Dragon's Lair

"Classic Movie-Game Fun"

"Classic Movie-Game Fun!"
Dragon's Lair was released in Arcades in the summer of 1983. Created by Don Bluth, this game was one of the first Motion Video games of the time, and it gained such popularity, that it would reach home consoles ten years later. Would it be as good?...
HELL, YES!

Story:
Okay, well the story of Dragon's Lair is just a simple cliche: A princess is imprisoned in a castle, and a knight in shining armour (well, in this case, a clumsy idiot with red armour and a packpack and a sword) must rescue her. Nothing special, but not bad.

Gameplay:
Right, well, this is where the game gets complicated. Unlike common adventure games, this one is a movie which you play. The character (Dirk the Daring, he's called) walks around, and he will approach a hazard (spikey floors, creatures, all that stuff), and you have to press the correct button in order for him to survive. If you fail to press a button, or if you enter the wrong key, the character will die. This sounds irritating, but actually, it makes the game funny, because the expressions Dirk makes when you screw-up are hilarious.
Some people say that you have to press the button "EXACTLY AT THE RIGHT TIME", which is not true. You can press the right code a bit earlier than supposed to in some areas.

The game isn't very long. If you beat the whole game without losing a single life, it should take no longer than 10 minutes.

Graphics:
Whoops! Boy, do I suck! I forgot, this is the SEGA CD version, so no, this game isn't AS good as the arcade, because in the arcade, you got a crystal clear movie-style quality, whereas here, you don't. Obviously, there would be plenty of graphic flaws, because the Sega CD was notorious for having awful graphics on alot of its games, except for certain ones. But who cares? Graphics never make a game. It's how you feel when playing it.

Sound:
Well, there is no sound as such. You get creatures making noises, you get Dirk the Daring screaming like a girl sometimes, and you only get music at the beginning and the end of levels. That is, until the last level, where the game becomes a cartoon, rather than a game.

Overall:
This game is as much fun to play as Galahad for the Mega Drive. I plaise this game for being so good. Now, I should talk about how much I hate people having a go at this game. People say that the "Button pressing thing ruins it, this gaming idea was ruined from the start", and I think that's rubbish. These people are just impatient and want to complete it strait away.
I'm willing to bet that there are hundreds of people like me who love this game and hate having to tollerate the bull that people say about it "Not having gameplay", where it is true that there isn't much to gameplay, but the idea of controlling an animated hero is so intriguing, that you forget about it, unless you're a stuck-up nerd who says a game is no good unless it has good graphics and good anything.

The worst one is when someone said "This game is good? Compared to what?" How about Charlie's Angels for the PS2?? Anyone who's played that will agree with me! There are thousands of craptastic games that can be compared to Dragon's Lair CD, and anyone will agree that Dragon's Lair is a fantastic game.

I love this game. If you don't like it, don't cuss, just try again with patience.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/16/08

Game Release: Dragon's Lair (US, 1994)