Hitoshi Konomi

It’s said that if, during battle, you first use the six items whose names correspond to the initials of “Hitoshikonami”—Hinoki no Bō (cypress stick), Togatta Hone (pointy bone), Shiawase no Bōshi (happy hat), Konbō (club), Nokogiri Gatana (sawblade sword), and Mikawashi no Fuku (evasion clothes)—and then use “Hitoshikonami” again, all subsequent attacks will be critical hits. This trick is extremely useful for many players, and mastering it can give you a significant advantage in tough fights!

Metal Slime

In the Dragon Quest series, the Metal Slime is the monster that, along with the regular Slime, appears in every numbered title. Metal Slimes grant extremely high experience points, making them highly rewarding to defeat; however, they often flee and are hard to hit. As a result, they present players with a challenge: can you catch them and earn that big haul of experience?

G

In the world of Dragon Quest, the currency unit is “G,” pronounced “gold.” You can obtain it by defeating monsters or from things like pots and treasure chests in people’s homes. Certain monsters, such as the “Goldman” and “Dancing Jewel,” drop especially large amounts of gold when defeated, so players who wanted to buy equipment and items or play at the casino would repeatedly challenge them in pursuit of gold.

Dharma Temple

There’s a facility that first appeared in the game Dragon Quest III where, as a running gag in the series, there’s an old man who says he wants to become a “peachy, perky gal.” Systems also emerged such as special vocations that require specific items to change into, and later, the ability to switch to advanced vocations after mastering basic ones. Some entries in the series even let you change into monsters, making it a popular part of Dragon Quest’s completionist appeal.

Thor, the god of thunder

The name “Tonnura” appearing in the Dragon Quest series is derived from “Thor, the thunder god.” For example, in Dragon Quest III, Tonnura appears as a character who can join your party when certain conditions are met. Thor, the namesake, is the god who rules over thunder and storms in Norse mythology. His strength and bravery are celebrated in many tales, and across the Dragon Quest titles he is portrayed as a symbol of power.

May 27

May 27 is the day the first game in the Dragon Quest series was released for the Family Computer, and it’s fondly celebrated by fans as Dragon Quest Day. It was on this day in 1986 that the adventures of the Dragon Quest series began.

20 types

During the development of Dragon Quest I, the available storage capacity for game data was extremely limited. As a result, the designers and programmers prioritized saving data above all else. Katakana characters were one such area: only 20 types of katakana were used in the game! This was a deliberate strategy to conserve data by selecting only the minimum set necessary to express Japanese while still keeping the text easy to understand.