Dragon Quest

Published April 26, 2025 Updated April 26, 2025

Card game based on the Japanese video game series with character illustrations by Akira Toriyama

1990 Japan Enix Akira Toriyama Dragons Manga Video Games

Dragon Quest card game is a spin-off from the very successful Japanese series of role-playing video games¹ first published by Enix in 1986, with character illustrations by Akira Toriyama (1955-2024). The card game, released in 1990, is a light-hearted adaptation of the more intense European medieval fantasy role-playing games involving dragons and wizardry. The court cards are double-ended and adventurous, with thematic suit symbols : swords, crowns, shields, and slime emblems.

The leaflet explains (in Japanese) how to play a special game called "Great Hero" ("大勇者", Dai Yuusha) in which the goal is to collect a set of five cards of the same suit and highest values. The premise is that the "Great Hero" is out to save the land from peril at the hands of a powerful evil enemy. Players take turns drawing a card from the deck or from another player’s hand until someone achieves 5 cards of the same suit (becoming the "Great Hero") • see the leaflet

Dragon Quest card game published by Enix Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, 1990 Dragon Quest card game published by Enix Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, 1990
Dragon Quest card game published by Enix Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, 1990

Above: Dragon Quest card game published by Enix Corporation, 5-5-6 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 1990.

See the box

Apparently, this set wasn’t sold widely as a standalone card game; it was more of a collector's bonus item related to Dragon Quest IV video game released in 1990 in Japan.

Reference

  1. Wikipedia : Dragon Quest
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By Jon Randall

Member since May 28, 2020

From 6 or 7 years of age I enjoyed playing cards with my family, and still enjoy a variety of games today with various groups and individuals. I contribute my competitive nature to enjoying games … it’s not that I like to win, I dislike losing! I was barely 10 years old when my great Uncle left me a small collection of playing cards and that was the starting point of my collecting. The competitive streak in me helped develop me into a competitive swimmer that sent me to various places around the world, including a 6 year stint in the US, where for much of that time I was at university. I’ve always enjoyed car boots flea markets, yard sales, charity shops etc., and my eye would never miss a pack of playing cards. Even after my swimming career finished I coached at a high level for many years and continued enjoying the discovery of some great finds around the world. For decades my collection continued to grow, despite selling a portion of it via eBay over the years. It wasn’t until post 2010 that I realised, mostly due to correspondence with Australian friends, that there were so many single playing card collectors. This intrigued me. I had so many packs of cards at home that I made the bold decision to share a good number with singles collectors, and subsequently listed around 7000 for sale on eBay. That did make a dent in my collection, but there’s still around 30,000 packs taking up quite a bit of space at home. Crazy? Yes, but I’ve seen bigger hoards a few times! There’s so many I surprise myself finding packs I forgot I had when I look in a box I’d not seen in a while.

My eBay IDs if you’d like to look are “worldwide_playing_cards” & “playing_cards_world

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