With the near entirety of Dragon's Lair condensed down to a Gameboy Color cartridge, its hard not to be impressed!
In the game you play as Dirk the Daring; a clumsy knight with a heart bigger then his brain. Off to relieve an evil Dragon of your most sought-after treasure: The very fragile, very elegant, (and very ditzy) Princess Daphne from the sinister clutches of Singe! To do this, you must first infiltrate the towering walls of the Wizard's Castle, bypass all sorts of elaborate traps and creatures, and eventually waltz the dance of death with the foul beast himself!
If you played one of the many incarnations of Dragon's Lair before, then this will all sound like old news. For the small percentage of those who haven't, you basically start from outside the castle walls with 5 lives under your belt, and make your way deeper and deeper into the menacing gauntlet of certain doom. Now like the game in which its imitating, you go about from interactive scene issuing quick commands when prompted too. There is no free movement over the main character. Instead, your control is limited to 5 buttons: up, down, left, right, and A. The four buttons being those to move or maneuver in any of the directions mentioned, and A supplementing the layout as an action button that allows Dirk to unsheath his sword when the situation calls for it. Precise timing is met with a satisfying "boop!" and is usually accompanied by an amusing success animation. Slow reflexes though, are punished with the loss of a single life and an equally amusing death sequence.
With such simple gameplay, you'd think that finishing this game would take little less then an hour. But unless you were an expert back in the arcades and memorized each key scene down to it's last detail, you will die... alot! The main reason this game ate up so many quarters back in the day was because of its steep and unpredictable difficulty; and the same still applies here without question! But that's what gave this title its addictive play: repetition. You won't make it through unscathed your 1st try, nor will you reach your goal on the 57th attempt. But when the time comes where you do rescue your damsel in distress, my gosh if it isn't one of the most rewarding feelings in all of gaming!
Usually Gameboy Color games aren't really known for their presentation. The standards for the hardware were set pretty low to begin with, what with it really only being able to display graphics and sound slightly above that of the NES, and falling just below par with that of the SNES. But playing this will take all you knew about the ol' GBC and turn it on it's head! All the eye-catching scenery and characters of the original are present here, but redone in 8-bit fashion to meet the most of the system's capabilities. And what's here, is a game that far surpasses anything else ever compiled on the handheld! There a some exceptions though: a few scenes in which you meet your demise have been removed from the final cut, (due to space limitation) and it doesn't move as silky smoothly as its forebearer, (though that was expected.) Still, such trade offs are only minor when you take into account just how seamlessly everything runs as a whole!
Audio and effects are a different story altogether. I know you can't rip the exact clips used in the arcade game and stuff them into an already overcrowded cartridge, but the problem doesn't lie within the quality of sound; Its the fact that there just isn't much of it period! There's virtually no music to speak of, besides a small victory tune when the correct input is met. And the effects are just a number of monotonous environmental sounds, quiet grunts, and, depending on the death, high pitched squeals! These don't take away much from the game, its just that the general lack of it all leaves an otherwise bustling castle feeling a little empty.
But with its pros and cons, there's no denying that venturing with Dirk is just as fun now as it was back in '83. And with the near entirety of Dragon's Lair condensed down to a Game Color cartridge, its hard not to be impressed! It may be not the most definitive port now, but it sure was back in its initial release. And is every bit worth a curious look now as it was then!