Dragon's Lair 3D Review

In the early-2000s, my cousin bought me a peculiar video game. I got stuck on the fourth level then returned to it a few years later, only to get stuck even further into the game when I discovered the solution to it was entirely linear. I tried finding a clue to beating the game in a children's book, seriously, then after a few more years I sacked up and revisited the game (well, after watching a let's play of it), and I not only beat it, but I beat it multiple times since. Obviously I'm talking about Dragon's Lair 3D.

I reviewed this ages ago, but I want to try it again.

You probably never played it, but chances are you've heard of it. Dragon's Lair was a revolutionary arcade game. How revolutionary? It was one of, if not THE first arcade games to make use of full-motion video and interactive animated cutscenes. How could anyone resist that? It turned out so well that it got put on display at the Smithsonian Institute in D.C., which given the impact it had on the market as well as showing how anyone could go above and beyond with arcade games which would later affect the home console market, as well as the fact that this came out in the 80s... I think that was the right call.

Given the success of this game, follow-ups would ensue. A sequel came out that found its way to multiple consoles at the time (along with the first but that's to be expected since FMV games were popular for the period.) There was also an NES game which shot itself in the foot with its slow movement and how easy it was to die, as well as a Game Boy Color recreation of the first, which was actually pretty cool for the fact that it replicated the arcade game to the finest detail.

In 2002, Dragon's Lair's most ambitious follow up graced the sixth generation of gaming. A full-blown adventure game where you get to decide where you want to go, what you want to do (as long as you remember you have to do stuff to progress.) and it's in 3D. You're probably thinking that this game was pawned up to some third-rate developer and shat out to make that all-important dollar. But no, some of the people involved with the original arcade game were very involved with the game. Don Bluth even directed some new animated sequences for it, and if he's involved, the game will certainly be above average.

It was developed by Dragonstone Software, a company who's only point in existing was to develop the game. To my knowledge it's a branch of Dragon's Lair's holding company, and given the company's elusively and how in spirit the game is to the predecessors, I think it's about accurate. The publishing for this game is a mess. Ubisoft is credited as the prime publisher for its American releases while THQ handled the game's European ones. It's typically the other way around since Ubisoft is a European company. The copy I own is published by Encore, who to my knowledge is a work-for-hire publisher for budget games and was owned by a company that once owned Funimation.

Another interesting tidbit is that this game uses the Genesis3D engine, which within the same year was used for the PC shooting game Ethnic Cleansing. Guess what that- It's by the National Alliance. Yeah.

Plot

Par the course with other Dragon's Lair games, you take the role of Dirk the Daring. A bumbling relative-mute who sets out to find Princess Daphne, the fair maiden (who's rocking a leotard with a stocking skirt that used to be there in the original but not anymore. Too late to keep this from feminists that give feminism a bad name. Daphne is held prisoner by Singe the Dragon, a herald to the old bastard Mordroc, and Dirk must set out to find her within a castle. Simple enough. What I just said holds the most bearing throughout the game, and beyond an encounter with Dirk's alter-ego which doesn't hold much bearing on the core of the plot beyond an extremely subtle hint that the Daphne talking to Dirk is a trap, it really doesn't need that much depth.

Gameplay

As mentioned before, it plays like a typical plat-former. It's very linear, with only singular solutions to problems and not much motivation to go any other path. There's a right way, and a million wrong ways. If you decide to explore, you could find treasures, which include gold, chalices, diamonds and crowns. At first I thought they were only there for something bogus, but it turns out that if you get a certain amount (and it's a tall number.) you could unlock cheats. They're not necessary to the game and by the time you beat the game a couple of times, it's doubtful you'd need the cheats because as far as I know, they don't effect the cosmetics of the game, they just make it a bit easier, seems to exist solely to make speed running much more possible. You could also collect potions that up your energy and containers that could increase the size of your health and magic meters. Other times you find little orbs that are left behind by enemies or are out in the open. Limited result rates apply. You also have unlimited lives, and checkpoints appear whenever you enter specific rooms. Plus you could restart from your last checkpoint by selecting it in the pause menu if you want an immediate do-over.

