GBAtemp Recommends Revival # 045

[Another World]

Welcome to the 45th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This project is a weekly feature where we share our favorite games and applications with you. The things we recommend may be "old school" titles, a Homebrew, a ROM hack, sleeper hits, an application, etc, but one thing's for certain, we think they are fantastic and deserve your attention!

GBAtemp Recommends!

Dragon's Lair (GBC)​

Dragon’s Lair was released to arcades in the summer of 1983. As a video game, it pushed the acceptable boundaries of arcade experiences while challenging surrounding coin-ops that could only offer vector graphics, space themes, and simplistic high score mini-games. With its hand drawn laserdisc delivered cartoon graphics, courtesy of Don Bluth, the title track “Dragon’s Lair – The fantasy adventure where you become a valiant knight” called to gamers from across the arcade floor.

Taking over the movements of Dirk, the player must navigate through 40 fully animated color scenes, to save Daphne from Singe “The Dragon”. Unexpectedly, the GBC port features every scene from the original arcade game, lacking only a few bits of animation and high-quality audio. Navigating through each sequence of animations is incredibly simple, yet somewhat frustrating, as you must move at the right time or die. Assuming the player memorizes each of the correct control movements, it is possible to beat the game with one life.

Dragon's Lair has been released on a variety of systems including the Sega CD, Playstation 3, Wii, iPhone, PC, and NDS. While the GBC port is certainly not as beautiful as the HD Blu-ray disc edition, it remains a masterful achievement that has been overlooked by many. Some will argue the rote memorization controls of most laserdisc games lack something for which a video game should be defined by. However, there should be no debate that Dragon’s Lair was an incredible achievement for its day and similarly so was the GBC port. If you are feeling nostalgic for the Dragon's Lair adventure, give it a play, we recommend it!

Genre: Action Interactive Movie
Release Year: 2001
Published by: Capcom
System: GBC

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Dragon's Lair WIKI Article

Official GBAtemp Recommends! Mini-Page & History

 

[Another World]

if you have something you would like to recommend get in touch with me.

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-another world

 

[raulpica]

Awesome port! Nice to know about this, I most certainly look forward playing this on my GBC (when I'll have one).

 

[xist]

Personally i'd rather have my teeth removed one by one without any form of anaesthetic than have to endure Dragon's Lair, Singe's Castle or Space Ace again (etc...). Memories of a young boy crushed by those stupid games....Twitch gaming ftl...

 

[Hadrian]

I always felt this release was an experiment that shouldn't have been released. It was impressive don't get me wrong but it was also a pointless release too. I guess Capcom hoped for people to buy it on a whim based off nostalgia alone.

 

[Another World]

speaking of odd releases of dragon's lair. there is a guy who submitted, then withdrew, a dragon's lair port for the NES into the neoflash coding compo. might be interesting to see what he eventually does with it.

http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php/topic,7456.0.html

@[member='xist'], i love all laserdisc games, i love memorizing the controls and then whipping through the game on 1 quarter just to enjoy the animations and sounds. the first time i played dragon's lair it was a bit confusing, but by the end of the week i was a pro at it. that has always been a great memory for me, especially considering that arcade is long gone and is now a shoe store. =/

 

[Dingoo-fan 32]

I didn't knew there was a GBC version :-o
It looks surprisingly good. I might test it someday