Dragon's Lair

Disclaimers; I didn't play Dragon's Lair when it first came out (although I'm theoretically old enough to). Secondly, I'm judging this from the Interactive DVD version.

Yes, by the standards of the time, Dragon's Lair is pretty. I even remember seeing an Amiga conversion of Space Ace in the late 1980s and being incredibly impressed. But is Dragon's Lair a good game or not? By today's standards, absolutely not. So we should make allowances for when it came out right? Er, no. There are games like "Asteroids" that stand up incredibly well today because they're so playable. And then there are games like Dragon's Lair.

Although I never played it at the time, I imagine I'd have been as impressed as anyone else- if not more- by its beautiful graphics. But let's be honest; that's about all it has. Dragon's Lair's appeal was always style over substance. (It's no surprise that the Amiga conversion that so impressed me was lambasted for its lack of playability.)

Yes, the animation is quite nice (although I wouldn't describe it as outstanding). However, if Laserdisc/FMV games were so great, ask yourself why they never took off and dominated the market in the way that Bluth predicted they would? The answer is they generally have horrible playability, reliant on figuring out the correct (fixed) set of actions at the correct time, and generally being quite frustrating to play. Well, this sums up Dragon's Lair perfectly.

It's often not clear what to do, and getting past the scenes is more a question of figuring out (or guessing) what to do and memorising it. This is horribly frustrating.

There's no plot as such in Dragon's Lair, just a bunch of hazardous scenes in which our hero dies, dies and dies again. The animation clips are generally short and abrupt, almost too short to be even watchable. At least it doesn't have the incredibly bad acting of live action FMV games...

I salute Dragon's Lair for doing something technically innovative at the time, and as I said I can understand why people liked it back then. However as a game, it's bordering on unplayable, and I suspect that this was always the case. It's an insult to the truly classic video games to excuse Dragons Lair's shortcomings as a product of their time. They're not; they're a product of style over substance.

I can see how the "hardcore modern gamers" would hate this game. What they fail to realize is that this was more than a game, it was innovation in the field of animation. Sure you couldn't directly control Dirk the Daring's moves, but you're decisions instead at key moments were the difference between Dirk being one step closer to Daphne (the Princess) and the decaying skeletal remains of failure.

Don Bluth was certainly a genius for coming up with something so simple and addicting, even though Laserdisc games in general never went to far in the industry. Dragon's Lair's animation was top notch and kept quarters rolling in simply to view the beautiful animation on screens once reserved for simple computer pixels. It's no wonder this game is one of only three arcade games in the Smithsonian (Pong and Pac-Man are the other two).

Thankfully, after 17 years, we finally have a 'perfect' home version thanks to DVD technology and Digital Leisure. You can buy it for a standard DVD player (along with getting interviews with Bluth and a 'watch' mode so you can enjoy the animation without entering moves) or the DVD-ROM version (which is more faithful to the arcade by not replaying the 'resurrection' scene before each new scene and randomising the scenes but lacks the extras of the regular DVD).

Don't let the simplistic gameplay stop you from enjoying what is a piece of history in animation.

This is one of my favorite video games of all time. The game came out in 1983 just when the video game age was beginning and rising fast, and on a sidenote one year after my birth year so that's cool; it's easy to see how this game was a phenomenon at the time and it's practically everywhere now, it was even one of the video games in the Palace Arcade from the show "Stanger Things".

It's understandable why this game blew the minds of gamers and even non gamers at the time as there really weren't any or many video games like this, the game truly was ahead of its time as it showed how much further video games can go and be. In fact, this game was the first or one of the first in starting the Visual Novel genre.

The animation is just superb as it of course is done by my favorite animation director Don Bluth whom to me is one of the kings of the animation genre. His animation his just so beautiful and fluid which not just matched Disney but even was ahead of it's time as the animation looks like it could easily be from the 90's decade.

There are just so many memorable visuals, I don't want to give away for anyone that hasn't played the game, and not giving the visuals away is part of the fun of the game as each are sweet surprises. The backgrounds are beautiful and lively, each of the scenes all create this crazy dangerous fantasy world the game takes place in.

