🐲 Received: December 25th, 2011 🐲
🚀 Written: May 27th-June 11th, 2024 🚀
Disclaimer: might contain spoilers
Hello, gamers and readers alike, welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time to tune in today, I really appreciate it! 😀
Image from GameFAQs
Licensed, developed, compiled, and remastered by Digital Leisure (produced by company founders David Foster and Pual Gold, with Brian Kayfitz and Ryan Mason acting as artists and QA team comprised of Miguel Maglutac, Adam Watson, Colin Yanowicz, and Patric Kwok) with Destineer acting as publisher (with Peter Anthony Chiodo "Tony" acting as director of product development, produced by Matthew Haglund, with senior art director by David Stengel, graphic designed by Patrick Jannette, marketing managed by Cindy Swanson, Al Schilling acting as director of operations, manual and documentation by Jeanna Davis Chiodo, QA managed by Andrew Leaf, with Justin Holman and David Rogers providing certification leads), Dragon's Lair Trilogy would be released on the Nintendo Wii console on October 19th, 2010 as a North American exclusive.
Interestingly, when playing this compilation through the Nintendo Wii U console, despite the games proper being upscaled to HD (or rather the top and bottom of their screen resolution are matted out to create a widescreen affect; not quite 16:9 as it doesn't touch the left and right edges of the TV screen, but it's close), the title and game selection and options screen is otherwise presented in standard 4:3 format, which I find a bit strange 🤨
In the compilation Dragon's Lair Trilogy, you have a choice to play Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, and Space Ace respectively. Each title can be played with the Wiimote held a la the Nintendo 8-bit controller with the Control Pad on the left and the 2 button on the right being used to perform an action (in the menu it is pressed to select, with the 1 button to go back to the previous segment). If this is your first time playing these kinds of games, you can click the tutorial option to give you a pretty basic idea of how to play.The 1980's was the decade that spawned the LaserDisc interactive movie craze, as it was identified and documented as, but how did this movement start?
Screengrabbed while watching Old Classic Retro Gaming's video on YouTube
At the 20th Amusement Machine Show in Tokyo and at Chicago's Amusement Machine & Operators Association (AMOA) show, both held in 1982, Sega unveiled their arcade-formatted third-person space combat rail shooter in the form of Astron Belt. This was the first LaserDisc arcade game and was viewed as a technological marvel back when it was officially released in 1983, as it combined full motion video footage along with real-time 2D visuals. In native Japan it was a success as was the case in Europe but received lesser ratings upon its delayed North American release (distributor Bally Midway had done so to fix hardware and software bugs) for it got unfavorably compared to what had already come out in the region by that point. Nonetheless, a revolutionary movement had begun and other developers wanted to take a stab at this newfound genre.
Screengrabbed while watching hirudov2d's Arcade Longplay video on YouTube
Enter Rick Dyer, who founded the video game development company initially known as Advanced Microcomputer Systems in 1982 but soon changed its name to RDI (Rick Dyer Industries) Video Systems, which started off with the inaugural arcade game Zzyzzyxx. After having seen Sega's Astron Belt at the 1982 AMOA show, as well as being inspired by William Crothwer's 1976 PDP-10 text-based adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, Dyer conceived an idea for his firm's follow-up game which would serve as his contribution to the LaserDisc interactive arcade genre. This in turn gave rise to "The Fantasy Machine", Dyer's invention which went through a multitude of incarnations from a rudimentary paper tape-using computer to a system that manipulated a videodisc largely comprised of still images and narration, which he tried to market but alas his attempts were met with failure (apparently, an Ideal Toy Company executive walked out during the middle of a presentation). All hope seemed lost for Dyer, until he attended a screening for the
Screengrabbed image while on IMDb
latest animated film The Secret of NIMH, based on the late Robert C. O'Brien's 1971 novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which he was thoroughly impressed by and made him realize that the animation to his game concept needed to meet a high standard. He sought out its director Don Bluth and offered him and his team of animators a job to animate for the game, which they gladly accepted. Bluth was a former Disney animator, having begun his career as an in-between artist for 1959's Sleeping Beauty (for which he was left uncredited) but would contribute his talents to them again in the '70s with Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, and animated the dragon Elliott for the late Don Chaffey's Pete's Dragon. He and his band of animators left the company during the middle of production for The Fox and the Hound in 1979, heavily disagreeing with the late Wolfgang Reitherman's production ideas in adapting the late Daniel P. Mannix's respected and celebrated book to film format. By the time he worked on The Secret of NIMH Bluth
Screengrabbed still footage while on IMDb; RIP Olivia Newton-John
had already made a name for himself, directing animated short films The Small One and Banjo the Woodpile Cat, and provided the animation to ELO's "Don't Walk Away" sequence to Robert Greenwald's 1980 cult classic musical Xanadu. Originally conceived with the title "The Secret of the Woods", the first collaboration between Rick Dyer and animators Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, and John Pomeroy would eventually settle for the name
Left: What an iconic establishing shot of that oddly structured castle 🏰 | Right: Not today, snake!
