Two game series are most often credited with the popularization of roleplaying games on consoles – one of them is Final Fantasy, while the other is Dragon Quest.

Dragon Quest first released for the Nintendo Entertainment System on May 27, 1986. It was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix (Enix would later combine with Square, the publisher of Final Fantasy). The game’s creator was Yuji Horii, who was inspired by early computer RPGs, such as the Apple II’s Ultima and Wizardry games. Horii wanted to take the genre, which was mostly popular in the western world and almost exclusively on computers, and bring it to Japan on consoles.

He was wildly successful with his endeavor. The original Dragon Quest sold more than two million copies and is generally credited with creating a template for further Japanese RPGs to base themselves off of. Dragon Quest was also popular in the US, though it was published under the name Dragon Warrior until the early 2000s due to a trademark issue.

The Dragon Quest series is so popular in Japan that an urban legend eventually cropped up surrounding its release schedule – that the Japanese government dictated that the games only be released on Saturdays in order to avoid having mass amounts of fans calling out “sick” in order to play the new game. Though not actually the case, the fact that this is a pretty widely-believed myth goes to show how significant the series remains in Japan more than 30 years after its original release.

Unlike many other long-running series, Dragon Quest has maintained its core staff over the years. Horii is still the scenario writer and lead game designer on most titles, with Akira Toriyama (otherwise best-known for his manga series, Dragon Ball) on character designs and Koichi Sugiyama as the musical composer.

Three decades after the fact, it’s clear to see that the original Dragon Quest has certainly left its mark as the first console roleplaying game. With more than 64 million games having sold worldwide, there’s no sign of the quest ending any time soon – especially not with Dragon Quest XI having just released in America on the PlayStation 4 and PC, with a Switch edition on the way soon.