You travel through familiar areas and some dull ones too, including the famous rope-swinging scene. Along the way, you get more powers to help you on your journey, coming about after fights with the bosses, aka familiar faces from the games. Beat the Robot Knight by hitting him after going to opposing sides of the room while avoiding electrified patches on the floor and you get the dragon's ring, which is the first instance you get a mana bar. Mana is used for magical powers, i.e., a necessity if you're nearly fucked in combat or need to get somewhere out of your reach. It's at this point you get to the crossroads, and you gradually build up your magic powers.

Anyway, with the dragon's ring, you get your first magic power, a charged attack that allows you some distance when enemies gang up on you. This eats away at your mana the longer you charge it, so use it sparingly unless you could find more. This is followed by a series of corridors where you have to ring bells to open the doors and traverse a series of moving platforms, later to take on the Bat King. Next you traverse the falling platforms room, right after the famous elevator scene in the arcade game and you'll get the Dragon's wing, a major necessity that grants you the ability to fly, while allowing you to cushion the impact to a long fall.

With this, you get to go to a corridor who's bridge is completely destroyed, and given what's ahead it's easy to see why. It leads to a four-level area, the crypt. You face crypt creeps, ghosts with skulls for heads, one-eyed pigs and those aren't even the most horrifying to me. It's those damn spiders. You have tiny spiders hidden by the darkness that grab your face and drain your health. I take it Don Bluth's a huge Ridley Scott fan. But then they have giant spiders, and with the way the animation goes in the game and the fact you rarely see their faces, it's a creepy sight to behold. I'm a bit arachnophobic if you can't tell. Along the way you get your second practical weapon, a crossbow, and after another showdown with the Crypt Creep, just a matter of shooting him and guessing which coffin he's hiding in, you get the Dragon's spirit, aka a health regenerator, aka something you may use the most often if you know the right places to get mana.

You reach the final corridor, and there's no going back. In this room, the Impossible Room, you traverse through a semi-surreal area where doorways could lead you anywhere and put you upside down even. I surprisingly figured this out and only got stuck in a level after this one. You have about four ways to go, the castle sewers where you get fire arrows to inflict more damage and blow through explosive barrels (which I admittedly got stuck on) and then you fight a sea monster (the eye of it anyways) and you get the Dragon's eye, allowing you to see through fake walls. Then, you get the key to a room where the Lizard King is hiding. It has a pot of gold that steals your weapons, bear with me, and upon defeating him, you get the key to face Singe. Upon beating him, you get a magic sword that only really comes to play in the more heated portions of the game and you fight Dirk's alter-ego. You get the dragon's skin, which makes you fire-proof, ergo, able to go through the final exit in the Impossible Room. You're taken to what may be a representation of hell, or somewhere well below the earth's crust. Be quick about it it though, because your fire-proof coating could only last so long.

You make it through hell, only to be faced with an even greater demon once you leave the volcanic landscape, a giant spider in full-view. Admittedly, I ran up a nearby stairway and went back down a bit to shoot it with a crossbow. What the fuck's wrong with me? Some more exploration later, you face your next boss, a Smithee Knight, where you get your final mana-based weapon, the Dragon's flame, allowing you to set your sword on fire to attack enemies faster. It is there that you open up a hidden passage to an even greater nightmare, a pitch-black walkway that has giant spiders waiting for you at every turn. The giant spiderweb on the door that opens was a warning, who knew? Two entry ways exist, one that's but two jumps away from the final. You traverse through more landmark scenes from the arcade game along the way and you face the Thorn Master, in a fight reminiscent of another Dragon's Lair scene (this applies for every boss fight evidentially), and with it, you get the key to the last room and a magic arrow that could kill enemies within one hit, but you could only get one so use it wisely, as in for the very end.

