A bit non-standard for a Capcom beatemup at the time, especially in presentation, but unfortunately not quite up to par with the others either, even Knights of the Round. The primary issue is it's 16 stages long and reuses bosses in the back half so it doesn't even have enough content to justify that runtime. Granted, it's 16 short stages, but it really doesn't feel like it. Plans to do the arcade version afterwards with MagneticBurn on Fightcade were dissolved after I realized it was unlikely to resolve those issues, although it probably has better visuals.

This game is a better Golden Axe in pretty much every way.

The game's main cast is generally fun to play, with the Wizard and the Elf providing more long-ranged options, and while there are a bunch of stages, many of them are nicely paced.
Aditionally, there are some magical orbs that will appear occasionally that act as screen-nukes, and those are nice to have.

Overall, I had a good time with this one. It's a simple medieval beat' em up from Capcom, what more can I say?

Every so often I go through my PSN backlog in alphabetical order, it's just the way my mind works. Because I have done this fairly often it's easy to get further each time and I skip rpgs if I am already playing one, which being me, I normally am. Anyway, this time I shot through to 'C' and hit the Capcom Beat 'em up bundle and figured it was time to dip in and the second game on it I played was the King of Dragons.

I'd never heard of this before but it's actually pretty good. There is a review here on backloggd that mentions "Golden Axe but good" and playing it for the second time I could really feel that. It came out two years after Sega's fantasy brawler and the influence is noticeable in a couple of places with thieves with bags running in looking left and right or dragon riders that it's hard not to think "Yup that's Golden Axe" upon seeing it. The King of Dragons though isn't a Golden Axe Clone it's far more than that. You get to choose from a cast of 5 classes all fairly trite. Elf has a bow, Dwarf has an axe, Fighter looks like Conan the Barbarian's stunt double etc. Each class levels up as you play, and there are weapon upgrades found in chests or after bosses that boost the weapon power as well as cosmetic appearance of their attacks. These are pretty much impossible to miss but it does give a nice impression of playing a beat 'em up RPG even if it's just window dressing for your brain.

It's surprisingly long at 16 stages though most of them are only a few minutes to beat with a boss at the end. There is pretty good enemy variety even with a few palette swaps here and there and each of the bosses look pretty neat with the hydra and (not) Smaug as standouts. Despite that and it's genre as an arcade game I felt it was pretty manageable and balanced. This is especially evident going from Final Fight to this was such a big difference. Final Fight made me feel like a black hole pulling every thug in a 30 mile radius to me as I moved. You don't get hugely swarmed in The King of the Dragons, you get two lives per continue, a powerful magic attack pops on screen when you die to boot and the ranged classes especially seem pretty powerful. The thing is there is nothing hugely special about this game. It looks nice, colorful, good animations, decent music, not too hard, some nice art designs. It's just a good time.

Definitely a purchase if you like generic fantasy world's and late 80's early 90's aesthetics. It has online co-op in the Capcom Beat 'em up bundle too which is how I played it initially as a friend giving the extra fun of laughing at the Dwarf being a national long jump champion.

