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



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

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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