The Tower of Druaga, Dragon Slayer and Hydlide were influential in Japan, where they influenced later action RPGs such as Ys, as well as The Legend of Zelda. Dragon Slayer, Hydlide and Courageous Perseus (1984) 'vie for position as genre precedent' according to John Szczepaniak, and there was an ongoing rivalry developing between the Dragon Slayer and Hydlide series over the years. Its success in Japan inspired the development of Dragon Slayer (1984) and Hydlide (1984). It was released for arcades in June 1984, and was intended as a 'fantasy version of Pac-Man, with puzzles to solve, monsters to battle, and hidden treasure to find'. Jeremy Parish argues that action RPGs were popularized in Japan by The Tower of Druaga. Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade also traces the genre's roots to Japan, noting that the 'Western game industry of the time had a tendency to treat action games and RPGs as separate things for separate demographics'. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com argues that Japanese developers created a new brand of action role-playing game these new Japanese games combined the role-playing genre with arcade-style action and action-adventure elements.

Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade notes that Adventure lacked RPG mechanics such as experience points and permanent character growth, and argues that Gateway to Apshai is 'the earliest game I'd feel comfortable calling an action-RPG' but notes that 'it doesn't fit neatly into our modern genre classifications', though came closer than Bokosuka Wars released the same year.

Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton claimed that the Intellivision games Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1982) and Treasure of Tarmin (1983) were action RPGs. Jeremy Parish of USgamer claimed that Adventure (1980) was an action RPG. See also: History of Western role-playing video games History 1970s and early 1980s Īllgame listed the following games released prior to 1984 as action RPGs: Temple of Apshai (1979) and its sequel Gateway to Apshai (1983), Beneath the Pyramids for the Apple II (1980), Bokosuka Wars (1983), and Sword of Fargoal (1983).

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