Getting today's entries up bright and early!
#35 – Dragon's Lair
(45 Points) 4 of 18 Lists - Highest Ranking - #9 - Monty
Dragon's Lair: The fantasy adventure where you become a valiant knight, on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. You control the actions of a daring adventurer, finding his way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the Dragon's Lair. Lead on, adventurer. Your quest awaits!
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Release Date: June 19, 1983
Just the facts/Stuff I wiki'd:Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by an ex-Disney animator Don Bluth.
At this time, most other games of the era represented the character as a sprite, which consisted of a series of bitmaps displayed in succession. However, due to hardware limitations of the era, artists were greatly restricted in the detail they could achieve using that technique; the resolution, framerate, and number of frames were severely constrained. Dragon's Lair overcame those limitations by tapping into the vast storage potential of the laserdisc, but imposed other limitations on the actual gameplay. The game's enormous contrast with other arcade games of the time created a sensation when it appeared, and was played so heavily that many machines often broke due to the strain of overuse. It was also arguably the most successful game on this medium and is aggressively sought after by collectors.
The success of the game sparked numerous home ports, sequels and related games. In the 21st century it has been repackaged in a number of formats (such as for the iPhone) as a "retro" or historic game.
It is currently one of only three video games (to include Pong and Pac-Man) on permanent display at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Dragon's Lair features the hero, Dirk the Daring, attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe, who has locked Princess Daphne in the foul wizard Mordroc's castle. The screen shows animated cutscenes, and the player executes an action by selecting a direction or pressing the sword button with correct timing, requiring the player to memorize each scenario in order to clear each quick time event. The comedy aspects of the game stemmed not only from the bizarre looking creatures and humorous death scenes, but also the fact that while Dirk was a skilled knight, he was somewhat clumsy in his efforts, as well as being a reluctant hero, prone to shrieking and reacting in horror to the various dangers he encounters.
Pak's Thoughts: Dragon's Lair represented what I had always wanted video games to be in my head as a kid. It was a playable cartoon. It might not have been extremely interactive, but the memorization-based play and the awesome animations for both success and failure made sure this game would devour my tokens every time. I actually beat this one when I finally got it for my PC, but the arcade version was harder because it would randomize the scenes, and you'd have a WarioWare-Like moment where you had to quickly remember which one it was and what you were supposed to do.