Dragon View (SNES emulator)
Nov. 26th, 2019 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroOur hero is probably a legendary descendant of somebody, but right now he’s mostly concerned about the evil wizard that kidnapped his girlfriend and might also usher in an era of unending darkness.
I’d never actually played this despite my childhood fascination with Drakkhan and similar weird jrpgs. The SNES version is different from the Genesis version that's now on Steam; and it seems to have more readily-available power-ups. Going off the path gets you a boomerang weapon that's useless against some random enemies (it only flies in a straight line, too high to hit short enemies) but the only real way to handle the first boss. There are also magic rings, special attacks and upgrades to both that are technically optional, but I don’t think you can actually beat the game without them because of the insane difficulty spikes.
How much this is a sequel to Drakkhen is debatable, as the only thing it really keeps from that game is the overworld map. (That first-person view generally looks good for the era, but handles mountains VERY poorly. I suspect that’s related to why the first game was on an island.) This is much more of a console game, with power-ups rather than new equipment, only a single character, and side-view beat-em-up action. (Oh, and and pseudo-3D platforming with bad jump physics and no edge gravity.) The plot is very loosely connected at Keire Temple, where you learn that four heroes confronted the dragon gods to save humanity and you're the descendant of their leader.
The dungeon design leaves a lot to be desired, as they only have a basic room design with a few setpieces (so everything looks identical), but they love running you in circles and knocking you back to the beginning of long loops via pits, quicksand, one-way doors and the like. And the way the damage/defense system is set up makes for some absurd difficulty spikes—if you aren’t a high enough level, which is always much higher than you’d need to reach that area—you only do 1 damage of any enemy’s 40 health. You can use your special attacks to do at least 10 (it drains your health) or your magic to do more (it’s severely limited by single-digit MP for most of the game). Which means that stopping to grind isn’t just an option, it’s mandatory. (Landing those 40 hits on the strong enemies isn’t happening—they’ll be attack you, of course, but also you have “contextual” high and low strikes that can’t keep track of which enemy you mean to target so they just miss everything.)
Overall: I made it as far as the Jade Mine, but at that point the difficulty spiked again and I couldn’t defeat the random monsters in the cave without draining all my resources in the second room. Given that you can tell how much I cared about the plot, I’m calling this one a loss.
I’d never actually played this despite my childhood fascination with Drakkhan and similar weird jrpgs. The SNES version is different from the Genesis version that's now on Steam; and it seems to have more readily-available power-ups. Going off the path gets you a boomerang weapon that's useless against some random enemies (it only flies in a straight line, too high to hit short enemies) but the only real way to handle the first boss. There are also magic rings, special attacks and upgrades to both that are technically optional, but I don’t think you can actually beat the game without them because of the insane difficulty spikes.
How much this is a sequel to Drakkhen is debatable, as the only thing it really keeps from that game is the overworld map. (That first-person view generally looks good for the era, but handles mountains VERY poorly. I suspect that’s related to why the first game was on an island.) This is much more of a console game, with power-ups rather than new equipment, only a single character, and side-view beat-em-up action. (Oh, and and pseudo-3D platforming with bad jump physics and no edge gravity.) The plot is very loosely connected at Keire Temple, where you learn that four heroes confronted the dragon gods to save humanity and you're the descendant of their leader.
The dungeon design leaves a lot to be desired, as they only have a basic room design with a few setpieces (so everything looks identical), but they love running you in circles and knocking you back to the beginning of long loops via pits, quicksand, one-way doors and the like. And the way the damage/defense system is set up makes for some absurd difficulty spikes—if you aren’t a high enough level, which is always much higher than you’d need to reach that area—you only do 1 damage of any enemy’s 40 health. You can use your special attacks to do at least 10 (it drains your health) or your magic to do more (it’s severely limited by single-digit MP for most of the game). Which means that stopping to grind isn’t just an option, it’s mandatory. (Landing those 40 hits on the strong enemies isn’t happening—they’ll be attack you, of course, but also you have “contextual” high and low strikes that can’t keep track of which enemy you mean to target so they just miss everything.)
Overall: I made it as far as the Jade Mine, but at that point the difficulty spiked again and I couldn’t defeat the random monsters in the cave without draining all my resources in the second room. Given that you can tell how much I cared about the plot, I’m calling this one a loss.