In Dragon's Lair, you play as the valiant knight Dirk the Daring whose objective is to rescue and liberate Princess Daphne inside the wizard Mordroc's castle after being locked away by the evil dragon Singe. Because the game's narrative is predetermined to begin with thanks to it being completely animated, how you progress ahead is limited to a single option for the moment it occurs: the options being pressing up, pressing left, pressing right, pressing down, or pressing the action (2) button to use Dirk's sword. As you have no direct control of Dirk and shouldn't rely on loose playing to advance further, you need to wait for the proper time to utilize these controls. It's not just about performing the appropriate action but performing said appropriate action at the right time (oftentimes in sequential order). Depending on
Left: Swinging from burning rope to burning rope | Right: Dodging a roomful of traps and obstacles
the situation, the action you have to perform is at points fairly obvious but other times is hinted at or telegraphed with a briefly flashing object (like a door or an enemy or an appliance) right before you press the appropriate button. Do the wrong thing or mistime your action, however, and you'll lose a life therefore sending you back to the beginning of a segment--in this compilation, if you've chosen to play arcade mode then you'll be sent to the start of a random room after losing a life, but if you're playing the commonly released home edition you'll be sent back to the beginning of the current room you're at (and you'll be able to see every screen, even ones not readily accessed in arcade mode). Because hiring known celebrities didn't come cheap, when it came time to assign the voice cast of this game--with
Left: Studying the potion in his hand with mild suspicion, too bad Dirk ain't no alchemist | Right: That oozing splatter monster had no chance
one exception--Don Bluth handpicked some of own his staff in order to keep the production costs down: Dan Molina (who acted as assistant director to Bluth for The Secret of NIMH and his three LaserDisc interactive games, and would act as editor to Bluth's Space Ace, An American Tail, and The Land Before Time as well as beloved cult classic animated films Mark Dindal's Cats Don't Dance and Bibo and Don Paul's The Road to El Dorado) voices Dirk the Daring in one of his rare voice roles (he would also voice Fish Out of Water in Dindal's creatively compromised 2005 film Chicken Little, which Molina also edited) even if it is largely comprised of grunts and over-the-top gasps and screams, the late Vera Lanpher-Pacheco (who acted as assistant animator and animation clean-up supervisor to films by both
Left: Cutting those giddy goons in half with his sword | Right: Preparing to counter the attack of that evil statue come to life with his flaming hot sword
Bluth and Disney, she sadly passed away at the age of 66 in 2021, RIP) voices Princess Daphne (whose design, due to the limited resources at their stead, was influenced by photos Bluth's team saw from Playboy magazines), and animator Dave Spafford voices the lizard king (whose gibberish noises makes me wonder if Jonathan Aris' eerily similar Roger Red Ant voice in Argonaut Software's Croc 2/Croc Adventure could've been influenced by him possibly?). That exception was the late actor and radio personality Michael Rye who supplied the narration to the attract mode for all three of these games (retiring in 1997, he later died in 2012 at the age of 94, RIP) whose voice perfectly complemented the randomly selected animation clips formulating what at best can be described as a trailer generating excitement
Left: Running up against the grim reaper | Right: Being blown sideways by the strong burst of wind
(you even get to see a few animations not actually used when playing the game, like the cartoonishly surprised incredulous reaction of a giddy goon upon being sliced in half and the lizard king grinning menacingly as he's pounding his scepter on his palm before proceeding to chase after Dirk). The animation is high-caliber ('80s) movie quality and exquisitely articulated throughout (with timing so well thought-out that you can feel the weight of each character), which is no surprise given the director involved, with an incredible sense of aesthetic art design and effectively selected color palette. It's breathtaking to watch and behold in motion scenes of Dirk falling through the drawbridge fending off against tentacle monsters with eyeballs, swinging from flaming rope to flaming rope, dodging traps and being
Left: Gotta find a way out of this burning room | Right: Riding a mechanical horse, despite the danger fraught around it, looks like fun, actually 🐎
scared of a giant spider only to kill it with his sword (or be attacked by and relentlessly webbed by it upon failing to act), riding on a mechanical horse as you try to dodge walls and pillars and walls of fire, being surrounded by creepy crypt keepers, being chased by and eventually being forced to combat the lizard king, riding on a barrel-shaped raft down the rapids and navigating around whirlpools, culminating in Dirk officially meeting with Princess Daphne and engaging in battle with Singe. Failing to act accordingly does also result in some (occasionally humorous) well-animated scenes (but not to the point where it's super serious or dark, as it immediately cuts to the respawn screen before things become too graphic, which gets the point across perfectly without lingering on it for too long), like Dirk falling to
Left: "Save me!" | Right: Carefully timing the jumps around the continuously oncoming electrically charged floor magic conjured up by the robotic knight at the end of the hall
his doom (environ depending), being choked to death by the killer snake right after it slithers beneath his legs, crumbling to pieces along with the mechanical horse he's riding upon crashing toward a wall, being surrounded by a swarm of bats and bitten directly in the face by one, and being in the process of being burned alive. Composing the music is Christopher Stone (who became the youngest member of the ASCAP in 1965, having composed music for three movies by the time he was only 12 years old which is an insane achievement for someone who was only a preteen at that point in time; most animation enthusiasts and lovers, however, may recognize Stone as the composer to the Disney animated series TaleSpin), whose music is largely made up of the danger stingers and victory fanfares
