Dragon’s Lair

Developer: Epicenter Interactive     Publisher: Readysoft     Released: 1993     Genre: FMV

The Sega CD will go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities of all time. Aside from its use of CD and the massive storage that it brought the Sega CD added a pretty impressive array of scaling effects to the Genesis. With some skill they could have ported some of the Super Scaler arcade games to the system to bolster its library. Instead Sega of America tried to push the system using FMV games, which with its meager 64 color limit, routinely looked awful. Dragon’s Lair should have been one of the reasons to buy the system. Instead it is one of the worst ports of the game. They screwed this one up badly.

Dragon’s Lair was a phenomenon on the level of Street Fighter 2 when it hit arcades in 1983. With its Disney quality animation and pristine video quality thanks to laserdisc it was a massive hit that spawned many imitators. It was not uncommon to see people crowded around the machine just to watch the attract screen because the presentation was so good. They also watched because it cost .50 to play at a time when a quarter was the standard. I wasted many dollars for a few scant minutes of gameplay like many others just to see what would come next. Dragon’s Lair’s simple tale of a knight on a quest to save a princess was bolstered by creative scenarios and funny death animations that made failure feel like a reward. You can see why people liked watching the game in motion.

You will find little of that in this version. The Sega CD edition of Dragon’s Lair gets the broad strokes right. Most of the content is there. But the gameplay is busted which is mind-boggling considering how simple it is. You will spend far more time angrily trying to make progress rather than enjoying the presentation. And that part of the game might be its worst aspect.

Nearly all FMV games on the Sega CD are grainy. Dragon’s Lair might be the absolute worst in regards to picture quality. The video quality is heavily dithered and grainy as hell. It is so bad you can barely make out anything in certain rooms. There is cut animation in many parts as well. It is incredibly disappointing even if it was expected. Half of the appeal of Dragon’s Lair was its gorgeous animation and you lose that in this version.  Sadly the gameplay does not hold up either.

Dragon’s Lair is different than other FMV games. It does not show the button prompts which, looking back is fucking bonkers. Instead the screen will briefly flash in the correct direction or you are left to intuit based on timing. I cannot state how frustrating this is in practice. Oftentimes the layout of the room makes it confusing as to which direction to press. The timing window for each action is all over the place as well. Sometimes you have a large window to enter the correct command. Other times you need to begin the next action before the current one is finished for success. This happens frequently and is aggravating every time. It should be near impossible to screw up the controls in a FMV game yet somehow they found a way. Taking all of the issues outlined into account the game is brutal in terms of difficulty.

Between the timing issues and visibility problems Dragon’s Lair is hard. The opening moments of the game will probably take a few lives and continues before you get the timing right. In it Dirk falls through the castle bridge and must time his sword swing to ward off the sea serpents long enough to climb back and continue his quest. It sounds simple but will probably make you throw the controller. The way death is handled in this version also makes it frustrating. The game uses checkpoints and bundles a series of rooms together. Die at any point during a checkpoint and it sends you back to its beginning. Slogging through a series of rooms you have already cleared is tiresome and makes the game worse.

For those that are truly determined to see all of the game’s content there is another option. There is a cheat code to watch the game play itself. I imagine it is intended as a reward for those that want to see all of the animation without playing through it again. But if you are going to do that you might as well watch it on youtube; at least the picture quality will be better.

In Conclusion

It pains me to say that this version of Dragon’s Lair is terrible. Avoid this one as it isn’t worth it. At this point you can buy Dragon’s Lair for your DVD and Blu Ray Player. Forget this version of the game exists.