Dragon's Lair (CD)
This full arcade version is packed with spectacular animation and sound from the original laser disc, bringing Dragon's Lair to life like never before!You control the actions of Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight, on a quest to rescue the fair Princess from the clutches of an Evil Dragon. Fight your way through the castle of the Dark Wizard who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles.
CATEGORY: Adventure/RPG
PLAYERS: 1
PUBLISHER: Atari Corporation
DEVELOPED BY: ReadySoft Incorporated
At a glance...
| Category | Rating | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
4 | |
| Sound/Music |  |
3 | |
| Control | |
3 | |
| Playability | |
4 | |
| Presentation | |
3 |
Dragon's Lair - REVIEW
A popular arcade game makes a transition to the Jaguar CD successfully -- well, almost.Dragon's Lair is an animated adventure game where you take on the role of a knight in a mission to rescue a princess held captive in a castle filled with monsters and mind-wrenching puzzles and obstacles.
Once the game loads and the opening animation begins, you feel as though you've time-warped to the past, back when this game was popularly found in arcades. The Jaguar's version of the game matches the original to the pixel.
However, during its trek to becoming a Jaguar CD title, there are a few discrepancies in the game. For instance, the sound quality isn't there. The music and effects sound as though piped through a tin-can rather than the stereo full-quality sound we've grown used to in other Jaguar games (including carts). Another flaw is when you successfully complete a particular puzzle/obstacle and the game is in the process of loading the next one, you'll see your character's skeleton transforming back to a living, flesh-filled Dirk. Lair fanatics will recognize this as the animation following your character's death in the original arcade version. This can cause a little confusion at first, since you don't know if you've actually died or not.
As far as I can tell, all puzzles and scenes from the original game can be found in the Jaguar's version including the developer's technique of reversing a puzzle's viewpoint to add a little difficulty to the game. The animation is there, with hardly any degradation or generation loss, and except for the aforementioned observation about the music and effects, they too are true to the original.
Game control is there, and really depends on timing - miss your opportunity to jump or swing your sword and you die. At times when playing the game, I found the response slow, thus causing me to die unneccessarily, but overall, this isn't much of a problem.
This game doesn't break any new ground for the Jaguar other than the fact that it's a ported arcade game. Playability is good to excellent, especially if you're a fan of the original, and should be well received especially by those who enjoyed the arcade version.
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