Let’s Compare ( Dragon Spirit )

Video Locations:

Reviews 0:26
Arcade 1:27
ZX Spectrum 4:56
Amstrad 8:27
MS DOS 11:56
Commodore 64 14:48
NES ( Sequel ) 18:18
MSX2 21:53
Amiga 24:21
Atari ST 27:52
Turbografx 16 31:22
Sharp X68000 34:52
Playstation 38:26
PS2, Xbox, Game Cube, Windows 41:55
Xbox 360 / PS3 45:25 / 47:10

Description Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Spirit

Dragon Spirit is a 1987 vertical-scrolling shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco. In North America, it was distributed by Atari Games. Controlling the dragon Amul, the player must complete each of the game’s nine areas to rescue the princess Alicia from the demon Zawell. Similar to Namco’s own Xevious, Amul has a projectile weapon for destroying air-based enemies and a bomb for destroying ground enemies. It ran on the Namco System 1 arcade board.

Music for the game was composed by Shinji Hosoe and designed by “Tatsuya”. Hosoe, previously a graphics artist for Namco, was allowed to work on the music himself due to most of the company’s composers working on Genpei Toma Den, however much of his work was accidentally wiped from the hardware midway through development and forced him to start over. Tatsuya previously created character artwork for Rolling Thunder, being assigned to the project after taking interest in the enemy designs. The game was dedicated to Shouichi Fukatani, a Namco programmer who had died a few years earlier in 1985 and worked on many of the company’s older games, such as Dig Dug and Super Pac-Man.[2]

The game was ported to several home systems, including the Sharp X68000, Atari ST and TurboGrafx-16, and is included in several Namco video game compilations. The arcade version of Dragon Spirit was met with positive reviews from critics for standing out amongst other shooter games, being praised for its Paleozoic setting, graphics and soundtrack. Home versions were met with a more mixed reception, being criticized for its high difficulty and inferior graphics and music. It was followed by two sequels, Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (1988) and Dragon Saber (1990). A ShiftyLook webcomic adaptation of the game was also produced.

Gameplay:

Dragon Spirit is a vertical-scrolling shooter video game. The player controls the dragon Amul in his effort to rescue the princess Alicia from the serpent demon Zawell. Amul can move in eight directions and has access to two weapons; a flame projectile to destroy air-based enemies, and a bomb to destroy ground-stationed enemies, similar to Namco’s Xevious series. Amur can take two hits before dying, indicated by a life bar at the bottom-left of the screen. Amur can use bombs to destroy eggs found on the ground of some stages, which will award one of two powerup items; a blue orb that will give Amul an extra head, granting him additional firepower, or an orange orb that will strengthen Amul’s shots when three are collected.

The game features nine stages, which include large rivers, volcanoes, glaciers and jungles. Dying halfway through a stage will star the player at a checkpoint. At the end of each stage is a boss that Amul must fight in order to progress to the next stage. Amul can sometimes find special orbs throughout the game that can grant him additional abilities, such as a homing shot, a multi-shot, and the ability to shrink down in size to evade bullets. The game’s opening cutscene shows Amur atop a mountain raising his sword in the air, with lightning striking it and transforming him into his dragon form.