THE LIBRARY

Fourteen Famicom and NES role-playing games, Dragon Quest to Lagrange Point, with their covers, their two names apiece, and the questions behind them.

Horii, Toriyama, and Sugiyama build the first Japanese console RPG in 1986, and America meets it in 1989 as Dragon Warrior.

The first party, the first ship, 2.4 million copies in Japan, and the hardest late game of the early series.

The class system, a world shaped like Earth, 3.8 million copies, and the prequel twist that explained the Erdrick legend.

No law was passed. A million copies in a day, almost 300 truancy arrests, and Enix's own weekend decision: the record, with the myth labeled.

Five chapters, five viewpoints, the Tactics system, 3.1 million Famicom copies, and the PlayStation remake America never got.

SNK's God Slayer: four elemental swords, a hero woken a century after the end of the world, and a Game Boy Color version that rewrote it.

Capcom's 1989 horror RPG: five filmmakers, five tools, permanent death, and the mansion Resident Evil was built on.

Through its own director. Fujiwara produced Resident Evil to do what the Famicom could not, and the inheritance is itemized on the record.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light: Kaga fuses Famicom Wars with an RPG, death becomes permanent, and Japan waits thirty years to share it.

Capcom's second Willow game of 1989: Akira Kitamura's NES action RPG, Harumi Fujita's score, and an eighteen character password.

Garriott's 1985 RPG of eight virtues and no villain, remade in Japan for the Famicom and sold back to America on the NES.

Konami's Japan only space opera of 1991, and the VRC7 chip that gave it a sound no other Famicom game has.

Its cartridge carries six channels of FM synthesis. Konami claimed the first; the technical record says it stayed the only one.

Eight main line games and Monsters on one shelf: Horii, Toriyama, and Sugiyama's series, cover by cover, Japan's national event against America's nine year silence.

Sugiyama recorded the eight melodies with an orchestra in 1986 and conducted them at Suntory Hall in 1987. The suites never stopped.

Terry's Wonderland: Tose's 1998 spin-off, the breeding system, 2.35 million Japanese copies, and 60,000 American ones.