Game: The King Of Dragons
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1991
The first of quite a few fantasy style Beat Em Ups on this collection, The King of Dragons also features RPG style leveling elements as well as the opportunity to upgrade weapons and shields. Able to accommodate up to three players simultaneously, the game has 5 different classes of character to choose from, all of which handle and attack differently; there's Elf, Wizard, Fighter, Cleric and Dwarf. It seems best to choose a class and stick with it, although you're allowed the option to swap at various stages throughout the game, you can attain a higher level by continuing to play as the same class.
Gameplay is as you'd usually expect from a beat 'em up; full of enemies and opportunities to collect score, as well as to level up. You work your way through a land which has been tormented by monsters, controlled by a dragon Gildiss, who is the final boss of the game. There are 16 stages, some very short and others seemingly endless, through different locations and terrain. The 5 classes of fighter are fairly evenly balanced, although at points, some do have an advantage over others.
Graphically the game is once again reminiscent of the 16 bit era, as it was produced during that time and was actually released on SNES in Japan and North America. The soundtrack is another strong point of the game, with an organ theme throughout, it suits the fantasy style well. The difficulty on this particular game doesn't seem to be as high as some of the others on the collection, although you'll still find yourself taking a lot of damage. Overall it's a highly playable bit of fantasy fun which never made its way to Europe for home console.
Rating: 74/100 Status: Completed
Grade: B Continues: 11
Game: Knights Of The Round
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1992
Strangely never released in Europe, Knights of the Round follows the story of King Arthur, Percival and Lancelot in their quest to restore peace to England. Another fantasy beat 'em up game, it plays fairly similiarly to The King Of Dragons and I'd wager that it uses the same game engine. As either of the 3 protagonists, players can fight their way through 7 stages, levelling up as they collect score.
A rather major flaw in the game is the amount of damage enemies can do. In regular beat 'em ups you'll find that your health bar is only seriously depleted by bosses or very powerful enemies, but that's not the case here. Anything up to a third of your health bar can be taken away in one hit by regular enemies, which makes dying a far more regular occurrence. Bosses are even worse, as they hit hardest of all and take 30-40 hits to get rid of.
The option to have 3 players is a welcome one, and the gameplay on the whole is good, if a little repetitive. The game wasn't that hard to complete with infinite continues, but I wouldn't have got very far without them. The graphics in game are very similar to that of The King Of Dragons and are even a little reminiscent of Golden Axe, so pretty much standard fantasy beat 'em up fare. Musically the game has some interesting pieces but nothing especially impressive.
Rating: 66/100 Status: Completed
Grade: C Continues: 31
Game: Last Duel
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1988
Last Duel is a space-shooter type game which seems to be too hard for it's own good. With an array of bullets, enemies and other obstacles on the screen, losing lives is inevitable and although the game doesn't play particularly fast, it's still very challenging to survive for even a minute under these conditions. There are shooting powerups and shields to be collected which can aid the player's survival but even so they're not of much use overall. The story of the game flashes up quickly before the title card, it's a generic space wars type plot as you'd expect.
The graphics are probably the most impressive part of the game, as they're rather advanced for 1988. There's not really any slowdown with multiple enemies and projectiles on the screen and levels have a nice range of backdrops and music in them. Overall if it had been a little easier, this game would have made a great arcade space shooter. Unfortunately losing a life every 5 seconds does take some of its appeal away.
Rating: 49/100 Status: Gave Up
Grade: D Continues: 52
Game: Magic Sword
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1990
Magic Sword is a 2D platforming type beat 'em up where you attempt to traverse 51 floors of a tower to reach the final boss. The player must collect keys to climb the floors of the tower, as well as to free prisoners, who will fight alongside him (although you're only allowed one at a time to do this). Not only is the game fairly difficult, the fact you're expected to complete 51 levels, however short they are makes it feel like a big undertaking.
The game itself is fairly simple, moving along either to the left or right of the screen, freeing prisoners and looking for the next flight of stairs up. Every now and then, there are boss battles which allow you to get a better sword. If you take damage, the hero will drop his sword and you'll have a very short amount of time to collect it before you're forced to use the next sword down (which can't be dropped).