Left: Surrounded by crypt keepers that must be disposed of | Right: Being chased around by the lizard king while Dirk is running to reclaim his sword which has been magnetized to the magically floating pot of gold 🦎👑
(with the almost exclusive reliance on sound effects making for an atmospheric LaserDisc game) but manages to create a thoroughly engaging action-packed piece at the end when Dirk fights against the dragon Singe combined with a heavenly melody once he meets with and releases Princess Daphne from her magical orb prison. I how expressive every character and monster is: Dirk has such amusing-looking scared and incredulous reactions to specific obstacles before immediately regaining his composure and determination when acting with
Left: Rowing off to the side and away from the whirlpool | Right: A rainbow colored half pipe with boulders rolling back and forth, what could this be leading up to?
precisely timed prompt (and he's got a smile that's almost as wide as his face at points), Princess Daphne is beautifully drawn and animated (setting aside her... fashion sense 😮) she appears poised and graceful and honestly doesn't act too bothered about being held captive (waking from her gentle sleep) as she witnesses and cheers for the valiant knight trying to subdue the dragon inhabiting this lair infested with gold, and Singe is imposing in terms of design and stature (it too has got well-drawn expressiveness on its face, like when it peers to the side when suspecting Dirk's presence and having a hellbent demeanor in
Left: We now watch Singe in its natural habitat, lying asleep on a large pile of gold with his equally large scaly tummy | Right: And when it's not sleeping, it peers to the side should it suspect any unwelcome guests in its lair
attempting to stop the knight from rescuing the captive princess) making for a good foil for Dirk to battle at the end. There are two different difficulty settings in this compilation, with easy not requiring as many actions to rely on whereas hard will give you more challenging scenarios and difficulty, and while home is the go-to mode for me (because I like seeing every room and scenario) I am happy that the option to play arcade mode exists as well. You even have the option to just watch the game without even having to play it, which is a nice bonus.
Left: Meet Princess Daphne | Right: Deflecting Singe's deadly flames with the newly procured magic sword which is the only thing that can kill it
There is a good amount trial and error involved when actually playing it, certain scenarios might take many attempts to fully get right, which might not appeal to everyone because of that (sometimes it will have you go through the same scenario again but with the screen horizontally flipped). I think Dragon's Lair is worth playing for the glorious Don Bluth animation throughout and is a very entertaining and appealing piece of video game history. 😃 Of the three games in Dragon's Lair Trilogy I'd say it's the least difficult one to play and is a fun game to play (or watch) for the roughly ten to twelve minutes it lasts.
After this game some of its key staff members who go on to work on other projects, such as gameplay designer Darlene Waddington who would go on to produce Disney licensed games during the late '80s and early '90s, and programmer Vince Lee who would go on to program
Left: Dodge the oncoming blasts by that blue musclebound space alien | Right: At random points you'll be given the prompt to energize Dexter to briefly revert back to being Space Ace
In Space Ace you take control of the heroic space adventurer Dexter, who'd much prefer to be referred to as "Ace", who must stop the musclebound blue villain Commander Borf from exacting his plan to use his newly created Infanto Ray to aim it at Earth thereby turning all its helpless inhabitants into infants. In his quest Dexter must also rescue his sidekick Kimberly who has been kidnapped by Borf, but making things a little more complicated is that the dashing hero had been partially hit by the Infanto Ray reverting him into an adolescent which is a real inconvenience, so he'll have to rely on his quick reflexes to get by. The controls, for when you're prompted at the appropriate time, are pressing up, pressing left, pressing right, pressing down, and pressing the action (2) button which depending on the
Left: This game has got beautifully animated explosions every now and then | Right: Getting past the crushers by properly timing Dexter's way across when it calls for it, fortunately at this state his thin and nimble enough to fit in the middle
situation will either have Dexter fire from his blaster or energize at random points to restore him to his former age and glory which only lasts for a brief period of time. Much as was the case in Dragon's Lair, you have no direct control of your character as the story is preordained due to it being animated in its entirety and what little control you do have must absolutely be performed with precise timing for one wrong move or mistimed action will cost you a life and send you back to the beginning of the nearest checkpoint. Some actions that you have to perform are readily apparent while others might be telegraphed by a brief flashing on a structure or on a surface right before you have to commit to it. Specifically for this game, there are moments you'll find yourself at a point that require you to choose where you want
Left: 🎵 Get me out of heeeeeeere 🎵 | Right: You can fly up at this part of the space maze or you can fly down
to go as sometimes there are multiple paths (like when you're navigating a vessel inside a space maze or must make a choice to enter one of the doorways); it's also possible to not energize when accorded the prompt, for the obstacles that Ace must overcome and Dexter must overcome will be different based on the choice you've made. And just as Dragon's Lair did before it, certain scenarios may have to be played through another time but with the screen horizontally flipped. Once again Don Bluth handpicked some of his animation staff to provide the voices for the characters in order to keep the costs down, except for the late Michael Rye who once more provides the voice for the attract mode narration: animator Jeff Etter voices the eponymous Space Ace with confident swagger and charisma (he's provided