O Rei dos Dragões!
Oque falar desse Beat Em Up que mal joguei e já amo pacas?? Eu que sou louco pelo universo de Senhor dos Aneis e Dungeon & Dragons literalmente AMEI o jogo, um dos melhores Beat em Up's disponiveis na época, os graficos são muito bonitos e bem feitos principalmente os sprites dos personagens e de alguns chefões, a trilha sonora é gostosinha ainda que nada demais com apenas uma musica se destacando entre todas as outras, a jogabilidade é bem gostosinha e tem elementos de RPG já que você evolui o seu personagem e suas armas/armaduras durante o jogo por outras melhores e não são apenas melhorias de status o visual delas muda tambem, outra coisa muito legal desse jogo é que diferente da maioria dos Beat Em Up's que fazem você continuar com um personagem até o fim(ou game over/continue) esse daqui te da a possibilidade de trocar de personagem entre uma fase e outra fazendo com que o jogador realmente sinta vontade de jogar com os outros personagens ou ao menos experimenta-los(eu pessoalmente amei o Elfo e o Clérigo), outra coisa muito legal é a quatidade enorme de referencias ao classico RPG de mesa Dungeon & Dragons desde personagens, inimigos, fases, etc...sério é como se você estivesse jogando um Beat Em Up de D&D, acho que esse jogo faz pra D&D oque Nosferatu fez com Dracula, já que eles(provavelmente) não tinham o direito de usar o nome de D&D, eles pegaram tudo que tem de bom e do melhor do RPG e deram outro nome pra não serem processados.
Mas nem tudo são pilhas de ouro nesse jogo, algumas criticas tem que ser feitas como o tamanho das fases(principalmente no inicio) serem muito curtas, pouca variedade de movimento dos personagens e repetição de chefões apenas com uma cor diferente do enfrentado anteriormente e como já dito as musicas apesar de serem boas não são nada memoraveis.
Resumo da ópera...um ótimo Beat Em Up, muito bonito e que eu indico fortemente para os fãs do gênero e mais ainda se você é fanzasso de Dungeon & Dragons, Senhor dos Aneis, Record of Lodoss Wars, entre outros classicos.

Espadada sem dó

Sabe aquele joguinho que você olha pela capa e acha incrivel, mas quando vai jogar é MAIS incrivel ainda? Então, esse é King of dragons. Jogo extremamente bem feito e pouco envelhecido, com um sistema de progressão o que diferencia ele dos outros beat'em up da época, se não me engano até tem um jogo que também usa esse mesmo sistema, Knights of the Round o nome caso fique curioso sobre.

Mas enfim, gostei muito do The King of Dragons e a única coisa contra que tenho a falar dele é que tem uns cenários um tanto desnecessários aqui e ali que são feitos só pra fazer você perder créditos e estender mais as suas horas de jogatina, fora isso, perfeitão!

Vou fazer questão de marcar uma review basiquinha pra todos os jogos nos quais eu já zerei com meu lendário pai, esse aqui sendo o primeiro.

A jogatina foi muito divertida e não demorou muito pra zerar, em um dia a gente já tava comemorando a morte do dragão fedido, tomando uma coca e comendo pão de queijo. Amo hack n slash com sisteminhas de rpg!

Tamo junto paizão

Jogão, claro vai te prender 1,2 dias ou mais se você for ocupado e não conseguir zerar logo, tem uma dificuldade um pouco alta, por que sua vida, só no final que você ganhar poucas ou continue. Mas muito maneiro para zerar uma vez. Mesmo nos dias atuais, ao meu ver vale apena.
Eu zerei de Wizard, ele começa fraco, mas logo, logo fica forte, outras classes testei todos, meio que rápido, mas Wizard o meu preferido, tentei Elf um pouco até mais que Wizard, achava que seria o mais forte, pelo Range, mas ele evolui pouco, comparado ao Wizard, pelo menos na minha experiência, Cleric pareceu bem forte também, ás vezes ele defendia, já o Dwarf teve fases que passei sem morrer, que ele é rápido, ai não sei quem seria melhor, já o Fighter ele é bem preciso e bom em seus golpes, porém o problema de ambos, acho que é em alguns boss, ter que chega muito próximo, porém não fui muito a fundo, para saber se para Mid próximo do late game, eles evoluem muito.

Just from the name alone, you could easily guess what kind of game you are going to get from The King of Dragons. If you at least know that the game is a beat-’em-up, you can easily assume it would just be another game similar to both Golden Axe and the later released Knights of the Round: a simple beat-’em-up put in a medieval setting, fighting orcs, enemy soldiers, dragons, and what have you. So, with that being said, you could easily just write this game off as being yet another generic arcade beat-’em-up, and yeah, I can honestly understand that, as I didn’t play it for years for that same reason. However, now after having played it, I have discovered that… yeah, it is pretty much exactly what I would’ve expected from the title, but at the same time, it does have a lot of additional elements going for it, making it somewhat stand out from others, and which ultimately lead to me having a great time with this game. It doesn’t offer much from what it initially presents you, but for what you are given, it is still a well put-together, entertaining little title that I am glad I checked out.

