In Dragon's Lair, you play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon!
Space Ace will have you take control of Ace - Defender of justice, truth, and the planet Earth! Ace is being attacked by the evil Commander Borf. Strug...
In Dragon's Lair, you play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon!
Space Ace will have you take control of Ace - Defender of justice, truth, and the planet Earth! Ace is being attacked by the evil Commander Borf. Struggle with Dexter to regain his manhood. Destroy the Infanto-Ray. Defeat the evil Borf! Be valiant space warrior, the fate of Earth is in your hands!
Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp once again has you leading Dirk on a perilous quest! Spirited away to a wrinkle in time by the evil wizard Mordroc, Princess Daphne will be forced to marry the wicked Mordroc unless Dirk can save her. Once the casket of doom has opened, Mordroc will place the death ring upon Daphne’s finger in marriage, and she will be lost forever in the Time Warp.
Dragon's layer games are essentially cartoons that you push buttons to watch. The whole game is a quick time event. From the point where the cartoon starts your job is to press buttons that correspond with the onscreen prompts. The longer you keep this going the more the movie will play without interruption. If you make a mistake you'll see a death animation typically of your character getting eaten or something and then you start from the last checkpoint.
Checkpoints are plentiful but this is based on an arcade game so it's quite difficult.
In short, it's a movie you push button to watch and isn't for everyone. Just know what you're getting into when you buy this.
Dragon's Lair is a masterpiece. Space Ace, from what I have seen, is equally fantastic. Dragon's Lair 2 is too fast-paced for me, but regarded as good, too.
This port, which is identical to the Steam version, is horrible:
- Space Ace is unplayable after a few minutes. I push the fire button at the correct timing, but I'm stuck in a specific scene (when these green monsters chase me) and die everytime. The "Energize" function never words correctly, as other players here have confirmed.
- The menu is an abomination (ported from mobile??). I have never seen worse mouse support. I don't want to use the mouse, but keyboard or controller in the menu is even worse.
- Awful translation full of errors (German, someone wrote the same for Italian), it seems from automatic translation. I want to choose English, but it's not possible. You get the language of your PC.
- Original was in 4:3, now it's only widescreen. Other players stated that the top and bottom are cut off, therefore part of the picture is missing.
So sad, this should not be sold. Play these great games, but not this unworthy port. I guess MAME is the best choice.
I'm not sure why the core game gets so much hate. The graphics are amazing even today, with film-quality animation. The plot, sounds, etc. are all amazing as well. I hate QTEs, and so having never played this before I wasn't sure what to expect. But it turns out that the gameplay is one of the best parts of this for me, it actually feels like you are "playing" a cartoon! I mean, just like every other game, the buttons you press control Dirk's character. It's true it's a little more "on rails" than other games, as often (but not always!) there is only one correct thing to do in each setting. But the choices always make sense in context, and if you choose wrong you are shown why that wouldn't have worked. As you play the game, you really feel like you are getting more skilled at anticipating what needs to be done to respond to various threats.
Just PLEASE disable the move guide when starting a new game. I'm not sure why that is even an option as it removes basically all of the challenge!
I love these games, so why not five stars? Simply put, the current release is riddled with bugs that ruin the experience. There are far too many to list here, but one of the most annoying is a bug that resets almost all your settings after you quit the game. So, want to play as intended, without a move guide? You better be prepared to finish it all in one sitting. Even worse, Space Ace is completely broken. It completely freezes to a black screen halfway through, and neither GOG support or Digital Leisure have been able to help fix this problem. The number of severe bugs this game has is ridiculous given how simple the programming should be, and it's the only reason this version is not at all worth your $20.
PS Avoid the "director's cut" in Dragon's Lair II, it is broken and instead of adding to the experience, it removes the climax of the story!
This game was one of the most beloved arcade games in the 80's. People would literally line up 20+ deep at the machine waiting their turn.
I cant even count how many quarters I pumped into this game.
This is a classic that everyone must try. It did so much to push the game envelope of its time.
This is an actual skill game requiring timing, reflexes, and extreme hand-eye coordination. I cant wait to play again!
I finished all three of these games in the arcades (god knows how much money I spent) and have played various verions of them from the terrible C64 version to the too slow to play CD-ROM versions. Here's my thoughts:
TL:DR: These are quick-time Disney-esque 80s-style cartoons. Yellow flashes during the scenes indicate what movment or action you need to perform. A flash to the left of the screen means you should hit left. A flash on your sword means you should use the action button. Timing on the quicktime input is razor thin leading to a lot of dying and having to start over from the begining. Finishing the games requires a lot of trial and error and memorization.
That said the games are a lot of fun to watch with great characters, animation, sound and music.
Dragons Lair: Game started the laser disc game craze in the 80s. This looked like unlike anything at the time. So was the 50 cent or $1 cost per play. You guide Dirk the Daring through a castle to rescue the princess Daphane. The game is broken up in to small scenes leading up to the confrontation with the dragon. You do get a sense of accomplishment completing some of the longer sequences and of course completing the game.
Space Ace: My favorite of the bunch. You play Dexter who at certain times during the game can turn in to ass kicker Space Ace. The scenes play in order so the game plays out more like a movie.
The improvement they made was that you have some minor additonal choices. You don't always have to turn in to Space Ace right away. If you don't scenes will extend a bit more or play out differently.
The ending to this one is also my favorite.
Dragons Lair II: Similar to Space Ace in that scenes play in order but there is no additonal choices. In order to compete the game you do have to spot and grab objects during your playthrough. Scenes are a lot longer in this game. If you die you have start again. The game is more difficult to complete. But worth it. My second favorite of the bunch,
