To quote Wikipedia, Dragon Buster is a ‘dungeon crawl action role-playing platform arcade game’. The role playing however takes place entirely platformy/arcadey ala Zelda II, although dungeon crawler is entirely an appropriate term. Dragon Buster is a revolutionary videogame due to its use of the life meter as opposed to the then typical insta-death, and its use of an overworld map similar to -but preceding- Super Mario Bros. 3. Similar story also with Mario being played by Clovis and the Princess being named Celia. Choose your path wisely to the castle and fight a number of monsters, mini-bosses and The Dragon to proceed.

Graphically, Dragon Buster may look kinda basic, there is a fair bit of flickery (not game spoily) although the scrolling and some character sprites (see dragon boss above) are incredibly impressive. Music varies from what-the-fuck-is-this-doing-in-this-game to okay and gameplay is addictive in a sort of non-fun way. Not that this latter point is meant at the game’s detriment – I would rather eat ice-cream than hit the wrestling mats for instance, but the wrestling would feel more rewarding. This is kinda how Dragon Buster feels. And likewise one must obtain quite a beating before he can progress; typically for a Famicom game Dragon Buster is tough, somewhat annoyingly so (although Save States benefit the game immensely). Definitely worth-a-blast if you fancy some hardcore Zelda II type side-scrolling dungeonery.

7/10