Castle of Dragon
System: NES
Release Date: June 1990
Developer: Athena
Publisher: SETA
Genre: Action
Save a princess from the Castle of Dragon. Boy oh boy, was I in for a terrible time with this one. It started out and I thought I may have stumbled upon something alright, but that was quickly pulled away from me. There’s a terrible framing story about a dragon kidnapping a princess and it being up to you to save her.
Levels are incredibly short in Castle of Dragon. You walk ahead a few steps, duck to avoid or block some flying enemies, then fight a character in one on one battle. Hack away with your sword by pressing the A Button. Avoid their attacks the best you can. Jump over them if you must with the B Button. As you play, you’ll earn throwing knives and a mace that you can switch among with the Start Button. The mace seems to hit enemies multiple times if you get a good swing in, but it also randomly hurts you when you swing it.
Some enemies drop neat powerups, like a sonic slash or lightning bolts, but they disappear too quickly. Hopefully you find some armor to give you an extra life bar. Killing certain enemies earns experience which extends your life bar. Making it to the castle has you choose from four levels to complete in order to find the relics you need to defeat the dragon. Boss battles are incredibly annoying, requiring you to figure out the exact pattern necessary.
If you die, it’s game over, start from the beginning. This is not a good enough game to warrant that, so save states were used liberally. Button presses are often ignored because of the massive slowdown present. If you accidentally enter the final boss’s chamber before you collect all four relics, it’s and instant game over. After you collect the relics, and figure out just to walk into your mirror image, you fight the evil Darklarza. If you’re off a hair from the hit box, you get hit and can’t defeat him. It took me over a dozen tries before I finally got a good run, killing him and saving the princess. Then I rewound, held up, left, Start, Select, A and B and the princess lost her top. Dumb.
Graphics: 1.0
What would have been adequate graphics are hampered by disappearing sprites, projectiles that flicker mostly out of view, and slowdown that I expect from a shoot ‘em up.
Sound: 1.5
I got irritated with the music and sound effects before all was said and done.
Gameplay: 0.5
Controls are a true pain. The slowdown causes inputs to be missed, hit boxes make no sense, and the shield is worthless.
Difficulty: 0.5
The awfulness of the gameplay makes many of these levels an absolute chore. No extra lives was an unforgivable design choice.
Fun Factor: 0.0
Terribly unfun.
Overall Grade: 0.7
Castle of Dragon earns a D-. What started promising ended as a complete and utter suckfest.