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Some games simply aren't what they're supposed to be. Games, that is. And don't get me wrong, that's good, that's healthy. It worked for Weird Dreams, why shouldn't it work for anything else?
You won't understand just how entertaining this title screen is until you've actually played the game. That is, in comparison with the rest of it.
When artist/animator extraordinaire and overall living-legend Don Bluth parted company with Disney, his name became synonymous with a number of projects (most namely the NIMH movies) - however, one move of his was so daring that it became revolutionary. Well, in a fashion. It certainly made a big mark.
That move came to be known as Dragon's Lair - an elaborate, intricate and downright stunning-looking videogame adventure bred purely to be looked at, rather than to be played - each frame is expertly drawn, every pixel brightly coloured and a mood created, thus, that's been impossible to emulate ever since. Having appeared on several formats in various different forms (Nintendo conversions saw DL transformed into a highly dysfunctional series of platform games), and given the popularity of the Amiga computers at the back-end of the 1980s, Dragon's Lair's debut upon the Miggy was a twist that was stunning given the game's graphical prowess, but in hindsight one that was surely inevitable.
Surely enough, Bluth's behemoth slashed its way onto the Amiga in the late eighties, and it looked like this:
Beautiful.
The visuals were, stunningly, well... stunning. They still ARE. To carry out this standard of animation on the Amiga's at-the-time processors was a mammoth achievement, and sadly, this was the focal point of the game, and thus the hype surrounded it was mainly reverberating around how many industry and gamer jaws were dropping at Bluth's masterpiece. Which was, and is, a crying shame. Care to guess why?
The game's ABSOLUTE CACK. It's almost UNPLAYABLE. And it's quite possibly one of the biggest shames in gaming history. So much, that I'm itching to hold a memorial for the time and effort that went into the visual design.
The hero, Dirk the Daring - somewhat inquisitive for whatever means. Hell, when you're wearing THAT get-up you're bound to be more than a LITTLE adventurous...
You're in control of Dirk, a brave knight whose quest (can ya guess it?) is to save his beloved princess from the clutches of a beastly dragon, whom naturally he must slash into nice green ribbons. With the story out of the way, it's time to get playing - or is it?
Screen one, Dirk walks across a castle drawbridge. He falls through and is grabbed by a monstrous tentacled thing from within the moat and is then dragged in and consumed. Lose one life.
What the hell just happened?
Once again, Dirk crosses the drawbridge and falls through. Octopus-thing lunges up again, and you hit all the buttons going to attack the beast, only for Dirk to whip his sword out, have a slash at the slimy git and then get dragged into the water again. Lose ANOTHER life.
Getting impatient?
You try again. This time, you press RIGHT to whip out your sword, then a split-second later press up to drag Dirk back onto the drawbridge and into the castle. Insert the next disk. If you died again, it'd be game over, and you'd need to insert disk one JUST TO SEE THE TITLE SCREEN.
It goes on like this. Honestly. Each puzzle, more or less, will require another disk, and by the time you've figured out all the puzzles, you've wasted WEEKS of time, and have built up impressive biceps through disk-swapping.
 MATRON!
Due to the immensity of the visuals, a standard 3 1/2 inch floppy disk isn't going to hold this entire behemoth on one volume. Dragon's Lair was released as EIGHT disks, and whilst this isn't the record amount for a Miggy game (I think LeChuck's Revenge had about twelve, I could be wrong), the frequency of swapping, coupled with the awkward and somewhat pointless gameplay (press a series of buttons to progress, and change a disk) make DL less a game and more a cinematic experience.
And don't get me wrong, it's a bloody incredible looking game, and one to watch through on a longplay, say. But as a game... it ISN'T a game. It's a series of button presses and disk=swaps which leave this title with a shelf-life of twenty minutes, tops. Some may find these incapacitating factors add to the challenge; I personally find them hallmarks of a game I don't believe I'll ever play again unless under influence and showing it to friends to make them equally incredulous.
Sorry, Dirk... begone.
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Sublime to the point that you'd play it just to see the visuals. In a league of its own, and still one of the finest looking games in history regardless of technological advancement. These are AMIGA GRAPHICS. It's unbelievable.
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Unremarkable. A few SFX here and there, and one or two tunes at best. Very lax.
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Press right, press up. Change disk. Wait thirty seconds. Press up when the light flashes. Press left half-a-second after that. Change disk. Wait thirty seconds. Miss pressing left at the right moment. Game over. Change disk. Wait thirty seconds. Title screen. Hit fire. Change disk.
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| I don't think I've ever been more sorely disappointed by a game in my entire life. Having played the NES and SNES atrocities, I was hoping for a less bumpy ride, but... no avail. Looks incredible, smells terrible. Utter dross. |
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Get Amiga Forever with pre-installed Workbench, games, applications, and much more.
It also contains the original Amiga ROM-files, 100% legally!
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