Dragon's Lair HD Review

Dragon’s Lair HD is a game for the serious nostalgia buff. If you know of the game then it needs no introduction. If you’re unfamiliar with it then more than likely it’s not for you. The novelty of “playing a cartoon” has worn off in the nearly quarter century since the game first appeared in arcades and the gameplay itself just hasn’t stood up to the test of time.

To those of you new to the game, Dragon’s Lair involves watching short video scenes play out on the screen. At certain points an action will be required on your part which involves using one of the four arrow keys to move in a direction or an action key (in this case the spacebar) to do things like swing your sword. You’ll know that you’ve reached an action point because a part of the screen will blink and you’ll hear a noise like a ding. Press the right key at the right time and scene will continue or you’ll move on to the next scene. Miss your cue and you’ll see a death animation (every mistake is always fatal) and you’ll come back to life at the start of a new scene. The gameplay boils down to an exercise in trial and error and once you figure out which key to press and when it’s all rote memorization. This leads to a game that’s frustrating at first and then boring after.

This version of Dragon’s Lair has been remastered for HD and 5.1 sound, which makes it look and sound good although it still will appear as a 2D hand-animated cartoon. For gameplay graphics you have to give the edge to today’s game’s computer generated 3D graphics over hand-drawn cells.

Dragon’s Lair HD features a few other things that you don’t have in the last version of the game that you bought. You can adjust the time required for you to hit a button in the game, which is a godsend to those frustrated to death by the game’s default requirement of near split-second timing. You can also watch the game as a movie, with or without the death scenes in-between. The best part of this feature is that it shows you areas of the game that you may never reach if you get too bored or frustrated with the gameplay. On the downside the disjoint nature of the scenes means that it doesn’t play well on its own as a movie and overall it is surprisingly short. Because of this it’s not something that you’ll be sitting down to watch over and over again.

Dragon’s Lair’s gameplay just hasn’t aged very well. I can always jump into a quick game of Asteroids or Galaga, but playing Dragon’s Lair over and over again just doesn’t have the same appeal. This one is best left to the game’s true fans and collectors.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 57%.  Dragon’s Lair HD is not likely to appeal to anyone who is not already a lifelong aficionado of the game.