Dragon Egg! is a 2D platformer where you jump and attack enemies as you make your way through linear stages. You start off only being able to hit enemies up close with the dragon egg, but you can find fire orbs dropped by dead enemies. When you collect enough of them, the egg hatches and the dragon will breathe fire from a distance. Grabbing more orbs causes the dragon to grow up, gradually increasing the range of your attacks and even giving you a slight hover at the highest level. The game also has a currency system and stores, which can provide additional fire orb power-ups and other useful tools.
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I was hoping for a fun little game for the PC Engine but god this was such a disappointment. I feel like lately I’ve been playing or been wanting to play games from the company Masaya. This was another one of those though I wasn’t aware their name was on this. I was a little wary considering the reviews on this one and sadly, I can’t defend this one.
You play as a girl named Eran as you take the last Dragon egg left in the world as you’re off to defeat the bad guy. There are six stages and there’s a boss in each. The concept of Dragon Egg! is a neat one. You start with just Eran but you can get these orbs to hatch the egg and to eventually let it be fully grown. Sadly it’s very simplistic and doesn’t even allow for other orbs or anything to spice up the gameplay. The platforming and stuff is pretty basic too. There’s a shop to buy items or upgrades for your dragon. It all seems to be going fine until you reach stage 3.
The third stage is a maze stage and I kind of groaned at the thought of it but it surprisingly felt fast to get through and I was already at the boss. Was kind of shocked but maybe I just got lucky. I then got on this raft stage, saw the end of the waterfall and it went to a boss. I was like “Huh? Was that a secret?” I rewinded out of curiosity if I found a secret boss but no that’s really the end! It’s such a short level. It feels like less than a minute. Then the next level is also short with barely any level design and I start to realize because of all the easy upgrades to buy, bosses are a joke too. Even the last level isn’t all that interesting and the final boss is easy too. I was in disbelief that was really the whole game and had a big frown on my face.
I can’t even compliment the presentation much. It looks okay but nothing outstanding. The only notable parts are basically what the previous review said which were the intro and shop. They both look pretty nice. Not even the music saves this one as it is rubbish and none of it stuck in my head. Though oddly some of it reminded me of Shockman 2.
Man I’m sad it ended up being this way for this game. Just wanted to play a cool little platformer but the game just feels so unfinished by the 2nd half. Like I said, it has good ideas and even those controls are good but the game just needed more work. I don’t know if this was due to Tenky seemingly only working on strategy or text adventure type games around the time but something must have happened for the game to end up like this. It didn’t even come out around the holiday season. The more saddening thing is just the fact the PC Engine was almost 4 years old. It could do better than this but it just didn’t and we’ll never know why. I would just skip this one unless you’re curious.
You play as a girl named Eran as you take the last Dragon egg left in the world as you’re off to defeat the bad guy. There are six stages and there’s a boss in each. The concept of Dragon Egg! is a neat one. You start with just Eran but you can get these orbs to hatch the egg and to eventually let it be fully grown. Sadly it’s very simplistic and doesn’t even allow for other orbs or anything to spice up the gameplay. The platforming and stuff is pretty basic too. There’s a shop to buy items or upgrades for your dragon. It all seems to be going fine until you reach stage 3.
The third stage is a maze stage and I kind of groaned at the thought of it but it surprisingly felt fast to get through and I was already at the boss. Was kind of shocked but maybe I just got lucky. I then got on this raft stage, saw the end of the waterfall and it went to a boss. I was like “Huh? Was that a secret?” I rewinded out of curiosity if I found a secret boss but no that’s really the end! It’s such a short level. It feels like less than a minute. Then the next level is also short with barely any level design and I start to realize because of all the easy upgrades to buy, bosses are a joke too. Even the last level isn’t all that interesting and the final boss is easy too. I was in disbelief that was really the whole game and had a big frown on my face.
I can’t even compliment the presentation much. It looks okay but nothing outstanding. The only notable parts are basically what the previous review said which were the intro and shop. They both look pretty nice. Not even the music saves this one as it is rubbish and none of it stuck in my head. Though oddly some of it reminded me of Shockman 2.
Man I’m sad it ended up being this way for this game. Just wanted to play a cool little platformer but the game just feels so unfinished by the 2nd half. Like I said, it has good ideas and even those controls are good but the game just needed more work. I don’t know if this was due to Tenky seemingly only working on strategy or text adventure type games around the time but something must have happened for the game to end up like this. It didn’t even come out around the holiday season. The more saddening thing is just the fact the PC Engine was almost 4 years old. It could do better than this but it just didn’t and we’ll never know why. I would just skip this one unless you’re curious.
I'd really like to know what happened during development, because there's no way this was the intended final product.
