Dragon View

"A surprisingly good game..."

...I say ''surprisingly'' because DV happens to be a sequel of sorts to the old PC/SNES game Drakkhen, which was, shall we say, not a highlight of either platform. I shudder just thinking about it, in fact. With Dragon View, on the other hand, Kemco got their act together and gave us something well worth playing. This may stretch one's credibility a bit, but it's absolutely true!

The overworld is still 3-D, and still looks more or less like that in Drakhen, but that's where the similarities end. Where Drakhen had you you controlling a party of four faceless entities, in Dragon View you control a single character--and one with a personality, no less. Where Drakhen's battles were frustrating, confused messes, Dragon View's are in an action vein akin to any number of arcade beat-em-ups--very well-done. As previously mentioned, the world map is still a first-person jobbie, and its certainly nothing spectacular, but most of the action takes place in towns and dungeons, and there is an easily-accessible map to take the frustration out of wandering the world. Pleasingly, there are quite a few semi-hidden caves and whatall lying around, containing shops and power-ups and things--sort of a 3-D Zelda before its time, and I'll take Dragon View over The Ocarina of Time any day, thankyouverymuch.

While the story sounds embarrassingly stereotypical on the surface of it (Save your girlfriend! Not to mention the world!), there are some intersting twists and turns here and there, and the dialogue, rendered in an interesting third-person style, is quite well-translated; you'll care enough to push onward to the Stunning Conclusion. Groovilicious ending, definitely, even if it doesn't *completely* tie everything together.

Graphics and soundwise, the game's pretty average--both are decent, and, with a few exceptions, neither is particularly memorable, but in the face of a well-put-together combat engine and engaging storyline, that's more or less irrelevant.

The only reason I brought this game was because I was jonesing for an RPG, and it was only twenty dollars. I wasn't really expecting much (although I DID play it before I played Drakhen--otherwise I probably would have passed it by entirely...), but I was quite pleasantly surprised indeed. I know not everyone cares for it, but it made me happy. Maybe it'll make you happy, too.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/00, Updated 03/08/00