50 free Dragon Quest trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Dragon Quest is the game Japan treats as a national pastime: schoolchildren were arrested for skipping class to buy the third one, every release landed on a Saturday for a quarter of a century, and its overture was the first piece of music played at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. Yuji Horii built it from Wizardry and Ultima, Akira Toriyama drew the Slime, and Koichi Sugiyama wrote the theme in five minutes. These 50 questions cover the series from the 1986 Famicom original to the restart of Dragon Quest XII: the Dragon Warrior name and the tabletop game that forced it, Erdrick, Alefgard and the Dragonlord, the Zenithia trilogy and its floating castle, Torneko and the Mystery Dungeon games, mini medals, Puff Puff, the church saves and the half-your-gold death penalty. There are questions on the Adventure of Dai manga, the Legend of the Hero Abel anime, Luida's Bar in Roppongi, Google's NES-style Maps prank, the London Philharmonic, Famitsu's all-time poll and the four protagonists who share one slot in Super Smash Bros. Easy questions stick to the creators and the mascot; the hardest ask about AppleFest '83, Polari and the Wednesday that broke the Saturday streak. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a JRPG night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created the Dragon Quest series and has written its scenarios since 1986?
Yuji Horii
He discovered Wizardry at AppleFest '83 after winning an Enix programming contest.
Q 02Which Dragon Ball creator designed the series' characters and monsters?
Akira Toriyama
Horii knew him through the pages of Weekly Shōnen Jump.
Q 03Who composed the music for most of the series until his death in 2021?
Koichi Sugiyama
He was already famous for TV jingles and pop songs when Enix hired him.
Q 04Under what name was the series published in North America until 2005?
Dragon Warrior
A tabletop role-playing game already owned the Dragon Quest trademark in the US.
Q 05Why was the series renamed for its early North American releases?
To avoid a trademark clash with a tabletop RPG
The pen-and-paper DragonQuest was published by SPI and later TSR until 1987.
Q 06In which year was the first Dragon Quest released in Japan?
1986
It came out on May 27 and reached North America in August 1989.
Q 07Which company originally published the series before merging with Square?
Enix
The 2003 merger created Square Enix and finally brought the games to more markets.
Q 08How many main-series Dragon Quest games had been released by the end of 2025?
11
The twelfth was restarted from scratch in 2026 as Beyond Dreams.
Q 09Which small blue monster became the series mascot?
The Slime
Horii said it took real artistic power to turn a pool of slime into a great character.
Q 10Which two Western RPGs did the original game borrow its core concepts from?
Wizardry and Ultima
Horii took Ultima's full-screen map and Wizardry's battle and stats screens.
Q 11What is the legendary hero of the first three games called in the Japanese versions?
Loto
He is Erdrick in English; the first three games form the Erdrick, or Loto, trilogy.
Q 12Which kingdom did the legendary hero free from darkness?
Alefgard
The first game's hero is his descendant, marching on the Dragonlord's castle.
Q 13What is the correct chronological order of the first three games?
III, I, II
The prequel twist is why the original III refuses to let you name the hero Erdrick.
Q 14Which name will the original Dragon Quest III refuse to let you give the hero?
Q 21Which recurring gag service, named for a Japanese onomatopoeia, was cut from some US versions?
Puff Puff
Later games replaced the text descriptions with visual gags.
Q 22Which game was the first released outside Japan under the series' real name?
VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
It was also the first main-series game released in Europe.
Q 23Which main-series entry was originally released only on the Nintendo DS?
IX
It sold over a million copies outside Japan.
Erdrick
It would spoil the reveal that III is a prequel; the Game Boy Color remakes block Loto instead.
Q 15What is the floating castle that links Dragon Quest IV, V and VI?
Zenithia
Horii says the trilogy label came from players' imaginations, not design.
Q 16Which travelling merchant from Dragon Quest IV got his own roguelike in 1993?
Torneko
He wants to fill his shop with rare items from mysterious dungeons.
Q 17Which long-running Chunsoft series began with that 1993 roguelike about a merchant?
Mystery Dungeon
It grew well beyond Dragon Quest, including Pokémon spin-offs.
Q 18Which collectible, shaped like a gold coin with a five-pointed star, debuted in Dragon Quest IV?
Mini medals
Horii wanted something to collect without making it a requirement to finish the game.
Q 19In most games, where must players go to save their progress?
A church
NES translations called them Houses of Healing; in the first game you saved by talking to a king.
Q 20What does the party lose when it is wiped out in battle?
Half its gold
You warp back to the last save point and must pay a priest to revive the others.
Q 24Which entry was scheduled for North America but cancelled amid rumours Enix had quit the US?
V
It finally arrived in the West as a Nintendo DS remake.
Q 25What was the announced subtitle of the twelfth game before development was restarted in 2026?
The Flames of Fate
The rebooted version was unveiled as Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams.
Q 26Which Monopoly-inspired board game series folds in Dragon Quest characters from its second entry?
Itadaki Street
A later version added Final Fantasy characters, and later still Mario.
Q 27Dragon Quest Heroes borrows its hack-and-slash gameplay from which Koei Tecmo series?
Dynasty Warriors
It launched in Japan in February 2015 and came West as a PS4 exclusive that October.
Q 28Which manga, one of the best-selling ever, began as a one-shot called Gush! Gulp!?
The Adventure of Dai
Riku Sanjo and Koji Inada's series ran 37 volumes and got anime adaptations in 1991 and 2020.
Q 29Which studio produced both anime adaptations of the Dai manga?
Toei Animation
The first ran 46 episodes from 1991; the second aired from October 2020 to October 2022.
Q 30Which 1989 DIC cartoon used the Dragonlord as a recurring villain?
Captain N: The Game Master
His home world was called Dragon's Den.