You simply don't waste your time creating a beautiful cinematic intro, a detailed shop screen, and a variety of enemies and environments on the first few levels, just to absolutely rush the last ones. I kid you not, you can literally beat the last three in less than 30 seconds each.
The end result is a game that ends up feeling unfinished, and it's an absolute shame because the mechanic of powering up your dragon by making it grow is really fun, and the visuals are super cute.
Even some of the tracks lack polish; they sound like they were in an early alpha state because the musicalization is absolutely horrible, some of the worst i've heard in the system.
My disappointment is unmesaruble, and my day is ruined.
You simply don't waste your time creating a beautiful cinematic intro, a detailed shop screen, and a variety of enemies and environments on the first few levels, just to absolutely rush the last ones. I kid you not, you can literally beat the last three in less than 30 seconds each.
The end result is a game that ends up feeling unfinished, and it's an absolute shame because the mechanic of powering up your dragon by making it grow is really fun, and the visuals are super cute.
Even some of the tracks lack polish; they sound like they were in an early alpha state because the musicalization is absolutely horrible, some of the worst i've heard in the system.
My disappointment is unmesaruble, and my day is ruined.
It's a cute, really easy and really short platformer that (unfortunately) wastes its potential.
You play as a girl with an egg that will eventually hatch into a baby dragon after you whack it into enough enemies (kind of fucked up...but whatever gets the job done I guess). After powering it up a few times the dragon matures and you'll eventually be riding it Super Mario World style. Not only this, but you get a fire breathing attack with infinitely better range. This game operates a bit like a shmup though- dying just once will revert you back to just the girl with (presumably) a new egg.
Again, it's a really cool concept but unfortunately the level design is just too simplistic and the enemies and bosses basically pose no threat at all provided you stay powered up. This isn't exactly difficult to do (at least on normal) as you'll always be coming across wonder boy-like shops selling hearts, heart containers and upgrades. Farming isn't really necessary either- even on my first go I always had enough coins and then some to get what I needed.
As others have commented, the difficulty does in fact vary wildly between settings. Playing on hard really highlighted the balancing issues for me after sleepwalking through normal. As mentioned earlier, Dragon Egg! works off shmup logic and with everything doing insane damage on hard, chances are that you'll be suffering gradius Syndrome due to dying in spots where you need the dragon.
As it stands, it's a good way to kill a half an hour if you stick to normal. It's not as if you miss out on anything ending-wise as this isn't some pretentious Konami title that insists you play on hard. It just could've been a lot more with proper balancing and less generic level design.
You play as a girl with an egg that will eventually hatch into a baby dragon after you whack it into enough enemies (kind of fucked up...but whatever gets the job done I guess). After powering it up a few times the dragon matures and you'll eventually be riding it Super Mario World style. Not only this, but you get a fire breathing attack with infinitely better range. This game operates a bit like a shmup though- dying just once will revert you back to just the girl with (presumably) a new egg.
Again, it's a really cool concept but unfortunately the level design is just too simplistic and the enemies and bosses basically pose no threat at all provided you stay powered up. This isn't exactly difficult to do (at least on normal) as you'll always be coming across wonder boy-like shops selling hearts, heart containers and upgrades. Farming isn't really necessary either- even on my first go I always had enough coins and then some to get what I needed.
As others have commented, the difficulty does in fact vary wildly between settings. Playing on hard really highlighted the balancing issues for me after sleepwalking through normal. As mentioned earlier, Dragon Egg! works off shmup logic and with everything doing insane damage on hard, chances are that you'll be suffering gradius Syndrome due to dying in spots where you need the dragon.
As it stands, it's a good way to kill a half an hour if you stick to normal. It's not as if you miss out on anything ending-wise as this isn't some pretentious Konami title that insists you play on hard. It just could've been a lot more with proper balancing and less generic level design.
Great system with the dragon upgrading and buying upgrades. Kind of cool levels.
Bad music and also some levels are bad or way too short. Game is like an hour long but somehow still feels like it was rushed.
Bad music and also some levels are bad or way too short. Game is like an hour long but somehow still feels like it was rushed.
Cute and charming but overall short game, difficulty differs wildly with each level.
I cheat at more or less every game that I can by using Save States and Rewind, and let me tell you this: I couldn't get past the first boss! He's this big skeleton guy in a tomb and I couldn't do it. I'll be the first one to admit that I'm bad a video games, but honestly I am just stunned at how hard of a wall I hit! I tried earnestly for 20 minutes on that one guy.
So yeah, gotta abandon this one. Cute little art though! I had high hopes. But cute art alone can't get me further in a game that I lack the skill to play!
So yeah, gotta abandon this one. Cute little art though! I had high hopes. But cute art alone can't get me further in a game that I lack the skill to play!