Dragon Blaze (Arcade) | Retro Review
Platform: Arcade
Year: 2000
Developer: Psikyo
Publisher: Psikyo
I’ve always been fascinated by bullet-hell shooters. The sheer intensity of the enemy onslaughts and the lightning fast nimble reactions needed to survive them never fail to catch my attention. That said, my experience with this rather enthralling sub-genre is somewhat limited. When I try them, I often find myself overwhelmed by the barrage of bullets, and thus don’t tend to get all that far. The idea of a bullet-hell shooter that’s accessible for newcomers is something I find enticing. Imagine my joy when I found just that in Psikyo’s shoot-em-‘up Dragon Blaze, released to arcades in the year 2000.
Dragon Blaze takes place in a fantasy world full of magic, dragons and satanic turtle men (more on them in a bit). You play as one of four characters, each with their own attacks and draconic companion. The first character is Quaid (no relation to the Inner Space star) who rides upon the Fire Dragon. Second we have Sonia who rides the Aqua Dragon and is accompanied by two smaller dragons. Thirdly we have Rob the rider of the twin-headed Thunder Dragon. Last but not least we have Ian and his mount, the Skull Dragon. I really like how despite the fantasy setting the characters have really normal names. Quaid, Sonia, Rob and Ian sound like a group of mates you’d meet at the pub for a few cheeky beers and a go on the quiz machine.
The other characters must be jealous; Sonia gets three dragons!
Once you’ve chosen your character you are taken straight into the action. This game doesn’t hit you full on in the face from the off, it gently eases you into the chaos. Your attack starts off pretty weedy, but there are plenty of power-ups to be had to beef up your firepower. When things start to get a bit too heavy, you’ve got some bombs to help you out. These special attacks can help you clear the screen of baddies or aim one super-strong attack at a particular foe (depending on your chosen character). When you use these bombs, you also get some precious moments of invulnerability. Be sure to use these when the bosses go all out to stave off the grim reaper a little longer.
You can also dismount from your dragon. This leaves the dragon in one spot, acting as an indestructible turret while the human rider can fly around and concentrate on dodging enemy projectiles. This can really help on those large enemies; just leave your dragon in front of them to do all the hard work.
Those dragons seem to be handling it all fine. I’ll just chill back here for a bit.
The enemy designs are nice and varied taking on the forms of a myriad of horrible beasts and monsters. The main Big Bad of this adventure is none other than the Devil himself. Suprisingly though, the Devil’s grunts aren’t all demons and hellspawn, most of them are tortoise people. Yes, the satanic turtle men I spoke of earlier. Why these anthropomorphic terrapins have decided to dedicate their lives to the Dark Lord is not explained, but it’s a funny concept and I fully appreciate it.
DEVIL WORSHIPPING TORTOISE MEN! THEY HAVE A BIG ROBOT TOO!
Each level finishes with a pretty epic boss battle. The bosses are huge, well-animated and highly detailed. The boss battles always go through multiple different phases with completely different sprites to keep things interesting.
The game is quite a short one; the whole game only clocks in at around fifteen minutes. This is a quarter of an hour jam-packed with action. Once you’ve beaten the story, the game loops round with an increased difficulty to satisfy the hardcore shmup fans. If this isn’t enough for you, you can play through it again with the other characters to experience their battle styles and see how their stories play out.
The stories aren’t particularly deep or anything and they are only told by some awkward dialogue, but for a game that only lasts fifteen minutes, you can’t really expect an epic Hideo Kojima style tale of espionage and intrigue.
Help!
The big, juicy, succulent cherry on the cake here is that this game has simultaneous two-player co-op! If you have a friend who likes a good shmup, then this is definitely one you’ll want to team up together with.
In summary, this game is whole heap of fun and isn’t intimidating to bullet-hell virgins. It’s a short blast of action-packed fantasy-themed mayhem. The looping with increased difficulty and variety of characters do provided some much appreciated replay value. This game looks great and sounds great and is definitely one I’ll play again. [8/10]
I’ll just leave this here…
