Emerald Dragon
A dragon youth seeks to lift a curse across two worlds.
Emerald Dragon is a role-playing video game developed by Glodia and first released for Japanese home computers in 1989. It later received console conversions for the PC Engine and Super Famicom. The game draws on Zoroastrian mythology for its characters and locations.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Glodia; Alfa System (console versions)
- Publisher
- Basho House (PC-88, PC-98)
- Glodia (X68000, MSX2, FM Towns)
- NEC Home Electronics (PC Engine CD)
- MediaWorks (SFC)
- Designer
- Akihiro Kimura
- Composer
- Yasuhiko Fukuda
- Genre
- Role-playing
- Modes
- Single-player
- Platforms
- PC-8801mkII SR
- PC-9801 VM/UV
- X68000
- MSX2
- FM Towns
- PC Engine Super CD-ROM²
- Super Famicom
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The game uses a top-down overhead perspective, with two-dimensional movement on the world map. Encounters trigger turn-based battles governed by a time point system: a bar at the top of the screen depletes with movement and attacks, ending a character's turn when empty. Defeating enemies grants experience points for leveling up. The protagonist Atorushan can collect Emerald Graces to transform into a dragon for a powerful attack that reduces his HP.
Plot
Long ago, dragons and humans coexisted peacefully in Ishbahn until Lord Tiridates cursed the land, killing dragons. Survivors, the Dragon Tribe, fled to Draguria, sealed by a dimensional rift. Atorushan, a Dragon Tribe youth, befriends a human girl, Tamryn, after a shipwreck. Twelve years later, she leaves to find happiness among humans, and Atorushan gives her his broken horn to summon him. Three years after that, the White Dragon sends Atorushan to the human world when the horn is blown. He finds Ishbahn under attack by Tiridates's armies and must locate five Emerald Graces to resurrect the Emerald Dragon and lift the curse.
Legacy
In 2015, Akihiro Kimura crowdfunded a sequel audio series, Elemental Dragoon, based on 1990s sequel ideas that stalled due to copyright issues. Kimura and others had previously produced dōjinshi and novels continuing the story, and later a video game adaptation, Elemental Dragoon: Futatsu no Hikari. The series used new characters and altered names to avoid copyright problems, with original characters appearing at the end, aiming to generate interest in a true sequel and potentially regain the copyright.
More in Role-Playing Games of the 1980s
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced