Dragon's Lair - In-Depth Amiga Review With Pics

Dragon's Lair
Amiga, 1989 (Original Arcade 1983)
VDT/Readysoft/Bluth Group LTD
$59.95

*Alphabetical list of writings
*Game best played in NTSC mode with 4:3 aspect ratio

Groundbreaking in multiple aspects, nothing like Dragon's Lair had been seen prior to its release in 1983. In arcades, groups would huddle around the machine, awestruck by the beauty before them. This was no Asteroids, no Donkey Kong or Pac-Man, this was detailed facial expressions and body movement, gore, sounds, and a tantalizing damsel that put Pauline and Olive Oyl to shame. The future had come to an arcade near you, and the future cost double your money, the very first arcade game to cost fifty cents. Neither that or the games extreme difficulty would stop the crowds, news reports and documentaries focusing on this game as it carved a spot in history.
^It's 1983 and you see this? Still impressive on the Amiga in '89

Work on the game started several years prior, in the late 1970's. Brain child of Rick Dyer, who wished to create a truly immersive adventure game, he took his ideas to animator Don Bluth, and together they would merge the computer industry into Hollywood. This would all be done with the emerging, though never popular, laser disc technology. Bluth created hand drawn backgrounds and animation, shot them onto 35mm film, and they would be transfered to laser disc with Rick Dyer's programming, to be put into arcade cabinets.
^All signs are trustworthy, right?

The gameplay itself could not exactly be called complicated, though it would have an extraordinary difficulty level. Dragon's Lair would essentially create its own new genre of game. It was not the immersive adventure game that had originally been sought, but more of an on-a-rail interactive movie, long before such a term had even been contemplated. In exchange for graphics ten years ahead of its time, you got a game that many would argue was far less of a game than the graphically inferior cabinets it was standing next to. As you watch the short movie, push the correct buttons at the right times, and you'll then advance to another area. Far more likely is that you will not push those buttons at the right time, and you will instead watch your character perish.

You might very well hate this game and all games like it, and it would be perfectly fine for you to not appreciate this type of genre. However, it would be wise for those with such an opinion to understand that this game is very much in a genre separate from all others. Step away from any temptations to write off a game you don't personally have interest in as an obvious bad game. Know that many people do love this game as well as many others which are similar to it. Attempting to understand why they might like it, may just help you understand this games true place in history. When not everything has to be a platformer to a gamer, you might just find yourself appreciating treasure troves of games that stand on their own. They are not necessarily better or worse than others, they are simply different. ^What to do? Where to go? Death is constantly on your back

Coming to the Amiga in 1989, it was really no less eye popping six years later. Ports to other systems prior had been completely rewritten into entirely different games, simply taking place in the same setting with the same characters. The 8-bits couldn't do this game, nor could even the 16-bit consoles, as they lacked the storage space. The Amiga, with its graphics and sound capability utilizing eight floppy disks, would be the obvious front-runner for the best of Dragon's Lair's original home conversions.

I would even argue that upon close inspection of the original arcade's video quality, that this Amiga version may just look better than the arcade. While the game would eventually receive an HD upgrade many years later, truly shining light on the stunning original 35mm film, I really can't say the original transfer to laserdisc was of the utmost quality myself. I am utterly impressed by the graphics of this Amiga version. I also found myself thinking about the games sound in a way I never have in terms of this machine. While of course the Amiga was no stranger to providing stunning musical scores for games, it was the sound effects in particular that made me think of Dragon's Lair in terms of the Amiga in a similar way that I think of Wing Commander for it. This games sound effects act like many others musical soundtracks. Steps, creeks, flying bats, water flowing, and monsters groaning! The sound never lets up while playing, providing crucial feedback and atmosphere.

^You learn through dying

The original arcade machine was American in design, the Amiga's developer and publisher were Canadian, meaning this game was designed all the way through to be best experienced in NTSC mode. They even took advantage of NTSC Amiga's, designing the game not for the normal 320x200 NTSC resolution, but for NTSC overscan resolution, most likely with a resolution of 376x242. If played in PAL mode, most of the screen will be filled, but the screen will cut off slightly on the top and bottom of the image.

Due to a custom boot loader, there is no normal method for hard drive installation for this original game. I believe WHDLoad is an option for those that have that, and I hear the follow up to this game, Escape from Singe's Castle, offers installation for both it as well as this game. Attacking the hardware directly, you can tell while playing that the disk drives are often loading what comes next while the scene is actually playing out. ^Usually the blood gets off at the second floor

I could tell the designers were indeed attempting to use the Amiga's capabilities in these design choices, notably the game requires 1mb of RAM for all models except the 1000, using a trick to access a special ROM area to allow use on 512k systems. However, these days it's hard to get around the loading times from eight floppy disks. Transitions from one floppy to the next are not always linear, sometimes requiring reinsertion of a previous disk. A second floppy drive is a requirement to not go crazy. Even with the large number of disks, the loading wouldn't be that much of an issue, if not for all the deaths that are bound to occur.

Thirty seconds to reload the exact same scene you only got five seconds into will indeed frustrate. This is where despite how much the game takes advantage of the Amiga in certain areas, you simply want it to have done more. If not a hard drive, what about my eight megabytes of extra memory? You require one meg, but can't find room in my eight extra megabyte setup to store a few, if not all, of those disks for quicker access?
^Our hero makes for a tasty meal

This is where I'd advise potential players to simply let themselves walk away from the computer. Play the game until you start noticing an increased amount of cursing, at that time, walk away. Try your best to not let your frustrations tarnish your opinion of games unfairly. The game was almost universally panned by Amiga magazines when it was released. Well, reviewers have deadlines, and I'm betting not being able to get too far in this game with a deadline on the horizon may have effected a few of them.

Notably there was an Amiga World review which had few nice things to say about the game, yet the same reviewer praised Escape from Singe's Castle, noting how great it was to have the original Dragon's Lair be a part of that package. If you didn't like the game when it was new, why the sudden change of heart? How could a game that was awful according to that reviewer make the next years top ten games list?
^I could do it in my sleep now

If I read between the lines, it's pretty obvious to me that what made the follow up to Dragon's Lair so good to him was simply that it allowed for easy cheating. Lots of save game slots for an arcade game, an on-screen cheat feature that tells you what buttons to press... Is this what makes the game good, or is this what makes your job easier? Even these days, if you care to look up a longplay of this Amiga versions, you just may notice the lack of the built-in joystick sound, indicating when you've pressed the joystick, which shows those videos were not played by a person, but the computer in a demo mode.

Does saving every 10 seconds really make a game like this better, or does it simply make it easier to review? It's a twelve minute game once you've mastered it, a twelve minute game that cost $60. There is a place for these types of twitch reflexes, puzzle, on-a-rail, interactive movie, graphically spectacular games. Some people adore these games, they get immense satisfaction from slowly picking their way through these difficult games, from knowing that once they have it mastered they can play it flawlessly while many others can't. Those people will love this game. ^Didn't know the Amiga Boing ball could kill, did you?

I caution against the temptation to make a game built from the ground up to be difficult too easy. It's meant to be hard so that when you persevere, you'll feel more satisfaction. I saw some reviews that went as far as accusing the game of being too easy, yet noting the code he used to watch the game play itself. How can anybody call a game they have no hope of defeating themselves too easy? Unfortunately reviewers are far too often guilty of not devoting the time required to make proper judgments. That may not even be all that much time if they're any good at games themselves.

I did not push through this game, no forcing myself to get it done as quickly as possible. I simply turned it on, played until I found myself getting angry, and then I turned it off. Later I would come back, hopefully with knowledge of the previous levels I had conquered still on my mind, trying now to get past another. Rinse and repeat for all of three days, and by no means was that all of those three days. It took me three days to defeat this game by myself, no cheating.
^The final battle

In the end I felt rather accomplished having defeated Dragon's Lair. What makes a hard game good is simply that it provides you with enough to make you want to defeat it. To want to put in that time, to be okay with the anger it provokes. You want to see the next scene, you want to get to the ending and say it's a game you've beaten while many others have not. This one does just that, it made me want to defeat it, and having done so, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. It's a beautiful game with absolutely stunning graphics on the Amiga. The sound effects are almost its own musical soundtrack. It's hard as nails but I love having defeated it. The original Amiga version missed out on a few levels due to the space issues, but the follow up took care of much of that, and its one that I'm looking forward to tackling in the future as well.

^Satisfying ending? Oh yeah!

Please check out my video review where I show off the learning process as I slowly but surely mastered the game. Hear that raw anger as I just couldn't figure it out... That is, until I did. Then you'll hear the satisfaction as I did what many others can't. See reviews from back in the day as I read out exerts, and at the end I even show myself on camera playing the entire game from start to finish, so you know I can actually do it. Will it make many Amiga top 10 lists? I'd actually say in terms of graphics it's certainly up there, but would concede I doubt it'll be a favorite for too many. But it's absolutely worth giving it a shot to see if you're one of those select people who get a smile from taking a game that was meant to suck up all your quarters and adding it as a notch on your belt.

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