Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: DragonStrike Review

Man, here we have a nice example of how reprogramming a game can end up being a big mistake. The big bummer for me with this title was it actually presents very well and seems like an incredible game at first, a clever tactic of diseased, horrific minds from the 8-Bit era, bent on fooling the public into purchasing their drivel and one of the worst kinds of games you can find from the time period. Any game you find like this is undoubtedly evil, unspeakably evil. The original DragonStrike game was released for home computers back in 1990, with a nice twist on the first-person flight sim genre. Instead of controlling a fighter plane or bomber ala’ Ace of Aces, you controlled a dragon and took the part of the dragon rider on its back, completing various tasks and taking out other dragons in the process. Pretty legendary, though many people don’t even know what it is anymore. So, of course, FCI, who had been releasing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games for the NES, decided to port this beauty to the 8-Bit giant. My first opinion of this game was very high, but as I played further and further I realized how terrible all of the AD and D games are for the system. This is probably the second best I’d say, but only worth a look for the most insane of shooter fans, as you’ll see.

Graphically, DragonStrike is decent overall but fails in a few areas that end up making it look like garbage. The title screen opens with the same design they used for the original version, minus a few elements because of the system capabilities. This is followed by a decent option screen and dragon selection screen, then a map that does its job, and finally we get to the game proper. The big bummer for fans of the original is that they changed this to an overhead shooter, with a twist that I’ll get to a bit later. So, you get to see your dragon from above and move around the terrain shooting at other dragons and various obstacles. Anyway, allow me to start by saying that the color in this game is pretty drab overall, not a very diverse scheme. It’s either too drab or too bright with some odd combinations at times that completely defy the basic laws of color. For example, brown landscapes that are so brown you can almost lose track of your dragon or where you’re going. As for detail, there really isn’t much. The dragon selection screen almost looks infantile, and some of the characters and enemies look pathetic. You have these tiny little guys shooting arrows at you, I think, that just sit there motionless, catapaults sans anyone controlling them even though they chuck rocks, giants that throw rocks with only like one frame of animation, thus looking like wooden dolls, as a well as a variety of other messes. The bosses add a little variety and are the most well-detailed aspects of the game because of their size, though the bone dragon and final boss are probably some of the oddest things I’ve ever seen. Let’s consider the latter. So after going through one of the worst levels in history, you fight this giant, five-headed, half-dragon almost half-human thing that’s attached to a set of stairs. Fine, whatever, looks kind of silly, but let’s consider the perspective here because this is the main graphical problem in this game if you’re looking at it aesthetically. You’re looking at the dragon from above, so techincally anything else is either above or below it. This boss, as well as a few of the others, is depicted as though you were moving towards it instead of above it, creating a unique, otherwordly universe where the programmers have combined two perspectives that never go together. It’s a marvel of human innovation, similar to drawing a landscape with a horizon line but having one or two houses pointing in the completely opposite direction of everything else. Other than issues like this, DragonStrike doesn’t present terribly overall, I just wish they would have opted for the original game instead of trying something new, because some of what they created looks like hell.

Now, I’m happy to state that the sound isn’t half bad in DragonStrike. You get a decent opening track that fits the game, though a bit bleak, and a variety of tunes for the game proper. I must say the majority of these actually got me interested when I first started playing this title, so the programmers definitely did a good job in this area. The main themes have this military sound to them with some fairly catchy melodies and such. Can’t say I had any problems there. The sound effects, for the most part, are well below the music. You can pretty much bet in this game that anything that looks bad will sound bad, so the little men shooting/throwing things have the same bleeping sound that the ships do when they fire. In fact, this same stupid sound is used throughout DragonStrike for nearly every single enemy that comes at you. Could have worked with that, because your dragons have some pretty cool effects for their breath weapons, though they do sound basically like someone blowing a hairdryer into a microphone. Sounds when getting struck and so forth work pretty well but they could have worked out the effects, most of them are grating and pathetic.

So now what you’ve all been waiting for, the gameplay. DragonStrike was originally a first-person title with strategy elements, but for some reason the programmers decided to change the game entirely for the NES. I’m not sure why because they should have been able to pull off the original look. Anyway, instead of that, you have what’s basically a non-linear shooter. You go through most of the same quests as the original, just from overhead. Since you’re able to turn in a circle you can go all the way to the right and back down the left or however you want until you finish what you need to do on each level. At first glance and first hearing that, one would think this could be a pretty good game overall, a nice little twist on the whole shooter thing that was pretty worn out by this time in the 8-Bit era. In fact, I myself was happy with this game until I played it further and further and discovered the hideous truth.