The enemies are always cool looking as there is a great variety of them, as well as the human characters from you hero to Princess Daphne whom I can imagine a lot of gamers having a crush on, probably one of first video game characters to crush on; and yes, I admit I'm guilty of this because I am one of those gamers. But nothing to be ashamed about it's just human nature, natural attraction. Anyway, it's not hard to see why as she's sexy with that seductive black dress, and I love the color black. But she has a good persona despite only seeing a few scenes of it, where it's sort of this bubbly seductive personality.

I even like the story, ok it's more of an ongoing plot but video games at the time never had story. Really just a plot line just to help the game know what kind of game they were playing. Yeah, the plot is simplistic, it's the simply fantasy Fairy Tale where your basically the typical knight saving a princess from the forces of evil. Yeah, the classic damsel in distress plot but I don't mind it's really in the execution that makes it stand out.

It also makes sense they would go with this premise as the Fantasy genre in the 80's era was on the rise from films like "The Sword and the Sorcerer", "Conan the Barbarian", "Willow" etc. And TV shows like "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" which is of course the show is part of what drew me into this game; heck it would be cool if that show did a visual novel video game like this.

The game also has its tongue firmly on its cheek as it doesn't take itself too seriously, just the lively expressions on the faces of the characters, the ridiculous amount of trouble Dirk inadvertently gets into, but also seeing Dirk in pain can be a funny as we see him in more version of pain and death then Wille Coyote.

The gameplay is great and is no doubt on the hard side. But that just make the game all the more tense and exciting, and despite the difficulty it's actually easy by it's nature it just doesn't seem that way at first.

The game is really one based on reflex, timing, but also simply memorization and paying constant attention to the visual cues that come in the form of a brief light flash. Things can happen instantly, and you only have a microsecond to think and react. This was one of the unique things about the game at the time before it became common place in the Telltale games we have now, I really liked that because it was something that constantly kept you on your toes and really did give you the feel of life and death situations, because in reality their really much to any time to think, it's about taking immediate action to survive.

Yeah, you're probably going to die a lot in the game, which makes the game one based on perseverance and that's what makes the game an all the more satisfying experience as it's your skill alone that gets you further in the game, it's even possible to beat the game in just one sitting depending on how long you've played the game that is.

This lair is worth visiting as it's a vintage treasure.

Rating: 4 stars.

I see that Don Bluth is credited with directing Dragon's Lair, but the person who actually came up with the idea for the game gets no credit here. The man who was really behind Dragon's Lair was Rick Dyer. In the 70s he created a prototype for a game which used hand drawn artwork and text on an adding machine ribbon (rather than animation and sound on a laser disk.) The user would hit certain keys to make choices, and the machine would automatically roll the ribbon to the next appropriate scene. It was Dyer who pitched the idea for Dragon's Lair to several animation companies, and it happened to be Don Bluth's company who agreed to animate the game. While Don Bluth's animation in Dragon's Lair is excellent, he doesn't deserve the credit for creating the game itself.

I am guessing I could never wrap my mind around the fact you simply guide Dirk the same way every time. You just hit the controller at the right time. Instead, I would usually get killed again and again, occasionally making it through a room. I was always able to get through that room with the wall that was closing up! Still, I enjoyed watching it and playing it. Going through the various rooms of the castle where they mention an evil wizard along with the dragon, but you never really see him. You have to find and rescue the princess in this castle and make it to the dreaded dragon's lair. I would later own the game on the Sega CD and it was so easy to win and it did not look nearly as good as the arcade game. If you ever have seen a Sega CD you know the look of the game, as any movie sequence looks as if it has a film over it. That game was also disappointing as it did not include two of the rooms featured in the arcade game. The rope swinging level with the fire ropes and the level with the circular disc that shoots downward. I am guessing the disc can only hold so much, or perhaps these two levels moved to fast or something? Not sure, but they were a couple of my favorites in the arcade so their omission made me sad. This game is a fond memory of my childhood so it still holds a special place for me. Want to get the WII version of the game as it not only has this one, but also has the sequel and Space Ace.