Left: Caught up by that alien under the spotlight | Right: You know it's serious when Ace cracks his knuckles before committing mayhem against these alien foes
animation for many firms outside of just Bluth, and worked on the animation for licensed video games such as Virgin Games' Disney's Aladdin and Eurocom's Donald in Maui Mallard/Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow), Will Finn voices the younger adolescent incarnation Dexter (he too has got a lengthy list of animation work to his credit, he helped adapt The Secret of NIMH to the big screen as a writer, and would go on to direct animated box office failures Home on the Range and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, the latter of which Dirk the Daring's voice actor Dan Molina edited) in one of the only voice roles of his career (he would go on to voice Hollywood Fish in Chicken Little, for which the final product was not the movie Mark Dindal intended to make), Lorna Pomeroy-Cook voices Dexter's
Left: Trippy | Right: Robot soldiers blasting each other
friend and sidekick Kimberly (she specializes in animation and storyboard artistry, and she would go on to direct 2002's Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron), and last but not least director Don Bluth voices Commander Borf (due to him not having a very deep voice it had to be electronically altered to fit the imposing and muscly villain)--had it not been for the budget restraint, Bluth would've loved to have worked with the late Paul Shenar again (who voiced the villain Jenner in The Secret of NIMH, he died at the age of 53 in 1989, RIP) to voice this game's big bad whose deep thespian voice he felt was more befitting for the character than himself--who is a fun foil for the main hero to fight against and is having the time of his life trying to decimate his foe (the way he continues pressing buttons at his console with childlike
Left: Ace firing from his blaster | Right: Contending with sentient vacuum robots in a swamp-like environment
abandonment while laughing maniacally is genuinely endearing and amusing) plus he's got the propensity to taunt you if you've played wrong (his expressive facial reactions are amazingly drawn). 😆 Space Ace is a considerably more talkative game than Dragon's Lair was, as there is the occasional interplay between Dexter and Kimberly with witty dialogue (an example being adolescent Dexter querying his partner through a screen with genuine concern, "Kimberly, come in! Are you okay?", to which she sarcastically quips with bemusement, "Oh, sure. I've just been kidnapped by aliens, that's all!" 😒) and aliens announcing their arrival before you blast them to kingdom come. The game comes in three difficulty settings--cadet (easy), captain (normal), and ace (hard)--with the cadet difficulty
Left: Enemy POV shot | Right: Aerial dogfight
having you go through the least amount of screens and scenarios in order to reach the end while the ace difficulty requires that you go through most if not all of them in order to access its ending. Once again the animation is of a sublime quality, handled with assured direction by Don Bluth, that is effectively articulated both highly expressive with different parts of space serving as a nice backdrop for the action sequences (all viewed with a good sense of perspective). The contrast between Ace and Dexter is overt from the offset, with the former being all musclebound and competent in the face of adversity (taking the time to regard his muscles any time he energizes) whereas the latter is very nimble and slim in appearance but compensates for that with his small size and reasonably quick agility when danger arises, and
Left: Flying on a saucer inside a perpetually ongoing checker-patterned chute | Right: Blasting that giant monster alien's mouth so that it doesn't take a bite out of you
despite Kimberly falling in the damsel in distress category she does have a bit of agency about her with a clear take no BS attitude as she tries to keep her partner grounded and focused on the mission (especially later on when Ace flirts with and proposes going on a date with her after finally meeting up with her again) and their playful banter is honestly fun (especially when she initially rescinds Ace's offer to ride with her on the motorbike as she gracefully struts off with poise, "Thanks, I'll walk," before being pulled out of immediate danger). She does have respect for Ace/Dexter and knows he is fully capable of doing this mission, she just tells him to keep it down a peg when he starts becoming overconfident. There are plenty of neatly drawn explosions any time something is blasted, and I like the atmospheric color filter
Left: Beware your dark side, Ace | Right: For he can shapeshift and alter size at will
during certain key moments (such as the energizing sequences and during the brawl against Borf). Once again Christpher Stone supplies the music which perfectly complements every scene. Dragon's Lair scarcely had any music in it (except for the last chapter), but for Space Ace Stone extensively exercises his composition muscles to create something thoroughly engaging and action-packed throughout, especially with the recurring heroic title theme any time Dexter reverts back to his former musclebound self, even if it's only for a very brief
Left: Space biker patrol | Right: Performing a ramp jump over a pile of pink aliens
moment. There are even rotoscoped elements (i.e. traced animation with the goal to have realistic, lifelike motion) on occasion that are well-realized, such as the Star Pac spaceship that Dexter maneuvers, the motorcycle he rides later on that allows him to catch up with Kimberly who amusingly admonishes him for it ("Dexter, you're late!" 😠 Their playful banter is part of what makes me come back to Space Ace), and the tunnel during the dogfight
Left: Ace is a good multitasker, it seems, holding a conversation with Kimberly while driving the space motorbike and blasting aliens trying to climb on at the same time | Right: "I know we're being chased off by and are targeted by aliens left and right, but can we go out on a date once we're out of danger?" Kimberly's face says it all...
