This review is based on the arcade version of Dragon's Lair back in 1983.
Since its modest beginnings back in 1972 with Pong, video gaming has grown in leaps and bounds, especially since the release of the Atari 2600 in 1977. Since then, the demand for better graphics and sounds has exponentially increase from year to year. Now (then) at 1983, we witness a game that can rival any animation screening with both quality sounds and graphics. This game, Dragon’s Lair is a marvel to behold as it shows us how far video gaming has gone in its short history (using the baseline of 1977). As much the game is a total mind blowing exercise, the core gameplay is where it fell down as it’s a lot better viewing the game than actually playing it. However someone has to play it to view it – quite ironic to say the least.
So the entire gameplay is all concentrated in quick time events (QTE). Dragon’s Lair is one of the earliest pioneer of this type of gameplay. Basically what QTE is all about is the game will direct the player of what to do next by indicating the required movement on the screen. So if you see an arrow pointing left, you need to move left immediately after witnessing the icon. The sword represents ‘attack’ and so on. Too slow to react will make our hero, Dirk the Daring die in the most spectacular fashion. Actually it’s quite entertaining to see those death scenes however, just like a fad, it will wear thin very quickly.
You can also up the ante by not having any on-screen assistance however that’s next to impossible to complete any stage if you never played the game before. What most people do is play the game over and over again and eventually you’ll memorise what needs to be done to complete the game. Well that’s the idea with any coin op games – spend more money. And here is its downfall – there is no gameplay to speak of as it’s just a series of memorising each action. Yet that was the game’s intension as design Don Bluth (who actually worked for Disney and directed the animated film ‘The Secret of NIMH (1982)) visualised that playing a game should be like watching a great animated flick.
There’s no argument here that Dragon’s Lair is a sight to behold. Visually is game has absolutely no comparison to other games as the technology fuelled this is via laserdisc. Each laserdisc can carry (I think) 30 to 60 minutes of footage. I’m not exactly sure what that equates to in terms of data however I can easily say it’s a crap lot more than any 5 ¼ inch floppy could store. So the visuals are absolutely fantastic with smooth animations, vibrant colours and even sounds fantastic. Only a handful of voice acting here however comparing to the game itself, it’s no big deal. Again there’s no other game that can match it. It’s literally light years ahead of any other video games.
Dragon’s Lair can be completed within about thirty minutes or so. Once completed its game over however there’s a good chance that you’ll be playing the same sequence more than once during a play through. I remember going through that elevator stage three times and visited the rapids twice in one play through. Yet, as mentioned before, it’s a game where it is best viewed (like an animated flick) as opposed to playing it. However someone has to play it so we can view its glory. Also the QTE takes away from viewing the game as you will be concentrating more on what symbol comes up next, unless you memorised all the events. That said, it’s a victim of its own success as great visuals comes with a great loss; and that loss is gameplay. Still it’s a terrific game nevertheless thanks to the laserdisc technology.
8 / 10