Dragon Valor

"RUN RUN!!! It burns!!!"

Bad games where created for one purpose alone. To make the good games look even better...

Nothing says this more like Dragon Valor.

You can tell a lot about how good a gamer is by the way he purchases his games. The good gamer researches each title deeply to gain a general idea of what it is about. The bad gamer buys out of impulse. One day, me and my brother walked into a game store, and I got FF Chronicles. He got this pile of poop...

The game is simple. You play as a man who had his sister killed by a dragon. You kill the dragon, and vow to spend the rest of your life killing more dragons. You cast magic, use items, and can do a double jump. Latter in the game, your character gets a kid and he goes on to continue your work.

Graphics: 4

You know you game has graphic problems when you can't tell the difference between a monster and a human in armor. Another sign of crap visuals is when one group of characters (the dragons) look amazing, while another group (say, everything else) looks like a bunch a cardboard boxes glued together and painted by a 7-year old. The FMVs are Near the Par Final Fantasy established, but not quite there, and there are not as many.

Sound: 3

Is that supposed to sound like a death cry, a war war cry, of a tummy rumble. And since when do Dragons sound like a soggy balloon. The music is decent, but part of me wants to bet $20 that a good programmer could do the same tunes on a 16-bit system.

Control: 4

Why did they decide to have block assigned to no buttons, but instead have your cardboard box man block when NO buttons are pressed? Sure, on paper it seems like a good idea, but play this game, and you'll see it fails. What it means is that you have to be standing perfectly still to block. Adding to the problem is that many of the attacks worth blocking (anything a dragon does, and 97% of non-dragon enemy attacks) can't be blocked. Double jumping is also a pain, and many of the moves you would want to perform require good timing and lots of time to preform. Multiplied by the fact your opponent can stop you in your tracks with a single attack while performing, and you've got another reason to bust the control pad.

Fun: 2

The difficulty racks up by stage 3, the moves are a pain to perform, and not even worth the risk. If you're luck, you may make it to disc two, but why push yourself to the torture of it all?

Value: 0

Rule of thumb, if a game costs as much as a Greatest Hits game, or a Player Choice in Nintendo's case, but is not a Greatest Hit/Players Choice game, RUN!!! Go buy one of those classic titles instead...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/24/02, Updated 10/24/02