King's Knight

King's Knight was one of the first video games published and developed by Square Co., Ltd. Rather than an RPG as it's more famously known for today, King's Knight was a fantasy-themed vertical-scrolling Shoot Em Up.

An evil dragon has kidnapped the princess of the kingdom of Izander. A group of four heroes (Rayjack, a valiant knight; Kaliva, a wise wizard; Barusa, a dragon-esque monster; and Toby, a swift thief) are called upon to rescue her. Each of the four heroes starts out by traveling through his own training stage in order to defeat monsters and obtain power-ups for the final confrontation. Once the four have completed their individual journeys, they fight as a group as they make one last charge through the dragon's castle in order to slay the dragon and restore peace to the land.

King's Tropes:

 * Cap: A character's level is determined by how many power-ups he collects during his stage. The maximum is 20 (seven speed-up icons, seven jump icons, three power-up icons, and three defense-up icons).
 * Fighter Mage Thief (and Monster)
 * Heart Container: Up-arrow icons increase your Life Meter...
 * Poison Mushroom: while Down-arrow icons decrease it. And they can kill you if you accidentally grab one when your health is low.
 * Rewarding Vandalism: You can shoot and destroy the environment for power-ups.
 * Save the Princess
 * We Cannot Go On Without You: In order to access the final scenario, at least one of your characters must survive their training stage. In order to actually beat it, all four must survive and collect all four of the magic symbols.