|
|
|
|
天聖龍
Aicom Corporation
Release: 1990-12-21 (¥7200)
HuCard (4 Mbits) AC90001
Shooter / Horizontal
|
Tenseiryu Saint Dragon is a horizontal shooter and conversion of Jaleco's arcade
game originally released in 1989. Evil cyborgs have taken over the world and they are
now heading for the legendary Planet of the Golden Dragon. In a desperate effort,
a mechanical dragon embarks on a long, treacherous journey to stop the
invasion. The player takes control of the multi-segmented robotic dragon - its
head is the only vulnerable part of its body and its long metallic tail is formed
of indestructible rings. This feature is at the core of the gameplay and the player
must always find the right balance of motion and use the dragon's body as a shield.
Although the dragon starts with a fairly powerful fire attack, additional weapons
can be collected along the way, such as Ring Lasers (L), Bouncing Lasers (B)
and Directional Lasers (T). It is also equipped with blue fire bolts that can
be upgraded throughout the game. Saint Dragon consists of six long
stages and is single-player only.
|
Saint Dragon was originally an arcade game released
by Jaleco in 1989 (picture on the left). The PC Engine
version tested here was apparently the only console conversion and
the game was curiously only ported to home computers - Sinclair ZX Spectrum(1990), Amstard
CPC (1990), Commodore C64 (1990), Commodore Amiga (1990),
Atari ST (1990) and MSX (1990).
This PC Engine post shows various differences with the original
arcade game. The parallax scrolling is gone and various enemies didn't
make the cut. The planet/space background from the fifth stage was also
replaced by a simple black backdrop with moving stars.
|
Game Staff (copied from the end credits) :
|
IKEHATA
KANNO
OUMORI
|
KATOH
TAKAYAMA
TOMATON
|
MIZUYANI
DIRTY
MYOOO
|
|
O
M
A
K
E
|
|
|
|
|
Click on picture to enlarge |
S
E
C
R
E
T
S
|
|
Invincibility:
At the title screen, press and hold Up and then reset the console. You can
now start a new game and you will be invincible. However, although you can't receive
any damage, you also can't collect any power-ups.
|
|
|
|
|
|
LK
|
|
Add your Pov here !
|
P
O
V
s
|
|
Saint Dragon for the PC Engine is a good conversion but it is still a
really average game. The graphics are fairly nice and detailed, and
some enemy sprites are incredibly large and impressive (the first boss
is jaw dropping). But the 'wow' moments don't really last long...
Although the first level is very unique and imaginative,
the ones that follow are plain boring, with constant waves of annoying
enemies and appalling music with a couple of good things sprinkled here
and there. It feels like the development team spent most
of their energy on the first level and didn't bother trying to
keep the rest of the game even afloat (the last boss is, to my taste, just a joke).
However, to be fair, I feel the same applied to the original arcade game.
This port is also brutally difficult and
the checkpoints murderous - the arcade game's difficulty, I feel, is
better balanced.
Finally, the sound effects, in my opinion, are a disaster - not really because
of their quality (they are somehow correct), but because they are incredibly loud
and completely ruin the music track. The dragon's fire is definitively the
worst offender. All in all, Saint Dragon is a missed opportunity,
it is a correct conversion but it needed more polish and ends up being
a below average game.
|
|
|
|