sequence also looks impressive when viewed in motion. Once more the animations for when you mistime your actions or do the wrong thing are well articulated, such as the Star Pac crashing against the wall during the space maze (humorously timed after Dexter gloats, "Haha, I win!"), Dexter's body melting into liquid from the bottom after standing under a deadly light, Ace and Kimberly riding the motorbike in heaven, the two being tickled silly
Left: About to blast the red moray eel | Right: "Which way, which way?"
after falling on a pool of literally fuzzballs, and near the end Ace and Kimberly look to the gamer with an annoyed look on their faces as they're being gently lowered into the boiling hot substance. How things wrap up at the end of this game is very bizarre and the implications
Left: Dexter reverting back to Ace one last time | Right: Fighting off against Commander Borf
are wild, to say the least. After besting Commander Borf in combat, the evil alien points the Infanto Ray at Ace who in the nick of time pushes the mirror therefore reflecting it towards Borf who becomes an infant. Kimberly congratulates her partner, is endeared at the sight of baby Borf whom she cradles in her arms and asks if they could keep him. 😧 Excuse me, what, she wants to adopt this megalomaniacal alien who tried to turn everyone into infants? It's as if she's instantly forgotten what this blue formerly adult alien was capable of. Also, who's to say that the effects would be long term and not temporary? Help!! 😟
Left: Kimberly and Ace looking onward | Right: "Baby!" 👶
But for as weird as the ending is if you stopped to think about it for too long, Space Ace is a very likable game that proves to be a little harder than Dragon's Lair and provides a fun action-packed sci-fi alternative to that fantasy title and is enjoyable to watch to the end. 😃
On Don Bluth's end, after Dragon's Lair had proven to be a success in 1983 work began almost immediately on its sequel which would take three years to completely animate. Sadly, it would not be released until eight years later, following the financial struggles of distributor Cinematronics who in 1984 tried to cut its own losses as well as froze fees and royalties of over $3 million to Bluth and company which led to bankruptcy (again). By this point Bluth had merged with the late traditional animation enthusiast and mergers and acquisition broker Morris Sullivan (who passed away in 2008 at the age of 91, RIP), who stepped in when Cinematronics' second bankruptcy was announced and helped Bluth out forming the firm that would be known as Sullivan Bluth Studios. Bluth's movie career would pick up again after Steven Spielberg approached him with an idea of a mouse family moving to America which would form the basis for An American Tail, which became a profitable success in 1986 becoming the highest grossing animated film at the time. Bluth would follow it up with The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven in 1988 and in 1989, the former of which (despite narrative compromises being made) was also a success that was well-regarded whereas the latter received a mixed reception (debuting on the same weekend as and being negatively compared to Disney's The Little Mermaid) and failed to generate the numbers his previous films made but would turn in a high profit on home video. 1989 was also the year that Sullivan Bluth Interactive Media would form, acting as supervisors for companies making home computer and console conversions of his interactive LaserDisc arcade games.