The story is as basic as it gets, being “monsters are here, go kill them”, which I can excuse, the graphics are pretty good, which is to be expected from Capcom arcade brawlers at this point, the music is also pretty good, which, again, is to be expected from a Capcom arcade brawler, the control is solid, which is- yeah, you get it at this point, and the gameplay is your usual beat-’em-up affair, except taking the leveling up system that Knights of the Round would later use, but here, it would be used better.

The game is yet another 2D sidescrolling beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of five different characters (or “classes” for those who get giddy for that term), go through many different stages and locations, beating up plenty of orcs, creatures, and baddies as you venture forth, gather plenty of gold, health items, and strikable special attacks along the way, and take on typical, yet fun bosses that halt your progress. Much similarly to Knights of the Round, this is the type of beat-’em-up that doesn’t introduce too many new elements to the formula, but it thrives in being yet another solid combination of all these elements that can provide some good for a good hour or so, especially if you have friends along for the ride.

However, unlike Knights of the Round, this game manages to improve in several areas where that game unfortunately fell flat in. When it comes to the characters, despite them all being the generic swordsman, warrior, wizard, etc., they all actually feel like unique, separate characters, rather than just having three dudes who are knights. Yes, they all still have simple actions that are performed using the same buttons, but the actions do feel different and unique for each character based on what class they are, which is pretty appreciated.

In addition, the RPG-like progression system feels a lot more impactful in this game then there. Whenever you gain points throughout the game, whether by defeating enemies or getting gold, you do level up, and you can see how you actually get stronger, not only with the visible health bar going up in length, but also with you being able to deal more damage. Also, throughout the game, you will get numerous upgrades to your primary and secondary gear, making them much more improved both visually and physically, giving the feeling that you are actually getting stronger and getting the upper hand in taking down opponents. Yeah, it may not sound like much of a big deal, but that feeling of growth is really important with these types of gameplay systems, which Knights of the Round didn’t deliver on, but this game fully delivered on.

With all that being said, while this game does fix those issues I had with the similar Knights of the Round, it did also have problems of its own. The game doesn’toffer all too much to make it stand out from others, which could cause players to ignore the game for other alternatives, so that’s an issue. In addition, the stages in the game are REALLY short. It feels like you just walk forward for about a couple minutes or so, beating up dudes that get in your way, and then you are immediately onto a boss. It doesn’t really feel as gratifying when the game is just like “Welcome to the stage, and welcome to the boss straight away!”, and thus, the stages feel pretty lacking as a result. Sure, to make up for it, the game does feature 16 stages, which is a lot for a game from this era, but then it faces the same problem that a game like Sonic Forces has (yeah, bet you didn’t expect that comparison). I would rather have fewer, yet more lengthy and involved stages rather then having a bunch of shorter, less exciting stages to a game.

Overall, while having short levels and not too much to make it stand out from the crowd, The King of Dragons is still yet another solid beat-’em-up from Capcom, one that I am glad that I gave a try, and one that, if you enjoyed Final Fight or Knights of the Round, you will not be disappointed in. I would definitely recommend it for fans of the genre, and for those who just need to kill some time, and to have fun while doing it. Trust me, it’s short enough to where you could do that.

Game #276

A pretty average beat 'em up.
Has 5 playable characters which adds some variety. It has a fantasy setting and uses all tropes you'd typically associated with it.
Graphics are pretty basic.
The gameplay is pretty basic even when compared to some of its contemporaries. You have one attack button, one jump button and you could press the two buttons together to perform a special attack which drains a part of your health.
The above mentioned rather basic combat system combined with the fact this game has 16 stages, way longer than the average beat 'em up, makes it feel like a big drag.
The RPG leveling system, while cool, is executed better in Knights of the Round, which was released the same year.