Overview
Esper Dream is an early JRPG developed by Konami for the Japan-only Famicom Disk System and follows the adventures of a young boy gifted with ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) which he uses to defeat monsters in a world within a magical book.
The game is different from the Dragon Quest standard (which at that point had been the only JRPG franchise in existence) in a few key respects: The first being that the game isn't inherently a medieval fantasy world, but rather a world that contains many differently themed areas and settings; for instance, the first dungeon is a gigantic room with up-scaled items like slippers. The second is that the RPG battles all occur in an action-based real-time environment and are visible on the map as little paw prints, unlike Dragon Quest's random encounters which are invisible and unavoidable.
There is also no world map: Each dungeon or sub-world can be warped to from the "hub" area of Brick Town via gray houses. Though the player is free to visit these dungeons in any order, it is strongly advised to follow the order the game suggests as the enemies in the later stages of the game are far too powerful initially. Defeating enemies grants the player character experience, though this will only level up health and EP (the game's version of mana used for ESP powers): Other stat increases only happen via equipment the player can purchase.
Though the game has received three releases in Japan (for the FDS, mobile phones and the Wii Virtual Console respectively) it has never been released outside of its home country. There does exist, however, a fan translation.
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