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.
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.
2 Comments
@Dreamboat- I can't wait to play those, they've been in my backlog some time. I understand they released Knights of the Round near at the same time as this too.
Dreamboat
8 months ago