Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: DragonStrike (NES)

DragonStrike was developed by Westwood, who also developed the original for Amiga, Commodore 64, and DOS. However, because those games were 3D-rendered first-person flying simulators, something that was much too powerful for the NES, Westwood changed the game to a free-roaming vertical shooter. You can select the type of dragon, and save your progress with a short password.

The game also features new bosses and music by the Command & Conquer guy, Frank Klepacki. (Fun fact: DragonStrike was actually his first game.)

Sound Test#

Press Up, Down, Left, Right at the title screen.

Japanese Mode#

Press Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, Up, Down, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right at the copyright screen. After inputting the code, the game will reset. Afterwards, the text will be in Japanese.

This suggests that a Japanese release was planned at some point. It's not clear why the game wasn't released there (especially since Famicom versions of Heroes of the Lance, Hillsfar, and Pool of Radiance were released the previous year). It's possible that Pony Canyon, the Japanese publisher of the aforementioned D&D games, opted to focus on the X68000 and PC-98 versions of DragonStrike, which were also released in '92.

Main Menu#

English	Japanese

Mission Screen#

English	Japanese

Note the Japanese version's plain white text, as well as using extra spacing for the dakuten and handakuten symbols.