# The Japanese Line *How Wizardry and Ultima became Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Elden Ring* - Tour: Tour - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/tours/the-japanese-line-tour/ > Fourteen stops from the American dungeon crawls that inspired Japan's designers through the Famicom classics and the 16-bit golden age to Pokémon, the PlayStation and FromSoftware. **Why it matters:** Japan took the Western computer RPG and remade it for consoles, manga readers and a mass audience, then sent it back to the world transformed. This tour follows that exchange. In the early 1980s, a few Japanese programmers encountered American computer RPGs such as [Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) and [Ultima](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-i/) and began to wonder how the form might work in Japan. What they built changed the genre worldwide. The first stops are the pioneers. [Henk Rogers](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/henk-rogers/)'s [The Black Onyx](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-black-onyx/) taught the RPG to Japanese computer owners, while [Hydlide](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/hydlide/) and [Dragon Slayer](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-slayer/) made it faster and more physical, laying foundations for the Japanese [Action RPGs & Hack-and-Slash](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/action-rpg/). Then comes the decisive move to consoles. [Yuji Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/)'s [Dragon Quest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/) (1986) stripped the Western RPG down for the Famicom and dressed it in [Akira Toriyama](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/akira-toriyama/)'s manga art. It became a national phenomenon, and a year later [Square / Square Enix](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/square/)'s [Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/) and [Sega](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/sega/)'s [Phantasy Star](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/phantasy-star/) followed. [Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fire-emblem/) added a [Tactical & Strategy RPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/tactical-rpg/) branch. The middle of the tour is the 16-bit golden age, represented here by [Final Fantasy VI](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vi/) and [Chrono Trigger](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chrono-trigger/), when the [Japanese RPGs (JRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/) became known for ambitious stories, large casts and memorable music. [Pokémon Red and Green](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pokemon-red-and-green/) and [Final Fantasy VII](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vii/) then carried the form to its largest audiences, one on a handheld and one on the PlayStation. The last stop, [Elden Ring](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elden-ring/), belongs to a different branch. [FromSoftware](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/fromsoftware/) grew out of its own first-person dungeon crawls of the 1990s rather than the Dragon Quest tradition, and [Hidetaka Miyazaki](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/hidetaka-miyazaki/)'s [Demon's Souls](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/demons-souls/) and [Dark Souls](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dark-souls/) turned difficulty into a design philosophy. Their descendants, the [Soulslikes](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/soulslike/) games, are among the most influential action RPGs of the century so far. Notice also how Japanese designers adapted the form to their audience. Dragon Quest was promoted through Weekly Shonen Jump, Final Fantasy through its music and art, and Pokémon through trading between friends on a link cable. Along the way, watch for the traffic in both directions. Japanese designers borrowed from Wizardry and D&D, and Western designers in turn learned from Japan's music, character art and storytelling. ## Stops 1. [Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) — The line starts in America. Sir-Tech's 1981 Apple II dungeon crawl found devoted players in Japan, among them Yuji Horii, and its first-person party battles became a model for Japanese designers. 2. [The Black Onyx](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-black-onyx/) — In 1984 Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born programmer living in Japan, built an RPG for Japanese computers from scratch. To explain an unfamiliar genre, it showed hit points as colored bars. It taught many Japanese players what an RPG was. 3. [Hydlide](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/hydlide/) — Also 1984: T&E Soft's action RPG, in which the knight Jim regenerates health by standing still. Japan was already developing its own real-time variation on the form. 4. [Dragon Slayer](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-slayer/) — Nihon Falcom's 1984 maze game, with real-time sword fights and a house you could push around the dungeon, helped define the Japanese action RPG. Its sequel Xanadu became Japan's best-selling PC game. 5. [Dragon Quest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/) — The keystone. In 1986 Yuji Horii combined Wizardry's battles with Ultima's overhead map, added Akira Toriyama's art and Koichi Sugiyama's music, and simplified everything for the Famicom. The RPG became a national pastime in Japan. 6. [Slime](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/slime/) — A side gallery. Toriyama drew Dragon Quest's weakest monster as a smiling blue droplet, and the slime became the series' mascot. Compare it with the ooze of Western dungeons to see how Japan rethought an old monster. 7. [Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/) — Square's 1987 gamble: four Warriors of Light, four crystals and battles built on D&D and Wizardry. Hironobu Sakaguchi's team drew openly on Western games while developing a style of their own. 8. [Phantasy Star](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/phantasy-star/) — Sega's answer arrived two days later, with a heroine, three planets and 3D dungeons. Rieko Kodama was its main artist. It reached the West in 1988, before either Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. 9. [Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fire-emblem/) — Nintendo's 1990 grid-map war, in which fallen soldiers stay dead, established the tactical RPG in Japan. It had no official English release until 2020. 10. [Final Fantasy VI](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vi/) — In 1994, the 16-bit peak: fourteen permanent playable characters, an opera, and a world that ends halfway through. The Japanese RPG had become a vehicle for large-scale storytelling. 11. [Chrono Trigger](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chrono-trigger/) — In 1995 Square assembled a 'Dream Team' that included Dragon Quest's Horii and Toriyama alongside Sakaguchi. The rival lines of this tour met in one time-travel epic with multiple endings. 12. [Pokémon Red and Green](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pokemon-red-and-green/) — Game Freak's 1996 Game Boy RPG about catching and trading 151 monsters turned the genre's collecting instinct into the foundation of a global franchise. 13. [Final Fantasy VII](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vii/) — In 1997 Square moved to Sony's PlayStation for the storage of CD-ROMs, and Final Fantasy VII brought the Japanese RPG to a mass Western audience. 14. [Elden Ring](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elden-ring/) — End with a new line. FromSoftware's 2022 open world, directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki with mythology contributed by George R. R. Martin, grew from the demanding Souls games and won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2022. ## Facts - Yuji Horii and Koichi Nakamura discovered Wizardry at a Macworld Expo, a spark for Dragon Quest. - Final Fantasy's working title was Fighting Fantasy, dropped to avoid a clash with the British gamebook series. - Phantasy Star came out in Japan on December 20, 1987, two days after Final Fantasy. - Satoshi Tajiri based Pokémon on his childhood hobby of collecting insects around suburban Tokyo. --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.