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 in the final castle. Celia wears a different outfit each time she is rescued. As the player progresses through the round, he or she must choose various paths to take on to the castle. There are many paths to choose from and the number of these increases as the player gets to the higher rounds. The paths take the player to the individual levels of the round. There are multiple bosses on each level and many less powerful enemies scattered throughout each level. The player must find the boss that contains the exit on each level to proceed through the round and finally reach the castle. Clovis's vitality restores itself by 25% after each level is completed. The game ends when Clovis' vitality reaches zero. There are five different types of levels: The Cave, The Tower, The Boneyard, The Mountain and The Ruins. Each of these levels boasts more of a particular type of monster than the others, for example, The Boneyard boasts much of the boss Skeleton. The Cave is a mostly linear type of level, with mostly only descends and features horizontal movement. It boasts many bats and snakes. The Tower is notable for having many floors, and the player must do a lot of climbing in this type of level. The Boneyard is probably the most difficult type of level for having a lot of enemies and paths to choose, and the player will most likely end up defeating every boss in the level before he or she finds the boss that contains the exit. The Mountain has the player dropping down most of the time as he or she starts at the top of the mountain and must work his or her way down. The Ruins is a standard type of level with a bit of everything the other four types of levels contain. Finally, there is the Castle at the end of each round. Every Castle is the same, it starts with a very long drop that takes the player to the Dragon's room and from there he or she must fight the Dragon.
Updates
When the game was ported to the NEC PC-8801 computer by Enix, the port featured an introduction to the game and an entirely new ending, featuring cinema screens depicting a battle-torn Clovis and a teary-eyed Celia. Dragon Buster was also included as a hidden mini-game in Tales of the Abyss for PlayStation 2 and Nintendo 3DS. It was included in various Namco Museum compilations including Namco Museum Volume 2 for the original PlayStation, Namco Museum Battle Collection for PlayStation Portable, and Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for Xbox 360.
Premise
In the beginning, a prince named Clovis was born the son of the kingdom's chief bodyguard to the royal Lawrence family. As a young child, Clovis was very mischievous and undisciplined, so his father thought it might be best to place him under the care of a monk who lived in the woods far from the kingdom. Under the monk's care, Clovis began to learn various aspects of knowledge, including how to be a superior swordsman. When word reached the monk that King Lawrence's 16-year-old daughter Celia had been abducted and held by a fearsome dragon, who wished to break the kingdom's spirit and coerce the kingdom to do his bidding, Clovis felt a sense of duty to chase after the dragon and rescue Celia in the name of his father. In order to save the Princess, he trained daily with the monk and learned to withstand injury, whether cut by swords or burned by the flame and still be just as capable a fighter as ever.
Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed Dragon Buster on their March 1, 1985 issue as being the third most-successful table arcade unit of the year. Computer + Video Games liked the game's ease to newcomers and colorful graphics, saying it stood out from other arcade games at the time.
