This is a cross post of a regular segment posted on SegaXtreme.net. Join in on the conversation on the SegaXtreme forums. The SegaXtreme Game of the Month for May 2026 is Dragon Crystal. I decided I wasn’t giving the Master System enough love and tried out one of the titles in my backlog.
When thinking about games, I often categorize some as “aspirational games.” Sometimes that refers to a flawed game that very clearly has something important or novel to express and just needed a bit more work to refine into something truly great. Games like Drakenguard, Virtual Hydelide, or Pandora’s Tower. Then there’s games like Night Trap, Superman 64, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. Technically playable, but leave you thinking “if a professional developer could release this and charge money for it, then I can too!”
When I think of Dragon Crystal, I am thinking of the latter.
Dragon Crystal is a roguelike RPG. And when I say roguelike, I don’t just mean there are RPG elements and procedurally generated environments, though they are there. I mean that this would be indistinguishable from a scaled down port of Rogue or Nethack onto the SMS.
Using the Master System’s limited button mapping, you bump into enemies to attack them with your sword, and you open your menu to use magic items and change equipment. Your goal is to get to the 30th floor with the dragon egg you’re dragging behind you. Pretty simple format reminiscent of Ys.
The map populates as you move around with apparently 5 feet worth of depth perception. Very often you will accidentally stumble into a monster or teleport to the next floor before you are ready if you are moving too fast. There is no rush, however. Time only moves when you take an action, either by moving, using an item, or pressing a button to wait one turn.
There is technically a story. An isekai plot you need to gleam from the manual. It does nothing to complement the gameplay so I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to go find the manual and read it yourself if you care to.
There’s a linear progression of equipment for swords and armor. Rings give you some marginal benefit in a stat. Then there are the other magic items. You will get color-coded staves, scrolls, and potions. The colors hint at the effect, but don’t really tell you anything of substance until you figure out what they are, by using it. This will lead to you confusing, dazing, or poisoning yourself with a mystery potion.
Sometimes a scroll will wipe an entire room of enemies, sometimes you will waste an automap on a nearly cleared arena, if not entirely wipe your memory of the map you’ve already uncovered. After a while, you learn the true use of most items, allowing some amount of strategy to conserve items for big fights. The procedural generation of the map and items means you have no real guarantee of getting decent drops or an easy encounter on a new floor.
The same overly upbeat music track plays for the first 10 floors, then on floor 10 you get another short loop track to burn into your head. As I did not get past floor 16, I can only assume floor 20 will have yet another music track to listen to.
My play style was to rush the teleport to the next floor without intentionally exhausting all the encounters. Were I to make a serious attempt to complete the game, I likely would try to wipe every floor hoping for the increased gold and experience to help. At one point my dragon egg hatched into a baby dragon. I don’t know what exactly triggered it. I assume if I got deep enough into the game, it would start helping me by burning my enemies with its fire breath.
You will certainly fail your first couple attempts as you learn the mechanics. Experience will grant you levels, increasing your attack and armor class, along with granting you new class titles. Gold appears to only be useful to buy continues on death at around 300 gold a head (yours). You will usually die of an enemy attack. You can get status ailments like poison that will chip your health down slowly per action but usually dissipate before you need to really worry about them.
You automatically regain health every step if you have food. You will slowly consume food as you move and fight, and starve to death if that runs out. The only time I was at risk of starving was when I thought I was trapped in a procedurally generated bugged room. As it turns out, this game has hidden doors that you open with a button press.
Should I have read the manual before playing the first time? Maybe. Is this a great game? Of course not. However, it’s not bad. If you want to play a simple roguelike on the SMS, this is a good pick. There is also a Game Gear port, which feels like it’d be a better fit.
I couldn’t be bothered to grind my way up to level 30 and grow my dragon up to whatever the end game is. Longplays seem to clock this game at an hour and half or so, concluding in a “Congratulations” screen that does little to address the plot in the manual. Personally, I’d probably spend that time on Phantasy Star if I were feeling like playing an RPG, but if you’re in the mood for a little mindless bump and grind, Dragon Crystal is for you.
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