Your final challenge is an endurance round, where the only way you could progress is if you kill baby dragons that are more difficult to fight than previous ones. Then it all concludes with an even grander fuck you, where you have a lot of shit to dodge before the end. Next level you have to fight enemies while the floor breaks beneath you to build another floor. After that you have to run to the other side while avoiding portions of the floor that fade away and nerf your progress. Then it's your second greatest challenge yet, move mana cells (keys to opening most doors FYI) to the other side of the room, with minimal walking speed, and it's there that you face Mordroc.

There're two rounds, one where you deflect certain attacks and then use the magic arrow to land some hits. Then you face Mordroc as a dragon and you use your sword to knock most attacks back at him, then run to him and hit him directly. Do that a couple of times, and your reward is a bog-standard ending where everyone gets a happy ending, even Mordroc who lands a free tap on Daphne's ass. This, followed by a bizarre closing credits sequence ends the game on a moderate note. I'm not one who desires fancy endings to video games, so I'll take it as is.

Graphics

This is one of the few games to make use of cel-shaded graphics. While this is common in games centered around cartoons, it makes sense that this game utilizes it too since it's based on an arcade game that's a controllable cartoon. The cel-shading seems to apply more to the characters though, as the remainder of the game has a typical-rendered look to it. This doesn't lead to style-clashings however, because even the 3D environments compliment the gameplay, and Dirk fits right in. The character movement may look messy at times and yeah, the graphics barely hold up nowadays, but given that I've yet to find when development began, and since this was barely a year into the sixth generation of gaming, and that this game hardly looks as if it was re-edited from a fifth-generation game, I'd say some corners had to be cut. Also, they were using an engine that was primarily used for old-hat PC games. Plus you'd have to account for a fact that key people involved with the game likely had no experience in game development.

Control
This may be the first game I ever played where you use "Y" to jump. I'm serious. Surprisingly, this was never an issue for me and I adapted to it almost instantly, and son of a bitch, this game has a lot of moments that require quick jumping. "A" is used though, for your sword. Maybe this is a subtle node to how the NES Dragon's Lair game used "B" to jump, then for its international releases used Up to jump?

Extras

Not into the gameplay? Well there're a lot of bonuses to keep you interested. If you go into the extra's menu, you could not only watch the opening and closing cutscenes, but you could also watch a trilogy of behind the scenes videos detailing the making of the game. The Bink Video credit isn't for nothing (it's used for video rendering FYI.) There's also a prologue with crude representations of key characters, but that's second fiddle to the closing credits. During the credits, we get a music video, with a song performed by the voice of Daphne. The song sounds like your typical early-2000s song, complete with rapping, which one of the developers told her to do. Set along to this so-so jam is looped footage of the enemies moving, simulating dancing.

Here it is for you curious cats, along with an idea on how the game looks.

Music

While I'm going over key portions of the game, how does the music stack up? Well, it fits the mood perfectly, it's well conducted and tracks chosen for key levels fit them like a sock. They were REALLY desperate to make this game good that they focus obsessively on all key facets.

Overall

For all the effort they put into making Dragon's Lair relevant again, it wasn't in vein. Having the involvement of key people in the arcade game helped the 3D game lots. All graphical choices didn't downplay the core essence of the arcade game, "Y" being the jump button isn't a dealbreaker and you could adjust to it within time, it feels rewarding every time you complete a level no matter how hard it may be, references to scenes from the arcade game are affectionate and aren't out of place and you know what? I had fun playing it back then. The ending may not be entirely worth it if you struggled to get to the end or got stuck a long time ago and was unprepared for the game's further challenge, but you could see the commitment and effort the developers put into the game. It goes beyond the hapless cash-in and the poor attempts at making a classic property relevant again, it could be considered a great game both for the series it belongs to, and on its own merits too.

One last thing before I leave off, this game was apparently so popular that a developer behind another Dragon's Lair game made an edit of this game for DVD, where it plays like the arcade game. It's just a recording of the gameplay of Dragon's Lair 3D, and obviously people hated it. It exists...