Dragon Buster — stories left

In the Gamest Mook The Best Game, based on a reader popularity poll by Gamest held in 1991 covering every arcade game released up to then, it took 32nd place.

In the Cross Review of the game magazine Famitsu it received scores of 6, 6, 7, and 7, for a total of 26 out of 40. The reviewers said it was a common princess-rescue action RPG with a map more than 3 times the size of the original that anyone could enjoy, that the visuals were plain and lacking in impact, with awkward character movement, and that the music did not have the weight of the arcade version.

In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 19.97 out of 30, as shown below.

VHS video Namco no Densetsu: Namco Promotion Video Shu (1986, Victor Musical Industries) - contains promotions for 5 Namco games in all, including Dragon Buster.

Board game Dragon Buster (1986, Namco) - a board game that can be played by 4 players at once.

In the Gamest Mook The Best Game 2, based on a reader popularity poll by Gamest held in 1998 covering every arcade game released up to then, it was written: "At the time it won overwhelming support from players with its high level of polish, and it is one of Namco's timeless classics", and "Each room has a monster called a room guarder, and defeating it yields various items.

The same magazine's special supplement "Famicom ROM Cartridge All Catalog" (1991-5-10 issue) called it "a classic of the arcade games of years past" and said, "In the conversion to the Famicom, various items have been added and the controls have been changed slightly, but the fun of the original has not been lost.

In , the two reviewers praised the game saying it was even better than the 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.

At the planning stage there was also a proposal to call it Dragon Quest, but by a narrow margin the title Dragon Buster was adopted (the game of the same name released by Enix had not yet come out at the time).

Family Computer Magazine published a trick in which, by using this and repeating the procedure, on the 16th time an ultimate sword appears that is a complete upgrade over the Ultra Super Sword and can defeat the boss dragon in a single blow.

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.