King of Dragons

SNES

Capcom - 1994

Okay, Capcom! Cast your spell!

Okay, Dungeon Master, My spell of Gaming blinds me to homework.

The player did not detect the poisinous King of Dragons trap and I declare them out twenty bucks.

NO NOT KING OF DRAGONS! NO, NO! I’M GOING TO DIEE!! Don’t make me play the game. Somebody save me. Please, you can’t do this!

Player, get out of here. You’re POOR. You don’t exist anymore.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re not playing King of Dragons right now. If so, I would really like to know how you read and play videogames simultaneously. Have you had extra arms implanted? Mind control, perhaps.

King of Dragons works exactly like other, more fun games, but takes extra care to suck. It takes pleasure in blowing just a tiny bit more than other games. It wears it’s badge of mediocrity like the highest honor and needlessly points it out at parties. In fact, I think I heard it say that you look fat. But you didn’t hear that from me.

Why why why why why why?!! Come to think of it, this game has the exact same format as Knights of the Round. Wait a minute – these two games were realeased in the same year even. Both by Capcom. Wow. They’re the same game. The only difference is that King of Dragons likes to pretend that it’s 1st ed. Dungeons and Dragons. Not that I really know much about 1st edition D&D, but The tired intrustion of boring fantasy staples like wizards and treasure plus elf and dwarf classes brings it to mind.

It’s a pretty standard side-scroller. There are evil looking orc people and dragons etc. You may kill them all in various ways. Whether by the kill everything button or simple hacking and/or slashing, you must progress through the extremely short stages to the extremely obnoxious bosses.

But the thing that pisses me off more than anything about King of Dragons is the half-assed Dragon oriented plot. I’m really tired of the one-size fits all “Oh, dear it’s a dragon, please get rid of it” plot. Much like Sunset Riders, The game is generic enough that plot is unnecessary, even cumbersome. I guess all I’m saying is enough already with the killing of dragons. Enough.

What liked: Huh. I like . . . swords?

What disliked: D&D ripoff. This is some crap.

What to expect: standard Capcom fare, but without the usual flair. Yoinking of 1st Edition D&D.

What not to expect: Capcom at its best.

What's so different from this and other games of it's genre: Absolutely Nothing at all.

Ratings on:

Control: 5 (Well, it works.)

Graphics: 3 (Not so great. Pretty standard.)

Sound: 2 (Is that the sound of orcs dying or a motor revving?)

Style: 2 (It’s a D&D ripoff, and a pretty flat one at that.)

Difficulty: 4 (Moderately difficult. But that stems mostly from your relative inability to do what you want to do.)

Post intro: 3 (What? Oh. I guess it’s Dragonslaying again. Sigh.)

1st hour: 2 (Look, an orc. Die you dragon.)

2nd hour: 1 (I am being punished by God.)

The End of you Life: 0 (I wasted precious time on King of Dragons. And Crack-Whores. Why?!)

#1 reason why I hate this game: It exists. My soul hurts.

Freeohio doesn’t want to be elfstar anymore. He wants to be Debbie.