Dragon Buster

The player must guide the hero Clovis through each round on to the Dragon Mountain to rescue his beloved Princess Celia. Every few mountains, Celia is rescued and the game restarts. Celia wears a different outfit each time she is rescued. As the player progresses through the round, they must choose various paths to take on to the castle.

There are many paths to choose from and the number of these increases as the player gets to the higher rounds. The paths take the player to the individual levels of the round. There are multiple bosses on each level and many less powerful enemies scattered throughout each level. The player must find the boss that contains the exit on each level to proceed through the round and finally reach the castle.

In an unnamed kingdom (known as Raxis in Dragon Valor), legend tells of a brave warrior who will rescue the land from the wrath of a fearsome dragon. Clovis, the son of the royal family's chief bodyguard, is a young swordsman who was sent to live and train with a monk in the forest as a youth after being disowned by his father to due to mischievous behavior in his childhood. The kingdom's legend comes to light as a dragon and his minions raid the land and kidnap King Lawrence's 16-year-old daughter, Princess Celia. Clovis learns he is the hero foretold by the legend, and sets off for Dragon Mountain to slay the dragon, rescue Celia and restore order to the land.

Dragon Buster was a hit in Japan, where Game Machine listed it on their March 1, 1985 issue as being the third most-successful table arcade unit of the month. Computer + Video Games liked the game's ease to newcomers and colorful graphics, saying it stood out from other arcade games at the time.

For the port for the Family Computer, reviewers in Famicom Tsūshin two reviewers found it fun to play with one complimenting that it was about three time the size of the original arcade game. One reviewer said the game looks a bit plain while another said the character movements were a bit "jerky" and that the music lacked the depth of the arcade version. One reviewer said they did not play the original arcade version that much and found it just to be a run-of-the-mill action-RPG. In Famicom Hisshoubon , the two reviewers praised the game saying it was even better than the arcade game. Two reviewers in Famicom Tsūshin and Famicom Hisshoubon complimented the grander scale of the game, with its 138 levels.