This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.
The Great Console History Reorganization marches ever onwards. Our last post covered Deep Dungeon: Madou Senki, a dungeon crawler from HummingBirdSoft that released in December 1986 for the Famicom Disk System in Japan only. If I’d had my timeline in order, the next post would have been about Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead, followed by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Dragon Quest II. But I’ve already written about those! So now, we move on Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll by Culture Brain, who would go on to release The Magic of Scheherezade in September 1987. But Flying Dragon: The Secret scroll was originally released as Hiryou no Ken: Ougi no Sho in Japan on February 14, 1987 for the Famicom, before being localized for US release on the rebranded NES in August 1989 (this is the version I played). It’s actually the second game in the Hiryou no Ken series, coming after Hokuha Syourin Hiryou no Ken (AKA Shanghai Kid) in arcades in 1985.
Flying Dragon is a fighting game, which should put it out of scope for this series. But I decided to include it for two reasons. First, it incorporates some action-adventure/role-playing elements which brings it closer to the remit of this series, and second, I’m completely unfamiliar with the fighting game genre before the smash success of Street Fighter II brought it into the mainstream in 1991. What were fighting games like before Street Fighter II created a new standard? I decided to find out.
