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  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • In other games that feature them, both the Hero and Princess Lora are seemingly interchangeable with their Kenshin/Swordmaster versions. The Kenshin hero at least wears the armor of the original's artwork sometimes, but the Kenshin Lora has been given bright scarlet-pink hair and an elaborate gown compared to her redheaded (soft purple in some art), gold-dressed original.
    • Princess Lora has also been interpreted as Yandere for her tendency to say "But Thou Must!" if you answer no to any of her questions. Thus, she forces you to carry her around, say you love her, and marry her.
  • Arc Fatigue: By the time you obtain the Fairy Flute, the Staff of Rain, and the best equipment available at Rimuldar, there will be nothing left to do but to obtain the Erdick's Armor that's guarded by the dreaded Axe Knight/Knight Aberrant.note  Before you can face him, you'll have to make a very long trek to Cantlin to better equip yourself, beyond several regions of increasingly harder encounters. The enemies patrolling the Hauksness area on the way are significantly stronger than those in the area immediately before, the latter of which are starting to take increasingly longer to level grind off of. And though the coveted Metal Slimes are nearby, the difficulty of defeating them combined with the strength of other monsters in the same area makes level grinding here nonviable. As a result, you're forced to spend many hours doing nothing but level grinding off of weak enemies, the single longest stretch of level grinding between objectives in the game. The only thing you can do to speed up this process is to attempt a Luck-Based Mission and beeline straight to Cantlin, run from every dangerous encounter, and fight the Golem who's just barely possible to defeat with a little less grinding.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The Demon Knight/Dark Skeleton at a certain point. If you are underleveled and faced this monster, good luck because of its absurdly high dodging rate.
    • The Starwyvern/Cosmic Chimaera. Their Healmore/Midheal spell can get very annoying if you are unable to defeat this monster in 2 hits.
    • Armored Knights/Knights Abhorrent. The 2nd strongest enemies in the game that is exclusive to the final dungeon. With a lot of HP at 90 and the Healmore/Midheal spell, this fight can get very annoying, forcing you to use Stopspell/Fizzle just so you can defeat it without using your own Healmore/Midheal spell.
    • Rubiss help you if you find Red Dragons/Dread Dragons in the original version. They are exclusive to the final dungeon in the game. They not only have Sleep/Snooze, but also carry a weaker version of fire breath and have the highest attack power in the game. All they have to do is cast Sleep/Snooze on their first turn then whale away at you while you're asleep. If you try running away from them, there's a good chance that you'll get blocked and risk taking significant damage. It's no surprise the remakes replace Sleep/Snooze with Stopspell/Fizzle and reduce their agility.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Curiously, the Green Dragon and his Palette Swap kin. They don't typically pop up much in the series, but when they do, it's always pretty cool to see them.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In the Super Famicom remake, it is possible to exploit the Green Dragon encounter guarding Princess Gwaelin for 950 experience points, rescuing Princess Gwaelin, then intentionally die before you get back to Tantegel. By doing so, it also respawns the Green Dragon in addition to putting Princess Gwaelin back where she spawned, allowing the player to gain a lot more experience than intended. Rinse and repeat and the player can make leveling a lot easier than intended. This was fixed in subsequent ports, beginning with the Game Boy Color version.
  • It Was His Sled: The Dragonlord has a second, more powerful form - since now it’s expected for JRPG final bosses to have one, it's hard to appreciate just how much of a big thing this was back then.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Narm Charm: Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe from the classic release. Cheesy? Verily, yes! But lo, it hath not a lack of appeal. So much so that modern games retain the accent for any games that take place in Alefgard, such as Dragon Quest Builders, mobile remakes, and the DQI,II, and III collection.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: While not technically a sequel, as it is actually a remake, the Super Famicom release of Dragon Quest (I & II) made EXP and gold yields much greater from any given enemy. This adjustment is also carried into later releases.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The overworld theme is lifted straight from Claude Debussy's "Passepied".
  • That One Attack:
    • If a monster knows the spell Sleep/Snooze, be prepared to potentially lose a huge chunk of your HP, especially if they strike first. Unlike enemies, which can have Sleep/Snooze resistance, you don't get that luxury. Even worse is if you're playing Dragon Warrior Randomizer, where enemies can and will use fire breath or Hurtmore (Firebane/Sizzle) in tandem with Sleep/Snooze. The remakes realized how problematic this was and gave the hero some resistance to Sleep/Snooze.
    • The Dragonlord's breath attack. In the Randomizer based off this game, there's a chance any monster, besides the first Dragonlord form, can carry Dragonlord's breath attack. note  Even the lowly Slime, of all things, can be extremely deadly early on. There's no knowing which monsters have it until it's too late. Thankfully, they will not use this ability if they have a weaker breath, Hurt/Firebal/Sizz or Hurtmore/Firebane/Sizzle.
  • That One Boss: The Axe Knight/Knight Aberrant. Easily the strongest monster you fight before the Dragonlord's castle is accessible. Even if he doesn't put you to sleep, his attacks are so brutal you're going to be healing for your dear life. Ironically, you get the best armor in the game for beating him. This is one of the few enemies who were buffed in the remakes, having more HP and ten additional defence points than he had in the original.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Nob Ogasawara's retranslation of Dragon Warrior for the Game Boy Color has the Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe changed to a more faithful translation. It didn't please the American fans who liked the old NES translation, so much so that when the game was revisited in future games in the series the original dialogue style was restored.

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