140th-best game made for the Nintendo System in its Top 200 Games list in 2006. RPGamer's Bill Johnson gave it a 4 out of 5 overall score. The NES version received considerable praise for adding extra characters and depth to the story. The removal of the stylized dialogue in the GBC remake has similarly been lamented. AllGame declared that "despite its enormous influence [...] Dragon Warrior is a flawed game. It has some decent design ideas, but it's just not terribly enjoyable", noting simplistic graphics, slow pace, and poor sound. Seemingly primitive by modern standards, Dragon Warrior features one-on-one combat, a limited item and equipment array, ten spells, five towns, and five dungeons. While noting its importance to the development of the RPG genre, Allgame reviewer Kyle Knight stated that "taken on its own merits, it's just not an enjoyable game to play." 1UP.com explained that the series was not immensely popular at first in North America because American console gamers were not used to the idea of RPGs, and that it would take a decade for the genre to be "flashy enough to distract from all of those words they made you read". Chi Kong Lui wrote for GameCritics that the game added realism to video games, which allows players to identify with the main character on a much larger scale, saying "If a player perished in Dragon Warrior, he or she had to suffer the dire consequences of losing progress and precious gold. That element of death evoked a sense of instinctive fear and tension for survival." IGN writer Mark Nix compared the game's seemingly archaic plot to more modern RPGs, saying, "Noble blood means nothing when the society is capitalist, aristocratic, or militaristic. Damsels don't need rescuingthey need a battle axe and some magic tutoring in the field." Reviewing Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, GameSpy staff wrote that Dragon Warrior is many gamers' first exposure to the console RPG. Recalling their past, a staff member commented: Bill Johnson compared Dragon Warrior to modern RPGs and noted the game's lack of replay value, which is due to the game's requirement of total completion and to its overall difficulty. He noted the game's historical importance, saying, "[Playing Dragon Warrior is] a tough road to walk, but reaching its end will instill a new appreciation of what today's RPGs are all about." The 2009 book Vintage Games