through the map. The game supports up to five players simultaneously but lives are shared between players and the game is over once they are lost. The password system is also used to keep progress for each player. Synopsis Dungeon Explorer centers on the quest of several heroes to find the Ora Stone for the king of Oddesia. When the alien race that now rules the land invaded, the stone was hidden deep in the dungeons of the land by the King to keep it safe. Now, however, the king wants the players to recover the stone, which can bring life, light, and happiness to kill the alien king Natas. The heroes progress through several different dungeons, fight fearsome beasts, and finally recover the Ora stone. Upon giving it to the king, the latter reveals himself as Natas and steals the stone. A guard named Judas also betrays the heroes, but is defeated by them. The adventurers then chase and confront Natas, killing him and taking back the Ora stone, ushering in a time of peace. Development and release Dungeon Explorer was created by most of the same team that would work on several projects such as later entries in the Megami Tensei series, with Kazutoshi "Boo" Ueda and Yōsuke "HotRice" Niino acting as directors. Takashi "Hieimon" Hasegawa and Uni "oooo" Arato served as programmers, while artists Hideyuki "Tonny" Yokoyama, Hiroshi "BLADOE" Tsuji and Yoshiaki "Sting" Kitamura were responsible for the pixel art. The soundtrack was composed by Tsukasa "Dosanko Macco" Masuko. Other people also collaborated in its development, with Star Parodier designer Tadayuki Kawada being also involved with the project as his first work in the video game industry, supervising the graphics and game balancing. Dungeon Explorer was first released for the TurboGrafx-16 in Japan by Hudson Soft on March 4, 1989 and later in North America by NEC on November 15 of the same year. The game was later re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console in Europe on December 8, 2006 and in North America on January 8, 2007. The Wii version could be played with 5 players, with at least one person using a GameCube controller. The title was also re-released on the Japanese and North American PlayStation Network. Reception The original PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 releases of Dungeon Explorer were met with a positive reception from reviewers upon release. Public reception was also positive; readers of