Now I was never sure if the guy was riding the dragon or he became the dragon. I’m fussing since it’s called Dragon Spirit, he became the dragon. Well, it’s one of those save the princess plots again. Yay. This time from an evil demon. Yay.
If there is one thing you can’t take away from Dragon Spirit, it’s that it has an incredible first stage music. Years later, reflecting back at this game, I always remember being mesmerized by that music. The rest of the game has some fairly good music, but it never measured up.
This is one of those on rails overhead shooters where you shoot at creatures, bomb the ones at ground level and collect power ups. There’s these eggs you can bomb that gives you an extra head on the dragon. You can get a total of four heads. This increases your energy. There’s also flashing flying enemies that you can shoot to collect firepower. Your dragon can get insanely powerful. Unfortunately if you get hit, you can lose all that and the game gets insanely hard.
The game is made up of 9 areas. Some of them are pretty generic like the first two stages, but there are a few creative levels. There’s a stage in the desert where you see dinosaur bones on the ground. There’s also a stage in a cave that looks like your flying around teeth only to discover it opening and closing. There’s also your obligatory snow stage. Then the last couple stages in a big temple.
The ending is probably the weirdest. They lost all their games that came out in each year. Never seen a game end that way.
Dragon Spirit is an early title that’s a fairly decent shooter. The sound effects are a mixed bag. I love the sound effect when you die but everything else is fairly standard. The graphics aren’t too bad but the bosses are fairly big and detailed. If you’re powerful enough, you can take them down in a couple hits. Still, it’s an incredibly challenging game and if that’s what you like, give a try. It had a great first stage music, at least.