Classic NES: Dragon Warrior Nintendo Power pack, scans

[Brian]

Like millions of others, I entered the world of Nintendo Power with the Dragon Warrior super pack promotion. In 1990 as a way to lure in new subscriptions, Nintendo gave away a Dragon Warrior game along with a ton of "bonus" features, like maps, strategy guide, etc. I'm guessing the promotion worked...at least it worked on me.

Amongst the other lost-n-found Nintendo items around the house were much of the extras included with that Dragon Warrior game.
Here are some of the items, some scanned by me, some found elsewhere.

Dragon Warrior Map & Enemy Guide
This is a double-sided poster with a full game map on one side and an enemy chart on the back.

• View front (1Mb)
• View back (1Mb)

Dragon Warrior Adventure Guide
This is a double-sided cardboard card that outlined the levels in the game. It showed when you leveled up and various goals of each level.

• View full guide (PDF)

Dragon Warrior Poster Map
This is a poster featuring the Dragon Warrior logo/art with a map to dungeons on the back.

• Available from Analog Medium

Dragon Warrior Explorer's Handbook and Manual
This is a full guidebook to the game. It has 65 pages of tips, guides, maps...just about everything you need to make it through the game.

• Available from Might Mo's World

[Chris]

What are your feelings about Zelda? I never had the game growing up, although the gold cart drove me to want it. I recently downloaded it for my wii, and have been playing it a bit. This is the first game I have played for NES that I had to go find maps and info after getting stuck. It kind of feels like cheating, but there is no way you could figure out how to do some of the stuff in the game without help. Dragon Warrior seems to be along the same lines. I was never into any of the RPGs growing up, but like you had said previously about Zelda, it isn't too inolved. I had played Final Fantasy 7 way back when on playstation, and if I didn't play the game for a while, I forgot about things that had happened in the game earlier that came up again. It seemed I was going to have to dedicate more of my life to the game than I wanted to.

[Brian]

Zelda is an obvious classic. I never had the game growing up either, but some how it ended up in my collection. Not sure who I "borrowed" it from.

Personally, I think the maps and guides make the game better because you then have missions instead of just the goal to beat the game. Of course, with Zelda you really can't beat the game unless you know where some of the secrets are. I remember even making my own maps back in the day...especially for the second quest on that game. I don't consider it cheating because you're really doing anything to beat the system, you're just using existing resources. I consider cheating more so using codes and tricks to get extra lives and such, like in Contra. Although in Zelda there is a way to "cheat" and scam the gambling lady out of her jewels.

I also think maps are the work of great evil because guides and tips like that just keep people wanting to play the game. It's all a ploy, but one I don't mind getting suckered into.

Zelda takes some time but is a great game. Another game that was just enough RPG for me without being too heavy was Simon's Quest. It has it's own frustration about it, but there's good action with just enough item-questing. Good music too.

Dragon Warrior.....that's a little different. It's more a true RPG game where you have more inventory management, experience levels, special items and trade-offs. A lot of talking too. I was totally into when I got it...Jon and I spent months on that game. It was really rewarding when we finally beat the last guy, but after that replay value is pretty low. Zelda at least has some replay value, even after I've beaten in time and time over.

And while I haven't "officially" launched it yet, I started a new site for all things 8-bit gaming, ie, Nintendo stuff. It's at www.8bitlinks.com --- it's just aimed at being a supersite of links for NES retro gaming. I'm out and about online looking at old Nintendo stuff all the time and figured it was time to start organizing those links...hell, other people might enjoy them too. And people can submit the links they find as well. If all goes as I hope people will be submitting links all the time and the site will become a great resource.

[Lorkin]

I never had the maps for Dragon Warrior or Zelda but I can tell you where about every burnable bush is even the one you have to pay the old man for burning down. The weird thing is I never used maps or guides when I was playing in the heyday of the NES but I frequently find myself using guides for current games. I try and get though things without them but at some points in the game I don't feel like guessing for an hour and just hop online to find the guide. It could be I'm older now and not as willing to spend hours hitting my head against every brick in the wall to get to the next level. But I'm guessing it is more the fact that you can grab a guide or map in about 30 seconds for free online as opposed to sending off for a map or buying a guide at the bookstore. On the flip side though I find games far easier today.

[Brian]

When I was heavy into the Metal Gear games I swore to never use guides either. They made the game linear enough that you really didn't need guides. You could finish the game just walking through and shooting if you wanted. But they hid items and even plotlines in places where you would need to guess or get guides for. It's unfortunate that franchise is one the PS3, I really like MGS.

And I'm with Lorkin on the challenge factor. I think it must be because we're older --- games just don't take long anymore. Maybe that's why I'm into the active/puzzle games now...their challenge is nearly endless. The last Metal Gear game I beat after a good 25 hours of play. Good thing I got it on sale. I'd be pissed if I had paid $50-$60 for a game and finished it over a weekend. And despite the game being good, replay is low.

[BarneysAngelJen]

So do you think the gold game thing is a total marketing scheme just to get kids lured in? I seem to remember from my child care teaching days, Nintendo doing the same thing with Pokemon games for the Gameboy. All my kids wanted the gold or silver games!

[Chris]

I think I only played the game once or twice and never got into it, but I still totally wanted it because it was gold! I think this was all marketing. I had the attention span of a flea when I wanted this game, and I would have hated how long it takes to play and beat it. They knew what they were doing with that gold cartridge.

[Brian]

Oh yes, it was pure marketing - and great marketing at that.

Everyone wanted the gold cartridge. Out of all the "unique" game carts made for Nintendo it was the flashiest. The second Zelda game was gold too.

Tengen had some unique shaped carts too. My RBI Baseball game was black with a slanted front, looking all future-like. I believe there were some rare clear cartridges too...at least for the NES. I think there were some blue cases too.

I think once Pokemon game in they had all sorts of colors...blue, green, pink...

Woulda been sweet if the carts had lights on them or glowed. Especially since you could see the carts on the Super Nintendo, they didn't get hidden inside.