a Magic Shop, and an Item Store. Items that are no longer needed from the Wilderness can be sold for extra gold to use to buy new, helpful tools. Like the bridge guard before them, the three soldiers have to be bribed (either with gold, rubies or sapphires) to enlist with the player. Furthermore, healing potions, spells to locate and circumvent traps inside the dragon's cave, and miscellaneous goods (like ropes and bow and arrows) are available for purchase. Once prepared, the player can enter the Dragon's Cave, which is preceded by a few bars of "In the Hall of the Mountain King". The Dragon's Cave is simply one long, narrow hallway lined by jagged rock protrusions, with no monsters to fight; the primary danger is traps. Two varieties exist — poison darts which fly back and forth in one set line, and invisible floor panels which, when stepped on, trigger an unavoidable burst of flash damage. These panels can be detected with a spell, while the darts can simply be run past. Succeeding in navigating the cave's dangers will result in coming upon a pit in the floor which leads to the dragon himself. The fight with the dragon alternates with the player-character and the dragon taking steps towards one another in turns. If the player has recruited any of the soldiers, they march of their own accord up to the dragon to help serve as a distraction and occasionally dealing (and being dealt) damage. With the aforementioned "Unlock" spell, it is still necessary to successfully get past the Dragon and reach the amulet in its secluded chamber; without this spell, defeating the dragon is the only key to victory. Reception Electronic Games in 1983 stated that Dragonstomper "is sure to appeal to all quest game fans", with "more scope for interesting action than" other games. AllGame awarded the game five out of five stars, calling it a "surprisingly deep and ambitious RPG" and "an epic (and woefully overlooked) title" The review went on to praise that the "wonder of Dragonstomper lies in the magnitude and variety of its environments, which provide a depth of gameplay usually reserved for home computer titles of this genre" In November 2005, Ed Lin writing for Forbes named Dragonstomper as "the best title ever made in the history of U.S. videogaming" by a single person. Lin singled out the game's ingenuity, noting that