Dragon's Lair: The Legend

Dragon's Lair: The Legend
Developers	MotiveTime Group Sullivan Bluth Interactive Media
Publishers	CSG Imagesoft, Inc. (US) Ubisoft (US) Epic/Sony Records (JP) Elite Systems (PAL)
Platforms	Nintendo Game Boy
Series	Dragon's Lair
Release date	US: 1990-1991?
Genre(s)	Platformer
Audio	Mark Cooksey (uncredited)

Dragon's Lair: The Legend is a side-scrolling platform video game developed by MotiveTime Group and released exclusively for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1991 (or late 1990 in North America, by some reports). In North America, it was published originally by CSG Imagesoft and later by Ubisoft, and international versions were published by Elite Systems and Epic/Sony Records for Europe and Japan, respectively. Unlike the other Dragon's Lair platformers, it does not adapt the plot from the original arcade game but centers around a quest to collect magical Life Stones. The game itself is actually a port of the game Roller Coasterwith the graphics reworked into a Dragon's Lair aesthetic as well as making Dirk the main character. In Japan, the release was simply titled Dragon's Lair.

Story

Synopsis from the game's manual:

Dirk the Daring held the maid's limp and lifeless body gently in his arms, as he surveyed the carnage of the bloody battle scene. With the last gasps of her dying breath, Princess Daphne's loyal servant had told Dirk the horrible tale of their undoing. It seemed a traitor in their ranks had informed the evil Mordroc that the princess' caravan was carrying the mythical Life Stone, an ancient artifact rumored to give its owner limitless power and eternal life. His barbaric army had ambushed the Princess' helpless band, mercilessly slaying all but the beautiful Princess whom they had taken into captivity. Fortunately, before the attack, the maid had used her limited powers to shatter the Life Stone into hundreds of pieces and scatter them throughout the land. Dirk knew what he must now do, though he did not relish the task. The Life Stone must be reassembled before Princess Daphne could be rescued from Mordroc's evil clutches!

The game ends on a cliffhanger with the main storyline unresolved. Dirk never confronts Mordroc nor any other final boss and never even rescues Daphne. Once Dirk has collected all the Life Stones he is able awaken The Dormant Knight (named “The Good Knight” in the manual) which immediately ends the game and displays the following text:

Well Done! You have succeeded in awakening The Dormant Knight. Together you can face the evil of Mordroc's power.

Another time. . . . Another place. . .

The End.

Development

Sullivan Bluth Interactive Media (SBIM), a subsidiary of Sullivan Bluth Studios, partnered with MovieTime to develop games for Nintendo's home and portable consoles. At the time of development, the Sullivan Bluth studio was headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and MovieTime was located in Walsall, England, with SBIM and CSG Imagesoft both headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Imagesoft was owned by Tokyo-based Columbia-Sony Group, which published the Japanese release. This same network of studios also simultaneously developed Dragon's Lair (NES)

Dragon's Lair: The Legend was also an early working title for an unsuccessful attempt by Bluth to adapt the franchise into a feature film, and the game shares a few elements with the pitch presentation, such as a legendary Knight whom Dirk must find in order to resist Mordroc's dark magic. Several of the film pitch's story ideas may have been incorporated into the Game Boy release.

Gameplay

Unlike most platform spin-off in the series, Dirk is unable to use any form of weapon and is only capable of jumping from one platform to the next. The player can use either A or B to jump and use the D-Pad to move Dirk in any direction. The Start button pauses and the Select button resets the game if on the pause menu.

The goal of the game is to collect all 194 pieces of the shattered Life Stone while avoiding dangerous spike pits, toxic waters and rail tracks scattered across the game world. There are no enemies or bosses that Dirk must defeat and anything aside from the aforementioned hazards are platforms Dirk uses to advance. The game does not show Dirk's health, number of lives, or any number of fragments that he has collected on his quest. Only through dying in the game is the player shown the progress made.

Areas

The game world includes a total of 14 distinct land areas:

• The Outer Forest
• Troll Village
• Troll Mines
• Valley of the Sphinx
• The Cells
• Slave Mines
• Temple Ruins
• Cemetery
• Petrified Forest
• Crypt
• Dead Lake
• Desolate Peaks
• Evil Mountain
  

Regional Differences

Gameplay changes generally make the PAL release more forgiving in difficulty compared to the North American version.

