Dragon Buster

Dragon Buster is an arcade game that was released by Namco in 1984. It runs on Namco Pac-Land hardware, modified to support vertical scrolling. It was one of the first arcade games to feature a life meter (called "Vitality" in-game). The player must guide the hero Clovis through each round on to the castle to rescue his beloved Princess Celia. There are multiple Princess Celias in the game, one in every few castles. The goal is to reach the true Celia at the end of the game at the final castle. Celia wears a different outfit each time she is rescued if certain conditions are met.

As you progress throughout the round you must choose various paths to take on to the castle. There are many paths to choose from and the number of these increase as you get to the higher rounds. The paths take you to the individual levels of the round. There are multiple bosses on each level and many less powerful enemies scattered throughout the level. You must find the boss that contains the exit on each level to proceed through the round to finally reach the castle. Clovis's vitality restores itself by 25% after each level is completed. Until like most arcade video games where the player has a set number of lives, the game will be over when Clovis' vitality reaches zero.

The game was ported to the Famicom in Japan, where Namco chose to release the cartridge in a "gold" format, similar to what Nintendo did with the two NES Legend of Zelda cartridges in the United State. The Famicom version was later released for the Wii Virtual Console in the same region on November 18, 2008. Dragon Buster has been ported to the PlayStation as part of Namco Museum Vol. 2, and to the PSP as part of Namco Museum Battle Collection. It was followed by a Japan-only Famicom sequel, Dragon Buster II: Yami no Fuuin, and was later followed by the PlayStation game Dragon Valor. Dragon Buster was also included as a hidden minigame in the game Tales of the Abyss.