The levels themselves can take anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes to complete depending on what's in them. The bosses are of a good difficulty and are fairly fun to fight, but regular enemies are weak and tend to swarm you so that it's hard not to take damage. The player is given a good amount of health to begin with, which is a bonus with a difficult game such as this.
The graphics and sound for the game are good and really help to shape the experience. It does however look a lot like the other fantasy beat 'em ups included on the collection, even if there are gameplay differences. Overall this has decent appeal, but I dislike the way it's laid out with 51 short levels to explore. I'd much rather have 10 or 15 longer ones, and even then that may be too much for this type of game.
Rating: 55/100 Status: Halfway
Grade: D Continues: 12
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Game: Mega Twins
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1990
If Cute 'Em Up is a genre with bright graphics and cartoon-like enemies that need shooting, consider this a Sweet 'Em Up. With most of the content of some of the earlier fantasy games, but in a bright cartoony world, Mega Twins is half Beat 'Em Up, half platformer. In a few ways it plays more smoothly than the other similar games featured on the collection. The objective is to make it though the air, land and sea worlds, through a castle and back out to defeat the final boss.
There's still a fair amount of difficulty to the game, despite the child-like graphics; bosses and stages require some strategy and quick thinking. It's less taxing than most of the games on the collection though, and somewhat more fun at times since you're not as harshly bombarded with things to avoid. The limited use special attacks work pretty well and are useful in tight situations.
The sound in the game lets it down somewhat; there's a really annoying noise that plays whenever you're below half health, and a lot of the other effects could be better. The graphics are nice despite their cartoon nature and the game is a whole lot brighter than the other fantasy games. The bosses and enemies are nicely designed and remain in line with the theme for the game as well as being cute and cartoon like.
Overall it's a game with fun parts which is fairly short and let down a little by it's music and sounds. There's good themeing and character design and it's one of the easiest games on the collection. It's a nice break from the more serious side of fantasy Beat Em Up and platforming games also.
Rating: 60/100 Status: Completed
Grade: D Continues: 18
Game: Quiz and Dragons
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1992
The last fantasy type game for this review and the penultimate one of the collection, Quiz and Dragons is a quiz game styled around the dungeons and dragons board game. The player rolls a die and moves to a square which represents an enemy which must be defeated. There's a certain number of points required to defeat the enemy, which can be achieved by correctly answering trivia questions. It's a strange concept for a quiz game, but also an intriguing one.
The graphics are fairly impressive yet somewhat wasted on this type of game; afterall there only really needs to be the text for questions and answers. Each character type has their own advantage whilst playing the game, my favourite one is the Amazonian's ability to have less options to answer from, thus making it easier to get a correct answer.
Where the game begins to feel flawed to me is first is its largely American bank of questions. As can be seen above, there's questions that people outside of the US will struggle to answer. Secondly some of the answers are even wrong or out of date (the second of which can be expected from old quiz games), so it's a little unfair on the player also. Added to the fact that quiz games aren't exactly the most exciting of things, it makes for a rather dull play experience, despite the D&D theming.
Rating: 38/100
Grade: E
Game: Side Arms
Console: Arcade
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 1986
There's been some pretty hard games on this compilation so far, especially the shooters which seem to have ridiculous amount of enemies and projectiles on screen at any given time. Let me introduce the hardest of the shooters so far; Side Arms. I'm pretty sure that the longest I went without taking damage in this game was around 10 seconds, it's incredibly enemy heavy; so much so that it'd be impossible without a great deal of continues.
As it is, even with infinite continues, you're damaged so often that it's hardly even fun to play. I'm aware that people have practiced hard enough to beat the game with just one continue, however an arcade game that kills new players after 5 seconds isn't going to make much money. As featured on the Capcom compilation with infinite continues, I'd much rather have turns longer than 10 seconds than a game I can feel proud of being good at, any day.
The game's graphics are great for the time, just another reason why it's disappointing that it's so hard. The boss design is another good feature, and the music is good also. There's really nothing that'll take your mind off the fact that you're dying every 7 seconds or so, however. Too difficult to get into, and not rewarding enough to spend time getting good at, this is a game I'd recommend avoiding.
Rating: 45/100 Status: Gave Up
Grade: D Continues: 50
Stay tuned for the last 7 games in the Capcom Classics Collection, so far I've used 294 continues across the 13 games (or around 882 lives). How much harder can it get?
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