Dragons of Flame
| Dragons of Flame | |
|---|---|
| Studio |
 US gold
|
| Publisher |
 SSI
|
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1989 |
| platform | Amiga , Amstrad CPC , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , FM Towns , MS-DOS , NES , PC-98 , ZX Spectrum |
| genre | Side scrolling action RPG |
| Subject | Dungeons and Dragons |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Keyboard , joystick , game controller |
| medium | Diskette , cartridge , datasette |
| language | English German |
| copy protection | Manual query |
Dragons of Flame one is side-scrolling - action role-playing game based on the world campaign Dragonlance of role-playing rules Advanced Dungeons & Dragons , which the British developer US Gold commissioned by Strategic Simulations, Inc. was developed. It is the successor to Heroes of the Lance and the second so-called Silver Box title. The game was first released in 1989 and appeared for the Amiga , Amstrad CPC , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , FM Towns , MS-DOS , NES , PC-98 and ZX Spectrum platforms .
Action and gameplay
Dragons of Flame continues the storyline of its predecessor and is an adaptation of the second Dragon Lance campaign module of the same name or the second half of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman , published in German as a dragon hunter ( Die Chronik der Drachenlanze , Volume 2 ). The heroes of the novel Raistlin Majere, Caramon Majere, Tanis Half-Elven (German: Tanis Halb-Elf), Goldmoon (Goldmond), Riverwind (river wind), Tasselhoff Burrfoot (Tolpan barefoot), Sturm Brightblade (Sturm Feuerklinge) and Flint Fireforge (Flint Feuerschmied) explore the dungeon of Pax Tharkas in the fight against the dark goddess Takhisis and in search of the sword Wyrmslayer. They also try to free the 800 people enslaved there. Their fight is directed primarily against Verminaard, a dark cleric who is in league with a red dragon.
The game principle corresponded to that of the predecessor and was only expanded in detail. The group size has been increased from eight to ten characters, which can be filled by two non-player characters such as the absent-minded magician Fizban the Fabulous (Eng .: Fizban the legendary). In addition to dungeons, the play area now also included the exploration of a surface world, which was presented from a bird's eye view and also showed roaming hordes of enemies, which you can avoid with appropriate control skills. During battles, the view changed to the familiar side-scroller perspective.
reception
In his Atari ST test report for Power Play , Michael Hengst criticized the fact that the player could only face the death of his group of heroes helplessly in too many situations because, for example, the reaction time to attacks was too short. He therefore only awarded a fun game rating of 42%. Torsten Blum from Aktueller Software Markt , on the other hand, expressed himself positively and awarded 7 out of 12 points for the Atari ST version in the test, praising the graphic representation and the challenge of the fights and mainly criticizing the confusion of the side-scrolling perspective. His colleague Eva Hoogh even awarded 9 out of 12 points for the C64 version, praised the fast loading times and the largely smooth scrolling, but criticized the acoustic background and the low-detail background graphics.
All Rausch von GameSpy described Dragons of Flame in its retrospective as no improvement over its predecessor and as unimpressive compared to other D&D titles.
"The dragon is running out of flames: tired continuation."
“All in all, DRAGON OF FLAME from SSI was simply fascinating to me. [...] Access is really worth it. "
successor
In 1991, US Gold's third Dragon Lance title followed with Shadow Sorcerer . As before with Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Flame, it was an implementation of the third and fourth official campaign module, which, however, had a significantly different gameplay compared to the first two.
Web links
- Dragons of Flame at MobyGames (English)
- Alan: Review: Dragons of Flame . (Article scan) In: Sinclair User . No. 125, July 1992, ISSN 0262-5458 , p. 43. Retrieved on March 29, 2007. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- Jon: Replay: Dragons of Flame . (Article scan) In: Your Sinclair . No. 78, June 1992, ISSN 0269-6983 , p. 74. Retrieved on March 29, 2007. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- Dragons of Flame . (Article scan) In: Your Sinclair . No. 58, October 1990, ISSN 0269-6983 , p. 82. Retrieved on March 29, 2007. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
Individual evidence
- ^ Andrew Park, Elliott Chin: Gamespot's History of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragons of Flame ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . Archived from the original on August 26, 1999. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ a b Michael Hengst : Dragons of Flame . (Article scan) In: Power Play . February 1990.
- ↑ a b Torsten Blum: Great . (Article scan) In: Current software market . January 1990.
- ↑ Eva Hoogh: Shadow Sorcerer . (Article scan) In: Current software market . November 1990.
- ↑ Allen Rausch: A History of D&D Video Games - Part I ( English ) In: GameSpy . News Corp. . August 15, 2004. Retrieved October 26, 2013.