• In the NA version, falling from 2/3 screen height will result in a death. However the damage can be cancelled if Dirk grabs a fragment of the Life Stone, transitions to a new screen or land on a moving platform. The PAL version does not penalize the player with loss of life for most falls.
• The game starts with 10 lives and no continues. In the PAL version of the game, an extra life is awarded for every 42 fragments collected but the amount of 10 is never exceeded.
• In the NA version, holding down an action button will make Dirk jump continuously as opposed to the PAL version where holding it will only make him jump once.
• In “The Cells” area, there is a large gap between a mine cart and the beginning of rail tracks in the PAL version. However in other versions, the cart is placed at the far edge of the track which could result in the player having to move the cart before actually boarding it.

Reception

A feature in Game Players magazine praised the game's developers for developing an impressive game around the unique nature of the handheld system while also pushing the perceived limits of the Game Boy hardware with a one megabyte cartridge (reported to be the same size as the NES version) with only one unused byte. Stephen Poole praised the developers skillful use of shading to create the sensation of color and depth for a monochrome display screen, concluding "[it] shows just how much can be accomplished on the Game Boy. It proves that the future of hand-held gaming is promising indeed."

Electronic Gaming Monthly showcased the game with some strategies in its February, 1991 issue, noting “this game requires superb timing, technique and strategy. Nintendo Power also praised the game's technical prowess with a feature that declared "some of the best graphics for Game Boy yet and super challenging action." The magazine’s Power Meter rated the game 3.9/5 on graphics, 2.8/5 on play control, 3.2/5 on challenge, and 3.3/5 on theme and fun.

Reception of the PAL version was decidedly mixed among reviewers for European Nintendo-focused magazine N-Force. An unimpressed "ACE" scored the game at 65% overall after admitting being disappointed with the handheld offering after playing the "breathtaking" SNES release, lamenting “unbearably flickery and blurred” graphics and reserving unqualified praise solely for the "noble Arthurian melodies" in the soundtrack. On the other hand, "SHADES" scored the game at 84% overall and was impressed with Elite's work in updating the Spectrum-based Roller Coaster game for Nintendo's handheld. The magazine assessed the game with an overall 74% FORCE rating, describing it as "A serious but ultimately frustrating challenge." The FORCE rating was curiously lower than all awarded percentage scores (ranging between 80%-85%) of the game's measurable aspects, suggesting the final product was less than the sum of its parts.

Trivia

• Contrary to the box art and the manual's story, Dirk is the franchise’s only recurring character that appears in-game, although Mordroc is referenced in the congratulatory end game screen.
• The box art for this game uses the same art for the original arcade poster along with the Dragon's Lair video games on the NES and SNES (with a variation on the background).
• The game’s only scoring system is a simple tally of collected Life Stones, and the default high-score “Hall of Fame” lists the names: Mark, Percy, Moooo, Daphnie, Dirk, Tom, Dick, and Harry.
• The game's manual included a mail-in promotion for a mystery prize for players who assembled both halves of the "Double Challenge Medallion" found in the booklets accompanying Dragon's Lair: The Legend and the NES Dragon's Lair game.

• Elite Systems utilized the franchise license again for their 1993 Game Boy release Franky, Joe & Dirk: On the Tiles.

External Links

• US Game Manual at InternetArchive.org
• Game Boy Database: DRAGON'S LAIR THE LEGEND (SULLIVAN BLUTH PRESENTS) FAH-1 (20914)

Gallery

Japan Packaging (Cover)

Japan Packaging (Rear)

References

	Video Games	[view]
Arcade Coin-Op Cinematronics: Dragon's Lair · Space Ace Leland Corporation: Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Home Computer COLECO: Dragon's Lair Software Projects: Dragon's Lair · Dragon's Lair Part II: Escape from Singe's Castle ReadySoft: Dragon's Lair · Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle · Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp · Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread · Space Ace · Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge
Home Console & Handheld MotiveTime: Dragon's Lair (NES) · Dragon's Lair: The Legend · Dragon's Lair (SNES) Oxford Digital Enterprises: Space Ace (SNES) Dragonstone Software: Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair Digital Leisure: Dragon's Lair Trilogy Other: Franky, Joe & Dirk: On the Tiles · Dragon's Lair (GBC)
DVD & PC CD-ROM Digital Leisure: Dragon's Lair III