you are, and that you must play more. Then, the game begins from scratch.

Screenshot Comparisons

 

 

 

Tales of Dragon Buster – Minigame in Tales of the Abyss – PlayStation 2 (2006)