As for the basic format, you can still select your dragon and have three choices. Surprisingly, unlike many games where you select a different type of player only to find little difference, there are actually clear differences between the three dragons in both how they move, how they can take damage, what they attack with and how powerful they are. The direction pad moves your dragon around, right turns in a circle to the right, left to the left. Where they threw in something new is here: not only do you get to attack with both buttons, one performing a different type of attack such as a freeze breath that doesn’t harm but temporarily freezes enemies, but up and down are nonfunctional in the sense that you don’t use them to move ahead or back. Instead, when you hit up your dragon climbs to the upper playing field and when you hit down it descends to the lower. Pretty cool, and thankfully it’s easy to tell when you’re lower though the enemies don’t match up sometimes since a huge dragon is suddenly the same height as a teeny, weeny little man chucking arrows, but oh well. Each level has a different goal to complete as well. You may have to take out a special dragon, a huge boss such as a giant warship later on and so forth. Typically there is some form of boss, which is only accessed once you’ve defeated everything on the main level. That’s about it, though there are some power ups to consider as well that do in fact add a lot to the gameplay. You can expect your typical invincibility potions as well as icons to recharge your health. Overall, doesn’t sound too bad does it, I thought you were going to bash this game Stan? Allow me to do so.

So really they could have made this game pretty damn fun, but it fails for several important reasons. First off, it’s way too long. Though they threw in a password feature, the time it takes to complete some of the levels based on difficulty and the fact that they repeat a few of them later on makes this pretty taxing over time. Eventually, you’re simply waiting for it to end, killing the Krakens for the ten billionth time or some other sort of larger boss. That brings us to number two. Some of the bosses, even on the easy setting, are impossible. I seriously was completely unable to get through this game without relying on cheating and I doubt anyone will ever be able to get very far without it. At first, though difficult, it’s rather fun figuring out how to attack level guardians like the Kraken and deciding what to do, but eventually you reach bosses that are so difficult it’s not even funny, and the sad thing is that the main problem that arises to cause this difficulty is not the game itself, but the controls.

This would be strike three. As I mentioned earlier, this game is non-linear. You can turn your dragon around and go the whole way back to the start of the level, only to turn back around and go the other way. Problem is, every dragon, not just one or two, has an incredibly huge turning radius. What should be pretty instant and no larger than a quarter on the screen ends up being roughly the diameter of a softball, if not larger. So what? Well, this is fine on levels where I don’t need to really navigate through anything, but the problem is that there are a few levels where you do need to do this, and since you can’t stop and hover in place, you’ll end up getting hit quite a lot. But fine, you can figure that out and learn the best path. However, on bosses such as the fortress where you come upon walls that are so close together there is seriously no way in hell you can turn without striking them and losing half your life bar, DragonStrike ends up being a truly impossible game in every sense of the word without a single grain of exaggeration. This is even more true as the game proceeds further.

The fourth problem is that because of this huge turning radius, some of the bosses take way longer to destory than they need to because you have to make ridiculously huge passes, getting in no more than one or two shots each time, to make sure you hit them without getting struck yourself. The final boss for instance, is likely unbeatable because of this problem. I can’t tell for certain since I cheated, but based on how much I was getting hit even when I tried to pretend like I was playing it for real, it’s beyond doubt that no one has ever gotten this far in DragonStrike and completed it. To compound matters right before this, you have what is easily one of the most ridiculous and difficult levels in existence. For some reason the programmers decided to put you in this weird, black, empty level with blob-like walls and portals everywhere. Since you can’t tell where in the hell you are most of the time, going through this labyrinth to find five dragon heads to kill is simply uncalled for. Some of them are located in areas so small and cramped that it’s again literally impossible anyone would be able to do anything without striking the barriers and dying. This game just goes from what could be a great title to something so bad I don’t even feel like commenting anymore though I could, this should be enough.

As for creativity, I must give some credit here because the programmers did try to do something new, though it didn’t turn out well in the end. I would have preferred the original format to this, but what they did pull out is in fact pretty unique in the NES library. Right now I can’t think of a single game like this where you can actually move your character around in a non-linear format, so I have to give props for that. However, aside from this, DragonStrike is marred by poor presentation and construction overall, which is in fact part of this category in a way since in trying to do something new they had to program things differently, so I need to drop the score down.

Replay value? Ha, funny, I can enthusiastically tell you I will never be playing this game ever again for any reason. It’s so unbearable that even a short run of a few levels would bring to the surface the hours of pain I spent trying to play it for real. If you do try to, you at least have a password feature that enables you to come back years later, when perhaps your brain has forgotten that there is in reality no way you’re going to get anywhere. I doubt you’ll come back to this. As for game length, I suppose it’s pretty epic overall and the password feature adds to this, but considering the fact that some of the levels are duplicates or the same damn idea as earlier ones, just a million times harder, I have to say that DragonStrike is a bit too long and could have probably been cut in half to make it at least somewhat manageable.

Overall, I think any gamer or NES fan will have the same reaction I did when playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: DragonStrike. At first you’ll think, “Hey, this is a pretty good game.” And then, as you go further and further and get more and more frustrated will discover the same thing I did, this game presents well and then ends terribly, which makes for one of the worst experiences in video games. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy playing through games before reviewing them, because sometimes what appears to be classic ends up tormenting you beyond belief. There are various levels of suck in the 8-Bit era and beyond, but one of the worst cases of suck is the game that pulls you into its web, promising entertainment and seemingly offering it at first, to only wear you down with unnecessary toil and hardship. DragonStrike is an overwhelming disappointment when it comes down to it, and I can’t really say I recommend it to anyone.