Horii was but one of the holy trinity that contributed to the Dragon Quest phenomenon. Along with Horii's user-friendly reworking of turn-based battling, the series is notable for its much loved character design and music contributed by Akira Toriyama- creator of Dragon Ball- and Koichi Sugiyama.
Horii and Toriyama had met previously on Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, the comic-book powerhouse in which Toriyama created Dragon Ball and lesser franchise Dr Slump - the tale of a lecherous inventor and his Pinocchio-esque robot daughter. Impressed by the clarity of Toriyama's designs, Horii brought him into the Dragon Quest fold to create a cast of characters and monsters for players to chat to and mutilate, hopefully in that respective order.
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