Oct 29, 2023
"Haunted Mansion" - The Adventures of Dr. Franken
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Russia
seen from Martinique
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
"Haunted Mansion" - The Adventures of Dr. Franken
Dragon’s Lair (SNES)
Made by the same company as the NES version, this game is actually not quite as bad, but that’s not saying much. The SNES version of Dragon’s Lair is still a terrible game of ruined potential. It has decent graphics, but everything else seems to be pulled down by the weight of good ideas being implemented poorly.
Read more...
Dragon’s Lair: The Legend (Game Boy)
Made by the same company that created the NES version, Dragon’s Lair: The Legend is slightly better than the NES game, but not by much. The good news is that it attempts to tell a new story: The evil wizard Mordroc has attacked a caravan containing the mystical Life Stone, which of course gives the bearer limitless power and immortality, and, of course, kidnapped Princess Daphne. However, one of Daphne’s servants has split the Life Stone into numerous pieces and scattered them about the land. Now Dirk must collect all the pieces, stop Mordroc, and save Daphne once again.
Read more...
Approximate Release Date: February 1, 1993 Genre: Action/platformer Developer: MotiveTime Publisher: Data East
Dragon’s Lair for the Super Nintendo couldn’t be a port of the video-laden arcade game that everyone remembers. It was turned into a bad platformer instead!
Much like yesterday’s game, Dragon’s Lair suffers from bad controls. The player character, Dirk, carries a huge amount of momentum in his movements, so you end up sliding around everywhere. It’s like playing an ice level in Super Mario World, except it’s always like that. Expect to slide off into bottomless pits or into surprise enemies. There’s no excuse for a game with platforming elements to not work on such a basic level. It’s like having a first person shooter that has unsatisfying shooting or a racing game that is hard to steer.
If you can ignore that problem, what’s here is standard platforming action. You can jump, you can swing your sword, and you can throw a few different sub-weapons you’ll find in blocks you can destroy with your sword. The sub-weapons I found have direct Castlevania equivalents; you start with an axe you throw in an arc, and I found a dagger that hits enemies directly in front of you. I don’t think there’s any ammo or limit to these items so I recommend spamming them. The sword in Dragon’s Lair is more interesting because Dirk doesn’t swing when you press the button, just when it’s depressed. It works okay, but the earlier concerns about the controls mean you won’t want to get any closer to enemies than you have to.
Just because playing the game is almost torturous doesn’t mean the graphics can’t be fine. It’s easy to look at Dragon’s Lair and immediately recognize Don Bluth‘s art style. Dirk is well animated, too, giving Dragon’s Lair a smoother and more cartoon-like look than most other platformers. His death animation even makes the transition!
I just can’t get over how bad the controls in Dragon’s Lair are. I don’t even know why the developers went to the effort to make this game at all! I feel bad for people who bought this expecting the original game. But the arcade game was a huge hit, so here we are.
Tomorrow: I’m on board with Harley’s Humongous Adventure because humongous is a great word.
SNES A Day 150: Dragon’s Lair Approximate Release Date: February 1, 1993 Genre: Action/platformer Developer: MotiveTime Publisher: Data East Dragon's Lair for the Super Nintendo couldn't be a port of the video-laden arcade game that everyone remembers.