Left: "Aw, gee, I know my wife is missing and all, mom, but can't I at least stop to have breakfast first?" | Right: Princess Daphne's mother is a fierce force of nature
After Dirk the Daring rescued Princess Daphne in the first game, they got married and started a family, giving birth to twelve children (🤯 ... These two got busy!!! ...and intriguingly appear to not have aged a day... 🤔 Who knew the fountain of youth existed in this universe?). Assuming the role of Dirk once again in Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, the evil wizard Mordroc has taken his wife and you must set out to save her. Whilst being chased by his enraged pursuant Viking mother-in-law, Dirk returns to the castle he previously rescued Daphne from the first time and finds himself inside the deceased dragon Singe's lair where he stumbles upon a possessed yet well-versed time machine who informs the valiant knight that his wife is in danger and that said time machine's brother Mordroc has dastardly
Left: Getting acquainted with a talking time machine... For what reason would Singe have had to keep one in his lair to begin with? 🤔 | Right: Oh, well, if it helps getting Princess Daphne back... Meanwhile, nothing stops angry mother-in-law
plans for her once he places his death ring on her finger. Willing to save her at all costs, he must go through time to stop Mordroc and to bring her back. Controls are the same as the first game for when you're given the prompt or are required to do so with precise timing: press up, press left, press right, press down, and press the action (2) button to use Dirk's sword. What sets this game apart from the first Dragon's Lair and Space Ace is that, while the earlier two games were largely randomized in their order of scenarios, this game is completely linear in terms of narrative structure and scenarios. The late Michael Rye once again returns to provide the narration for its attract mode, Dan Molina and the late Vera Lanpher-Pacheco reprise their respective roles as Dirk the Daring and Princess Daphne, and
Left: Finally meeting the abductor of Dirk's wife | Right: Dirk holding his own up in the air, who would have thought he made for a competent flier of the sky? 🪽
for this installment Don Bluth hired a couple of new voices: the late prolific voice actor Hal Smith (who sadly died at the age of 77 in 1994, RIP) pretty much steals the game as he voices Dirk's mother-in-law, the time machine, Mordroc, the card soldiers, and the Cheshire Cat with an incredible sense of versatility in one of his only two acting gigs for a video game (the other being Viridis Corporation's posthumously released Phillips CD-i game Zelda's Adventure), and Will Finn makes a voice cameo as he once again lends his voice for Bluth as Eden's no-nonsense, easily irritated gatekeeper this time. Once more the animation equally is of a high standard, with colorfully and wildly imaginative direction by Bluth which are all effectively and masterfully edited by Fiona Trayler (who would go on to act as editor for the
Left: Ankle bite incoming | Right: Mission failed, we'll rescue her next time period
remainder of Bluth's filmography from Rock-a-Doodle to Titan A.E.). Here is a game that starts off with Dirk the Daring being chased off by his angry mother-in-law from his home who is vehemently displeased that Princess Daphne has been kidnapped again to the point that she actively wishes to hurt him, he finds himself returning on horseback to the castle he ventured in the first time reencountering some monsters he faced before (including the tentacle eye monsters by the drawbridge who cower in fear by the arrival of and ferocity of Dirk's pursuer, she is that big of a force of nature), he finds himself inside the dead dragon Singe's lair which has since been inhabited by a snake of blatantly Scottish heritage and lands on a time machine (which Singe just so happened to conveniently have, I guess we missed
Left: "Make way for the Queen, you see what I mean" | Right: Chasing Mordroc against the Red Queen's army of ace of heart cards ❤
that during the first game... 🤔) who greets and agrees to help the valiant knight in his quest to bring his wife back, Dirk travels through time by plugging the sword into the machine therefore activating it, he travels to prehistoric times where he meets Daphne's newest captor Mordroc and suddenly knows how to fly after donning a pair of feathery monster wings without any prior training while fighting squaring off against a legion of Pteranodons, then he follows Mordroc through the looking glass of Alice's humble abode, gets forced to dress like Alice (complete with a blonde wig with a blue skirt tied around him) by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum who get him in trouble with the Red Queen, rides up against her card soldiers whilst riding on a knight chess piece, must actively dodge the Mad Hatter and March Hare on
Left: This tea party has gone completely mad 🫖 | Right: In which the White Rabbit shows up just as everyone else has gone 🐇
top of a table (much of it brings to mind Disney's 1951 animated adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland in terms of color), must escape the pursuit of a gradually growing Jabberwocky with a severe case of halitosis emerging from a mouse hole, somehow gets on top of the head of the Cheshire Cat which sometimes duplicates itself (enough for you to jump from one head to another), uses the time machine to take him to the heavenly Garden of Eden where he's chased off by a large overweight Eve and must evade the cantankerous
Left: Beware the Jabberwocky | Right: "Let go of my antennas this instant, you irksome pissant!" 😠
gatekeeper, gets in the middle of a squabble with two snakes (one highly intelligent one who views Dirk as "the key to fame and fortune", and the other which thinks more with its mouth than its brain) under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (where a mustachioed Adam is sleeping on a branch), is unwittingly given an apple by the smart snake (who appears to be romantically interested in Eve) which Eve soon picks up and takes a bite out of, resulting in the garden plunging down from the heavens which is then overrun by a terrible gust of wind,
