Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
This game is the 1st title in Chunsoft's "Mystery Dungeon series". Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer (1995) was later released as a sequel using the same system, with a wholly new game world and original characters, and that game later went its own way as the "Shiren the Wanderer series".
Unlike game development today, on the 1st title, as soon as Nakamura said he wanted to do it, they went straight into brainstorming in a "just do it, just do it" fashion, without going through approval procedures or a budget, and the division of work was not clear either.
In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu it received 9, 7, 8 and 8 for a total of 32 out of 40 and won a place in the Gold Hall of Fame. Positive comments from reviewers included "it is the kind of game that tends to get maniacal, but because the world of Dragon Quest has been brought in so well, it really is easy to get into" and "there is tension, and a lot of freedom.
In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by the magazine Family Computer Magazine,it scored 22.7 out of 30, as shown below.
The game was a success with over 800,000 copies sold, which led to Chunsoft turning it into a franchise and released a sequel, Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer, in 1995.
Eventually, the game reached over 800,000 copies sold in its lifetime.
The game was published in 1993 and became the first video game to bear the "Mystery Dungeon" moniker.
Torneko's Great Adventure was released on September 19, 1993, exclusively in Japan, with a catchphrase that will be re-used throughout the series; "The RPG that can be played 1,000 times".
Another reviewer said that an audience expecting regular RPG-styled combat would be disappointed.
One reviewer described it as a "rip-off" Rogue (1980) with "zero originality" but that it was also as fun as the original game.
Torneko's Great Adventure was developed by Chunsoft, the developers for the first five Dragon Quest games.
By the time the company released their first Sound Novel game in 1992, Otogirisō, both Koichi Nakamura, founder of Chunsoft and co-creator of the Dragon Quest series, and Seiichiro Nagahata, one of the executive officer of Spike Chunsoft and corporate planning officer back then, wanted to work on a different genre.
The game was published in 1993 and became the first video game to bear the "Mystery Dungeon" moniker.
Torneko no Daibouken: Fushigi no Dungeon is a game released by Chunsoft for the Super Famicom (hereafter SFC) on 1993-9-19. It was not released in North America.
Two of the reviewers in Famitsu declared Torneko's Great Adventure the best release of the week in their September 24, 1993 issue.
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