Role playing video games have been around since the advent of the home computer, with the likes of Aklabeth, Ultima, Wizardry, and many others. One of the most important of these is Enix's Dragon Quest (initially known as Dragon Warrior in America.) Created by Yuji Horii, Dragon Quest combined the overhead movement of Ultima with the first-person, random battles of Wizardy, and effectively created the Japanese RPG subgenre. It took Japan by storm, inspired dozens of clones (including Final Fantasy, its primary competitor), and remains one of the most important video games ever made.