Left: Dirk passing through a squadron of cherubs and Eden's gatekeeper 👼 | Right: "Mmmm, yum yum!" 😋
the next time Dirk uses the time machine he finds himself in the year 1808 where Ludwig van Beethoven is playing his Fate Symphony on a grand piano as his cat is chasing a smaller-sized Dirk, must hang on to the piano as it soars up to the sky thanks to Beethoven's creative gust until he's up in the heavens and the composer briefly flashes his fancy piano key-themed garment while wearing equally anachronistic sunglasses, acts as a conductor for all the flying symphonic instruments that Dirk must jump from one to another while simultaneously
Left: Caught in the middle of a squabble between two snake brothers | Right: Welp, Eden's gone straight to hell just now 😬
avoiding the clutches of that darn cat in a sequence that would not be out of place in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia. 😵💫 What? Is happening? At any point?? During this game??? 😵💫 How did we go from a property that was pretty much standard fantasy fare to this? Dragon's Lair II is such a bizarre and unusual production even for Don Bluth standards, you can't
Left: Beethoven enters the scene | Right: And his hungry cat fishes for Dirk inside the beer stein
quite make sense of it all, it all feels like some weird fever dream. But what a fascinatingly drawn and fantastically animated fever dream it is, you can't quite look away. Like with Space Ace before it, composer Christopher Stone expands his composition muscles further by creating different pieces of music for each chapter: silly hijinks music is ironically and
Left: I literally have no idea what is happening anymore, but I am all for this visual tour de force! | Right: Psychedelic fever dream
hilariously juxtaposed with Dirk being chased off by his mother-in-law, Stone creates a brooding action theme for the prehistory chapter, the Lewis Carroll Alice chapter is full of whimsical music, there's an epic rendition of Beethoven's famous symphony, the ancient pyramid theme has got an appropriately atmospheric Egyptian flair, and there's a lovely melody for when Dirk and Daphne are finally reunited. There are new animations for when
Left: Piano key teeth visual gag 🎹 | Right: "Mrow?" 😕
you mistime or misuse an action, ranging from comedically lighthearted and silly (e.g. having house appliances tossed toward Dirk to the point that he covers his privates, falling with an over the top scream, holding his breath before being sunk in the water, being clubbed in the head with hearts hovering over his head as his eyes roll around, cartoonishly having his face chip away after being hit, turning into the joker card upon falling on a playing card, being
Left: Located Princess Daphne in ancient Egypt | Right: What an ingeniously thought out visual, with the statue's head melting from the top downward
tickled silly by the cherubs all around him, falling on a patch of flowers and succumbing to the pollen all over him) to surprisingly gruesome (e.g. the Cheshire Cat that Dirk rides on crashing on a tree followed by its bloodied head sliding down with the eyeballs falling down at a delayed point as they briefly leave the eye sockets, a bolt of lightning striking through
Left: Ugh, don't you just hate it when ancient mummies conflate a completely bandaged woman for another of their kind? It's quite the inconvenience... 😒 but then we wouldn't have a game without it, so... | Right: Oh, that Mordroc, what a prankster! 🙃
Dirk, being surrounded by acidic smoke that his entire body and what looks like his heart behind the rib cage melting off leaving behind a skeleton--that last one really makes one wonder how the infamously deleted acid melt scene from Richard Rich and the late Ted Berman's 1985 animated Disney film The Black Cauldron based on the late Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain would've looked like had it not been removed altogether). 💀
Despite seeing Princess Daphne have the death ring inserted on her finger (which explains how she still winds up a sleeping beauty even here), she inexplicably disappears during this altered set of events
If you've managed to acquire all eleven golden items in the director's cut, the penultimate chapter will play out in an easier manner than in the normal arcade mode as Dirk successfully slings the death ring toward Mordroc's finger who becomes bloated to death without you having to fend off against a monstrous and possessed Daphne as well. Failure to arrive with all the golden items beforehand will have you loop through the game again until you collect the missing pieces of the puzzle in order to access this alternate scenario.
Left: As Princess Daphne reverts back to normal, Mordroc receives a taste of his own medicine | Right: My favorite animated Don Bluth kissing scene next to the one shared by Anya and Dimitri in Anastasia, it just looks very intimidate and loving 🥰
For a game that amounted to essentially being a holdover from the '80s (largely due to circumstances beyond Don Bluth and company's control), the 1991-released Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp is very appealing and enjoyable nonetheless even during its overly surreal and highly nonsensical moments. 😃 It might debatably be the hardest of these three interactive LaserDisc titles in the compilation to play, but the payoff at the end is so worth it in my opinion. The game can be watched (but only the arcade mode), but my go-to game mode for Dragon's Lair II is the director's cut which must be played (I love seeing these extra animations of Dirk seemingly bending time to pick up golden items). Not quite as nonlinear in structure as its precursor before it, but I found this follow-up to be satisfying.
For the longest time there have been attempts to adapt Dragon's Lair into movie format, but they never quite got off the ground. At one point multi-talented author and writer Alan Dean Foster* was attached to write the story but lack of interest from other studios prevented the movie from being made during the '80s, and during the mid-2010's Don Bluth and Gary Goldman managed to secure enough crowdfunding to produce an animation pitch and teaser for what would've been Dragon's Lair in feature-length animated movie format, it would've expanded on the story of Dirk the Daring and Princess Daphne plus it would've been the first movie to come from Bluth since Titan A.E. failed to light the box office in 2000. Sadly, we will never see this incarnation come to fruition, as years later plans would change to convert it into a live action Netflix film instead with Ryan Reynolds attached as producer and potentially as Dirk, but there's been no further development since it got announced.
* Outside of working on original stories, Foster has also adapted many a screenplay to novelization format such as John Carpenter's Dark Star and The Thing and Starman, the Alien movie trilogy and Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, the late Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture (based on his story treatment) and the J. J. Abrams movies, the late Peter Yates' Krull, Nick Castle's The Last Starfighter, the first two Michael Bay Transformers movies, and Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Like a lot people I think it would be wonderful for Don Bluth to make a comeback as he hasn't done a movie for roughly a quarter of a century, he directed iconic classics that we've grown up watching in one form or another. Many have remarked that Bluth was at his peak during the '80s, but the '90s hadn't treated him as kindly: Rock-a-Doodle, Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park, and The Pebble and the Penguin were beset by production woes and were box office failures (the last one got released without a director's credit, which is never a good sign; one could stop to admire the animation and be impressed by the number of voice talents involved, but what undid them was the quality of the story which critics and to some extent audiences felt failed to deliver). The one bright spot during this decade was his Fox Animation Studios' inaugural movie Anastasia in 1997, which was the first Bluth film to be received positively in almost ten years and proved to be a success (Hank Azaria's albino bat character was popular enough to receive his own made for TV spinoff film Bartok the Magnificent). Things were starting to look good for Bluth once more, but then production problems reared their ugly heads again (with massive layoffs) for the next movie Titan A.E. which came out in 2000 to mixed reviews and badly underperformed at the box office (losing $100 million for 20th Century Fox resulting in the closure of Fox Animation Studios only ten days after it came out). Bluth would have the odd line of work here and there, like providing animation for Scissor Sisters' "Mary" music video (dedicated to their late friend Mary Hanlon) in 2004, but as far as movies were concerned his directing days were numbered.
I first learned of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace on the internet during the early 2000's, but what struck me was that the screenshots I saw were neither of a pixelated nor a polygonal 3D game but was completely drawn like something animated for a movie or a television series. I had no idea what to expect based on the static screenshots, but they seemed to be well-revered during their arcade days while their home conversions all appeared to vary in quality. Upon learning that these games would be available together on Dragon's Lair Trilogy on the Nintendo Wii, I decided to ask for it among other video games for my Christmas list in 2011. What a golden opportunity to experience these games for the first time after years of knowing about them, and Digital Leisure did not disappoint. 👍
These games act like precursors to the modern day quick time event genre that would come in the future for there is a trial and error element that I'm sure might not do it for everybody and I guess some would write these games off solely because of that. These games are worth playing, in my opinion, to witness the glorious Don Bluth quality animation in motion, these are beautiful marvels to behold and are all time capsules for the decade they were made. The visual presentation is very good, and the games all run with a smooth sense of flow (even after pausing during the middle). These three classics are all fascinating in their own right:
I like, too, that each game has different options in this compilation for you can decide to play the game or you can simply watch it (with each title lasting roughly ten to twelve minutes), you can alter the difficulty setting, choose to play each title with a limited set of lives or an infinite amount of them, and when it comes to the action prompts you could decide to disable them in the options to play these interactive LaserDisc titles au naturel (as they were initially built) or you can enable the compilation-specific prompts with the arrows and respective action icons briefly popping up during the specific action scenes. You can even input your three initials after actively playing through the games in question.
I suppose if I do have any quibbles about Dragon's Lair Trilogy, even though it's not a total game-breaker, it would have to be the lack of special content such as behind the scenes notes and video interviews by Don Bluth and company regarding their involvement in these games as well as their personal insights behind the making of the Dragon's Lair games and Space Ace. Oh, well, I guess you can't have it all. What we do have, however, are three historic arcade treasures compiled into one game disc. They've been rereleased so many times over the years, individually or all together, but I could not have chosen a better spot to finally quench my curiosity for these titles than on the Nintendo Wii, finding them both fun to play and fun to watch. 😄 Plus they're directed by an animation legend! 🤩 What's not to love?
My Personal Score: 9.0/10
● Even though I knew Space Ace's villain name full well ahead of doing the review, I've made a few Freudian slips and referred to Commander Borf as "Borg" a few times before I realized my mistake during the middle of writing this review and fixed them. 😩 To be fair, they are very similar-sounding names.
Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW is allowed); hope you have a great day, be a kind human, and take care! 😃
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment